Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss our truly bipartisan sportsmen's bill. This is a bipartisan bill which has been worked on for quite some time, and I think its time has come. They say Paul Masson's wine's time has come. It has. We have Senators Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, Mark Heinrich from New Mexico, Jim Risch from Idaho, myself from West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp from North Dakota, and Deb Fischer from Nebraska. It is balanced. I think we will find total support hopefully on both sides.

Let me talk about the bill and what it does. It is good for sportsmen, hunters, and lovers of the outdoors. This is a bill which shows that Democrats and Republicans can truly come together and work together. The bill should be a model for how we can make things work here in Washington, and we hope the country will be watching.

West Virginia has more than 1.6 million acres of public land open to hunting. In a State that is our size, if they flatten the State, it would be bigger than Texas. But with all the mountains and hills and everything, it is an absolutely wonderful and beautiful place to grow up and live and hunt and enjoy the outdoors.

We have a year-round fishing season with more than 20,000 miles of streams and more than 100 public fishing lakes. In 2011 West Virginia saw more than 400,000 hunters and sportsmen supporting more than 12,000 jobs--400,000 hunters supporting 12,000 West Virginia jobs. These sportsmen spent $870 million on hunting and fishing in West Virginia and generated $81 million in State and local taxes. That is an industry within itself. In a small State such as ours, we are very appreciative of every job and every dollar that helps us provide a better quality of life.

Let me tell you about growing up in West Virginia. It was funny. I had a conversation on the floor of the Senate with some of my colleagues, and we were talking about many issues. We started talking about how we grew up and this and that, and he said: You know, Joe, I grew up in a community in a part of the city where I never knew anybody who owned a gun.

I was thinking how much he missed. That means he had never been hunting. No one ever taught him how to shoot and be safe--the safety things we should learn. I kept thinking about that. I thought to myself and I told him: You know something, I grew up in a town where I didn't know anybody who didn't have a gun. It is just the cultures we have.

If this bill helps introduce people to the love of the outdoors, to the sporting, whether it is just shooting from the standpoint of targets or sports shooting or actually hunting and basically the game-- it is very nutritional and very healthy. Venison is a big staple of the diet in West Virginia. It is very good quality meat and very low in fat, very high in protein and fiber. It is great.

You start learning about gun safety. My father was not a hunter. My father never got into it. My grandfather was not a hunter. My uncles were very much involved. But my dad made sure we had a sporting club in the little town, a little coal mining town, and the people who were very astute in this basically took all of us under their wing. They would teach us how to shoot. They would teach us the safety. They would teach us how to respect where we--if we are going to shoot something, we should be able to harvest the game or know somebody who would use it for nutritional values. Don't waste a thing. But also go out in the woods and enjoy the beauty God gave us. I look back on those days.

Then I took my grandson hunting the first time. First of all, I couldn't believe how good his eyesight was and how good he could shoot. It is something that now he is fixated on, and he does a great job, and I am so happy to see him. My son loves fishing, and I take him with me all the time. It is a family tradition. We do it once a year. We do a whole family trip where everybody goes.

This bill, the Sportsmen's Act of 2015, does so many things all over America. It really helps us promote and continue to promote the love of the outdoors, the love of hunting, the love of fishing, basically of sports shooting, competitive sports shooting, pleasurable sports shooting, learning the safety of a gun, what we should and should not do, learning to respect others around us, making sure safety is the first and foremost thing we do.

I hope this bill gets very quick action, very favorable action. We can start out this new year, if you will, on something that is truly overwhelmingly a bipartisan bill. I am sure there will be people who have something they might object to in any piece of legislation. They will have to work hard to find something in this bill they can object to because I think it is put together the right way, in a bipartisan way. It is good for America.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss our truly bipartisan sportsmen's bill. This is a bipartisan bill which has been worked on for quite some time, and I think its time has come. They say Paul Masson's wine's time has come. It has. We have Senators Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, Mark Heinrich from New Mexico, Jim Risch from Idaho, myself from West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp from North Dakota, and Deb Fischer from Nebraska. It is balanced. I think we will find total support hopefully on both sides.

Let me talk about the bill and what it does. It is good for sportsmen, hunters, and lovers of the outdoors. This is a bill which shows that Democrats and Republicans can truly come together and work together. The bill should be a model for how we can make things work here in Washington, and we hope the country will be watching.

West Virginia has more than 1.6 million acres of public land open to hunting. In a State that is our size, if they flatten the State, it would be bigger than Texas. But with all the mountains and hills and everything, it is an absolutely wonderful and beautiful place to grow up and live and hunt and enjoy the outdoors.

We have a year-round fishing season with more than 20,000 miles of streams and more than 100 public fishing lakes. In 2011 West Virginia saw more than 400,000 hunters and sportsmen supporting more than 12,000 jobs--400,000 hunters supporting 12,000 West Virginia jobs. These sportsmen spent $870 million on hunting and fishing in West Virginia and generated $81 million in State and local taxes. That is an industry within itself. In a small State such as ours, we are very appreciative of every job and every dollar that helps us provide a better quality of life.

Let me tell you about growing up in West Virginia. It was funny. I had a conversation on the floor of the Senate with some of my colleagues, and we were talking about many issues. We started talking about how we grew up and this and that, and he said: You know, Joe, I grew up in a community in a part of the city where I never knew anybody who owned a gun.

I was thinking how much he missed. That means he had never been hunting. No one ever taught him how to shoot and be safe--the safety things we should learn. I kept thinking about that. I thought to myself and I told him: You know something, I grew up in a town where I didn't know anybody who didn't have a gun. It is just the cultures we have.

If this bill helps introduce people to the love of the outdoors, to the sporting, whether it is just shooting from the standpoint of targets or sports shooting or actually hunting and basically the game-- it is very nutritional and very healthy. Venison is a big staple of the diet in West Virginia. It is very good quality meat and very low in fat, very high in protein and fiber. It is great.

You start learning about gun safety. My father was not a hunter. My father never got into it. My grandfather was not a hunter. My uncles were very much involved. But my dad made sure we had a sporting club in the little town, a little coal mining town, and the people who were very astute in this basically took all of us under their wing. They would teach us how to shoot. They would teach us the safety. They would teach us how to respect where we--if we are going to shoot something, we should be able to harvest the game or know somebody who would use it for nutritional values. Don't waste a thing. But also go out in the woods and enjoy the beauty God gave us. I look back on those days.

Then I took my grandson hunting the first time. First of all, I couldn't believe how good his eyesight was and how good he could shoot. It is something that now he is fixated on, and he does a great job, and I am so happy to see him. My son loves fishing, and I take him with me all the time. It is a family tradition. We do it once a year. We do a whole family trip where everybody goes.

