Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that floor privileges be granted to Jimmy O'Dea, a fellow in my office, for the remainder of the 114th Congress.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The House is now considering the funding bill for fiscal year 2015, and the risks of not passing it are extremely high. But tucked into this must-pass bill is yet another attempt by Republicans in the House of Representatives to gut Dodd-Frank. What is really scary about this is that this is just the beginning. We can expect much more of this in the 114th Congress.

Dodd-Frank was designed to reduce the systemic risks that large banks posed to our financial system. It was meant to prevent another taxpayer bailout of these massive institutions that were and continue to be too big to fail. By chipping away at Dodd-Frank we are once again letting special interests prevail over the safety of the financial system and protection for consumers.

There were many roots of the financial crisis, but economists agree that the unregulated and pervasive trading of derivatives was a major contributing factor. We permitted financial institutions to gamble and regulators looked the other way. When these financial institutions made bad bets and nearly took down the financial system, we had to bail them out on the taxpayers' dime. Working families who are struggling in a slow economic recovery are still paying the price.

So one of the goals of Dodd-Frank was to get the banks to go back to doing the normal business of banks--to collect deposits and extend credit. That means no longer allowing banks to leverage FDIC-insured deposits and their access to the Federal Reserve for speculative trade. In part, Dodd-Frank accomplished this through the swap push-out rule. The swap push-out rule, which is section 716 of Dodd-Frank, makes federally insured institutions move their swap trades into a separate uninsured entity that does not have access to the Federal Reserve discount window or other fed assistance. These trades are incredibly complex and risky, and there is no public policy justification for the government to effectively subsidize them.

Before we even passed section 716, the biggest financial institutions were able to water it down. They wanted exemptions for swaps for ``hedging purposes'' which could be interpreted to mean a wide range of activity. But that was not enough. Now they want to do away with section 716 by making the exemptions so broad that the rule becomes meaningless.

Let's be very clear. This change primarily benefits the five biggest financial firms in the country. They account for well over 90 percent of swap transactions. These activities net them over $4 billion in profits. Before the crisis, swaps brought in over $7 billion. One of these firms actually wrote the language in the House bill. These financial institutions and their lobbyists know what they are doing, and they are doing just fine. They know that when something as important as funding of the government is on the line, they can convince Republicans to slip their priorities into a must-pass bill at the last hour. But again, this is just the beginning. Make no mistake about it. This portends much worse things when it comes to the Republicans taking over the majority in the Senate and the 114th Congress.

This is a big problem because we have been down this path before. We know where it leads. We let risk build in our financial system before, and the fallout was disastrous for our economy and the well-being of working families. It is on us to hold back against special interests. We have a responsibility to protect the public from this attempt to roll back Dodd-Frank. We cannot take our eye off the ball. We have to continue to guard against systemic risks in our financial system, and we have to put a stop to the practice of holding the government hostage over the pet issues of special interest groups.

The House is in a recess subject to the call of the Chair, and they are trying to round up votes for the omnibus spending bill which contains this provision. But they have another option. They can strip this provision. If they find that they don't have sufficient votes, they don't have to pass a 3-month continuing resolution. They can simply remove this provision from the omnibus bill which was negotiated in good faith with both parties in both chambers. Remove this provision, and I have no doubt we will have a resounding bipartisan supermajority in both Chambers. We should remove section 716, and pass the omnibus properly.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 1067 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 4199 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 363, S. Res. 413.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Coons amendment to the resolution, which is at the desk, be agreed to and the Senate proceed to vote on the resolution, as amended.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Coons amendment to the preamble be agreed to, the preamble, as amended, be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Intelligence Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 4681 and the Senate proceed to its consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the Feinstein substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time, and the Senate proceed to vote on passage.

I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 616, H. Con. Res. 107.

I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported amendment to the resolution be agreed to, the resolution, as amended, be agreed to, and that the committee-reported amendment to the preamble be agreed to, the preamble, as amended, be agreed to, and that the committee-reported amendment to the title be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I understand that S. 2992, introduced earlier today by Senator Gillibrand, is at the desk and I ask for its first reading.

I now ask for its second reading and object to my own request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, December 10, 2014; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; and that following any leader remarks, the Senate resume consideration of the motion to concur in the House message to accompany H.R. 3979.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Madam President, I rise today to oppose S. 2280, a bill to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Keystone Pipeline would carry 830,000 barrels per day of tar sands oil bound for global markets from Canada to refineries along the gulf coast.

