Congressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2010

Floor Speech

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2010 -- (Senate - April 23, 2009)

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the motion of the Senator from Michigan, Ms. Stabenow, that instructs the conferees to include some but not all of the limitations the Senate voted for with respect to climate change legislation.

I think the Senate needs to understand that the effect of this motion would be to instruct conferees on the issue of climate change without including the Senate's protection for consumers against higher gas and electricity prices, which was adopted by the Senate by a vote of 89 to 8 during the debate on the budget resolution. The Senate adopted several budget amendments to try to specify what the parameters should be in the debate over climate change legislation.

One of those amendments that was adopted was one that was sponsored by me. That amendment specified that climate change legislation could not increase electricity or gasoline prices. It was adopted by the Senate by a vote of 89 to 8.

What Senator Stabenow's motion would do if it were agreed to is it would instruct that it would be the Senate's only specific instruction on what should be included in the final budget on climate change legislation, apart from the reconciliation limitations that would be included. So, in other words, other protections, such as those included by my amendment, could be excluded were the conferees to adhere to the instructions in her motion.

The bottom line is, Senator Stabenow's motion to instruct would encourage conferees to drop the commonsense protections adopted by the Senate with a vote of 89 to 8 when it adopted my amendment to the budget resolution.

Just, again, by way of background, I do not think there is anybody who would argue the point that a cap-and-trade proposal is going to raise energy prices. This motion does nothing to include protection against those higher prices.

Under the President's cap-and-trade proposal that was contained in his budget, it would impose what is a massive new energy tax on anyone who drives a car or turns on a light switch.

In fact, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has said the administration is ``not for an increase in the gas tax as long as the economy is bad, people are out of work, people don't have jobs. No one should be promoting an increase in the gas tax.'' The cap-and-trade proposal the President has put forward would do just that. It would also increase the cost of electricity prices.

Secretary of Energy Chu just testified recently:

I think especially now in today's economic climate it would be completely unwise to want to increase the price of gasoline.

The President and his Budget Director have been very clear that prices are going to go up on consumers, and they are going to feel the pain, the economic pain associated with higher prices for electricity and gasoline.

The President himself acknowledged that when he was talking about a cap-and-trade proposal some time back. He acknowledged his plan would lead to higher electricity prices, and he said:

Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.

What happened during the debate on the budget is we adopted my amendment, by a vote of 89 to 8, which specifically stated that any cap-and-trade climate change legislation could not increase electricity rates or gas prices for consumers in this country. The Stabenow motion to instruct, if adopted, would instruct the conferees in an opposite direction. It would exclude that protection that was included in my amendment to the budget resolution.

So I ask my colleagues in the Senate to defeat the Stabenow motion. The Johanns motion, on the other hand, to instruct the conferees not to use reconciliation to accomplish climate change legislation is a good motion. I hope the Senate will vote to adopt it. That was also one that was adopted by a fairly large margin when it was voted on during the debate on the budget a couple weeks ago.

But let me restate as clearly as I can, if the Stabenow motion is adopted by the Senate today, it would instruct the conferees in a number of areas with regard to cap-and-trade legislation, many of which sound good: invest in clean energy technology initiatives, decrease greenhouse gas emissions, create new jobs in a clean technology economy, strengthen the manufacturing competitiveness of the United States, and I could go on. There are nine of them that are stipulated here. The one that is conspicuously and noticeably absent is the protection against higher prices for consumers in the form of higher gasoline prices and higher electric rates.

So it was an amendment adopted by the Senate by a vote of 89 to 8. It would be my view that the Senate should not go back on an overwhelming vote like that, which made it very clear that any climate change legislation should not raise electricity and gasoline prices on American consumers. The Stabenow motion, if adopted, would not include that protection. I ask my colleagues to vote to defeat it.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Stabenow motion to instruct. She is correct that it imposes limitations on climate change legislation as adopted during the budget resolution, with one very important deletion, and that is one that consumers care about the most, which prevents consumers from having to pay higher gasoline prices and electricity rates.

If the Senate adopts this motion, it will undermine an amendment I offered to the Senate budget resolution, which passed 89 to 8 in the Senate, which prevents consumers from having to deal with higher gas and electricity rates as a result of climate change legislation. That is an important protection. It is something the conferees need to keep in the budget resolution.

I hope the Senate will vote to defeat the Stabenow motion to instruct because it does undermine what we did in the budget resolution with respect to the protections afforded to consumers when it comes to higher gas and electricity prices. I urge my colleagues to vote no.

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