Keystone XL Pipeline Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alaska. I am certainly tired of hearing about deflate-gate. I don't know if our bantering on the floor can keep the focus on the real talent of the football team and the individuals, but I certainly want to say that she has proven she is a true 12, and that is important to us in the Northwest. I thank the Senator for her comments.

We are here today to continue the debate on the Keystone XL Pipeline, and I see my colleague from Vermont is here, and he probably wishes to give comments about his amendments. Hopefully we will be voting later today on the various amendment proposals we discussed yesterday. We will be talking to Members about other amendments they would like to see on this legislation.

Before I turn it over to Senator Sanders, I wish to draw focus for a few minutes to the fact that this process, debate, and discussion about the protection of environmental issues, property rights, and environmental laws is incredibly important in the United States of America. I say that because I want to submit for the Record two news articles that just came out today. One is entitled ``Montana oil spill renews worries over safety of old pipelines,'' and the other story is headlined ``Cleanup Underway for Nearly 3M-Gallon Saltwater Spill In ND.''

The reason I bring that up is that as we are sitting here today discussing whether we are going to override current environmental law and give special carve-out exceptions to a foreign company to basically build a pipeline through the United States of America, the fundamental question in my mind is, What is the hurry in giving them exemptions to these various laws as a way to get the pipeline built? These are things U.S. businesses don't get. They don't get these exemptions and they certainly don't get the U.S. Senate voting to basically override the President's authority--I should say to pass a bill that would basically prohibit the President from using his authority on what is in the national interest.

To me, the Montana spill in the Yellowstone River is similar to our current pipeline debate on Keystone XL and whether we have the right safety provisions in place. So, if anything, we should be discussing what we can do to further pipeline safety in the United States of America and not let a foreign company roll back existing U.S. laws on environmental issues that they should be complying with.

This is such a beautiful part of our country, and this article talks about how oil is floating 28 miles downstream from the Poplar Pipeline spill. This is an issue we should be really thinking about.

I get that there has been an explosion of both tar sands and Bakken oil. The question is not are we going to rush to try to help these companies override rules; the question is whether they comply with rules and whether the United States of America has enough protections in place to make sure the safety and security of our citizens as this new opportunity and explosion of product is occurring.

I can say from my perspective in my State, I have worked with practically every city council in the State about how they want new safety regulations for crude oil transported by rail--something they are very concerned about, given the explosions that have happened on oil railcars.

Again, regarding this particular issue, I know my colleague from North Dakota thinks that somehow this alleviates the Northwest from having trains go through there, but I assure him it doesn't. So we will still have concerns about the safety of our citizens as more crude oil is being transported by rail.

But we shouldn't now be trying to exempt a foreign company from complying with U.S. laws; we should be saying they should follow the rules. In the meantime, we should be asking the NTSB--we should be asking our agencies--whether there are enough safety protections in place, given the large amount of crude that is now moving and the issues we have seen as a result. There is nothing more important to me than protecting farmers and landowners to make sure they are actually treated fairly, and to make sure that resources such as clean water are protected.

Just because the discussion has been going on for a long time doesn't mean we should overrule existing environmental laws and exempt a foreign company from complying with it. I would rather them follow the rules all the way through the process.

So, with that, I yield the floor. I see my colleague from Vermont is here to discuss his amendment.

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, speaking against the Lee amendment, I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this because it is an amendment relating to oil and gas permits on Federal land. I guess if colleagues want to keep trying to loosen environmental regulations, then maybe they should support this amendment.

This amendment would impose new limitations on the Secretary of the Interior and their ability to process permits for drilling and provides a waiver for the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act if necessary reviews have not been completed by an arbitrary deadline, and it waives judicial review of these actions.

So I encourage my colleagues to oppose this amendment.

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I will speak for the Senator from New Jersey, although this is a foreign policy question in general.

Let me say this: In the next 10 years, 50 percent of the new buildings that are going to be built in the world are going to be built in China. They are the most energy-inefficient buildings on the planet. So when we reached an agreement through the President of the United States to work together as a way to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gases, guess what is going to win. American business, American product, and we are selling it to them because we have an agreement to work together to be more energy efficient.

So I don't want to slow down this President or any President in cutting deals to get U.S. products into markets because they agree we need to deal with this issue. Please don't slow down the ability to get U.S. product into foreign markets. Oppose the Blunt amendment.

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Ms. CANTWELL. I know our colleagues have been working throughout the day on these amendments, and I applaud them for their cooperation. As the Senator from Alaska said, oftentimes these needed side-by-sides--people need to see these. We have various committees that have been involved in these amendments, so I appreciate the patience of our colleagues.

I think going back and forth tonight on getting another set of amendments pending is a good idea because we have many Members on our side who have amendments they are very interested in having votes on. I appreciate them being here tonight. So I call on Senator Cardin to offer his amendment.

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