Floor Statements

Mr. President, as every Member of Congress knows, Americans are hurting, and after 5\1/2\ years of the Obama economy, they are getting pretty discouraged, as a recent CNN poll reported.

That ``pessimism,'' Erin Currier, director of the Economic Mobility Project at the Pew Charitable Trusts, stated in a recent CNNMoney article, ``is reflective of the financial realities a lot of families are facing. They are treading water, but their income is not translating into solid financial security.''

Unfortunately, Senate Democrats have responded to the economic instability facing so many Americans by essentially doing nothing. Instead of legislation to create jobs and expand opportunity, Democrats have tied up the Senate this year with politically motivated show votes designed to go nowhere.

Back in March the New York Times reported that Democrats planned to spend the spring and summer on messaging votes ``timed to coincide with campaign-style trips by President Obama.''

The Times reported:

. . . Democrats concede that making new laws is not really

the point. Rather, they are trying to force Republicans to

vote against them.

Democrats have certainly been following that playbook. This week, in their latest election-year political stunt, they will take up a designed-to-fail student loan bill. According to plan, it will be accompanied by some ``campaign-style'' stops by President Obama.

The Democrats' bill would do nothing to make college more affordable or reduce the amount of money students have to borrow, and it would do nothing to address the real problem facing recent college graduates; that is, the lack of jobs.

The Democrats' student loan bill would provide some former students with old loans a taxpayer subsidy which, based on Congressional Research data, would be worth about $1 a day. To provide this, their bill would raise income taxes by $72 billion.

Meanwhile, Democrats have conveniently ignored the fact that student loan repayment plans that could lower monthly payments by more than their proposal are already available to all students with Federal loans.

Republicans have student debt solutions, such as simplifying the student loan process so more students can take advantage of the affordable repayment options that already exist in current law, but young Americans need a lot more than student debt solutions. The best thing we can do for graduates is to help create jobs.

Young people in particular are suffering in the Obama economy. The current unemployment rate for those 16 to 24 years old is 13.2 percent--more than twice the national average. Unemployment among those 16 to 34 years old is 9.2 percent--significantly higher than the overall unemployment rate of 6.3 percent. Nationally, 6.1 million 18- to 24-year-olds are living below the poverty line, and 36 percent of young adults are living at home with their parents.

It is no wonder that CNNMoney reports that ``young adults, age 18 to 34, are most likely to feel the [American] dream is unattainable.''

What young people need is not a government subsidy but access to jobs, good-paying, full-time jobs with the opportunity for advancement, but those jobs are few and far between in the Obama economy.

While young people may be having the hardest time finding jobs, no one in the Obama economy is doing well. Nationwide, nearly 10 million Americans are unemployed, almost one-third of them for 6 months or longer.

The unemployment rate has hovered at recession-level highs for the entire Obama Presidency. Since the President took office, the average length of unemployment has increased from 19.8 weeks to 34.5 weeks. Approximately 14 million Americans have been forced to join the Food Stamp Program since President Obama took office, bringing the total number of Americans receiving food stamps to more than 46 million.

Meanwhile, everywhere families look prices are going up. Gas prices have almost doubled during the Obama Presidency. Food prices have increased, and the President's policies are just making things worse. Chief among the President's policy disasters, of course, is ObamaCare, which has driven up the price of everything from premiums to pacemakers.

The President told the American people his health care law would drive down health care premiums by $2,500. Instead, prices have risen by almost $3,700, and they are still going up.

ObamaCare has meant new burdens for just about everyone: higher premiums and deductibles, more expensive medications, fewer doctors and hospitals from which to choose, lost jobs, and increased taxes on businesses both large and small. Millions of Americans were forced off their health plans--the plans they were promised they could keep--and into the health exchanges, where they were frequently forced to pay more for plans they liked less.

