Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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TAX EXTENDERS AND OMNIBUS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, as we come to the close of the 113th Congress, I wish to speak for a few minutes about why I think we should be optimistic about the future and what we can and must do to take advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead.

Despite economic slowdowns throughout much of the world among developing and developed Nations alike, America's economy continues to steadily grow. Just last Friday we got great news that our economy created more than 300,000 jobs in the month of November. That marks 57 straight months, or nearly 5 years, of positive job growth numbers. For the first time since Bill Clinton was President of this Nation, we have averaged more than 200,000 new jobs per month for 10 straight months.

Particularly in the economy is an area of growth and opportunity that I have focused on in my time before coming into public service and in my 4 years here. That is American manufacturing, an industry about which I have spoken at length here on the Senate floor and have worked with my colleagues to craft and assemble a group of bipartisan bills that can help move American manufacturing forward.

The news this last month was good, as it has been for months, for years now, about American manufacturing, which continues to grow as well. There were 28,000 new American manufacturing jobs last month, which continued this steady climb. It has now created more than 750,000 new jobs over the last 4 years. Manufacturing jobs are great jobs. They typically are higher wage and higher skill and have higher benefits than jobs in any other sector. They are good, middle-class jobs you can raise a family on. They deal with one of the biggest ongoing remnants of the great recession, which is the lack of real wage growth in our economy. So I am excited to see that manufacturing jobs continue to grow in our economy and to talk about the things we can and should do to help sustain this growth in manufacturing.

We have reason to be optimistic, but we cannot be complacent. As much as we built momentum over the last year since the recession, and especially this year, there is, of course, no natural law, no economic fundamental principle that says it will not turn back around. We need to sustain our positive direction, particularly in this sector, particularly as we move toward the 114th Congress.

I am proud that Congress last year passed a 2-year budget to create some stability and some certainty for our country and economy. We have gotten out of the way and allowed our businesses and workers to do what they do best, to move our economy forward. In the next few days we will have chances to do the same when we vote on a number of bills, one that, most importantly, will keep our government running, not for a few days or weeks or months, but the overwhelming majority of this government will be authorized and funded through next September.

The funding bills that are included in this omnibus continue investments in innovation and continue to move our country forward. There is a whole rash of bills that I have been interested in and engaged in as a member of the Appropriations Committee that are valuable programs, that will strengthen manufacturing--for example, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which has done amazing work on the ground in Delaware, helping small and medium manufacturers to be competitive, to train their workforce in current skills, to grow into the spaces of the world economy where we have real opportunity. This bill will help sustain the funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership nationally.

There are several other programs related to innovation in the Department of Energy. For example, sustained funding for the ARPA-E, for an innovative model that helps fund cutting-edge, category-redefining research and investment in energy and in clean energy manufacturing and in technology deployment.

There are also opportunities for us to continue to put Americans to work through investments in infrastructure. As someone who lives on Amtrak 16 hours a week, I am thrilled with the outcomes for both the Amtrak budget and for the TIGER grant programs, a tool used by the Department of Transportation to help incentivize innovative transportation projects that break through bottlenecks and help put Americans back to work.

There are so many different ways that the work of this bipartisan committee, the Appropriations Committee, helped move our economy forward that at times are not focused on here on the floor or in the general press coverage. It is such a large and comprehensive bill, the omnibus. But I wanted to take a moment and highlight a few ways in which the omnibus invests in innovation, in competitiveness, and in moving our economy forward. I am also grateful, in some ways most importantly, that it includes emergency funding to respond to Ebola, both at home and abroad, which will be critical to helping stamp out this deadly virus at its origin in West Africa and in protecting Americans here at home and others around the world.

The appropriations bills that were shepherded through the dozen subcommittees give us reason to be optimistic about the future because the Chair, Senator Mikulski, and the Vice Chair, Senator Shelby, have done a laudable job of listening to each other, of working together, and of crafting a bipartisan bill here in the Senate, which I hope the Members of this body will study, consider, and move forward and adopt.

As we move to complete the business of funding the government, we would be remiss if we did not also take stock of the opportunities in front of us we have not yet grasped. There is unfinished work to

be done. This week we will also almost certainly pass a 1-year tax extenders bill, which will carry forward certain temporary tax credits and deductions, but for just the 1 year.

Although the extension for many businesses and many sectors is better than nothing, it signifies a missed opportunity on our part. Much of what has made me optimistic over the last year is how much our economy has begun to thrive in a stable fiscal environment, in a more predictable regulatory environment. Yet, this 1-year extension does not do much to give businesses the certainty they need to predict and plan for the future.

I have worked hard with Democrats and Republicans alike to expand and make permanent the research and development tax credit, which is particularly relevant to manufacturing, because manufacturing is the most R&D-intensive sector in the American economy. Manufacturers invest more in R&D than any other part of the American landscape. This 1-year extension misses an opportunity to either make the R&D tax credit permanent, or to make it more accessible.

I was excited to have the opportunity early on here to team up with two Republican Senators, Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Pat Roberts of Kansas, to find ways to make the R&D tax credit more accessible to early-stage and startup companies, companies with high growth potential, but because of the way the R&D tax credit has been structured and used for decades, do not have the opportunity to access it.

The Startup Innovation Credit Act, which I introduced with Senator Enzi, would have further expanded the access to the R&D credit for startups. The bipartisan Innovators Job Creation Act, which I introduced with Senator Roberts, would have expanded the credit to innovative small businesses as well. Both of those bills passed on a bipartisan basis out of the Finance Committee and were part of a package being advanced here in the Senate but will not be part of the ultimate 1-year extenders considered later this week.

I wanted to highlight that as we look forward there are opportunities still in front of us for us to tackle the challenges and to seize the opportunities, to take things that are important to manufacturing and to move them forward. There are lots of other bills in the mix that will be adopted this week, either by unanimous consent or as part of larger packages, and a number of them relate to manufacturing. I am optimistic that we will adopt a national manufacturing strategy bill that I have worked hard on with Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois. I am optimistic that a bipartisan manufacturing hubs bill that Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri have worked hard together to craft and to hone and to get to a place where it is ready to be passed--that they both will make it across the finish line to the President's desk.

But just this past week, I stood on this floor with Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and we spoke about a bill that is not yet ready for adoption, but we will take up next year, the Manufacturing Skills Act, which helps to focus and prioritize the investments in manufacturing skills training at the State and municipal level all over the country in partnership with the Federal Government.

What I wanted to do today was to simply highlight a few perhaps underappreciated, underrecognized areas of legislative action on a bipartisan basis in this Chamber that helped put some lift under the steady forward progress of the manufacturing sector in our country and to express my hope that we can find ways to continue to work together on a bipartisan basis to keep our economic momentum going in the year and the Congress ahead.

TRIBUTE TO DEPARTING SENATORS

As I close, I would also like to thank those of our colleagues who will be leaving the Senate after the New Year.

It is an incredible privilege to work in this Chamber and to represent the people. Every day I am awed by the dedication and talent of many of my colleagues, public servants who come to work to fight for their States and their government.

To those who are ending their service in the Senate, know that I value your friendship and partnership. It has been an honor to work with you, and I thank you for all you have done for our Nation.

I yield the floor.

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