Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise in support and recognition of the tireless efforts of my friend and colleague from West Virginia. We were sworn in the same day, moments apart, and we were sworn in by a man who held this seat and this desk for 36 years. Born in Scranton, PA, Joe Biden, our Vice President, served Delaware for 36 years. I know Joe and I know one of the things he tirelessly fought for, and that was the working men and women of this country--just like my colleague from Missouri, who speaks from the desk long held by Harry Truman and in whose honor she spoke about our keeping our promises that date back to a law passed by this Congress and signed into law by Harry Truman that promised pensions and health care to 100,000 coal miners.

I too have to keep faith with my predecessor in this seat, Joe Biden, and our neighboring State to the north, Pennsylvania; my great and good friend, Joe Manchin from West Virginia; Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota; and many others who have spoken before me and simply say: I understand that large, complicated appropriations bills never include every item that every Member wants. I wanted a provision that would help a manufacturing company in my State, the 48 ITC provision. The investment tax credit would help keep a company that manufactures fuel cells in my State alive and running. I heard an awful lot of talk in this campaign about saving American manufacturing, about doing the things we need to do to help working people and to help manufacturing. I am as upset as my colleagues about the ``Buy American'' provision being taken out of WRDA and our not keeping our word to buy American steel.

But what all of us are here to stand for in common today is to keep our promises to the coal miners and their widows, for whom the Senator from West Virginia has fought so tirelessly.

When told that is a provision that can't be taken care of, that can't be done, when they were sent back 30 yards, they dropped back and said: Fine, we will work on the Miners Protection Act. They held hearings.
They held a markup. They found an offset. They moved through regular order, and they found bipartisan support. It got out of the Finance Committee by 18 to 8.

Yet here we stand, likely on the very last night of this Congress, with a promised path being blocked and a 4-month extension, rather than a permanent solution--seemingly, the only option before us--and 16,000 miners and their families would lose health care this December 31 without a longer extension. Four months--that is all we can do--4 months, when these good Senators worked so hard and so tirelessly to find a bipartisan solution that doesn't take money out of the Federal checkbook, that has a proper path? This is a sad day when we can't keep our promises to the widows of coal miners, to folks who did dirty, dangerous, and difficult work for decades, to the people who built this country. I think in some ways this is just a symbol of so many other ways we have failed to keep faith with those who have worked in this Nation for us.

I have not ever voted against a CR. I have always taken, I believe, the responsible path of making sure that we are able to craft a responsible compromise and get it done.

But as an appropriator in this year and in this instance, it was upsetting to me that we were kept completely out of the process of crafting and finalizing this appropriations bill.

So without hesitation, I will vote against it tonight because it is important we send a signal that we and many other Senators are determined to fix this problem. As the Senator from West Virginia said, there are no coal mines in my State, but there are many retired coal miners and their widows.

I have joined as a cosponsor of the Miners Protection Act, and I am determined to support the great and good work of my friend, the Senator from West Virginia, my friend the Senator from North Dakota, and so many others--from my neighboring State of Pennsylvania, Senator Casey, and from States across the country and regions that are determined to do right by the people who built this Nation for us.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the continuing resolution that is the business before the Senate. We are here once again today, as we have too often been in the 6 years that I have served here in the Senate, working at the last minute to avoid shutting down our Federal Government later tonight.

As we have before, to avoid a shutdown we appear likely to pass yet another continuing resolution. As an appropriator, as someone who is on the committee that is responsible for putting together all the provisions that will help keep this government moving forward, it is a real disappointment to me that this continuing resolution fails to address issues of real concern to folks all over this country.

Earlier this evening, I joined a number of my colleagues to draw attention to coal miners and their widows and the concerns we have about extending their health care through the adoption of the Miners Protection Act. Although that is an issue that dozens of Senators are concerned about, I wanted to speak tonight about another unacceptable omission in this legislation.

This continuing resolution does not include a lesser known but, to me, no less important provision, one that my senior Senator Tom Carper and I have fought tirelessly for and one that is important to a manufacturing company in my home State of Delaware and dozens of companies in dozens of States. Last year, when Congress passed at the end of the year the omnibus spending package, we left on the cutting room floor, through an inadvertent staff error, provisions to extend a series of clean energy tax incentives known as the 48C investment tax credit, or ITC--not all of them, just for a few narrow and defined areas and, in a case that I care most about, for fuel cells. Those incentives have bipartisan support and have already proved successful at creating new technologies and good manufacturing jobs in this country.

We have heard a lot of talk in the last campaign about bearing in and fighting hard to save manufacturing jobs here in the United States. Well, extending the ITC is exactly the chance we had here today--we have had in the past year--to do just that. There are tens of thousands of jobs and hundreds, likely thousands, of companies across our country that rely on this ITC. In my home State, Bloom Energy, a company that manufactures in a number of States, has a significant presence. Built on the site of a former Chrysler plant, it was taken down when Chrysler closed its facility.

Bloom Energy offers real promise for the hundreds of Delawareans who work there in a cutting-edge clean energy business that was growing. But without the benefit of that section 48 investment tax credit, they are not growing. They may even have to lay people off. In my home State and in States all over this country, that is a concern I wish we had worked together to address.

These are incentives that have been proven to bring good jobs to the United States. If we don't extend section 48, as I think is very unlikely to happen tonight, tens of thousands of jobs across our country and dozens, at least in my home State, are at risk.

All over the country, we have heard in writing from hundreds of companies in 48 different states that support this extension. These companies want to invest in the research and development, the scaling up of new clean energy technology. They require long-term certainty and stability. But the extension of those credits has been pushed into next year sometime, after a year in which it was promised over and over this would get addressed.

The fault here lies predominately in the other Chamber, in the House, which did not respond to requests from the leadership of this Chamber for this to be addressed. Republicans in the House are trying to push this issue, this extension, into a tax reform package planned for next year. But tax reform has been on the agenda here for year after year after year, and these credits expire this year, December 31.

With countless jobs at stake across the country, punting this to next year after a year in which it failed to be brought up and addressed has real world implications in my State and States across the country. So, after mistakenly, admittedly by error, dropping this extension a year ago, leaders promised that this issue would be addressed. A year later, it has not been. So on the stack of reasons why I will cast an unprecedented no vote on the CR tonight, this is just one more reason-- a failure to fulfill a longstanding promise that these tax credits would be extended.

Companies can't invest and grow if they can't have a predictable path forward for investment and know about what is the possibility for their incremental investment in R&D and manufacturing. Real American businesses today, like Bloom Energy in my State and hundreds of others, need this reliability. There is no reason this could not have gotten done. There is no reason promises made could not have been kept. There is no reason this could not have been resolved.

So with real disappointment and regret, I am going to vote no for the first time on a continuing resolution that puts at risk keeping this government open because of a whole series of missed opportunities in this year's bill. It is my hope, it is my prayer, that next year, with a new Congress and with a new President, we will renew an attempt to find a bipartisan consensus around what it is we have to do to be competitive as a country, to sustain an all-of-the-above energy strategy, and to work together to find solutions that will grow manufacturing in our country.

I yield the floor.

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