This bill, the Sportsmen's Act of 2015, does so many things all over America. It really helps us promote and continue to promote the love of the outdoors, the love of hunting, the love of fishing, basically of sports shooting, competitive sports shooting, pleasurable sports shooting, learning the safety of a gun, what we should and should not do, learning to respect others around us, making sure safety is the first and foremost thing we do.

I hope this bill gets very quick action, very favorable action. We can start out this new year, if you will, on something that is truly overwhelmingly a bipartisan bill. I am sure there will be people who have something they might object to in any piece of legislation. They will have to work hard to find something in this bill they can object to because I think it is put together the right way, in a bipartisan way. It is good for America.

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

Madam President, I rise in opposition to what seems to be a politically motivated Department of Homeland Security funding bill that we had to vote on. Funding the DHS should be a priority of Congress. It really should be. I know it is for all of us, and we cannot afford to play any of the political partisan games. It is not what people in this country want see. It doesn't do any of us justice whatsoever. We jeopardize the funding for third largest agency in the country that will risk lapse in not only our border security, which is most important to all of us, but also cyber security, also Secret Service protection, disaster response, FEMA, TSA in airports. Our Nation faces many threats from our enemies, both overseas and here at home, more so than ever before.

The world is a troubled place. We all go home and the No. 1 thing people are concerned about is the security of our own Nation. They see this evil going on, and now this horrific, barbaric action we saw that took place with the Jordanian pilot is unimaginable to us, that people could act this way to other humans.

With that being said, we have to stand united in supporting our values and protecting our citizens in the United States of America. This is not the forum for debate on immigration, and I have said that. I would hope some of my colleagues would feel the same way. We should fully fund the DHS, and this is one that has necessary levels that must be funded for the protection of our country. Then we can deal with our immigration system which is broken. I think we have stated that in the Senate. We have stood bravely, we voted, and we did changes and took some tough votes that needed to be made.

I agree with all of my Republican colleagues that our borders need to be secure. I don't think any of us disagree with that. It has to be secured first and then must stem the tide of illegal immigrants flowing into our country. We have seen them coming in all different sizes, races, and sexes. It continues to be something we should be concerned about.

I also agree with my Republican colleagues that President Obama should

not have executed action--he should not have used his Executive action to make changes in our immigration system. I think we should have doubled down and gotten this bill before us and get the House. I disagree with the House's decision not to even take up the bill we sent. In a bipartisan fashion it was debated on this floor, put together by Democrats and Republicans.

I have been here for 4 years. I haven't seen a bill worked more intensely than the immigration bill. I haven't seen the border security worked more intensely and Republicans and Democrats working together to make sure we have a Homeland Security that will secure our borders. That is the first time I saw the Senate truly work since I have been here and saw what the potential would be if we worked together. I was very excited about that. I thought for sure we would get a vote. Now we are back to the same, putting together who is for what and how we are going to posture on this one. I believe this is not the place and this is not the bill for us to get into a political squabble. I don't.

I know the House put us in a difficult position. It came over here, it had to be voted on, and it was. Now we have to get on to serious business. How do we take care and make sure our Department of Homeland Security has the necessary funding through an appropriations bill that both Democrats and Republicans worked on, not for another continuing resolution which does not let our different branches that are responsible for Homeland Security be able to upgrade and fight the battle we need to fight.

When we think about all of the new equipment that is needed for our forces out there, our National Guard, also our Coast Guard, what they need to be updated and upgraded to and the things that have been planned, it will only happen through a bill we pass on this side. It will not happen through a continuing resolution bill. It will be the same as we have had. The status quo will not change.

I am willing to work with all of my friends in here to have a good, clean Homeland Security bill that does the job and protects the United States of America. I am not willing to do a bill that will jeopardize the security of our homeland, which is what I think we have received. I think we can do better than that.

I urge all of our colleagues to work together to get a piece of legislation that helps protect America and keeps America safe and also puts the emphasis where it needs to be. That is what the people back home in West Virginia expect. I know people in New Hampshire expect the same from the Presiding Officer. I know we can deliver, working together in a bipartisan way, putting America first and not our politics. That is what they expect. I hope we are able to rise above this, and we will get through this. I think we will get to a clean bill that basically secures America and keeps us safe.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to honor Storer College, a historic educational establishment that truly left a significant imprint on the history of our State and our Nation.

Located in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle in beautiful Harpers Ferry, the legacy of Storer College began following the Civil War. It was established by the Reverend Dr. Nathan Cook Brackett and philanthropist John Storer of Sanford, ME, whose goals were to create a school that was open and accepting of all students regardless of gender, race, or religion.

Particularly now, during Black History Month, it is fitting to recognize such a tremendously important endeavor as Storer College because it had such a significant impact on civil rights in the decades following the Civil War. This educational institution was a constant refuge for former slaves who found themselves without the necessary skillsets to lead marketable lives. Attendees were taught how to read and write, but they also gained a sense of purpose.

John Brown's raid is largely considered the motivation for the school's creation in Jefferson County, as the 1859 rebellion liberated countless African Americans in the area. Frederick Douglass, also a trustee of Storer College, once spoke at the school about John Brown and the raid's significance.

On October 2, 1867, Storer Normal School opened its doors with 2 teachers and 19 attending students. Under the leadership of Henry T. McDonald, Storer converted into a college in 1938.

Storer College set the groundwork for integrated education across the rest of the Nation. For many years, it was the only school that allowed African Americans to acquire an education past elementary school.

By the end of the 19th century, our Nation faced another battle marked with Jim Crow laws and legal segregation. To combat these injustices, many brilliant leaders in the African-American community created the Niagra

Movement, a precursor to the NAACP. The second meeting of the Niagra Movement was held at Storer College in 1906. It was supported by such leaders as W.E.B. Du Bois, William Monroe Trotter, and Booker T. Washington.

In 1954, legal segregation came to an end with the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. the Board of Education. This decision, while revolutionary across our Nation, also brought an end to Federal and State funding for Storer College, and regrettably, its doors closed a year later.

Today, though no longer a learning institution, the National Park Service continues the college's mission to welcome individuals of all backgrounds by using the campus as a training facility. It continues to serve as a staunch reminder of triumph over injustice.

As we reflect on Storer's history, it is important that we continue to pass down this legacy for future generations because it remains relevant in so many ways to this day.

Mr. President, I wish to honor Pastor Matthew Watts, a dear friend and a truly inspiring West Virginian whose ministry career spans more than three decades.

I have personally known Reverend Watts for many years now, and he truly embodies what it means to be a great West Virginian. He is a man of deep conviction and unwavering passion for justice. He is an uplifting force to many and a role model to many more.

