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Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I was happy to be back home last week, as were, I am sure, all the Members of the Senate. And as typically happens--as I was explaining to my constituents--typically, we are in session here about 3 weeks out of the month, and then we have a week back home where we can travel our States. Whether you are in North Carolina or you are in Texas, usually, you have a lot of ground to cover in a relatively short period of time, but it is always good to be back home.
I want to report a little bit on some of my travels because it was a very, very productive week. From Corpus Christi, which is on the gulf coast of Texas, and Houston, also along the gulf coast--now, the Gulf of America--to Midland, to Dallas, to San Antonio, to Austin, I had great conversations with folks that are praising the work we are doing here in Congress. It is nice to get some good reviews now and again, but particularly our support for President Trump's agenda and for his team.
The last time the President got elected, Democrats dragged out the confirmation process, and it took, literally, months before the President had his Cabinet in place. But as a result of keeping the Senate in session for an extended period of time without breaks, we finally broke the opposition and got, basically, most of the President's Cabinet confirmed to this point, and people are excited.
Of course, energy security is national security, and President Trump, unlike his predecessor, said he wants to usher in an era of American energy dominance, which is also important not only for our national security but also for our economy, bringing down gasoline prices at the pump so working families can feel that. It is already beginning to work.
During the week, I traveled out to Midland, TX, which is where the Permian Basin is located. This is a region that is famous for its energy production. It actually extends from Texas west into New Mexico. I went on a tour of a field where the oil is literally being produced from the ground and then processed and then injected into a pipeline where it heads to refineries and other parts of the State and the country. This impressive facility is making a lot of headway thanks to the most advanced technology, delivering affordable and reliable energy while using state-of-the-art technology.
One of the issues that had been raised in the past because of environmental concerns is a release of various methane emissions into the atmosphere. This is as a result of loose connections in pipe and other designs that needed to be improved upon, and, indeed, they have been. New emissions monitoring systems use everything that include the use of helicopter-mounted sensors and other improved technology to help improve efficiency and reduce those emissions, which means cleaner air and lower costs.
I went down to Corpus Christi, which is on the gulf coast of the Coastal Bend region of Texas, and met with energy businesses located there. Primarily, they are in the export business. They are exporting American LNG and oil to our friends and allies around the world. Corpus Christi is home to a number of impressive and innovative projects. One of the things they are working on that I intend to do more to help them with is to put in place a desalinization plant.
(Mrs. BRITT assumed the Chair.)
One of the challenges we have in Texas because of the huge development of our State--31 million people and growing, 1,600 people a day moving into the State--is that our development is outstripping our ability to provide water to communities all across the State, and because of permitting problems, it takes forever to build a new reservoir. So one of the things that Corpus Christi is doing is using state-of-the-art desalination plants, modeled after what they have observed in Israel, for example, and it has six of these impressive facilities. Desalinization uses nanofiltration to remove salt and other minerals from seawater. One thing we have an abundance of on the gulf coast of Texas--in Alabama as well--is we have a lot of seawater, which allows, in using this technology, our State and that region to meet future water needs.
This is something I want to engage in here in Washington with my friends and colleagues who may have similar issues in their home States. As I tell my constituents back home, usually when they identify a problem, I go on a hunt to try to find Senators from States that have similar issues and concerns and then build a consensus and support for solutions that we might be able to offer in cooperation with our State and local authorities. The technology is impressive, and it has the potential to address significant needs in a growing region. As I said, it is not even just in the Corpus Christi area; it is throughout the State and, perhaps, even throughout other parts of the Nation.
In addition to desalination, we had a great discussion about the importance of the Port of Corpus Christi and the product that passes through that port that helps America's energy independence and helps our friends and allies around the world.
I heard firsthand of the benefits that have come to the Coastal Bend from the Corpus Christi Ship Channel Improvement Project. Because of these ultralarge oil tankers, they are able to carry up to 30 percent more oil in these tankers to our friends and allies around the world than our existing ships, but the problem is, they need to deepen and widen the port, which is why the Corpus Christi Ship Channel Improvement Project is so important. This will dramatically increase the capacity for crude oil to our friends and allies and will save the port up to $150 million every year. In 2015, Congress approved the lifting of the ban on crude oil exports, which has allowed the Port of Corpus Christi to become the third largest port for oil exports in the world.
