Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008--Continued

Floor Speech

RENEWABLE ENERGY AND JOB CREATION ACT OF 2008--Continued -- (Senate - September 23, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Oregon for his support for the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici mental health parity bill, something I am going to talk about in a minute.

Madam President, as we focus on the very serious and urgent challenge facing our financial system, we must not lose sight of the equally serious challenge of building a solid foundation for America's economy in the long term. Today, we have the opportunity to vote on a bipartisan bill--the Energy Improvement and Extension Act--which will help America build that long-term foundation.

I thank Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus for their work on this bill. The bill we vote on today provides an opportunity for the first step to move America forward. The way we have been handling these energy incentives has been like a game of red light, green light: on again, off again, on again, off again. While our country develops so much of the technology for wind and solar, we have now been leapfrogged by other countries that have more long-term policies in place that encourage investment in these areas.

You can drive past hundreds of massive wind turbines along Buffalo Ridge in southwestern Minnesota. My State is the third leading producer of wind power, and that is because our State, on a bipartisan basis, has set some standards and put those incentives in place. On the Iron Range in northeastern Minnesota, a large mining company has just announced it will invest $15 million to build a facility to produce a renewable biofuel using a variety of sources, such as switchgrass, corn husks and stover, wood byproducts and oat hulls. This is about the future of energy.

When I get questions about this and how we need to move with energy, I always remind people of the first start of the computer age when we had those big computers in those big rooms and they were inefficient, and over time they got more and more efficient, so those computers can fit in the palm of someone's hand. But to do that, as a country we are going to have to have that individual focus and that determination to invest and set those standards.

Today is the first step. I think our energy challenge offers similar opportunities that we had when we put a man on the Moon. So we have to ask ourselves this: Will the United States be a leader in creating the clean energy technology jobs and industries of the future or are we just going to sit back and watch the opportunities pass us by with Japan and Europe and India leading the way? Today, with the bill before us, we have the opportunity to be that energy leader.

AMENDMENT NO. 5635

We also have a chance to be a better leader in an area of health care where we have come up short for far too long. I am referring to the mental health parity bill that is included in this package. We have tried to pass this legislation through the Senate over and over again. These efforts predate my time in the Senate, and they continue to this day.

My friend and our former colleague, the Senator from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone, fought for this law as a matter of justice and fairness. Senator Domenici, on the other side of the aisle, was right there with him and has continued to press for this legislation. Senator Kennedy has been a champion for this legislation, and Senator Durbin. In the House, there is Patrick Kennedy and one of my favorite Republican Congressmen, Jim Ramstad from Minnesota. He is stepping down this year, and he does not want to leave until this bill gets done.

As Paul Wellstone always insisted: A mental health parity law is about equality and fairness. It is also about human dignity. Although much has changed over the years, people who suffer from a mental illness continue to suffer from a deep social stigma--something that can be just as challenging to live with as their illness. Their families suffer too. This legislation is not just about health insurance. It is also about eliminating the stigma and affirming the dignity of the Americans who suffer from a mental illness or an addiction.

Paul knew about this and cared about this issue because of his brother Steven who had a mental illness. He was hospitalized. His family was thrown into debt. Paul would often talk about how, during those years, there was a darkness in their home. Paul's brother eventually got proper treatment and secured his dignity at great cost to their family. Paul did not want anyone else to go through what their family went through.

He also cared about this bill because he always cared about the underdog, the person for whom it seemed as though there was nothing else there for them. That is what Paul Wellstone was about: putting those people first in the Halls of the Senate.

Whenever I walk through the Senate and say I am a Senator from Minnesota, I hear stories from other Senators about Paul. But the stories I remember most are those I hear from the secretaries in the front offices or the tram drivers or the police officers who guard the front of the Capitol. They, too, tell me about Paul and how good he was to them and how he treated them with respect. That is what Paul brought to this job. That is why he cared so much about this legislation.

In 1995, Minnesota enacted a mental health parity law that is among the strongest in the Nation. In the past 10 to 15 years, other States have enacted some version of mental health parity. The problem is that despite these State laws, 82 million Americans do not benefit because their employers' self-insurance plans come under the jurisdiction of the Federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA. It is time for them to receive the same protection as Americans whose insurance does not come under ERISA.

I think about the legendary Supreme Court Justice, Justice Brandeis, who had a famous saying about States being the laboratories of democracy. He said:

It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.

But Justice Brandeis did not mean that ``novel social and economic experiments'' must forever stay at the State level. If an experiment is successful at the State level--especially in many States--then it may very well be something that should be taken up on a larger national scale. Mental health parity has proven its value in State after State. Now it is time to take this well-tested innovation to the national level so our country has a uniform, equal standard of mental health parity that applies to self-insurance plans under the jurisdiction of ERISA.

There are so many good reasons for our Nation to have a mental health parity law: economic reasons, health reasons, criminal justice reasons, and reasons of basic fairness and human dignity. For me, there is one special reason why we must pass this legislation. That reason is Paul Wellstone. This legislation is about everything he stood for--about fighting for people who do not have power and do not have a voice, people who would rather hide than speak up because of the stigma and the shame, people who needlessly suffered because of discrimination and prejudice. This bill is about Paul. It is about his brother Steven. It is about his family. And it is about his determination to help bring justice and dignity to millions of Americans who live in the shadow of mental illness. When Paul was alive, many people in this Chamber said they wanted to pass this bill, and when Paul died, they said they wanted to pass this bill. Well, the time has come to pass this bill.

Senator Kennedy, home watching everything that goes on in this Chamber, wants to get this done. Before he retires, Jim Ramstad wants to get this done. And Paul Wellstone's sons have been here day after day walking the halls of the Capitol, knocking on doors, trying to do this for their father's memory. We have waited too long.

We have the opportunity to finally get this bill into law. It is an opportunity to put aside all the excuses and, instead, to put front and center all of the many good reasons this law will serve our Nation well. I hope, when this vote comes up today, this bill will pass and it will pass by a large margin. It is a tribute to Paul and to all the people who have waited for so long to get their dignity.

I thank the chair.

I yield the floor.

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