Nomination of Gerald J. Pappert to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Floor Speech
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Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I come to the floor today to talk about the tax extenders package the House is likely to vote on today.
Unfortunately and sadly, it looks as though we have reached another low point in the world of dysfunctional Washington politics. The House will vote on what is being called a 1-year retroactive extension of dozens of expired tax laws. This bill contains everything from the research and development tax credit, to the wind production tax credit, to the new markets tax credit, and they have let us know that this is the best bill they could cobble together. But in reality this is not a 1-year extension; it is a 3-week extension of expired tax laws until the end of this year--3 weeks until the end of this year. On January 1 all of our tax laws will expire again. No one in the real world would ever run an enterprise in this manner.
It is bad enough that we do extenders for 2 years without making them permanent, but to say the best we can do is a 1-year extension and to know that really it is only a 3-week extension makes no sense at all. If the purpose of this bill is to encourage investments in business or our communities, how does a 1-year retroactive bill make any sense at all?
If the purpose of the bill is to provide greater certainty for families and for businesses, how does a 1-year retroactive bill accomplish that? Only in the land of flickering lights--in Washington, DC--where we are barely keeping the government running, does it make sense.
I thought we had reached a new low 2 years ago when we voted on the so-called fiscal cliff deal--when the Bush tax cuts were expiring and there was a bipartisan deal that was meant to, among other things, avoid the sequester. That bill passed at 2:30 in the morning; then, 90 days later, the sequester went into effect--the very thing we were supposed to be protecting against. That deal is sometimes touted as a great act of bipartisanship. The only thing bipartisan about it was the confession that the two parties couldn't figure out how to actually get our fiscal house in order. Had we known that night that the sequester was going to go into effect 90 days later--had we known that that night--there is no way there would have been 92 ``yes'' votes for that deal. There is no way it would have passed. And we are still living with it today.
Coincidentally, the last time we passed tax extenders, it was part of that deal. The fiscal cliff deal at least provided a 2-year extension to these temporary tax laws. Here, it turns out we will be lucky if we provide 3 weeks of certainty.
Many of the people I represent say this bill is only marginally better than no bill at all, and they reasonably wonder why in the world we wouldn't just do another 2-year extension. They prefer more certainty than that to plan for their businesses and for their communities. Instead of doing the short-term House bill, the Senate should instead take up the bipartisan bill the Senate Finance Committee reported over 6 months ago. I always hear people in this body lament the lack of regular order, and I lament the lack of regular order. This bill represented a great attempt at regular order and it got the votes of Republicans and Democrats on the Finance Committee. We had a markup, and we voted on amendments. Some passed, some didn't. And then we voted the bill out to the Senate floor 6 months ago.
The Ways and Means Committee in the House didn't hold a markup on the House bill they are considering today. It is my understanding the House will be allowing few, if any, amendments. So why is that bill in any way preferable to the Senate bill, where we did the work of legislating? Our 2-year bill deserves a vote here on this floor.
Among dozens of provisions that are important to families and businesses in Colorado and across the country, I wanted to highlight two today. The first is the credit for wind energy. The wind PTC and ITC--the production tax credit and the investment tax credit--have always enjoyed broad support from both sides of the aisle, ranging from its original cosponsor, Senator Grassley from Iowa, to my friend and colleague from Colorado, Mark Udall. And I should say that nobody has been a greater champion for wind or more relentless over the years in support of the wind industry in Colorado and those high-paying jobs in our State than Mark Udall.
If enacted into law, the Senate version of the PTC and ITC for wind will continue to drive job growth in Colorado. We are not talking about some fly-by-night experiment here. This isn't some Bolshevik takeover of the United States. These are jobs--manufacturing jobs and other high-paying jobs--right here in the United States.
In Colorado, we have 5,000 people working in this industry. In Colorado, Vestas, which manufactures wind turbines, employs over 1,400 workers across 4 factories--from Pueblo all the way up I-25 to Brighton and Windsor. These are not just manufacturing and design jobs in urban centers, but construction and operations jobs at the actual wind farms.