This is one of the most important points about Keystone, which is that it does nothing for American energy security. It takes tar sands oil from Canada, moves it through the United States, and makes it available to global markets. It does nothing for American energy security. But more than that, it represents a massive endorsement of a fossil fuel economy when we ought to be focusing on transitioning to clean energy.

There are many reasons to vote against this bill, but I will focus on four. First, the oil from tar sands is exceptionally dirty. I think for the American public out there, they have a basic instinct that oil is not the cleanest of energy resources. But tar sands oils are really in a special category. We do not need this oil enough to justify its impacts on health and climate change.

Mining tar sands oil is nothing like setting up a rig and drilling a hole in the ground. Tar sands are dirty in terms of the land destroyed, dirty in terms of the water wasted and contaminated, and dirty in terms of the energy needed to mine, transport, and process the oil. Getting and using oil from tar sands puts far more carbon pollution in the atmosphere than conventional oil.

When tar sands are near the surface, they are dug up along with all of the surrounding earth, including the forests that sit on top. Tar sands are a mixture of sand, clay, water, and a gooey form of petroleum that resembles tar. Think of it as a mixture of dirt and molasses, and imagine trying to separate the dirt from the molasses. If you think that sounds difficult, you are correct. After being mined, the thick sludgy mixture that remains is transported to facilities that separate the oil using multiple water and energy-intensive rinse cycles.

The water used in this process becomes contaminated, of course, with toxins, and is no longer suitable for other uses. Oil companies use massive amounts of water to mine the tar sands. In 2011, tar sands mining in Canada used more water than the entire city of Toronto uses annually, representing a significant new strain on freshwater resources.

This is simply not the direction to go in. We need to fight climate change and promote bold, clean energy solutions that do not present a constant danger of harming our health, our drinking water, and our economy. Why are we spending time today trying to approve something that quite literally takes us in the wrong direction?

This brings me to the second reason this pipeline ought to be rejected. It will have a direct, negative impact on the people and the communities that live in its path. The 875-mile route of this proposed pipeline has over 50 river crossings, including the Yellowstone River in Montana, which is still recovering from a major crude oil leak by an ExxonMobil pipeline in 2011. That pipeline leak contaminated 85 miles of the river and its flood plain, placing an enormous burden on families and the businesses that depend on it.

Pipelines transport oil, but they also leak regularly. The existing Keystone Pipeline system for Canadian tar sands leaked 14 times during its first year of operation, with one incident leaking 21,000 gallons. In its environmental review, the State Department estimated that the proposed Keystone Pipeline would fail several times a year. In 2010, a 6-foot break in a pipeline carrying oil tar sands spilled nearly 1 million gallons of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. This was one of the largest inland oil spills in United States history and also one of the costliest, with cleanup costs totaling over $1 billion. Households in the area were evacuated and told not to drink the water. Thirty-five miles of the river were contaminated, and the cleanup continued 4 years after the spill. One of the most troubling things about this spill and any future spills from Keystone XL is that the companies who own the oil take advantage of a loophole in the law that lets them avoid paying their fair share into the national Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. This trust fund has been in place for 30 years. The money in it helps to respond to and clean up after oilspills. Every barrel of oil produced or imported in the United States is charged 8 cents. The money goes into a trust fund. It is basically an insurance policy for events when companies are unable to pay for spill cleanup or in an emergency response situation. It makes sense.

What does not make sense is that due to this loophole, the oil from the tar sands in Canada is exempt from that 8-cent fee. Why would we vote for a bill that circumvents executive review of an international pipeline carrying the dirtiest oil in the world, produced in Canada, and headed mostly for world markets, and a bill that does nothing to close a loophole exempting oil from tar sands from having to pay a fee for environmental cleanup? In other words, how can this bill ask so little of the oil companies while giving them so much?

A third reason to reject this bill and this pipeline is the impact on climate change. The facts plainly show that we must reduce carbon pollution, not add to it. To take care of our energy future and build a clean energy economy, we have got to go forward, not backward.

If we are serious about leaving our children a healthy world, we will vote no and reject this pipeline. We know a majority of the public supports bold action to solve climate change. In recent years, no single issue related to fossil fuels and climate change has commanded the level of civic engagement as the Keystone XL Pipeline. Countless rallies, public hearings in cities and towns across the proposed route, lawsuits and debates in Congress reveal how much passion there is about this issue.

In fact, the pipeline was booed so loudly when advertised on the Jumbotron at a Nebraska football game that the university cut ties with TransCanada, the owner of the proposed pipeline.

