Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments from my colleagues raising attention to the issue in Flint, MI. I think we have had good, constructive discussions, not only very intensely yesterday, but working with the two Senators from Michigan on this issue for several months right now. As the Senator said, the discussions are still ongoing, and I want to speak to where we are in that process.

I would like to start my comments this morning by recognizing that we are very close to the time that has been set for this first cloture vote on this broad bipartisan bill.

As we approach it, I want to follow on the majority leader's comments in terms of reminding Members of what we have incorporated within this measure, to reiterate the strong bipartisan support that our bill has drawn, and to lay out what I believe is our best path to final passage.

This Energy Policy Modernization Act, as I have mentioned, is more than a year's worth of hard work by those of us who serve on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, it has been the result of Member-to- Member conversations, listening sessions, legislative hearings, bipartisan negotiations, and then we had a marathon 3-day markup in July. At the end of that markup, we moved it out by a vote of 18-to-4. It was pretty strong support--10 Republicans and 8 Democrats in favor.

The reason the bill passed out of the committee on such a strong bipartisan basis was not just because of our commitment to good process. We matched that with an equal commitment to good policy. I think that is important to recognize. It was processed, but it was also policy.

We worked together to include the priorities from Members of both sides of the aisle as well as from within the committee and outside of the committee. We agreed to include a bill to streamline LNG exports that was written by Senator Barrasso and 17 other bipartisan Members. We agreed to include a major efficiency bill headed up by Senators Portman and Shaheen and 13 other bipartisan Members. We agreed to improve our mineral security, an effort that I have led with Senators Risch, Heller and Crapo. We agreed to promote the use of hydropower, a clean renewable resource that is favored by almost everybody in this Chamber. We agreed to expedite the permitting of natural gas pipelines without sacrificing any environmental review or public participation. This was an effort that was led by Senator Capito.

We agreed to a new oil and gas permitting pilot program, one of several ideas that Senator Hoeven contributed. We took up a proposal from Senator Collins to boost the efficiency of schools. We agreed to approve our Nation's cyber security based on legislation from Senator Risch and Senator Heinrich. We also made innovation a key priority to promote the development of new technologies. As part of that, we agreed to reauthorize many of the energy-related portions of the America COMPETES Act, thanks to the leadership of Senator Alexander. We agreed to take commonsense steps to promote geothermal energy, which is a key issue to Senator Wyden, certainly myself, and so many others. We agreed to promote vehicle innovation based on a bipartisan measure from Senator Alexander and our friends from Michigan, Senator Peters, Senator Stabenow. We agreed to reauthorize the coal R&D program at the Department of Energy based on yet another bipartisan proposal from Senators Manchin, Capito, and Portman.

In the context of our broader bill--and only in the context of the broader bill--we also agreed to reauthorize and reform the Land and Water Conservation Fund. What we came away with was a good, timely bipartisan measure that has a very real chance of being the first Energy bill to be signed into law in over 8 years. It is a measure that will help America produce more energy. It will help Americans save money, and it will help ensure that the energy can be transported from where it is produced to where it is needed. It will bolster our Nation's status as the best innovator in the world, something we should all aim to support. It will boost our economy, especially our manufacturers, and it will cement our status as a global energy superpower.

As I said, it does all of this without raising taxes, without imposing any new mandates, and without adding to the Federal deficit. I think because of all of that, that is why you have seen the good, strong support for this measure. That was our base bill. That was where we started. When we came to the floor, it got better. Our starting point at the Senate floor was good and strong. Since we have taken up the debate for a week now, we have continued to work in a very open, very bipartisan, sometimes a little bit lengthy and tedious process, but it works.

We committed to an open amendment process and most Members have held back on, whether you call them gotchas or gimmes or poison pills, but there has been a great deal of cooperation. We voted on 38 amendments now. We have accepted 32 of the 38. We have added even more good ideas from even more Members to an already bipartisan bill.