I have known Pastor Watts for many years, and as the former Governor, the reverend would visit often and bring me his thoughts, suggestions, and ideas. I always appreciated his sincere candor and genuine interest in improving our state.

As a native of Mount Hope, located in beautiful Fayette County, Pastor Watts currently serves as senior pastor of the Grace Bible Church of Charleston. He is a graduate of the West Virginia Institute of Technology with a bachelor of science in civil engineering, which led to a 20-year career with the Union Carbide Corporation. His theological study and training from the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago and the Christian Research and Development Center in Philadelphia, combined with his years of experience in corporate America, have blessed him with a vitally unique perspective on economic development.

In December of 1996, he left Union Carbide to pursue his ministry and focus on community service projects. A year later, he established the HOPE Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit organization with the mission of empowering inner-city communities through spiritual renewal, education, employment training and economic development.

With this perspective, he developed Kingdom Management Consultants, which assists minority owned businesses with startup and expansion, as well as provides supportive strategies to those seeking employment.

His active community involvement has truly set the standard in West Virginia throughout the years. Much of his community service is still done through the HOPE Community Development Corporation, which now has a branch specifically for youth.

Reverend Watts always amazes me with his unique ability to relate to strangers. While he is strong in stature and his voice is so commanding, his approach is dynamic, sincere, and composed.

His years of unwavering service and leadership have certainly not gone unrecognized. In 1996, he received the West Virginia Small Business Administration's Small Business Advocate of the Year Award. In 2002, Pastor Watts was awarded the Washington Times Foundation Leadership Award for Faith Based Organization of the Year. He was also the 2004 recipient of the Crown of Peace Award for Exemplary Leadership in Reconciliation and Peacemaking from the Inter-religious and International Peace Council.

Pastor Watts is a strong leader, mentor, and friend to so many within West Virginia. It takes a truly remarkable individual to accomplish so much in community service. Particularly now, having just celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and as we near Black History Month, it is fitting that we should celebrate such an inspiring individual as Pastor Watts. His community service programs have empowered countless minority groups within our State and are sure to continue the tradition of excellence for many years to come.

Mr. President, we can all agree climate change is real and that 7 billion people have had an impact on the climate. We have a responsibility. We can all agree we need to

act to address the potentially devastating impact of climate change. The Energy Information Administration predicts the United States will continue to rely on fossil fuels for almost 68 percent of our energy through 2040. That is right, the Department of Energy.

My amendment basically says that right now the only baseload fuels we have are coal and nuclear and that is going to expand to natural gas.

What we are asking for is we need a Federal commitment from the President to Congress to invest in the research and development of fossil energy so we can use the cleanest and most environmentally responsible way possible and find that technology to do it so we are responsible.

My amendment does recognize these facts. I ask for a ``yea'' vote and appreciate your support.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 minute to reply.

I am asking for unanimous consent.

Mr. President, is any time remaining at all?

First, I thank the Senator from North Dakota, my friend, for taking the lead and working with me so closely. I am very excited about the process, the open amendment process.

We are learning a lot in debates, a lot of good ideas are coming out of this. When all is said and done, we will have a better piece of legislation. That is what this is all about.

Let me make sure everyone understands this is not all about pipelines. If this is about an XL pipeline or any other pipeline, we wouldn't have a hundred thousand miles of pipeline in America already. Since the Industrial Revolution we would not have built all the pipelines needed to carry the energy that we need to run this country. This is not about pipeline.

This is about the concerns we all have with greenhouse gas emissions and the development of the oil sands in Canada--nothing to do with the pipeline.

With that being said. We have to be very clear that Canada is going to develop the oil sands whether or not the Keystone pipeline is built. That is a fact, and we have talked about this.

The State Department--our own State Department in this great country of ours, the United States of America--has conducted five environmental assessments of the Keystone Pipeline and have found in all of them that the project will not have a significant impact on the environment. Now these are the things we have to be cognizant of.

The State Department also found the pipeline is unlikely to significantly affect the rate of extraction in Canadian oil development. That means whatever we do here is not going to change the rate of development in the oil sands.

The State Department also examined alternatives to the proposed XL Pipeline. These alternatives included what would happen if no action were taken at all. Let's say we do nothing here; that nothing comes about with this pipeline. Likely, the crude would be shipped westward by rail or by tanker. That is happening today. So they are going to ship it anyway. And if that continued, it would be considered no action. If we take no action here and don't build this pipeline for whatever reason, the greenhouse gas emissions--which we are all concerned about, and our debates are about that, really--will be between 28 to 42 percent higher if we do nothing.

So those people who are concerned about greenhouse gas emissions should say: Well, OK, why do we want to contribute to more? The pipeline decreases that. If we don't do it, we have 28 to 42 percent more emissions by how we will move this oil. So the pipeline addresses our energy security limits, and I have talked about that before, and our dependence on foreign oil.

I have said this many times. We all are entitled to our opinions, and I think we are all going to hear all those opinions in the next couple of weeks. But what we are not entitled to is our own set of facts, because the facts are what they are. I have said this before, and I will repeat it again, and I will continue to repeat: We buy, as of the 2013 figures from the Department of Energy's EIA, we--the United States of America--buy 7 million barrels of crude oil a day. Whether we like it or not, we are buying it. Now, I am sure people say: I wish we didn't. Well, that is what it takes for our economy to run. We are buying that oil--7 million barrels a day.

Then we need to look at where the oil is coming from. If you are upset with Canada producing oil, we already buy 2\1/2\ million a day from Canada right now. We are already dependent upon Canada for 2\1/2\ million barrels a day.

We also buy oil from other countries, and I think we should all question why we are buying oil from these other countries, especially when we look at Venezuela. We buy 755,000 barrels a day from Venezuela. They are an authoritarian regime that impoverishes their citizens. We know that. They violate their human rights and have shown their willingness to put down political protest with horrific violence. Yet we are supporting that by purchasing a product from them which they then use the resources from to continue this type of regime.

The same here: In 2013, we bought 1.3 million barrels from Saudi Arabia. Now I don't know about my colleagues, but I question whether the resources from that or the proceeds from that oil that we paid Saudi Arabia for were used for the betterment of the United States of America, for our best interests. I have my doubts about that.

We also buy over 40,000 barrels a day from Russia. I don't need to say anything about what is going on there. I think we all know that.

The Keystone Pipeline would allow us to safely import more oil from a stable ally and one of our best trading partners. In fact, it is the No. 1 trading partner of 35 of our 50 States in the United States of America. Our No. 1 trading partner is Canada. It is also the most stable regime we have, the best ally we have ever had.