Not content with the high health care bills, now the President is adding insult to injury by putting in place EPA regulations that will drive up electricity bills for all American families. The President's de facto energy tax will hit low-income families and seniors on fixed incomes the hardest. It will also slash tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of jobs. Coal plants will close, leaving their workers unemployed, and manufacturers will send jobs in America overseas to countries with more affordable energy.

The worst part is that President Obama's EPA regulations will devastate family budgets and the economy for nothing because the President's proposals will do almost nothing to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. As long as our country is acting unilaterally, there will be no meaningful effect on global emissions, but the President is pressing on anyway and apparently Americans will have to get used to their massive new energy bills.

The President's policies are having a devastating effect on American students, families, and the middle class, but instead of trying to make things better, the Democratic leadership in the Senate has chosen to take up gimmicky legislation, not to help Americans but to get Democrats reelected.

Yesterday a bipartisan veterans bill, which would address the systemwide VA crisis, was introduced in the Senate. The failures at the VA are a national embarrassment and a betrayal of our compact with our veterans. Congress has an obligation to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.

Today we could be discussing the best ways to fix our VA system. Instead, we are going to be discussing a bill designed not to improve things for Americans but to win the Democrats a few votes. Instead of proceeding to a student loan bill that was designed to fail, we should proceed directly to the VA reform bill.

The House of Representatives acted decisively to bring greater accountability to the VA 3 weeks ago. Today they are moving forward on a VA reform bill that includes many of the provisions of the bill that was introduced in the Senate last night. Now that we have a bipartisan VA reform bill in the Senate, we should be acting with the same sense of urgency.

If Democratic leaders in the Senate truly wanted to make things better for American families, they wouldn't be focused on gimmicky show votes. Instead, they would be working with Republicans to fix the VA crisis. They would back a repeal of the ObamaCare medical device tax, which has already cost tens of thousands of jobs and will cost many more if it isn't repealed. They would support Republican efforts to repeal the ObamaCare 30-hour workweek rule, which has resulted in lost hours and decreased wages for way too many workers in this country, and they would embrace legislation to halt the devastating EPA rules the President has proposed and protect millions of American families from crippling energy bills.

They would push--they would push for job-creating measures such as the Keystone XL Pipeline and the 42,000 jobs it would support or trade promotion authority for the President to open new markets to American farmers, workers, and businesses, and create those good-paying jobs.

We throw around a lot of statistics in the Congress--1 million people this, 10 million people that. It is important for us to remember the faces behind the numbers: the parents trying to figure out how they will afford to pay both their daughters' tuition and their new ObamaCare premiums, the college graduate who can't find a job and is currently living in his parents' basement, the single mother whose working hours have suddenly been cut because her employer can't afford to pay the ObamaCare mandate, a father who has been out of a job for months and can't get an interview anywhere.

These Americans need help, and the President's policies are not helping. The good thing is it doesn't have to

stay that way. We can get America working again, but it is going to take something different than the policies of the last 5\1/2\ years.

I challenge my Democratic colleagues to join us in passing real jobs legislation, the kind of legislation that will open a future of opportunity and economic security for all American families.

What college graduates don't need are political gimmicks. What college graduates need more than anything else are good-paying jobs with opportunities for advancement. That is what we should be focused on, not political show votes, not election-year sloganeering but real meaningful policies that will grow and expand our economy in this country and create the good-paying jobs our young college graduates need and that will lift more lower income families into the middle class.

That is what this Senate ought to be focused on. We can change to that focus, and we can start doing some things that will make this country stronger and provide a better and more prosperous and a more secure future for middle-income families.

I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum

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

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. President, the ObamaCare train wreck just keeps rolling on. Every day it seems there is another story about another ObamaCare failure.

Mr. President, 80,000 Oregonians must reenroll in health plans after the State's ObamaCare exchange site failed. The health care coverage of 2 million Americans enrolled on the exchanges could be in jeopardy.