I will recount a few of the things we have done with that. We agreed to boost our Nation's efforts to develop advanced nuclear technologies. This was a great amendment led by Senators Crapo, Whitehouse, Risch, Booker, Hatch, Kirk, and Durbin. We voiced our strong support for carbon capture and utilization storage technologies thanks to an idea from Senators Heitkamp, Capito, Booker, Whitehouse, Manchin, Blunt, and Franken. We have reaffirmed the need for consistent Federal policies that recognize the carbon neutrality of forest biomass. This was an effort that was championed by Senators Collins, Klobuchar, Ayotte, King, Franken, Daines, Crapo, and Risch.

You do not often see these large groups of Senators coming together in a way that we have seen on this bill. Some would look at the names I read off and say: I did not know that they had anything to work on. But these issues have brought them together. This truly has been a team effort, with Members reaching out to one another, lining up behind each other's ideas, working with Senator Cantwell and me to ensure their adoption.

The best proof of that is simple review of our bill. Right now the Energy Policy Modernization Act includes priorities sponsored or cosponsored by at least 62 Members of the Senate. When was the last time we saw that level of cooperation and collaboration? Think about it. More than three-fifths of the Senate has contributed something to this Energy bill, and we are not done processing amendments yet. My staff and the staff of Senator Cantwell have been comparing notes about the feedback we have been getting outside the Chamber. What we found is that from the very time we started working through the committee process to our time on the Senate floor, a very wide range of individuals, businesses, groups have come out and supported the bill or certainly pieces of it. We have had provisions endorsed by major associations whose membership account for hundreds of companies and millions of American workers. This includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Chemistry Council, National Electrical Manufacturers Association, the Alliance of Automobile. We have also heard from labor groups--North America's Building Trades Union, the United Autoworkers, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters. They have all weighed in with support for ideas that are included within the bill.

We have a huge coalition from the Alliance to Save Energy to Seattle City Light that has welcomed the work we are doing on efficiency. I have gotten good, strong support from Alaskans from our Department of Natural Resources, the Alaska Power Association, the Bristol Bay Native Corporation, Cordova Electric Cooperative, and a whole lot more. As you might expect, we have also received great encouragement from the people who keep the lights on, who keep our fuel affordable, who help produce the materials that make modern life that much more enjoyable--whether it is the National Mining Association, American Exploration & Mining, the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, American Public Power Association, Edison Electric, and others.

The reality is, those who have weighed in, in support of this measure are too many to name this morning, but that is a good problem to have when you are legislating that you have run out of time in outlining the coalitions that have come together in support.

So that I do not get into any trouble this morning, I want to be clear that many of the groups and the entities I have listed have endorsed parts of the bill, not all of it. I am not suggesting that everyone who likes our work to streamline LNG Exports is automatically supportive of what we are doing to clean up the U.S. Code. That is entirely fair. Not everything in this is going to appeal to everyone.

In a lot of ways, that is how things work in a place like the Senate. Not everyone likes every provision of this bill. I do not like every provision of this bill. Not everyone is getting everything they want. It is pretty tough to find a situation where you get 100 percent of everything you would want. This is not the bill I would have written on my own, but it is the bill we have written together first as a committee of 22 and now as a Senate working together.

Our work has produced a good bill, a good bill worth debating, worth advancing, and worth passing. That brings us to the point where we are with the cloture vote we will soon take. This vote is on the first of two cloture motions we will need to approve before we can move to final passage.

There are two votes. There is one on the substitute amendment, and there is one on the underlying bill. This means this vote we will see very shortly is a means to advance debate, not to conclude it, on our Energy Policy Modernization Energy Act. It is also a choice. I think it is important to lay out clearly to Members where we are, what we are voting on this morning.

By voting for cloture, Members will be ensuring that we remain on this bill for at least another 30 hours of legislative activity. You will be voting to continue this process, to continue this debate, and to continue processing amendments whether by voice, as we have done so many of them, or by rollcall vote that we hope to set up. You will also be giving us the time we need to focus on matters that are simply not settled yet.