I visited one of these turbine farms in Peetz, CO, a couple of years ago. It was a little scary because we climbed up--I climbed up--to the very top of the wind turbine. I thought we were done climbing, but then they opened a hatch in the top of this thing and they said: Senator, it is time to go out and see what this looks like, which I did, standing on the top of this wind turbine housing in the shoes I wear on the floor of the Senate. Even though I was hooked up, it was a little scary.
The guy who took me there was telling me he had been able to come back to his home community--a rural community in Colorado--and work in this high-paying job because the wind industry was there. This was something he never would have imagined as a kid, but now he has real opportunity, and there are thousands of people just like him all over my State who are concerned the political conversation here has decoupled once again from their concerns and has become about the internal politics of Washington, DC, and not what is actually going on in places such as rural Colorado or in rural places all across the United States.
This industry drives economic growth across our State--from the conference rooms of tech startups in Boulder and Denver all the way to the 6,000-acre Kit Carson wind power generating site just west of the Kansas State line.
The production tax credit has driven $105 billion in private investment. This is actually amazing when you think about it, given the fact there has been so much uncertainty associated with it--$105 billion. It has opened up 550 industrial facilities and provided $180 million in lease payments to rural farmers, to ranchers, and to landowners who host wind farms.
The mention of those rural farmers and ranchers brings me to the second provision of the EXPIRE Act that I would like to highlight: the tax incentive for conservation easements.
Private land conservation is critical in States such as Colorado. Healthy grasslands, open landscapes, and abundant wildlife are a fundamental part of what is to be in the West and in Colorado. In the 2014 farm bill, we worked really hard to build a strong conservation title.
The easement incentive in the Senate finance bill is an important complement to the work in the farm bill. This incentive accounts for the true value of conserved land, which allows family farmers, ranchers, and moderate-income landowners to preserve land for our kids and for our grandkids to enjoy.
In Colorado, we have landowners lined up to take advantage of this very well-designed program. It opens up conservation opportunities to people who might be land rich but cash poor--producers who feed this country. This is land we have to keep in production. But when you are living in a place where the value isn't calculated properly, and there is a high value associated with it and you don't have the money to be able to put it into easement, this program can help you do that.
If we do that, we get to hold on to our farms and ranches in our States. But here we are again considering a bill that extends these benefits for only 3 weeks. If it is good policy for 3 weeks, why isn't it good policy for 2 years? If we pass the House bill, we are telling the farmers and ranchers across States such as Colorado that we don't value long-term conservation, that we don't take it seriously.
The loss of this tax incentive would mean less land across the West would be protected--again, a voluntary program. This isn't telling anybody they have to do anything with their farms and ranches; it is an option for them if they want to use it. More wildlife habitat will be lost, water quality will suffer, and Colorado's scenic beauty, which is critical to our way of life and our economy, will be threatened.
If we pass the House bill, people's jobs across Colorado will be placed at risk. And this is all due to Congress's failure to do its job. We can do better than that. We should, at this late hour, reconsider this and pass the Senate bill--pass the EXPIRE Act. We should pass a bipartisan piece of legislation that came out of the Finance Committee through regular order 6 months ago. We have had plenty of time to consider that. Then we should come back and we should do comprehensive tax reform and give our country a Tax Code that is actually worthy of the entrepreneurs who are out there working every day to invent our future. The last time the Tax Code--this might be of interest to the pages here today--the last time the Tax Code was updated in this country, I was in college. I was in college. What are the chances that today's Tax Code reflects the American economy as it actually is, to say nothing of the global economy as it actually is? The chances are zero. This is the work we have been sent here to do. It is hard, but that is what we are supposed to be doing here.
I hope in the new year there is going to be a big change around this place, and I hope all of us use that change to the advantage of the American people by putting ourselves back to work. They are working hard. The least we can do is work together to actually align our legislation and our regulation to the world as it actually exists rather than one that existed 50 or 100 years ago.
Madam President, I appreciate the chance to speak today on these important issues to Colorado.
With that, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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