Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013 -- Motion to Proceed -- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I was going to ask for a specific time for each, but I am going to try to be brief and yield more time for comments from others because I am sure time will be expiring.

The issue we are trying to move to is called the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act. Whenever we talk about energy and the environment, the Senate is up for grabs. There is a divided opinion as to what to do with the energy policy of America. There are sincere and profound differences between the two political parties. We recently had an all-night session talking about the issue of global warming and climate change and there was a real division between Democrats and Republicans about this issue.

I had a statement early in the session, and I come to the floor and renew it today in the hopes one of my two friends on the other side of the aisle can respond to this. My statement is this: The only major political party in the world that denies the existence of global warming and climate change is the Republican Party of the United States of America. I am waiting for some Republican to come forward and refute me. Someone said there is a small party in Australia that doesn't accept global warming and climate change. That may be true, but I am looking for evidence of another major political party, other than the Republican Party of the United States of America, which denies the fact that our human activity on Earth and the pollution we are creating is changing the world in which we are living.

I think there is ample evidence. Incidentally, 98 percent of the scientists who look at it conclude the same--that we are going through climate change in this world. Look around. Glaciers are melting, the weather is changing, we have more extreme weather events, and our planet is heating up. Some people say: That is just an act of God. It happens every few centuries. That is the way it goes.

I don't think so. I think what we are doing on Earth has something to do with it.

This debate could go on all day and there would be severe differences of opinion on each side of the aisle as to whether what I have said is true, but here is something we should not disagree on--the pending legislation. This bipartisan piece of legislation steps aside from that hot issue--no pun intended--and asks if we can't all agree that energy efficiency is good. Well, sure. Whether one thinks there is an environmental impact of using energy or not, it costs less if you have energy efficiency to heat a home or run a business.

What we are trying to do, thanks to the leadership of Senator Shaheen of New Hampshire and Senator Portman of Ohio, Democrat and Republican, is to have a bipartisan approach to it. What they have done is amazing. They took a bill, which frankly was supposed to come up last year and failed because of some problems on the floor, and made it even better and stronger and more bipartisan, with a long series of bipartisan amendments added to the bill to make it better in terms of trying to encourage energy efficiency in the buildings across America, manufacturing new techniques for energy efficiency, and requiring the Federal Government, when it builds a building, to think about energy efficiency.

All of these are bipartisan in nature. Yet we are tied up in knots on the floor of the Senate as to whether we can even consider this bipartisan bill. That is a shame because, quite honestly, when we have a good bipartisan measure on an issue such as energy efficiency, which steps aside from underlying controversial issues, we should move on it. I worry about that. There are some on the other side who say: We don't have enough amendments. There are more we want to add. There is more we want to debate. There is nothing wrong with that, but let us not sacrifice this bill this time.

What is at stake with this bill? It is not just the good ideas of energy efficiency but 190,000 jobs in America. When we start putting in better windows in buildings, when we start putting in better HVAC systems, and all the other things that are going to create energy efficiency, it puts Americans to work. If the Republicans stop us from moving to this bill today, if they stop us from considering this bill this week, it will be at the expense of American jobs. That is wrong.

Now that we have a bipartisan bill, and a strong bill, for goodness' sake, let us put the procedural fights aside. There is a Republican Senator who stopped this bill last week from coming up because he wants to debate--are you ready--ObamaCare. Fifty times the House of Representatives has voted to repeal ObamaCare. It is going nowhere. Yet they continue to come back to it. So this Senator said we can't take up energy efficiency because he wants to debate one aspect of ObamaCare again.

Please, save it for another day. Let us do something in a bipartisan fashion that can guarantee 190,000 people in America a good-paying job.

Wouldn't that be something we can talk about when we come home at the end of the week instead of the fact that the Senate once again broke down into a partisan squabble.

I urge my colleagues on the other side, save some of these really great and not-so-great ideas for another day. Let's pass this bill. It is strong, it is bipartisan, and it really tries to get something done in the Senate, which, sadly, is a rare occurrence.

I yield the floor.

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