Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act

Floor Speech

Mr. President, I am here to speak to the Shaheen-Portman legislation that is on the floor, the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act. But I have to start by responding to my colleague from Louisiana because, first of all, I appreciate that he wants a vote on this issue of the OPM ruling. There are a lot of things I would like to see a vote on, and I understand he is saying he is not opposed to the bill, which I very much appreciate. But the fact is, he chooses to be here to hold up this bipartisan piece of legislation at a time when we can get some real agreement on energy legislation coming out of the Senate--the first time since 2007 we have had an energy bill on the floor.

This is a bipartisan energy bill. It is a bill that has over 16 bipartisan amendments that have been vetted by the energy committee, that have support not just from the chairman of the energy committee and the ranking member but from the committee staff, from Senator Portman and myself. We think we have a real opportunity to pass this bill and to make it even better because of all of these bipartisan amendments. But my colleague from Louisiana, Senator Vitter, is refusing to allow us to get these votes because he wants a vote on his amendment.

I am happy to take a vote on his amendment. I would like to be able to clarify for the record the OPM ruling. I think there is a lot of misinformation--people who are calling to say that Members of Congress are not going to be in the exchange. Well, the fact is, Members of Congress who choose to continue to have their health care through the Federal program are in the exchange, as are our staffs. But we are not asking other large employers such as the Federal Government to eliminate the employer share of health care, as Senator Vitter would ask--that the Federal Government eliminate its employer share of health care for all of our staffs who are working for the Federal Government.

I do not think the American people believe the employer's share of health care should be eliminated. I think we have a system of health care that is employer based, and the system we have in the Federal Government is going to continue to be employer based as well. That means the Federal Government will pay a share of health care.

I think this is a debate we ought to have because I think there are a lot of people who are on the extreme right who want to be disingenuous about what is going on here. They are interested in spreading misinformation about what is happening with the health care law because they cannot believe Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, that the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, and that, in fact, we are already seeing the benefits for people across this country from the Affordable Care Act.

We are seeing people who have had previous illnesses--so preexisting conditions--who are no longer going to be denied health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. We are seeing people who can stay on their health care--young people--until they are age 26 because of the Affordable Care Act. We are seeing people who no longer have lifetime limits on what their share is for health insurance when they become ill. We are seeing people who are in the doughnut hole with their prescription drugs who are getting help for those prescription drugs. So I am happy to have that debate on the Affordable Care Act. But now is not the time to do it. This is a time when we can get some real agreement on energy efficiency, on an energy bill that, as the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy has said, would create 136,000 jobs by 2025, that would save consumers billions of dollars by 2030, that would be the equivalent of taking millions of cars off the road. It is a win-win-win, and it is a bill that has not just considerable bipartisan support in this Chamber but it is a bill that has support from groups that are as far apart as the American Chemistry Council and the Sierra Club, groups that do not normally come together on a bill--over 260 groups. That list is growing every day, private businesses that say: The way we need to begin to address our energy challenges is by saving energy. The cheapest, fastest way to address our energy needs is through energy efficiency.

This is a bill that does not depend on whether you support fossil fuels or new alternatives. The Presiding Officer knows we can support coal, investments in coal, and still support energy efficiency. We can support wind and still support energy efficiency. We can support solar and still support energy efficiency. We can support more drilling and still support energy efficiency.

This bill is a win-win-win, and we need to get on the bill. We need to get those people who would rather debate issues that are extraneous to this legislation to hold those debates for a later time.

As I said, I am happy to continue to debate health care. Even though we have been debating it now for the 4 years since the bill has been passed, I am happy to do that. But now is not the time to do that.

So, Mr. President, I will yield the floor and hope we can reach some agreement that will address Senator Vitter's concerns, that will address some of the other concerns that have been waiting that will allow us to move forward on an energy bill that is in the best interests of the country.

Thank you.

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Senator Portman can correct me on this, but I think we introduced this legislation early in 2011, not too long after he came to the Senate, and we have been working for 3 years. We reintroduced it in this Congress and have made a number of changes over the years in response to what we heard from stakeholders and in response to some of the concerns expressed by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to make the bill better and to try and put together legislation that could actually pass the Congress.

We have another bill in the House that is very similar, which is also a bipartisan piece of energy efficiency legislation. There has been a lot of interest expressed in the House in trying to act on this issue, so we have a real opportunity to get a bill through Congress, to get it to the President's desk, to get it signed, and to begin making progress on those 136,000 jobs we have heard about from the ACEEE--the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy--that could be created as a result of passing this bill.

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There is no doubt about that. I have been impressed with the amount of thought that has gone into these bipartisan amendments and with the variety of ways in which they improve on energy efficiency.

The Senator talked about the Isakson-Bennet amendment. Senator Bennet has an amendment with Senator Ayotte, my colleague from New Hampshire, talking about tenants who are renting and the incentives we can provide to tenants to address their energy use.

Senator Gillibrand, who came to the floor last week, talked about how we could look at emergency disaster relief and try and make sure when we rebuild from disasters we rebuild in a way that is much more energy efficient.

So we have a whole range of ideas. Senator Hoeven, who is on the floor, is talking about addressing water heaters and the need to make sure water heaters are more efficient. He is working with Senator Pryor. We have a whole list of amendments that are thoughtful and that have been the result of a lot of work on the part of a lot of Senators in this Chamber.

It is unfortunate we can't get to those amendments and get them passed. I think most of them would pass on a voice vote.

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Absolutely. And I think that is Senator Portman's interest. We would like to get some agreement on how to move forward. As I said last week, I don't have any objection to voting on Senator Vitter's legislation if we can get some agreement on limiting those extraneous amendments that really don't have anything to do with energy efficiency so we can get onto this bill, get it done, and make progress because, as the chairman knows, it is going to be very challenging to tackle some of those other energy issues that are much more controversial than this energy efficiency bill. So it would be nice to be able to have agreement so we can move on to some of those other issues.

I especially appreciate the Senator's leadership and Senator Murkowski's leadership in reaching some agreement and trying to move an energy agenda on the floor.

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Before my colleague from Delaware leaves the floor, I wish to think him for coming down, speaking on the bill, and for his kind words. As the Senator pointed out, we were Governors together. Actually, we have another former Governor on the floor, Senator King of Maine, who also appreciates dealing with the challenges of high energy costs.

The Senator pointed out, and something that I know, that as Governors energy was a big issue for us. In New Hampshire we have the sixth highest energy costs in the country, so it is still a big issue for us in New Hampshire.

As the Senator points out, energy efficiency is the cheapest, fastest way to deal with our energy needs because the energy we don't use doesn't cost us any money.

I would argue that, as the Senator mentioned when he closed, this is not just an opportunity for a triple play but an opportunity for us to win on four fronts: on job creation, on reducing pollution, on savings for businesses and for consumers who have to use energy, but also on national security. Because to the extent we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil, it helps improve our national security. So this bill is a win-win-win-win.

The amendments, such as the one the Senator is talking about today with Senator Inhofe, improve the bill significantly. If we can call up that amendment today--the amendment of the Senator from Delaware on thermal energy--we can probably get a voice vote on it because it has that kind of bipartisan support in this body. It is something the committee has looked at--both the majority and the minority on the energy committee--and said this is an amendment we think can be supported and has great bipartisan support.

As the Senator from Delaware says, we need to have these votes on energy, we need to get a comprehensive energy-efficient strategy in this country, and that is what Shaheen-Portman does. I very much appreciate the Senator's good work on this legislation.

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