As we have heard from our colleagues from Michigan, there are some matters they wish to have resolved that are not yet settled, but this allows us that time to do that but to do this in a way that is going to be acceptable to the majority of our Members. The reality is, if you are not comfortable with where we are 30 hours from now, you can still vote against the next cloture motion that comes up. That is one choice, and that is going to be my choice. Here is the other: If you vote against cloture, you will be effectively voting not to prolong debate but to move us off this bipartisan bill. You will be voting to effectively be giving up on so much of what we have done, a year of process, agreement on almost 50 Energy bills that we have incorporated into this base bill, and the strong approval of 32 separate amendments and counting that we have advanced through the floor.

I believe you will be voting to give up our best opportunity-- certainly our most immediate opportunity--to address the issue to help the people of Flint, MI, and in other parts of the country that may have similar issues. Every time I leave the Senate floor--at least this past week--I am swarmed by reporters who want to know what is going on, what is the latest discussion. What is going to happen with Flint? Is Flint going to bring this bill down?

This morning I want to speak directly to this to let Members know what has gone on because we were not out here on the floor all day yesterday hashing things back and forth. We have been discussing very earnestly, and I believe very constructively, what our options are, how we can find a path forward that will yield a result, not just send a message but yield a result to help the people in Flint, MI.

The first thing I will say is that I share the concern, the heartbreak for what the people of Flint, MI, have faced and are facing. It is a crisis. It is a tragedy. It is heartbreakingly avoidable. Unfortunately, we look at how we got here, and it is a failure of local, State, and Federal Governments to regulate and monitor that city's water supply.

What has happened in Flint has hurt people. It is hurting children. It has damaged property. It has left families in a horrible predicament, through no fault of their own, where they cannot drink their tapwater, they cannot bathe their children. There is plenty of blame to go around here. I know my colleagues from Michigan would agree with me, but our job in the U.S. Senate is not to play this blame game. It is to own up to what that Federal role is because I believe there is that Federal role, and then on that basis do what we can to help and make sure that our response is proportionate to that role. So why then consider all of this in the context of an energy bill, you might ask, and it is a fair and legitimate question. Well, it is because this is the first piece of legislation that is on the floor since the extent of the crisis in Flint became clear to us.

Senator Stabenow and I began discussions about the situation in Flint in very early December as we were trying to move through an omnibus bill to see if there was not something we might be able to address through the appropriations bill. Since that time, again, more has been learned, and we are here today with legislation that gives us an opportunity to consider it.

I did not shy away from this discussion, as hard it was. I did not say: Hey, that is going to be a poison pill. I cannot deal with it. I said: Let us try to figure this out because if we do not address the situation, it is not going to go away. We have a role here. Let us figure out what that responsibility is, and let us engage in this conversation.

Senator Cantwell and I have been fully engaged, most directly with the Senators in Michigan, trying to find a responsible path forward. The negotiations have been earnest, in good faith, and ongoing, but I think that there has been a little bit of confusion about the status of the negotiations. I want to outline where I believe we are right now.

We have made headway on Federal assistance--something that we know cannot be borne by our Energy bill alone. We have found programs that could be good fits to provide aid.

We also recognize that this is not Flint's burden alone, but there are other communities in other States, including my State, that face similar crises as a result of government failures. We hear about them as Members and talk about these situations. I believe the Senator from Maryland used the phrase ``We are all Flint.'' I think we all have situations--maybe not to the crisis proportion that they have in Michigan right now, where they needed a Presidential declaration, but we all recognize that we all have issues that are troubling us a great deal when it comes to how we provide safe drinking water for our families.

Our problem is not about whether we should offset the cost of this assistance; it is how we do so in a manner that does not destroy the underlying Energy bill and does not violate the Constitution or the rules we have here in the Senate. I made myself very clear when we began, at the outset of the debate on this measure, that we have to make sure we do not have scoring issues with CBO, and we have to make sure there are no blue slip issues because that would kill the bill, and then where would we be? Then nobody would win in that scenario. In that scenario we would end up with no energy bill and nothing to address the situation in Flint.

