Keystone XL Pipeline Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I wish to speak also for a few minutes about what an incredible process this has been. As the Senator from Alaska stated, this was all a very unique experience, coming to a new Congress and being the very first bill up and everybody moving to that discussion. So I thank the Senator from Alaska.

Let's just say both sides of the aisle tested people on amendments and the amendment process, but I would say it was the trust we could negotiate that got us through a couple of rough spots and the fact that I could count on the Senator from Alaska for negotiating and trusting what she had to say about how we could move forward in getting those votes and getting things done. So I thank her for that and I thank her for her leadership. I certainly can't wait to work with her on broader energy policy legislation, because while I think people probably still look at us as representing the States of Washington and Alaska, what people may not realize is how intertwined Alaska's and Washington's economies are. So if there is anybody who can find commonality on energy policy, even given the difference of our States and the differences on each side of the aisle, I think the Senator from Alaska and I will have a chance to do that. I think this process we just went through bodes well for us trying to say to both sides of our aisles that there are things we can put on the table and discuss and a process we can go through, and that process can work. So I thank her for that.

I look forward to the many initiatives--in fact, we just had a hearing this morning. I said, with two women heading up this leadership on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and two women staff directors, multitasking is front and center in the U.S. Senate. I don't think a lot of people would see either of us out in the halls making declarations. I think we just hustled our way to the floor to try to get things done. I hope that is what we can do as we move forward through this process.

I too wish to thank certainly Karen Billups on the majority side staff. I hadn't had a chance to work with her yet in this capacity and I certainly appreciated her steady hand on that. I want to thank on our side our staff director, Angela Becker-Dippmann. The very first day--like sometime in mid-January, I think--to come back to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and then have the first bill and have it right in front of us and not be totally staffed up, I certainly appreciate her leadership and her dedication to energy policy. Also, I thank Sam Fowler and David Brooks and Jared Leopold on my staff for their hard work on this.

I too have a list of staff that I wish to read quickly: Will Dempster, Clayton Allen, Renae Black, Elizabeth Weiner, Tara Billingsley, David Gillers, Al Stayman, Dan Adamson, Elizabeth Craddock, Nick Sutter, Aisha Johnson, Caroline Bruckner, Bryan Petit, Faye Matthews, and Carl Seip. There are also a couple of other people from my staff, Nicole Teutschel and Travis Lumpkin who also helped.

I really want to thank the floor staff. This is the first time I have managed a bill on the floor, so thanks to Gary Myrick and Tim Mitchell and Tricia Engle; and Reema in Senator Durbin's office, and Emma, thanks so much for helping us through a process that, as my colleague said, for the most part didn't take us way late into the night and we got a lot of things accomplished when we could during the day.

Needless to say, I am not as excited about the passage of this legislation as my colleague on the other side of the aisle, but we did find out some things during this process. We found out that the majority of the Senate doesn't think that climate change is a hoax. We couldn't quite agree on whether it is significantly caused by man, or just caused by man in some areas, but that was a step. We saw huge enthusiasm for energy efficiency. We saw that people were willing to accept voice votes or receive 95 votes on things that were energy efficiency items, so I think that bodes well for the Senator from Alaska and me thinking about more energy efficiency policy.

Obviously, I remain concerned about the holes in the legislation, everything from the things we didn't get to pass--the trust fund--and the fact that we still need to figure out oilspill cleanup processes on something like tar sands.

I appreciate the Senator from Alaska mentioning some of these issues as areas for continued work because we will definitely take her up on that process. And, certainly, we want to try to take up some of the issues our colleagues, such as Senator Peters, brought up and work on them moving forward. I hope this process, as it relates to this legislation--I hope our colleagues--coming from the State of Washington where we have so many coal trains and oil trains coming through our area, I wish the pipeline would be some remedy for us, but it is not. Even according to railroad statistics and other statistics, a pipeline is not going to make one dent in the number of oil trains coming to the Pacific Northwest. So the fact that the Commandant of the Coast Guard says we don't have a solution for cleaning up tar sands is something we want to work on and push forward on.

I hope we can get our colleagues around the fact that the number of crude oil incidents has been growing since 2009. It used to be we were having a decline and now, according to the Associated Press, we are seeing an increase; at least 73 different accidents in 2014, an 87-percent increase over 2009.

We are seeing these new sources being developed and new ways of transporting them, and huge acceleration, and I hope Congress will take a deep breath and get to these issues as it relates to safety and security outlined and into law. I hope we will have a chance to do that.

I still hope the President of the United States vetoes this legislation because, frankly, I want him to be able to negotiate. I want him to be able to negotiate with this company the terms and agreements by which this pipeline is going to be built. I want him to protect the American economy, I want him to protect the American farmers, and I want him to protect the American environment.

Again, I say to my colleague from Alaska that if she and I can get through these few weeks on a bill that a lot of our colleagues were predetermined on, but have so many different amendment discussions, then, yes, maybe it bodes well for a bigger bipartisan energy bill. I will certainly look forward to working with her on that.

I thank her for her leadership during a time period where she had many things on her plate, and this was just one of them. I hope we can get some of the issues we care about on our side of the aisle that I think really do lead to job growth, such as the energy tax credits, a focus on energy efficiency, and a focus of diversification also on the energy agenda.

With that, I yield the floor.

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