The pipeline will have a final capacity of a little more than 800,000 barrels a day. So right there we could stop buying any oil from Venezuela or cut down dramatically the amount of oil we buy from Saudi Arabia and become less dependent. We can continue to produce energy in North America while stabilizing global supply as well as benefiting Americans and our allies.

In fact, last year, one of President Obama's former national security advisors--one of President's former national security advisors, Retired Marine Gen. James Jones--told the Foreign Relations Committee:

The international bullies who wish to use energy scarcity

as a weapon against us all are watching intently. If we want

to make Mr. Putin's day and strengthen his hand, we should

reject the Keystone.

Let me repeat that:

If we want to make Mr. Putin's day and strengthen his hand,

we should reject the Keystone. If we want to gain an

important measure of national energy security, jobs, tax

revenue and prosperity to advance our work on the spectrum of

energy solutions that don't rely on carbon, it should be

approved.

So you have to decide which side you are on. Do you want to make Mr. Putin's day or do you want to find alternatives and use all of the above and be less dependent on foreign oil?

In addition to our national security interests and energy independence, this bill will also create thousands of jobs. I think we have talked about that. I hear the argument: Well, yes, but they are not going to be permanent. You know, we have built a lot of bridges in America, a lot of infrastructure, and a lot of roads. I don't know of any permanent jobs we have after we build a bridge, but we have a lot of good construction jobs when we are building the bridge. I don't know of any permanent jobs after we build a road, but we have a lot of good construction and high-paying jobs. And when you start looking at that, the building and construction trades, the teamsters, the AFL-CIO, all of our friends of working Americans, the middle class--the hard-working Americans--support this piece of legislation. They want these jobs.

Our own State Department says it will create about 42,000 jobs to construct the pipeline and thousands of other related jobs. So why don't we seize the opportunity?

We talk about amendments. This is an open amendment process. A lot of my colleagues, a lot of my Democratic colleagues on my side of the aisle, have some great ideas and I am going to work with them. I agree with my Democratic friends that companies shipping oil through this pipeline should pay the excise tax to the oilspill trust fund. There is no reason they should be exempted from these payments. I am going to work with them to put that amendment in. It is a good amendment and it will strengthen the bill. That is what the amendment process is about.

I agree also with my colleagues on the Democratic side that any steel needed in the future on this product should be bought from American steel companies. That is great. That is promoting more jobs in America: Buy American steel. Don't let them dump on us. We should be supporting American jobs.

I also agree with our friends we shouldn't export any of our oil abroad. If that oil comes to America, it should be subjected to the same laws as all the oil that is extracted in America. So if we extract in the Balkans, if we extract in Texas, we treat them all the same. Those are all good amendments.

I would like to think this process will strengthen a piece of legislation and hopefully give us 68, 70 votes. That would really give us a good piece of legislation for the American people.

We have been promised an open amendment process, and I am so thankful for that. This presents an incredibly valuable opportunity to accomplish some of our Democratic priorities--some of our Democratic priorities that we talk about all the time on my side of the aisle. I believe the process will improve the bill, and I hope to convince my colleagues to support this important piece of legislation.

Let us get the needed votes we need to make sure we move our country forward, become less dependent on foreign oil and more self-sufficient and more secure as a nation.

I thank the Chair.

I say to the Senator, he is absolutely correct. I thank him for this opportunity not only to work with him but also to bring the facts forward.

We have heard many times: We are all entitled to our own opinions, we are just not entitled to our own facts. If you start looking at what we are consuming today in America, at last count 7 million barrels of crude oil is purchased every day in America from other countries--7 million barrels of crude a day. So this line would possibly furnish 830,000 barrels of that dependency that we have.

Let's look and see where it comes from right now. Mr. President, 2.5 million barrels we are already purchasing from Canada--our best, greatest ally we could possibly have; the best trading partner and the No. 1 trading partner that 35 of the 50 States have. So it is not an unknown there.

But let's look at where we are purchasing some of the rest of the oil from. We purchase 755,000 barrels of heavy crude a day from Venezuela. Let's look at Venezuela, where it is an authoritarian regime. It impoverishes its citizens. It violates their human rights. It shows its willingness to put down political protests with horrific violence.

We also purchase 1.3 million barrels a day from Saudi Arabia. We all have our concerns about Saudi Arabia and a lot of the money we follow goes into the wrong hands. Forty-two thousand barrels a day from Russia--from Russia. We know their intent and what they have been doing with their energy policy. Their regime has invaded its neighbors and they armed pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.

So when we start looking at what we are doing, those are the facts. This is not just hearsay. It is not just rumors. These are facts. We purchase 7 million barrels. When I first was approached on this 4 years ago when I came to the Senate, they said: What do you think about the Keystone Pipeline that will be bringing oil from Canada into America?

I said: Where I come from in West Virginia it is pretty common sense. We would rather buy from our friends than our enemies. I would rather support my friends, my allies, my trading partners more so than I would the enemies who use anything I buy from them--the money they receive from that product that I buy from them and use it against me.

It is pretty common sense, not real complicated. I know everybody is trying to make this complicated. Also, they talk about--we just had a caucus talking about what would happen to the oil. I know the Senator has been watching this very closely. But they said the Keystone Pipeline will strictly be just an avenue and a vehicle for exporting this oil out. They are just going to use America to bring that oil through.

We checked into that a little bit further. That is not true. Even the Washington Post gave it three Pinocchios that said it was untrue. We found out, basically, the crude oil from Canada is expected to be mixed with the domestic oil from the Bakkens, from the Senator's region, North Dakota, and that the Canadian oil is a heavier crude, similar to Venezuelan oil. It will be mixed with the light crude from the Bakkens, which enables it to flow much easier and be produced. Once it commingles, this oil is basically American oil. It lives and dies and basically is marketed with the policies of the United States of America. Our policy is not to export crude oil.

So I do not know why people are using this argument and scaring people that we will get no benefit. Then we talked about the jobs. They said there is not that many jobs. In West Virginia, you give us 42,000 jobs. We would be very appreciative. We will thank you. These are all high-paying jobs. They said: Well, they are only contract jobs.

But yet I hear everybody talking, Republicans and Democrats, about building roads and building bridges. Those are also seasonal types of jobs. Those are also contracting jobs. They are not permanent jobs, but we are tickled to death to get them. That is the whole trade union. All the unions that I know of are supportive of this piece of legislation. Every working man and woman whom we keep talking about who supports themselves and their family supports this legislation.

Why we are running into such a roadblock I have no idea. Then when we put the map up--the other map we had. I said: When I first heard about this pipeline, I thought it was an anomaly that we did not have many pipelines in America. Then we put up this map. This is what we have in America today. So this is not foreign to any of us in any State we have pipelines, many in West Virginia and all through this country.