This morning I filed a second-degree amendment to provide support for the people of Flint. My amendment will make up to $550 million available, including $50 million which will be made immediately available for the people of Flint. What we are seeking to do here is bridge the gap between what has been proposed and what I believe the Senate can agree to. It requires that 90 percent of the money we provide be paid back over time. Its cost is fully offset with a pay-for that we have been working on back and forth with CBO and are confident that they will accept. It includes provisions--and we have been working with the Senators from Michigan on this issue--as they relate to EPA notification and a loan forgiveness, language that I think has been in different iterations of measures that have been going forward. I am told that the House is looking at that as well.

That is where we are at this time as we are going into a cloture motion. I believe we have made progress. We are working constructively to help the people of Flint, and what this second-degree amendment would do is make $550 million available to them. It has been challenging. We have done a lot of hard work to get to this point, but I think we owe it to every American, whether you are in Flint or somewhere else, to do that work and overcome that challenge.

We have gotten to where we are in the discussion. Again, we have the cloture motion going forward. We have been trying to make good progress. We have been trying to conduct an open and fair amendment process. We want to process more amendments this morning so that we can move to complete the bill.

3129; Murkowski second-degree on Flint, amendment No. 3282; Cantwell amendment No. 3242; Flake amendment No. 3055; Flake amendment No. 3050; Murkowski-Cantwell amendment No. 3234; Isakson amendment No. 3202; Markey amendment No. 3232; and Cassidy amendment No. 3192.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Certainly.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. It is my understanding that there is an assessment and analysis that is due out, I believe, toward the end of next week. The State has been working aggressively to determine the costs, as well as how they would move forward with an action plan. That is my understanding.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. I cannot speak to the accuracy of exactly how much has been made available to the State. It is my understanding that the State has received, through the EPA, the State's annual receipts from the EPA's clean water fund. I do not know if that is specific to Flint or whether that is the State's share, as the State of Texas receives and the State of Alaska receives. It is my understanding that the President did make that announcement.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Yes.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Well, to answer the Senator's question, I have been working aggressively and constructively with the Senators from Michigan to try to figure out how we can provide for a level of response. I do not doubt the anxiety and urgency the people in Flint must feel. This is a difficult situation to be in, and it is not a situation that any of us would want any of our constituents to be in. I think there is an imperative from those who are seeking this assistance that--given that there is a Federal role, how can we help to facilitate the appropriate response on the Federal side? If there is a way to help expedite funding to move toward a solution, I think that is appropriate.

I think the Senator's question is, Are we jumping ahead here if we do not know how much? I think it is fair to say that the original estimates were based on the disaster declaration the State had requested. I think it is going to be critical that we understand what the costs will be, and hopefully we will learn about that next week. I know they have been working aggressively to determine that.

We also need to know what the spend plan is because we saw what happened with the stimulus. You can almost get too much money--if that is possible--going in, and you cannot spend it in the way it is best needed. I think we want to be thoughtful and responsible stewards of the taxpayers' dollars in recognizing that, and I think we want to also recognize that the role we have ought to be a proportionate role, and how we can be working to advance that is something we have been attempting to do.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. In a moment.

The solution I have put down this morning is one that I think recognizes that there is assistance that is needed, and this is where the opportunity to access loans through the WIFIA Program that will be available not only to the State of Michigan but to other States should they be in a similar situation--so that avoids the earmark. Because I, too, want to make sure we have a situation where we do not allow this to continue in Michigan, but we also do not want to see it in other States as well. So we do that through opportunities for loans through WIFIA. But the direct assistance, which would be $50 million in addition to whatever may be out there already from the EPA and through the State, I think is a reasonable approach. Again, it is one that is legitimately paid for, and I think that is an important part of our responsibility here, as well as to make sure we not only address the urgency of the situation but also the responsibility we have not only to the people of Flint but to all of our constituencies.

Mr. President, if I could just conclude, and then I will yield.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Through the Chair, I am aware that what you have required, as well as what we have been working on jointly, does require an action plan that describes the spend-down and how that would be allocated. It is my understanding that it will be very helpful to have that analysis from the State. That will be forthcoming--hopefully, next week.

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