Finally, the bill is flawed in terms of its process not only because of what it seeks to do but also because how it seeks to do it.

The bill would circumvent existing executive branch review. Because the Keystone XL Pipeline would cross international boundaries, the State Department is responsible for reviewing and deciding if a permit is in the national interest. The way it is currently written, this bill potentially limits State and local siting decisions, as well as some legal challenges.

It attempts to approve a pipeline that does not even have a finalized route, but does have lawsuits pending against it in the Nebraska Supreme Court. Congress should be focusing on the things that will have a positive impact on the economy and jobs. We have got to pass immigration legislation, we need to pass a defense authorization. Our CR expires on December 11. We need to move through the regular order in terms of appropriations. We should not be moving forward with Keystone

Mr. President, I rise to commend the historic agreement reached yesterday between the United States and China, the world's largest emitters of carbon pollution. This agreement is the latest and perhaps most consequential in a string of actions President Obama has taken to fight climate change.

Today, we have hope. We have hope because this agreement puts the world on a path towards solving climate change--hope because the world's two largest emitters have found common cause in protecting public health and economic opportunity for their citizens and for the world and hope because we are once again reminded what American leadership and political will can accomplish.

President Obama and President Xi of China recognize that climate change threatens our families, our jobs, our health, and our way of life. They deserve our thanks, as does Secretary Kerry, for their tireless work and dedication to this cause.

We can solve this. We know what we need to do, and we know how to do it. Today we see what political will can accomplish. I am now more hopeful than ever that we can keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. This is the level scientists say is necessary to stay below in order to avoid catastrophic global consequences.

Together our two countries account for about 40 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. We have a responsibility to act early and to act together, and this agreement puts us on that path.

The agreement recognizes that the United States and China must take short- and long-term measures to reduce emissions and encourage the development of clean energy. This represents a major shift for China, which had struggled to balance economic growth with growing pollution and has now agreed to cap carbon pollution for the first time ever. It is difficult to overstate what an important achievement this is, especially a full year before the next round of international negotiations in Paris.

As Secretary Kerry said today, this is a major signal to other countries that they should also put forth ambitious emissions reduction goals well before international negotiations start in 2015.

In addition, China has agreed to get a full 20 percent of its energy from zero emission sources by 2030. This means China will have to deploy close to 1,000 gigawatts of new zero emission powerplants. This is the amount of electricity the entire United States currently generates and shows just how serious China is about addressing this problem.

American leadership was crucial in forging these goals. It wouldn't have been possible without the President's Clean Power Plan, which will reduce emissions from the power sector by 30 percent relative to 2005 levels by the year 2030.

This agreement goes beyond even those ambitious targets, and in the coming months and years, it will be important for this President and the next to maintain and strengthen the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to protect Americans from harmful pollution.

Despite near universal consensus among climate scientists that the Clean Power Plan is part of the solution to fighting climate change, today that plan is under attack in Congress. Right after the President announced this historic agreement, climate deniers in Congress started rolling out every tired argument in the book. In fact, one of our colleagues here has already dubbed this plan ``unrealistic'' and called it an ``ideological war.''

These claims are the last bastion of a hopeless cause that ignores what we see all around us--from farmers to fishermen to small-town mayors. Theirs is an untenable position, because poll after poll shows that Americans do care about this issue. They care about it deeply. Americans care because they know fighting climate change is really about protecting their children's health, protecting economic opportunity, and leaving our children a world better than our own.

We are seeing the deniers' arguments collapse around them. One of their favorite tropes was to claim that U.S. actions are meaningless without action from China. Well, it looks as though that argument took a fairly big hit yesterday.

In fact, the U.S. did act first by developing the Clean Power Plan. The rules haven't even been finalized, but they are already giving us the leverage to reach major international agreements.

As excuse after excuse fails, we will see climate deniers retreat to tired claims that anything we do to reduce pollution will hurt the economy. But remember that we have heard these claims before. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.

The list is long, so I will mention just a few. Taking the lead out of gasoline, putting catalytic converters in cars, reducing acid rain, all were met with panicky claims of economic devastation. But what we have learned is that keeping our air and our water clean actually helps our economy.

This agreement between the United States and China is historic. It is a real breakthrough, and it gives us hope that we will be able to confront and resolve one of the greatest challenges of our time. But it is still just an agreement.

We need to follow through with action. We must listen to the American people and amplify their voices as they call for action to preserve our health, our economy, and our way of life.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.