Press Conference with Sen. Cantwell (D-WA; Sen. Cornyn (R-TX); Sen. Craig (R-ID); Sen. Domenici (R-NM); Sen. Ensign (R-NV); Sen. Klobuchar (D-MN); Sen. Schumer (D-NY); and Sen. Sununu (R-NH), Subject: The Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act of 2008
Statement
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SEN. SCHUMER: Well, I just want to thank all of my colleagues, and particularly Maria for her leadership here.
When the American people look at what's wrong with Washington, this is one of the things they point to. They understand our dependence on fossil fuels has to end. They understand we're sending a billion and a half dollars a day to people we don't like, and it messes up our foreign policy. They understand that -- (inaudible) -- they say Washington's not doing anything. They don't understand it, because there is such a consensus. And the great news here is that this bipartisan group can maybe break through the gridlock we've had on this issue and fulfill the wishes of the American people that we have a rational energy policy that gets us forward.
One of the great problems is, you know, people want things right away, let's get the cost of gasoline down a dollar. Well, now we've seen by not doing something serious and longer term, the price goes up. And even if it takes a couple of years for this to take effect and actually bring the price down, it's the best way we can do it.
So I want to thank Maria and I want to thank my colleagues.
SEN. CANTWELL: Thank you.
SEN. : Questions?
Q What about the PAYGO provisions? (Off mike) -- how are you going to get around the Finance Committee?
SEN. CANTWELL: Well, this is a bill introduction, and we're happy to have this bill take a lot of different courses. And we're happy that my colleagues Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley, I'm sure, are still discussing various ways to actually pay for this.
But if you look at the history of where we've been on this vote, we've had 59 votes to pay for these and we've had 59 votes not to pay for these and do it as stimulus.
So I'm looking for one more vote. And I think today we have found more than one more vote who are willing to do this as stimulative activity. So the majority of Democrats, in fact, I think, all the Democrats voted for this as part of the stimulus. And many Republicans did as well.
So we're saying that what's more important at this point in time is the $20 billion of investment and the 100 million jobs, and that it's not worth losing that investment in this cycle. So we'd like to see this bill done.
We're not foreclosing any other options or opportunities. But we think right now it's clear from who's here today that this has a very good chance of getting enough support to pass.
SEN. ENSIGN: You know, we argued this, you know, back and forth over the last several months. And Maria and I came to the conclusion that we can't afford to continue to just say, well, it's going to be worked out; well, we'll find some acceptable pay-fors.
So you know, we've introduced this bill today to create some momentum toward getting it passed. And that's why we're signing up as many of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle as we possibly can, because there's only going to be a few vehicles moved this year.
There may only be one or two more actual bills that are passed this year. And so we have to make sure that this bill is one of the bills that is passed this year. And by showing such a strong bipartisan group coming together, it gives it the best chance to pass.
Q (Off mike) -- about how quickly this can come to the floor for the Senate to move?
MS. : Well, I think if we do our work in the next couple of days and we get the majority of members signing up to this, I think they'll be thinking about how fast they can move it. We haven't got a commitment yet or a time frame.
But we've obviously kept people posted. We have been having this discussion. And what we've tried to emphasize which, I think, is critically important, in fact, this is about the investment cycle for this year.
At some point in time, you will miss the investment cycle for this year, because people will just start cancelling these projects. We are at the end of the first quarter. People have not had first quarter earnings reports, or I don't think very many people have. But they will start to do that in the next couple of weeks.
We always felt that we had to do this within, you know, 30-to-60 days of the closing of the first quarter. Otherwise companies would start to show their investors that these projects were going to come off their books. And we certainly didn't want that to happen.
SEN. SCHUMER: Just if I could add one thing as part of the Democratic leadership, I know, at our leadership meetings, we hope to do this in this eight-week work period, provided we can get the votes for it. It's a very high priority for our leadership to get this done.
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