Then we look at public support. We think: Here we are Democrats and Republicans. We look at the polls, and we live and die by the polls, they tell us, or we should. But the bottom line is that if we do believe in the polls, this has been a consistent poll. It has not varied for over 5 years. We have not seen the numbers fluctuate that much.

Overwhelmingly, we have Americans in all aspects of the political realm--whether you are a Democrat, Republican or an Independent--who overwhelmingly support this pipeline. So I cannot see the objections to it. I was very disappointed when the President said he would veto it-- or the White House once we said we would go through this process.

I think the Senator and I talked about this. We thought this is going to be an open process. I was encouraged by my colleagues on the Democratic side who have some good amendments, I believe, that should be considered and I believe would pass and enhance the bill. We only need four more--four more Senators on my side of the aisle who can see the benefit of a good bill, a good process with good amendments to strengthen this bill, to put us in a position that is veto-proof.

That should be our goal. Basically, we should not be deterred by the White House or the President saying already that they are going to veto this bill. Let's see if we can make this bill so good that when we are finished with this product and this process 2 or 3 weeks from now, we will have a product that basically we are all proud of, that the American people are proud of and will support, and maybe, just maybe, the White House will change its mind.

I am hopeful for that. I appreciate all the effort and work. We are working very well together. At last count, we had nine Democrats working with our Republican colleagues. That puts us at

63. I am hopeful to get four more at least that will look at the virtues of this and the assets and what it will do for our country.

My main goal is this: Energy independence makes a secured and protected Nation. Anytime we do not have to depend on oil coming from other parts of the world--and the resources we give them when we purchase their product, they use those resources against us time after time again. We can see now, with the oil prices dipping, the benefits the consumers in America receive, the strength that gives our country.

I am so thankful for that, that we are getting a break. I think we can continue to make that happen for many years to come if we are able to be smart strategically in what we do today. I think the Senator spoke about the environment. He might want to touch on that again. But most of this oil is being produced now, some way or another, and it is also getting transported in different ways and means.

The bottom line is there is no significant environmental impact. I think the State Department has even done five studies that show that to be true. I said also 2.5 million barrels a day are being purchased from Canada today. Refineries in Illinois are now refining this product. They said we should not do it. We have been doing it for quite some time. We are using this product. With technology we are using it better. It has helped us be more independent of foreign oil.

That is No. 1, the security of our Nation. Being an American, and for West Virginians, the security of our Nation is first and foremost what we support. That is why I think we see a tremendous amount of people from the Mountain State, I say to the Senator, who support this piece of legislation.

We are going to work diligently. We have a long way to go, but I think the facts are on our side. We are all entitled to our opinions, but we cannot change the facts.

Mr. President, I rise today to voice my opposition to the spending bill we are being forced to vote on. I am not voting to shut down the government. I am voting to negotiate on a bill where we are at least able to participate. I am voting to stay here, work with all my colleagues on a better bill, and put an end to the dysfunctional process we are forced to endure every year. I have read through the bill, and I am sure everyone can find something in here that they like.

I certainly have some items in the bill that will help my little State of West Virginia. But there is just too much waste, too much taxpayer risk, and too little transparency for me to stomach.

In the 4 years I have been in the Senate and on the Armed Services Committee, I have heard from officials on the damage done by the sequester and how it has cannibalized the Armed Forces. And yet, while DOD officials were forced to absorb across-the-board cuts in 2013, I have made it a point to ask if they are being forced into projects they don't want or need. This bill, however, completely ignores what the Department of Defense has said.

We are wasting $5 billion on Department of Defense spending that the Pentagon did not ask for and does not need. They didn't ask for some of these ships, tanks and airplanes, but we are forcing them to purchase those projects anyway. And not only are we wasting this money, but we are denying it from other important programs that desperately need those funds.

In this bill, we gut hard-working Americans' pensions, and instead of using the $5 billion to fund the Care Act, which ensures that the UMWA's Pension Plan remains solvent to benefit miners who have helped power this Nation, we give the Pentagon tanks and ships and planes they don't need or even want. We have seen our political process become more corrosive than ever in recent years.

We have already seen the negative effects that the Citizens United ruling has had on our elections. It has allowed unlimited and dark money to distort the records of our colleagues, flood our airwaves with negative advertisements and shrink our campaigns to sound bites instead of ideas.

And what does this bill do to address this? It increases the limits for individual contributions to political parties by 10 times the current limit--10 times. The current limit of $32,400 was already too high for most West Virginians and Americans to be able to take full advantage. The new limit of $324,000 is inconceivable for the vast majority of Americans. That means that our political process will only be available to a small number of wealthy individuals who will have more influence on our government than the hard-working Americans we are sent here to represent.

Main Street America is still hurting from the fallout of Wall Street's greedy behavior. Americans lost 8.8 million jobs and our GDP fell by at least $7.2 trillion. We lost a generation of jobs and economic progress. And while our economy is still trying to recover and millions of Americans are still out of work, Wall Street has seen record profits.

Instead of working to help our small businesses, community banks, and credit agencies, this bill allows Wall Street banks to go back to the same risky behavior that drove us into the great recession in the first place. If we pass this bill, we will allow Wall Street banks to trade risky derivatives and once again force American taxpayers to bail them out if they lose their bets.

Haven't we learned our lesson yet? If big banks want to trade in risky derivatives and act with greed, then they should bear the cost of their mistakes, not the American taxpayer.

Mr. President, I understand omnibus bills are made out of negotiation and compromise, but negotiations start

with participation. Here, most Members of the Senate were not even consulted on this bill, nor was there an opportunity to offer amendments.

Senator Robert C. Byrd, a man who defined what it meant to be a representative of the people and one of the most dedicated and passionate United States Senators to date, told me what it was like to work in the Senate before the process was broken. Upon arriving in the Senate, I assumed those same rules of conduct applied until Members here in this body explained to me just how much has changed.

We used to consider individual appropriations bills that were carefully deliberated by committee members, and then we brought those smaller bills to the floor and were given an opportunity to offer amendments and debate the bill in a timely, proper manner. Somehow, the Senate process has gotten away from the days of regular order. Instead, here we are today, where we were given two days to read a 1,600-page bill loaded with provisions that we cannot even amend.

Since we are forced to consider this bill as a whole, I have determined that it is simply too flawed for me to support.

I urge my colleagues to stay here another week and truly draft a bipartisan omnibus package that fairly represents American values.

