Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015--Continued
Floor Speech
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Ms. MURKOWSKI.
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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, in just a matter of minutes this afternoon, we will proceed to a motion to go to a formal conference on S. 2012, which is the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2016. There is no doubt in my mind that we should agree to go to conference with the House on this broad bipartisan measure.
I want to begin my remarks with a reminder of both the process that we followed to reach this point and the many, many good provisions that the process has allowed the Senate to include within our Energy bill. From the very beginning, we have committed to the regular order, committee-oriented process.
I want to acknowledge the strong working relationship with my friend and colleague on the committee, the ranking member, Senator Cantwell from Washington. We set out working this together. We set out with a view in mind that we needed to update our country's energy laws. In order to get a good product, we were going to have to work cooperatively and collaboratively and in an open, transparent, and inclusive process. That is what we did. That has been a goal that was worth working toward, and I think the effort that we made as a chair and as a ranking member brought in support from both sides of the aisle and allowed us to come to this place today.
Our Energy Policy Modernization Act is the result of listening sessions, legislative hearings, bipartisan negotiations, a multiday markup held last July, and a multimonth floor process earlier this year. That process concluded with an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, as 85 Senators voted in favor of the first major Energy bill to pass this Chamber in nearly a decade.
After we passed our bill, it went over to the House. They responded with a series of measures that had already passed their Chamber. While what they sent back has been criticized by some, I certainly think the House was restrained in its process. They could have passed a highly partisan package that would have been more difficult to reconcile with our bill, but I think they developed a more measured response and chose by voice vote to ask the Senate to conference with them. Now it is our turn.
The very last procedural step is for the Senate to vote to proceed to go to a formal conference. After waiting more than a month--actually, I think we are probably at about 6 weeks now--we will have that vote in the next 10 minutes or so. In looking at all the significant provisions included within our bill, all of which are at stake today, I think this should be a very easy choice for all of us to make.
Our bill includes priorities from 80 different Members of the Senate, including 42 members of the Democratic caucus. When we vote to go to conference, it is no exaggeration to say that at least 80 of us within this body will be voting on whether or not to advance our own ideas and our own policy suggestions.
Let me give you a couple of examples. Our bill contains a bipartisan provision from Senators Barrasso and Heinrich, as well as 16 others that would streamline the LNG export approval process. The bill contains an entire title on energy efficiency that was written by Senator Portman and Senator Shaheen, as well as 13 other Members.
The resources title that I developed with the ranking member is a balanced package of some 30 lands and water bills, including a bipartisan sportsmen's provision that the Senate adopted by a vote of 97 to 0. We made innovation a key priority to promote the developing of promising technologies. We have Senators Alexander, Peters, Capito, Manchin, Wyden, and many others to thank for that.
We also focused on grid modernization, cyber security, the National Park Centennial, and conservation policies. These are all bipartisan efforts. All of those are a part of this bill.
Now we have to vote to determine whether we will keep going in the last stretch of this legislative process or whether the Senate says: All that work that you did--we are not going to move forward with it. I don't think that is a good option, and I hope it is an option this Chamber will reject.
My very strong preference is that we keep going. I think we should agree to conference with the House of Representatives because I know the conference process can produce a worthy bill that becomes law. I think it is fair to say that it will not include everything that is on the table right now, but anyone who has looked at what each Chamber has passed knows there is plenty out there that we can agree on.
I have a few assurances from Members who may be a little bit hesitant to move forward this afternoon. First, I will reiterate my personal commitment to a final bill that can pass both Chambers and be signed into law by the President. That doesn't mean we are going to unilaterally disarm ourselves in conference negotiations, but my objective here is to deliver a law. That means it can't be the House product necessarily or the Senate product necessarily. It has to be something the Chambers can both agree on and the President can sign into law. I intend to lead the conference committee the way I led the Senate process--by looking for common ground, by being open, by being fair and inclusive, and by seeking consensus over partisan division.
You don't have to take just my word for it. A couple of weeks ago, the two House chairmen who will be most heavily involved in the Energy bill conference also released a joint statement that reinforces how we intend to proceed. Here is what the House Energy and Commerce chair, Fred Upton, as well as the House Natural Resources chairman, Rob Bishop, said on June 20:
At the end of the day, our goal is to get something to the President that he will sign into law. From our perspective, a bill that the President will veto is a waste of time and effort and casts aside the hard work we've put in up to this point. We remain committed to working in a bicameral, bipartisan manner and remain hopeful that we can set aside our differences and move ahead with a formal conference between the two chambers.
In addition to my approach and the approach the two House chairmen have embraced, there are institutional protections that will help ensure that this process stays on track. If Members are part of the conference committee and decide at the end they don't want to sign the conference report, then they don't have to sign it. As we have seen in recent days, conference reports require 60 votes to end debate on them, meaning our bill will need to remain bipartisan in order to pass.
To me, the best argument for going to conference on an energy bill is still the one we started with; that is, it is way past time. It has been almost a decade now. The last time Congress passed a major energy bill was December of 2007. With almost a decade's worth of changes in technologies and markets taking place since then, our policies have simply become outdated.
There is a whole list of organizations and individuals that have urged us as a Chamber to get moving with a conference, whether it is the Alliance to Save Energy, the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, the American Chemistry Council, the chamber of commerce. They go and on.
There is an urgent need to update and reform our Nation's energy policies. We are overdue. Our policies are deficient. We have advanced many, many good ideas, but we need to get this over the finish line. That is exactly what going to conference will allow us to do.
The Energy Policy Modernization Act gives us a chance to do all of that. We have a chance now to take that next step forward on this broad bipartisan bill--keep it going, proceed to conference, allow ourselves to write a good final bill that we can then send to the President's desk.
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