Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014 -- Resumed
Floor Speech
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Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I wish to thank the minority leader, but I ask him to repeat his question.
Mr. McCONNELL. As the Senator from North Dakota was engaged in conversation, I was talking about his leadership role in this endeavor the last 6 years and the difficulty of getting action here in the Senate. It almost seems to me as if it took an election by the American people to choose a new majority for next year to begin to get the attention of the current majority to go forward on the issue that Senator Hoeven has been talking to us about on a virtually daily basis here for 6 years.
Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I wish to respond to the minority leader. That has been the case, that we have worked for some time to get a vote on this important issue. We actually had passed a measure back in 2012 attached to a payroll tax holiday. At that time the President turned down the Keystone XL Pipeline project on the basis of the route in Nebraska. So that work has been done. It has been rerouted.
Some time ago, we put together a bipartisan bill. It is a bill I drafted and wrote. Senator Landrieu from Louisiana agreed to cosponsor it. We have all 45 Republicans on the bill, and we have 11 Democrats. We have 56 cosponsors on the legislation, but we have not been able to bring the bill to the floor. So I really had anticipated that we would have to wait until the new Congress in order to get a vote on the bill, because as the minority leader said, the American voters spoke. And particularly with the new Members we have coming, we will have more than 60 Senators who support the legislation. So I had anticipated that we would have to go into the new Congress to get a vote on the bill.
However, the cosponsor on the bill, Senator Landrieu, yesterday requested that we call the bill up, and she worked on her side and we have worked on our side to get unanimous consent to get a vote on the bill. So we are certainly happy to vote on this important issue for the American people. We will have a vote in the House on the very same bill. They now have taken up the very same bill. I believe it will pass easily tomorrow in the House. And then on Tuesday, we will have a vote on our bill here, S. 2280. We will have 45 Republicans, and we hope to have 15 Democrats. And if we do, we will pass the bill and send it to the President for signature.
If we don't get to the 60 votes, I believe we will still be able to bring the bill back in the new Congress and have the 60 votes. So I believe we will now be able to advance this bill to the President. The question is, What will the President do? The indication was from one of his spokespersons traveling with him yesterday that he may well veto the legislation. If that happens, I still think, again, based on the fact that the American people overwhelmingly support this legislation, that we will be able to come back, work with our colleagues on a bipartisan basis and perhaps make this legislation part of a broader energy bill, or attach it to an appropriations measure. But I think we will be able to find other legislation that we can attach approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline--this bill--to. That makes it very likely that we could either override a veto or maybe the President wouldn't veto it. Because at the end of the day, what this is all about is more energy for this country, produced here and working with our closest friend and ally, Canada.
This is about jobs. By the State Department's own environmental impact statement, 42,000 jobs. So it is about energy. It is about jobs. It is about the infrastructure we need to build the right kind of energy plan for our country. Whether one comes from North Dakota or Kentucky or Texas or Louisiana or wherever, we have to have infrastructure as part of our energy plan.
It is also about national security. Americans do not want to have to depend on getting oil from the Middle East. They want to produce it here at home, and they want to work with our closest ally, Canada, and we want the jobs and the economic activity that come with it.
So that is where we are. That is the game plan, to get this important legislation passed, and that is what this is all about. This is about moving forward on approving the Keystone XL Pipeline. When asked, the American people in the polling showed anywhere from 65 up to about 75 percent overwhelmingly support it. So that is what this issue is all about.
Now is our chance to show that we can move forward, and in a bipartisan way, and get this done for the people of this great Nation. We are hopeful that we can get it in the lameduck. That is great. We have cleared the way to get a vote, and if we can't, then we will be right back to work on it in the new Congress.
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Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, there have been a whole range of numbers offered. But I think to cut through to a number that people should be able to accept and to agree on is to take the number the State Department has put forward in the environmental impact statement. As a matter of fact, I think there have been either four or five environmental impact statements done on this project over a 6-year period, going all the way back to starting in September 2008 when TransCanada initially applied for approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which is the sister pipeline to the Keystone Pipeline, which was already built--permitted in 2 years and built in 2 years--and that happened when I was Governor. I actually started working with this project when I was Governor and it continued when I came to the Senate. But TransCanada originally applied for their permit back in September of 2008. So for 6 years this has been going on, and in the final environmental impact statement, which stated the project will have no significant environmental impact--it stated that very clearly--they also said it will create about 42,000 jobs. And these are good-paying jobs, construction jobs and other types of jobs that are good-paying jobs.
So here is a project, when we include Canada, about $7.9 billion. It is not going to cost the government one penny--not one penny. By the State Department's own admission, it will create 42,000 jobs. It will generate hundreds of millions in tax revenue to help the States and help with our deficit and debt, and it is to move oil not only from Canada, but from my State of North Dakota and Montana to refineries in Texas and Louisiana and other places that need the crude, and right now that crude is coming from places such as Venezuela or the Middle East.
It is a job creator, and there are all of these other benefits. Again, it is an excellent example of the kind of infrastructure we need to build the energy plan this country needs.
I ask the minority leader if I have answered his question adequately.
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Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I would like to thank the minority leader. I would like to thank all the Members of our caucus for joining on this bipartisan legislation. You know, we are continuing to work across the aisle to get 60 votes. At the end of the day, you have got to go back to what this is all about. This is about building an ``all of the above'' energy plan for this Nation. You cannot build an ``all of the above'' energy plan for the Nation if you do not have the infrastructure to move that energy around the country. We are seeing what is happening. Because we have been blocked on building these pipelines, now we are not able to move our grain to market, because there are so many rail cars now trying to move crude oil--700,000 barrels a day out of our State alone, and it is growing.
Keystone alone will replace 1,400 rail cars a day that are now carrying oil. That is 10-unit trains. So, you see, this is about so many aspects of our economy, strengthening our economy and creating good-paying jobs that people want. That is why the American people--and that is who we work for, that is who we represent. That is what this is about. That is what we heard loud and clear in the election, is that the American people want us to work together. They want us to get jobs going,
get this economy going, build the right kind of energy future, get our budget deficit under control.
That means we have to do the fundamentals. When we talk about building infrastructure, we are talking about the fundamentals. That is what is going on here. This has been 6 years. We need to get this economy going. That starts with common sense. This is common sense. This is common sense because it is about energy, it is about jobs, it is about growing the economy, it is about national security, it is about not having to get oil from the Middle East, and it is about doing what the American people overwhelmingly time and again have told us they want us to do.
Again, I want to thank the minority leader. I will turn to him and again say: You know, I believe we can find a way, either in this lameduck or in the next Congress--and I would ask the leader--in the next Congress, and I believe it to be true, as the majority leader, he will make this a priority as part of an energy plan for this country.
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