Mr. President, I rise with honor and pleasure to be able to say thank you to my dear friend. I am the most junior Member, besides the Presiding Officer, in this body today. When I first came to the Senate, I asked to be on the Armed Services Committee. West Virginia has a proud heritage of an awful lot of people--percentage- wise probably more than most States--having served in all of the branches of the military. So that is very near and dear to me, and our National Guard is very near and dear to our State. So there were many reasons why I wanted to be on the Armed Services Committee.

When I got here, it was one of the most toxic times of the political arena, if you will. It was not what I expected, to say the least. And seeing the toxic atmosphere that I came into, people would say it didn't used to be this way; it used to work. The process worked. The whole aura of the Senate was there, and we are losing that. That was their excuse for telling me that is why it is not working today, but it used to work.

Then I became part of this committee called the Armed Services Committee with this unbelievable chairman whose name is Carl Levin. I watched and observed. I didn't say a whole lot at first because freshmen aren't supposed to, but I watched and I learned and I saw the system the way I imagined it probably was 20, 30, 40 years ago when it did work. I saw the Senate, and I was thinking, Why can't the rest of the Senate work the way the Armed Services Committee works? There is one reason. We don't have enough Carl Levins. We just don't have enough Carl Levins.

Carl Levin is practical, reasonable, and sensible. It made sense to me what he would say.

Just recently I have had difficulties on a piece of legislation that is very important. Carl spoke to me in terms that my father would have spoken to me, and I understood very well: State your opposition, record your opposition, and look at the whole situation as the betterment and the good of the bill, which is better than basically this piece that you oppose. He said I could explain my opposition.

Carl Levin would say this, too. He would say: Listen, I can't tell you what to do. I can't tell you what to do. Really, you have to do what you think is right, but let me give you some points to think about. He has been an unbelievable mentor who will give us the ability to kind of process this whole system we are in.

Let me say this, Carl. I am sorry that I didn't have the honor and the opportunity and the pleasure to serve with you for many more years. I really am. Or I am sorry I didn't get here soon enough, whatever the case may be. But the Senator from Michigan has left an impression on me as to how this place should work.

Robert C. Byrd, my predecessor, felt as passionately as you do. There is a process here and there is a reason for the process, which is to make us talk to each other, to make this place work. There should never be a situation we would get into that is important to the American citizen or this country where we can't work it out and can't get at least 60 votes. There should never be a time that we cannot get 60 votes. If we do that, then basically just changing a rule is not going to change the attitude and the atmosphere we create. I believe very strongly in that. And I appreciate the Senator's fight.

In the hills of West Virginia, we have a saying: They are good people. You meet somebody and someone says, They are good people.

Carl, you are good people. Thank you.

Madam President, I rise to address American military involvement in the Syrian civil war and our strategy for protecting America and our interests in the region.

I would first like to say that I am adamantly opposed to extending authority to provide funding to train and arm Syrian rebels. That authority is provided in the defense authorization bill that we are considering today. I voted against it in committee, spoke against it on the floor in September, and raise my objections to it now.

I do not know where the Syrian rebels' allegiances truly lie or if they will remain our allies once the Syrian civil war comes to an end. What I do know is that once our military begins to train and equip Syrian rebels of uncertain provenance, we will have put ourselves on a path that leads inevitably to regime change and nation-building in Syria. Such a course defies the lessons of American-led Middle Eastern nation-building over the last twelve years. And I cannot in good conscience justify to the people of West Virginia why we should continue down this path.

Before we commit more of our country's blood and treasure, we should acknowledge that after more than a decade of war, trillions of taxpayer dollars spent, and over 7,000 American lives lost in that part of the world, we have not established the pro-western representative democracies that were once envisioned. But that doesn't mean we can't protect ourselves.

While I caution against repeating the mistake of Middle Eastern nation-building, I reiterate my strongest support for our military, intelligence, and law enforcement professionals who are today defending Americans at home and abroad from the kind of vile atrocities perpetrated by ISIS. These professionals demonstrate every day that we have the means to identify terrorists and prevent them from doing harm to America.

If I thought that sending military trainers and weapons into Syria would further that end or would make Americans safer, I would support doing so. I do not. I reiterate what every Member of this body certainly believes, which is that we can and should take any necessary action to prevent a direct threat to the United States. But I firmly believe that protecting America does not require nation building in Syria.

Yet our military involvement in Syria and Iraq continues to grow, though to what end no one is certain. Because Congress has not had a robust public debate about our strategy in the Middle East, nor made hard decisions about what our military response should be.

We know that ISIS is a threat to Americans in the Middle East as well as to friendly nations and our allies there. But we have not debated whether entering another war is in our national interest.

One of the reasons this debate has not yet happened is that the President has not submitted to Congress a request for authority to use military force against ISIS. Instead, what is happening in Syria is basically this: the White House is relying on a decade-old congressional authorization that allows military force against al-Qaeda and is using that as its legal justification for attacking ISIS. Well, the world is changing, and we ought to be adapting our policies with it.

My colleague Bob Menendez is pushing forward with an AUMF of his own. This week the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed out of committee an AUMF that gives the President authority to go to war with ISIS, but which prohibits ground troops. This is a first step, and I look forward to debating the AUMF on the floor of the Senate.

But we should be debating this military authorization in the context of the President's Middle East strategy, which we have not yet seen because I believe we have a moral duty to have a full debate before we send any more Americans into harm's way.

Two important things are going on here. The first is that Congress is moving closer to give legal authorization for the President to conduct strikes against ISIS. The second is that the President is also pursuing a scheme to arm and train Syrians, which will certainly lead to regime change and nation building. It is therefore critically important that the President tells us clearly and plainly not just what the objectives of the military mission are--to degrade and destroy ISIS--but how he plans on doing so without putting us back into an open-ended war.

I support, as all my colleagues do, any action that prevents attacks on American property or persons. But before we commit more of our Nation's blood and treasure to political reform and religious settlement in the Middle East, we should consider the lessons of our decade of war there.

History has taught us that militarily training and arming Syrian rebels of uncertain provenance will put the United States on a path that leads inevitably to regime change and nation-building in Syria. Such a course defies the lessons of the American-led military operations of the last twelve years.

For these reasons I am adamantly opposed to sending American troops into Syria to further escalate a ground war that I do not believe is in the best interest of America or the region.

I ask the President and my colleagues in the Senate to allow us to give the American people the public debate they deserve, before we find ourselves again in an open-ended war in the Middle East.

First of all, there is not a whole lot that needs to be said that hasn't been said, but one thing I want to say to my dear friend Tom Coburn is that he made Washington happen for me, if you will. He made it more tolerable. I had a hard time in transitioning. Tom reached out. He saw that. We talked about this before, but Tom made this place more palatable.