The Congressional Budget Office says there have been so many delays and changes to ObamaCare that it can no longer estimate the fiscal effects of the law. And that is just the ObamaCare news from yesterday. The Democrats' victory lap is a distant memory replaced by the constant flow of stories about ObamaCare's many failures. Americans are losing their health insurance, Americans are losing their doctors, Americans are unable to obtain medications, employers are facing higher costs, and employees are facing higher costs. The list goes on.

The President promised that his health care law was going to be a solution for American families. If they liked their health care plans and their doctors, they could keep them. If they didn't like their health care or if they didn't have health care, they would be able to get an affordable plan. Those were the promises that were made.

Unfortunately, Americans quickly discovered those promises were not to be kept. Millions of Americans were forced off their health care plans and into the exchanges where they frequently found they were paying more and getting less. Too many Americans discovered their new health care coverage meant losing doctors and hospitals they liked and that their choice of replacement was limited.

When the President was campaigning for his health care law, he claimed families would see their health care premiums drop by $2,500. In fact, health care premiums have increased by almost $3,700 under the President, and they are still going up.

Middle-class Americans are hurting. The past 5\1/2\ years of the Obama administration have brought higher prices and fewer opportunities. Gas prices have almost doubled. Food prices have risen. Meanwhile, Americans' household income has declined by more than $3,500 on the President's watch. So Americans who once confidently expected to be able to put their children through college and retire comfortably are now struggling to make ends meet. Too many families are living paycheck

to paycheck, desperately praying they won't be faced with any unexpected bills. ObamaCare was supposed to make things better for these families. It was supposed to make health care more affordable and ease Americans' health concerns. Instead, it is making things much worse.

Today the Senate will vote on Sylvia Burwell's nomination to be Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. As much as Democrats might want it to be true, a change in personnel at the Department of Health and Human Services won't make the mess ObamaCare has created disappear. Changing HHS Secretaries isn't going to lower Americans' health care costs or give them back the doctor or the health plan they lost. It is not going to help the small businesses that are struggling under ObamaCare's burdensome mandates or restore the $1 trillion Americans will lose in wages, thanks to the health care law. It is not going to bring back the jobs that have been lost as a result of ObamaCare.

Every Senator who voted for this law owes the American people an explanation. Every Senator who voted for this law ought to be telling American families what he or she is going to do to fix this mess. Americans deserve better than ObamaCare, and we could give them better than ObamaCare, if Members of the Senate would decide this was the wrong approach and decide to go in a different direction. I hope eventually they will come to that conclusion.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor the 70th anniversary of the heroic landings of D-day.

The incredible bravery exhibited on June 6 of 1944, in the first phase of Operation Overlord to liberate Western Europe from the clutches of Nazi Germany, is one of the defining moments of modern history.

The images of American GIs landing at Omaha Beach, Utah Beach, and Pointe du Hoc have come to represent not only the great sacrifices made during World War II, but the enduring cause of freedom for which the United States still stands.

I have had the humbling experience of visiting the American cemetery at Normandy that honors those who fell during the invasion. As I walked the peaceful fields of brilliant white headstones in perfect formation, it was hard to imagine the terrifying landscape that greeted those American and allied soldiers, many of them not yet 20 years old, when they lowered the ramps of their landing craft in the shallows off of Normandy. Yet they understood the importance of their mission, and they held fast against one of the greatest evils the world has ever faced, and they prevailed.

The men and women who answered the call to serve in World War II and those who supported them on the home front are often revered as the ``greatest generation,'' and deservedly so. They gave up their lives and their livelihoods and endured separation from their loved ones and fought in unspeakable conditions.

From the beaches of Normandy to the islands of the Pacific, where my father served as a Navy pilot, the United States and allied forces fought for freedom and for the dignity of mankind, and we owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude.

As we honor the memory of those who served before us, we honor their legacy by upholding the values for which they fought.

We are here today because of the immense burdens our men and women in uniform have carried on our behalf. May we never forget their sacrifices or the solemn responsibility we have to all of those who have answered the call to serve.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, is the Senate in a quorum call?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded and that I be allowed to speak for up to 12 minutes in morning business.