America is one of the most significant energy producers, and in large part, it is because of what happens in the Lone Star State. The ship channel project will make the Port of Corpus Christi one of the deepest and widest in the Gulf of America. When America has the capacity, I believe, under the current administration, to drill and export more oil and gas, it means the rest of the world becomes more reliant on America and less reliant on our adversaries, like Russia. I have been a longtime advocate for the Corpus Christi Ship Channel Improvement Project, and after decades of hard work by so many, it is exciting to see this project move forward and come to completion here in the next few weeks.
But increasing energy production wasn't the only one of President Trump's agenda items we discussed when I was back home. Another important opportunity I had during the State work period was to meet with my constituents to talk about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and how it has helped their small businesses and their employees thrive.
I remember 2017, during President Trump's first term, when we passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Democrat colleagues at the time said: Well, this is only going to help the rich. Well, it didn't just help the rich. It literally helped everybody in every tax bracket. So I thought it was important to go back and talk to my constituents and say: OK. What was your experience, and how important is it to you that we continue by renewing the expiring provisions of that legislation--some of which expire in 2025.
Well, not surprisingly, the folks back home disagreed with those who are reading from the talking points from the Democratic National Committee. For example, I met with the good folks at Southland Hardware in Houston, TX. Now, this is one of the original hardware stores that you don't find very much anymore, where you can literally buy almost everything that you can imagine. We also had representatives from Empire Tools and Sylvia's Enchilada Kitchen and Tejas Office Products-- all thriving small business owners who shared their support for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and explained why it needed to be extended.
I heard the same thing from business owners all across the State, including Austin, where I live. We went to Wally's Burger--even in Austin--right at the start. I went there in 2018, and I went back. Robert Mayfield, who employs a single franchise there in Austin, 7 years later, reported that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act had been very, very helpful, allowing him to provide better benefits and bonuses to his employees whom he considers to be part of his family.
So I would encourage the naysayers of our Democratic colleagues to actually talk to real people about what their experiences have been. I would bet what I learned was not isolated. I am sure it is common throughout the country. I am sure they would find that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act did not, contrary to our Democratic colleagues, just help a bunch of rich people. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has, in fact, allowed people in communities from Austin to Houston and everywhere across the country to provide more of what they have earned to their families; to provide employment opportunities for their neighbors, and contribute to their communities, which is just another way of saying: Help them to help contribute to the American dream.
So that is why we have no option but to extend the expiring provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Many are already benefiting-- ordinary working families and small business owners--as I said, but if Congress fails to extend these expiring provisions, these same people who have sacrificed so much will no longer be able to offer the same benefits to their workers, making it harder for them to attract the talent they need and making it harder for them to literally keep their doors open.
If we fail to extend the tax cuts, 62 percent of American taxpayers will see a tax increase in 2026, including people like the ones I mentioned back home in Texas--small business owners, in particular, because they pay a business income, typically, on an individual tax return--their so-called passthrough organizations, not corporations. They will be particularly hard-hit. They would see their Federal tax rates increase nearly 50 percent. Working parents would see the child tax credit cut in half, and Texans, whom I represent, would see their taxes increase on an average of $3,000 next year.
I would be happy to introduce our Democratic colleagues to these folks, and they can learn what I learned if they are willing to listen. Hope springs eternal. I am sure these same folks would be happy to give them an earful about why their view of the tax cuts only benefiting millionaires and billionaires is dead wrong.
So I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues here in the Senate and our House colleagues to pass a budget resolution, then to get the necessary reconciliation instructions in order to make this happen. There is so much more we have to do. We have to get our country back on a sane fiscal path. We are now at, roughly, $36.4 trillion in debt. In other words, the current generations and previous generations have racked up debt that our kids and grandkids and great-grandkids are going to be responsible for paying, which strikes me as profoundly immoral.
We know how to fix this. We should, and we can now thanks to President Trump's election and his commitment not only to reducing waste and inefficiency in the government, as identified by the Department of Government Efficiency, but also to looking at programs that we haven't revisited in decades: to look at whether they still make sense, whether there need to be some reasonable work requirements for able-bodied adults for means-tested programs. All of these things are on the table, and we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work here in the coming weeks so we can get this done without delay.
So I was delighted to be home, but now we are back at work. We need to roll up our sleeves and get the job done because failure is not an option.
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