Tax Extenders and Disaster Relief

Floor Speech

TAX EXTENDERS AND DISASTER RELIEF -- (Senate - September 18, 2008)

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, earlier the majority leader came to the floor and propounded a unanimous consent request on the tax extenders package, and I told him that while I supported the legislation, there are a lot of good things in the bill, I still had some concerns about the disparate treatment of the State of Texas, especially related to Hurricane Ike.

I am pleased to report that as a result of discussions with the Finance Committee--Senator Grassley, Senator Baucus, and their staff--I believe we have achieved our goal of getting fair treatment for the State and the victims of Hurricane Ike. I wanted to come to the floor and express my gratitude to Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley. We are reviewing the final language, but subject to that, I think, as far as I am concerned, there is no objection to proceeding to the bill.

As I toured the hurricane-damaged area last weekend----

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, if the Senator would briefly pause, I wish to thank the Senator from Texas. The Senator has been great to work with as we worked out some provisions to help that State, especially the Galveston area, and the coastal States in getting additional disaster assistance. I thank the Senator as well as his colleague from Texas. We will come back to do more at a later date, but we are doing what we can on this bill, and I say thanks to my colleague for working so well with us.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I appreciate the generous comments of the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee. I especially enjoyed the part where he said we may come back later for more once we have been able to do further assessments. That is an important part of the rationale for agreement on this bill. We understand we can't do everything that needs to be done in this bill because the hurricane only hit this last weekend. There are a lot of people who have yet to be able to get back to their homes, a lot of folks without power, a lot of damage that is ongoing that cannot be fully calculated.

I had the chance, when traveling around the damaged area, to witness the destructive capacity of this huge hurricane and hear from a lot of my constituents, a lot of displaced Texans who were trying to find the necessities of life, including food, water, and shelter. Of course, they were very anxious to know about their homes, whether they would be able to return home, when they would be able to return home, and what they would find when they got there.

I appreciate that the chairman of the Finance Committee has included in the extenders package things such as bonus depreciation and expensing. These may seem like arcane subjects, but they actually mean a lot. They will mean a lot to the people of my State when it comes to rebuilding and getting back on their feet and getting back to work.

I understand the unique circumstances we find ourselves in and the need to get the extenders package passed, which, as I said earlier, I support. I offer my congratulations to Senator Cantwell, who is on the floor, and Senator Ensign for their leadership. They have been working hard and long at trying to get this done, and I know we are almost over the goal line.

Included in the package is an extension of the State and local sales tax deduction. This is something that is important to my State and to the other States that do not have an income tax. Because, of course, you can deduct your Federal income tax from your--or your State income tax from your Federal income tax, but if you don't have a State income tax, as Texas does not and, I might add, never will, this provides a level playing field by allowing the deduction of State and local tax.

This also includes an extension of the very important research and development tax credit which helps many companies in Texas and around the country be competitive in the globalized economy.

This measure also includes the extension of several renewable energy tax credits that have helped grow the Texas renewable energy industry. I know my colleagues get a little tired of Texans always bragging about Texas, but I am not going to stop now. We are No. 1 in the production of electricity from wind energy. Many people think of Texas as an oil and gas State, and we are that, but we are much more. We are an energy State. Credits for wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, hydropower, clean renewable energy bonds, fuel cell, and credits for residential energy efficiency home improvements are helping to diversify our Nation's energy portfolio and are a significant contribution toward answering the energy crisis we find ourselves in today.

This measure also supports the clean use of coal. Coal, of course, is cheap. It is domestic. We have a lot of it. We are sometimes called the Saudi Arabia
coal here in the United States. Its use is essential to helping reduce our dependence on imported energy from abroad. Of course, coal can burn dirty, and we need to continue to do the research and development that is so important to finding ways to use that energy with which we have been endowed here in this country in a way that results in not only good and inexpensive energy use, but also a good, clean environment. We need to spur the advanced technology market to capture carbon and sequester it. Of course, the Federal Government has sort of been involved in a start-and-stop effort to try to do that kind of research. As a matter of fact, two cities in Texas, Jewett and Odessa, were finalists in the Federal Department of Energy effort to do an extensive research project into clean coal technology. Unfortunately, that got so big and expensive that the Secretary of Energy decided to basically go another way.

The fact is we have the geology in Texas because of a lot of old oil wells that could sequester carbon dioxide, and we also know that the capture of carbon dioxide has many beneficial uses, particularly when it comes to secondary recovery and tertiary recovery in old oil fields.

Another key part of solving our energy crisis is the transformation of our transportation sector through the use of plug-in electric vehicles and other alternative fuels. This package establishes a new credit for consumers who purchase plug-in electric vehicles. Now, I am still a little bit skeptical of how many people in my State of 24 million people are going to decide to trade in their pickup truck for a plug-in hybrid vehicle that has a battery that will go maybe 40 miles. That won't get you very far, particularly out in west Texas. But I think in a lot of places, that kind of technology, hopefully, will come to the market as soon as 2010. I know GM is going to introduce the Volt and I know other car manufacturers will be introducing their own models of these plug-in electric hybrids, and I think this new credit will provide that choice and that option to consumers in Texas.

So I thank, again, Senator Grassley, Senator Baucus, and the Finance Committee staff. I wish to extend my appreciation to my colleague, the senior Senator from Texas, Senator Hutchison, for all of her hard work. We have tried to work together, and have worked together, in the best interests of our State, but also in a way that I think creates a win/win for the people of America. I believe this effort is the first step to making Texas whole again, and I trust that our colleagues who have expressed so much sympathy and concern for the people of Texas who were affected by this terrible hurricane will have long memories.

When we come back after this bill is passed, we will continue to work together on other important measures to make sure that each of our States affected by natural disasters, wherever they may be, will be treated in a fair and evenhanded sort of way. Senator Hutchison, of course, has been taking the lead when it comes to working on what I anticipate will likely be a supplemental appropriation request. But as I said at the outset, this hurricane is very recent. There are still a couple million people without power, and the assessments are still being done. But we will be back and we will be seeking the further--not only words of support from our colleagues, but something real and tangible in terms of support for the people of our State.

I see my colleague, the senior Senator from Texas on the floor, and I certainly yield the floor to her.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CORNYN. I reiterate my thanks to the Senator from Montana, the chairman of the Finance Committee. He described what I had understood, and we are reading the fine print to make sure that is how it is written. I anticipate that we will be able to be satisfied with that. As Senator Hutchison knows because she and I traveled the affected area, the two areas most affected were Galveston and Orange County. The fact that specific counties were listed does not limit relief to areas that may have been, as a matter of fact, disproportionately impacted, such as Orange. So I am glad to hear that confirmed for the record because it is very important.

As we have all said, it is still very early and there is a lot of work to be done in just assessing the damage. As a matter of fact, before the storm, there was a projection that the surge of water that would be pushed up by the storm could reach a level of 25 feet--a wall of water being pushed up the Houston ship channel. It was projected that 125,000 homes would be destroyed.

According to the computer models, there was a projection that as much as $81 billion in damage would be done. At that time, we were principally concerned with making sure that lives were saved and, of course, in the immediate aftermath with the search and rescue operation. But that assessment, of course, fortunately, is going to be a lot lower than the computer models projected because the surge was not quite as bad as predicted. The storm hit in a way that didn't push that 25-foot wall of water up the Houston ship channel.

As I said, we are grateful for all of the cooperation. I hope we will be able to come back when we have firmer numbers and a more detailed assessment, and we will experience a similar sort of cooperative spirit in trying to make sure the people of Texas are treated on the same basis that other victims of natural disasters in other parts of the country have been treated.

Source