Tom, you have expanded my area of friendships with more people than you know and the right type of people, and I appreciate it I think more than you even know.

I will end with this, and I don't mean to say a lot. I have been asked about Tom Coburn. How would I explain him? Tom Coburn's got soul. Tom Coburn's got soul. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart, brother. You have soul, and I thank you for what soul you brought to this place.

God bless.

All of us came here at one time or another, and the first impression you have is how they kind of ingratiate you and bring you into the

fold. I am often asked--I am sure most of our colleagues are asked the same question--whom do you consider your best and closest friend and whom do you associate with and whom do you feel comfortable with? In any category, without a doubt, it is always Mary Landrieu. We come from a similar background--rural States. We come from the same culture-- hard-working people who basically don't ask for an awful lot and give a lot more back. Both of us come from large Catholic families, and we have an awful lot in common. We and our spouses have bonded, and we have done things together. That was the way I heard the place used to work, that you build relationships and there is camaraderie and you share dinners at people's homes. It is such a different atmosphere when that happens because you really do forge a bond that is so much missing in this body.

Let me say one other thing. The great losers in this whole election process we just had were the great people of Louisiana. They lost a champion. They lost a fighter. That is what Senator Merkley said. There is nobody who said: I think you ought to be careful about that because I think Mary is interested. We knew there could be problems.

With that being said, the best thing to do is to go talk to Mary on this subject or issue, and we would work through it. How do we compromise and bring everybody together? And Mary would say: We will work through it.

Coming from an energy State and Mary having an energy State and the two of us being Democrats, on our side sometimes our individual caucus is not as large as we would like for it to be--let's put it that way-- but we talk an awful lot about how we are moving an energy policy. As Mary said, we need it all in this country. We should be totally energy independent. We shouldn't be looking to other countries and buying their products and giving them the resources to be used against us, and we don't have to do that. We can do it in a sensible and balanced way with the economy and the environment. Mary has always had the economy and environment first and foremost. That type of balance is hard to find, and it is definitely hard to find in Washington.

So I just want her to know that there is nobody who is going to miss Mary Landrieu more than I, being in this body, going shoulder to shoulder with her and trying to bring an even keel to this whole process.

Mary, I feel for the people of Louisiana. I truly do. I am hoping somebody can come along and have the same spirit and fight that you have, but no one is going to be able to replace you and what you have been able to do and what you have been able to make us aware of.

My little State was involved in helping Katrina, helping the State of Louisiana. The State of West Virginia came immediately. When that happened, we were so proud to be part of that, and we now have a lot of people from Louisiana living in West Virginia today because of that effort.

There has been a wonderful relationship and a wonderful friendship, but more importantly, there has been a wonderful person who has graced the Halls in this tremendous body for 18 years who will not be replaced in this Senate and this body. Again, the people of Louisiana should be extremely proud to have someone who is a fighter, who gave every drop she had of public service for her State and never forgot where she come from. So with that, that is a tremendous tribute in itself.

I say to my dear friend, thank you for your service on behalf of the great State of Louisiana. Thank you for all the important work you have done for our country. God bless you, and I love you.

Mr. President, first I thank my colleague for giving me this time, and I acknowledge the hard work he has done.

Weiss Nomination

I represent the great State of West Virginia. It is a rural State where we believe in commonsense solutions and values. In the Mountain State, we understand the importance of leveling the playing field for community institutions and helping small businesses create and keep jobs. As a Senator from West Virginia, I was sent here to represent the people of Main Street. For those reasons, I rise today to explain why I must oppose the nomination of Wall Street investment banker Antonio Weiss to be Under Secretary for Domestic Finance at the Department of the Treasury.

I cannot and will not support his nomination because I do not believe he possesses the characteristics and the background we need in an Under Secretary to push for strong Wall Street oversight and to protect our small

businesses and financial institutions on Main Streets all across America.

The position to which Mr. Weiss has been nominated is one that would put him at the head of the Treasury's decisionmaking on issues of domestic finance, fiscal policy, government liability, and other related domestic matters. He would oversee critical issues such as Wall Street reform, financing the national debt, housing finance reform, and small business credit. I have serious doubts that Mr. Weiss has the right experience to take on such a role.

It is clear that as the global head of investment banking at Lazard, Mr. Weiss is very talented and experienced in working in financial markets and economic institutions, but as an investment banker on Wall Street, he does not have the experience for this particular oversight position. He has dealt almost entirely with European investment banking, not domestic finance or community banking or regulatory issues of any kind, all of which fall under the jurisdiction of this important position.

Besides not having the right background for the job, the fact that Mr. Weiss is a top corporate dealmaker with a specialization in international financing is in itself troubling to me. He has spent a good deal of his professional career working on mergers and acquisitions for the world's largest corporations. He has spent time in Paris running the firm's European division. There is not a thing wrong with that, but this fits the administration's pattern of choosing Wall Street insiders for senior policy positions instead of those with strong consumer protection or community bank and credit union experience, plain-spoken people who have worked on Main Street.

To make matters worse, the substantial compensation Lazard plans to offer Mr. Weiss upon his confirmation is another reason to be very skeptical. The financial giant is planning to pay him $20 million if he can win confirmation and come into government service. This kind of arrangement and human nature suggests he will be especially sympathetic to Lazard's lobbying efforts. Public service is a noble cause. A $20 million golden parachute makes it very hard to gain the public's trust.

With that being said, I do not believe Mr. Weiss can fulfill the duties of Under Secretary of the Treasury Department.

Since joining the Senate banking committee, I have tried to make our banking and financial system work better for small businesses, banks, and middle-class West Virginians and Americans. I will continue to do so. That is why I cannot support this nomination. Mr. Weiss does not have the experience for this particular job.

It is important to send a message that we will no longer allow Wall Street to exclusively make our fiscal policy decisions, especially when they affect so many around this country on Main Street. Economic and banking policies have too often been made without the input of our Nation's midsized banks, community banks, and credit unions. We must strive to have a balanced view of engaging voices on all sides of these important issues. By confirming Mr. Weiss as the Under Secretary, we are putting Wall Street before Main Street. We have already seen from the 2008 crisis how that harmed the Nation as a whole. We do not need to repeat that picture again.

I yield the floor.

First, I would say I have only been in the Senate for 4 years. When I came, let's just say it was not what I expected. For that, you look for a little bit of respite, if you will.

I looked at my colleagues and my friends on the Republican side. I didn't come to the Senate looking at what side you were on. I looked at basically the person I was dealing with.

There was a person who befriended me almost from my first day, knowing that the transition was a challenge. He stepped up to the plate with a few of my other friends over there--I see Senator Coburn behind him--and basically took me under the wing and said: Listen, we can all work together and get along. What we do here is bigger and for the greater good than what we do for ourself.

