Minimum Wage Fairness Act -- Motion to Proceed -- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOEVEN. I rise to discuss the Keystone XL Pipeline project. I will be joined by a number of my colleagues, whom I will thank at the beginning for joining me. They will come today with the same message that I have; that is, the Keystone XL Pipeline project, the project that has now been under review by this administration for more than 5 years--we are now in year 6. We are on the floor of the Senate asking for, quite simply, a vote to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline project. I have put legislation in on a number of occasions. In 2012 we approved a time limit for the President to make a decision. I believe that bill got on the order of 73 votes--strong bipartisan support. We attached it to the payroll tax holiday, and it said that the President had to make a decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline within 90 days. He did. He turned it down, and he turned it down on the basis of the routing in Nebraska.

So not only did the State of Nebraska go through an incredible amount of work, but the State Department and others went back to work, did a whole new environmental impact statement after Nebraska had rerouted the pipeline, which was approved by both its legislature and its Governor, and came forward with a new route and a new environmental impact statement. That was right at the beginning of 2012.

So we set a timeline for the President to make a decision. He made the decision and he turned down the project, but we addressed the concerns he raised. They were fully addressed.

Then later we also offered a resolution of support putting the Senate on record in support of the project. That was attached to the budget resolution at the beginning of 2013. We came back the next year, and on that occasion the Senate, with 62 votes, said: Hey, we support the project. Here is a resolution in support of the project stating that it is, in fact, in the national interest and ought to be approved.

Since then the President has done nothing. Well, that is not quite right. Not only has he not made a decision now--and we are in the sixth year after four environmental impact statements, all of which said there is no significant environmental impact created by the project--not only has the President not made a decision, with Congress on record supporting the project, but, in fact, a little over 1 week ago on Good Friday, on the afternoon of Good Friday, when he figured nobody was paying any attention, the President came out and basically put out a statement and said that not only has he not made a decision but he is not going to make a decision, that on the basis of litigation he is going to postpone the decision indefinitely.

So we are in year 6, having met all of the requirements on numerous occasions on a project that will provide energy and jobs, that will help with national security by reducing our dependence on oil from the Middle East, a project that his own Department of State, after environmental impact statement after environmental impact statement, has come back and said will create no significant environmental impact, will create 42,000 jobs, and will help us get energy and not only move energy from States such as North Dakota and Montana in our country to the refineries safely but also bring in oil from Canada to our country so we don't have to import it from the Middle East.

The President says: Well, we are in year 6, but I am going to postpone this decision indefinitely.

Here we are. We have a bill I introduced some time ago. We have 27 cosponsors on the bill, both parties. What the bill does, it approves the Keystone XL Pipeline project congressionally. Instead of continuing to wait after 6 years and now the President's announcement that he is going to delay the decision indefinitely, passing this bill would approve the project congressionally.

The way that works is that under the foreign commerce clause in the Constitution, Congress has the authority to approve this project. They have that authority under Congress's ability to oversee foreign commerce, commerce with other nations. We know that because we took time to research it. We had the Congressional Research Service do the research for us, and they say this is a constitutional authority of the Congress.

We have provided that bill. The bill has been filed. As I said, we have 27 sponsors, and now it is time to vote.

We have been holding off on having a vote because the President said: You know, we are going to go through the process--or he is going to go through the process and he is going to honor the process.

The environmental--actually, the fourth and supposedly final environmental impact statement came out at the end of January. There was a 90-day comment period after that, which was to expire the first part of May. The expectation was that now that the process at that point--once the process was exhausted, the President would, in fact, render the long-awaited decision.

But, as I say, on Good Friday, a little over 1 week ago, he came out and said:

No, no decision. Furthermore, he is not going to make a decision, and that delay is indefinite. So clearly the administration opposes the project and they are going to defeat it with delay. They are going to defeat it with endless delays. There is no amount of process that will ever be adequate for the administration. They will continue to delay this decision, thinking that at some point it will go away, and so they defeat the project through one delay after another. That is why it is time to vote.

In a recent poll that was released last week, 70 percent of the American people want this project approved--70 percent. That was a Rasmussen poll.

The President is trying to defeat the project through delays in order to appease special interest groups while the American people very much want this project approved. It is Congress's responsibility to take a stand. It is long past time to vote.

At this point, I am making some revisions to the legislation to update it for the final environmental impact statement. We are working to get every single Republican Member of this body on board, which I believe we will do, and as many Democratic Members as possible. We are pushing as hard as we can to get a vote. It is time for the Senate to stand, exercise its responsibility, and vote.

Now the Senate majority leader is looking at moving to energy legislation, energy efficiency legislation. That is good. Let's go there. Let's have the debate. Let's offer amendments. Let's have votes. Let's do the work of the people that this body is elected to do.

As part of that, we are going to require a vote on the Keystone XL Pipeline, a vote to approve it congressionally, and everybody can decide where they stand. But this is a project which is long overdue. It is time to vote, and it is time to vote on congressional approval. That is our message today, and that is going to continue to be our message as we work on energy legislation.

I am very pleased to have other Members who have agreed to come join this discussion. I turn to the good Senator from Kansas, the senior Senator from Kansas, somebody who has been in this body for a long time, who has seen these issues, and who understands the responsibility we have to vote on behalf of these issues, to take a stand for the American people.

I yield to the senior Senator from Kansas, a State through which this pipeline passes, and ask him does he perceive that this project is in the national interest.

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Mr. HOEVEN. I wish to thank the distinguished Senator from Kansas for his words today and for his support of this important project.

I would also like to turn to the distinguished Senator from Iowa, somebody who truly believes we should have an ``all of the above'' energy approach but one that means actually doing--not only producing from our traditional sources of fossil fuels but also our renewable sources. He is someone who also understands that if we are truly going to have an ``all of the above'' energy plan in this country and do it, not just talk about it, we need the infrastructure to make it happen.

So I turn to the good Senator from Iowa and ask him: Isn't this the vital infrastructure this country needs in order to truly have an ``all of the above'' energy plan that works?

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Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Iowa, who has made the case so well, and I look to his experience on energy issues and ag issues and his understanding of what it takes to truly have an all-of-the-above energy policy. As he said so well, it is not only needed infrastructure but it is jobs.

Here we are, talking about getting the economy going and getting people back to work. This doesn't cost one penny of Federal spending, and it puts people to work and creates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to help reduce our deficit and our debt.

So we are talking about putting people back to work, we are talking about energy for this country, we are talking about revenues to reduce the debt, and the administration refuses to make a decision. It is almost beyond belief.

I turn next to the Senator from Alabama, the ranking member on the Budget Committee. He speaks eloquently and often on the need to balance our budget, on the need to reduce the deficit and the debt and to get our spending under control.

So here we have a project that, without spending one penny, will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues to help reduce the deficit and debt while we put people to work.

Those statistics are provided by this administration's State Department. Those aren't our statistics. Those statistics come out of the environmental impact statement put together by the State Department of this administration.

So I turn to the Senator from Alabama, somebody who has led on the need to get this economy going, to create good, quality jobs and to reduce the deficit and debt. I ask the good the Senator from Alabama: Won't this project help do all of those things?

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Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, Prime Minister Harper of Canada has said on a number of occasions how important this project is to Canada. The Ambassador of Canada to the United States is Gary Doer, somebody who was formerly the Premier of Manitoba and somebody I worked with when I was Governor of North Dakota. We worked together for about a decade on all kinds of issues. As the Senator said, Canada is our closest friend and ally, and they are a huge energy producer. And we are producing more energy.

So here is a project which is incredibly important to Canada. It is an opportunity for us to get more energy, both energy that we are producing and energy from Canada, rather than from the Middle East--something the American people very much want. If we don't approve it, what are we saying to our closest friend and ally, when they have said very clearly and repeatedly, this project is very, very important to them?

To add irony to that indignity, they will still produce the oil, but they will be forced to send it to China. So we will import oil from the Middle East and force our closest friend and ally to export their oil to China, creating more greenhouse gas emissions, not less? That is what happens if we don't approve the project.

If the President refuses to do it, then we have the responsibility to step up and do it. Yes, the Senator is 100 percent right that it is not only a project that our people very much want approved but it is also something the people of Canada and the Government of Canada very much want approved. So the Senator is right.

I would yield the floor back to the good Senator from Alabama and encourage him to bring in our esteemed colleagues from South Dakota and South Carolina as well into this important discussion.

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Mr. HOEVEN. I would like to thank the distinguished Senator from Alabama not only for his outstanding argument but for his passion as somebody who truly cares about getting this economy going.

I would turn to the distinguished Senator from South Dakota and also to the distinguished Senator from Texas, and I would like to ask that they both engage in this discussion, starting with the good Senator from South Dakota.

In South Dakota they understand how to create a good business climate. They have no income tax. They have a strong economy because they understand what it takes to create a good environment so that businesses will invest and grow and create jobs. I would like to ask the Senator how this relates to the discussion of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

To the distinguished senior Senator from Texas--clearly Texas knows energy production--I would ask for his thoughts in terms of how important this infrastructure is for energy development and production in our State.

First, I would like to turn to the Senator from South Dakota.

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Mr. HOEVEN. To respond to the Senator from Texas, of course, by not having a median pipeline infrastructure we are forced to move oil by other means and that means primarily railcars, and it is overburdening our rail system. As you have seen, we have had accidents, and it is just the overburdening of the current capacity of our rail system.

For example, in North Dakota we produce a million barrels of oil a day. Over 700,000 now has to move by rail car because we don't have adequate pipelines. So this is not just about bringing oil from Canada to the United States. It is also about moving oil from States such as Montana and North Dakota to refineries in the most efficient and safest way possible. For example, the Keystone XL Pipeline on the day it opens will take 500 trucks a day off some of our roads in the western part of our State. So it is clearly a safety issue. The State Department says if this pipeline isn't built, to move that amount of oil you would have to move 1,400 railcars a day. That is 14 unit trains of 100 railcars a day. Clearly, we don't have that rail capacity.

Clearly we don't have that rail capacity, so we need this vital infrastructure. We can't develop the energy in this country and work with Canada to truly become energy independent without vital infrastructure, which this project represents.

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