Saxby not only showed me, but basically I was able to follow and watch what he did. This Chamber should be filled right now--it really should be from all sides--but the bottom line is the Senator is loved by everybody. I never heard an ill word said about Saxby Chambliss, the distinction he carries as far as the Senate and as a human being.

I say to the Senator, your family and your priorities are correct. Your moral compass is working and working well. I can only tell you thank you. As someone from the other side of the aisle and as a fellow colleague and a fellow American, you are an inspiration to us all.

Saxby, there will not be another Saxby, but I am glad they gave you to me for this short period of time of 4 years. Some of you--I look at Johnny, and I envy Johnny. For 52 years he has been your close friend.

There is your partner in crime back there, Senator Burr. We hope he doesn't tell it all when he gets up.

But with that being said, there are so many people who have a relationship that is unmatched and that is because of you.

I say, my dear friend, my hat is off to you. Thank you, and God bless you for what you have done for the United States of America, for Georgia, but most importantly for all of us. Thank you.

Let me just state to all of my colleagues on all sides of this issue, I appreciate this very much. It is a great debate. It is a great way for us to learn of our differences and try to find the middle, if you will.

I come from the little State of West Virginia where basically the people are pretty commonsense, if you will, oriented. They look at something from the standpoint--our greatest trading partner in our State of West Virginia is Canada. Thirty-five States in the United States look at Canada as our favored nation to trade with. We have been doing more trading than ever before. We will continue to do so.

I am coming at this from security. How do we remain secure as a nation? How do we become less dependent? If you look at what is going on in the world, maybe it will give you a picture of what we are dealing with, the facts of life.

We all want to use the technology and we all can, through research and development, improve our technology to use the resources that are going to be used that the world has produced for us in a cleaner fashion. With that being said, I do not look at Keystone as being an export pipeline. Even the State Department's environmental impact statement states that export is unlikely to be economically justified for any significant time. Cost-to-market conditions dictate that this oil will go to domestic refiners and will be used in our country, the United States of America.

By getting more Canadian oil, we can displace oil that we currently get from less reliable and sometimes hostile countries. Let me read for you how much oil we import right now; How dependent are we on this foreign oil? We should look at basically--of the 7.7 million barrels per day of crude oil imports--mind you, we are getting 7.7 million barrels per day into our country. I understand the pipeline's capacity would be about 870,000 barrels. That is the capacity--if they used the entire capacity. So we are getting 7.7 million barrels per day. Let's see where it is coming from. When you look at that, 3.5 million barrels per day or 45 percent comes from OPEC countries. Of course, Saudi Arabia is our largest OPEC supplier at 1.3 million barrels per day, 17 percent of the crude import total.

But our biggest supplier of crude continues to be Canada. It is already our biggest supplier. We are afraid that this is somehow going to tip the balance? Let's look at some of the countries that we get this oil from on a daily basis, the 7.7. Of course, we talked about the OPEC countries. But Venezuela, Colombia, Nigeria, Angola. These are not the model citizens of how they treat their citizens in their country, the humane treatment that goes on.

With that being said, those countries I just mentioned, the five countries, that is 1.57 million barrels a day we buy from those countries. So, yes, I am looking at it from the standpoint that this has pulled us into conflicts around the world where we should not be.

We have all said we have been pulled into these countries, been pulled into war because of oil. I think we all agree on that. This gives us a chance to be more secure as a nation and more independent from foreign oil. That is what we are talking about. The global supply of energy relies on oil producers in deeply unstable regions. I think we all agree on that too. In West Virginia, it just makes common sense. Would you not rather buy from your friends than from your enemies? Would you not rather buy from people who basically help your economy and are not willing to do harm to your economy or harm to your people? This makes sense to us in West Virginia. We would not be standing here having this debate right now if it had not been for your good Senator and our good friend from Louisiana, Ms. Landrieu. It would not have come up. It would have been moot. It might have gone in the next Congress. Who knows? I just appreciate so much Senator Landrieu being able to bring this to the forefront today. I really do. Whether we win or lose it does not matter.

Basically the American people will lose if we do not pass this piece of legislation. If for whatever reason it is not passed, we are going to be more vulnerable, more insecure, more dependent than ever before.

It is one thing to live in a perfect world--Utopia. Some of my colleagues have talked about that. I appreciate that. But the bottom line is, it is not the real world. The real world we are living in--I have talked about coal too. There are 8 billion tons of coal being burned in the world. People say: Well, I do not want to use coal in America. That is fine. If you quit using every kind of coal in America, you are not going to change the environment that much. But on the other hand, there will be more coal burned than ever before. We do not want to build any more coal-fired plants in America. We are done. That is fine. Twelve hundred new coal-fired plants will be built around the world in the next 3 to 4 years. Would not it be better to find the technology--would not it be better to have control of that, be able to have a whole other industry around the technology that uses the coal cleaner not just in America but around the world?

Would it not be better to have control of this oil coming to the gulf coast? If we have control of it, it will be used here. The fear tactic is that it is going to go somewhere else in the world. Markets will dictate where everything goes. But the bottom line is, we use most of Canada's oil now. They are the largest exporter to our country.

So all we are saying is to take a good, hard look at this. Think before you vote today, my colleagues, of what we are doing and what we are doing for the security of our Nation, what we are doing for the best trading partner we have ever had. That oil is going to go somewhere. It is being shipped now in a highly unstable type of condition that is more vulnerable. It takes more oil to move that product today than ever before. Pipelines are by far the safest way to do it.

I have said this: If we can move oil in the most demanding and probably the most hostile, if you will, environmental conditions that we have as far as nature produces in the Arctic, and we as the United States benefit by that oil that is being produced in the Arctic by us in America, for all of us in the lower 48, if they are able to, do you not think that it can be done here?

I look at it from the standpoint that they are saying enough is enough.

I thank Senator Landrieu for bringing the bill to the floor, for having a very informative debate that we can move forward on. I would hope that my colleagues would see fit that the United States of America will benefit, the security of our Nation will benefit, wars could be prevented and conflicts around the world. Maybe we could use our might, if you will, to help other parts of the world without having to fight, defend, and liberate from that standpoint.

But I do not believe that we should be in parts of the world where we are today because of the oil that we have been chasing. I believe that by having our own ability to work with the best trading partner we have, which is Canada, that would definitely benefit the security of our Nation. I look forward to this vote this afternoon or later this evening, whenever it may come. I enjoy the debate that is going on and the information I am gaining. I look forward to a more spirited debate for the rest of the day.

With that, I yield the floor.