Mr. President, everywhere middle-class Americans look, they are facing higher prices. Over the past 5\1/2\ years of the Obama Presidency, the price of everything--from milk to the refrigerator to put it in--has risen. Tuition costs have soared, gas prices have almost doubled, food prices have shot up, and then, of course, there is health care. The President claimed that health care premiums would fall by $2,500 under his health care law. Instead, they have risen by almost $3,700 during the President's administration, and they are still going up. The President's health care law has driven up the price of almost every aspect of health care, from premiums to pacemakers.

Americans are ill-equipped to meet these higher costs. Household income has declined by more than $3,500 on the President's watch. Nearly 10 million Americans are unemployed, more than one-third of them for 6 months or longer, and 19.4 million Americans have been forced to join the food stamp program since the President took office.

Our economy is simply not posting the kind of growth we need to open opportunities for middle-class families. Economic growth actually declined last quarter, and job creation is sluggish at best. Furthermore, the jobs we are creating are not the kinds of jobs Americans need to get ahead. Seventy-eight percent of the jobs that were lost during the recession were high- or mid-wage jobs, but just 56 percent of the jobs recovered have been the same.

That means almost half of the jobs we are creating are low-wage jobs-- not the kind that will get Americans to a more secure financial future.

Americans have had a tough time over the past 5\1/2\ years, and if the President has his way, it is about to get much worse. This week the President's Environmental Protection Agency announced a national energy tax that will drive up Americans' energy bills and destroy jobs while essentially doing nothing for the environment.

Coal is responsible for approximately 40 percent of our country's energy production and is a significant part of the economies of several States. Currently, there are nearly 560 coal-fired powerplants in the United States, but if the administration's new greenhouse gas regulations go into effect, a majority of them will close and no new plants will be built. That means energy companies are going to have to scramble for new sources of energy. With utilities faced with fewer and more expensive sources of energy, electricity rates will soar to unprecedented levels, and that will leave millions of Americans struggling to afford their energy bills.

What the administration has proposed this week is nothing short--make no mistake about it--of a national energy tax, and it will hit low- income families and seniors who live on fixed incomes and already devote a large share of their income to the electricity bills the hardest. In my home State of South Dakota, low-income families already spend almost a quarter of their income on energy bills. There is no way they can afford to spend hundreds more to pay for President Obama's national energy tax--that is, of course, if they can even get electricity.

The polar vortex that covered large portions of the United States with extreme cold and snow this past winter pushed the electricity grid to its limits. The Chairman of the Federal Regulatory Commission described the grid as ``close to the edge,'' with coal-fired powerplants running at 90 percent capacity to keep houses warm during a historically cold winter. These are the very plants that are being targeted by this administration. Closing these powerplants, which provide affordable power throughout the year, will severely jeopardize our ability to produce reliable electricity and heat during times of peak power demand. This will be particularly dangerous in winter months when an overstressed grid could leave thousands of Americans without a source of heat for their homes.

Driving up energy bills and compromising the energy grid would be sufficient reason to reject the President's new carbon dioxide regulations, but that is not all these regulations will do. The President's new regulations will also destroy tens of thousands and possibly hundreds of thousands of jobs.

First, of course, there are the thousands of Americans who will lose their jobs when the coal-fired plants that they work for close their doors. Then there are the manufacturing jobs that will be lost if these regulations go into effect. U.S. manufacturing is currently enjoying a renaissance thanks to the abundant, affordable energy the United States offers. Manufacturers are actually moving production from overseas to the United States and investing billions of dollars in our economy in the process. But if we drive up the cost of energy here at home, manufacturers will no longer have the same incentive to locate jobs here in America. Instead, manufacturers will send jobs overseas.

Given the terrible costs of these regulations, one would assume that the payoff would be huge--a drastic reduction in global carbon dioxide concentration levels.

The truth is the President is proposing to devastate American families and destroy our economy for nothing, because the President's proposals would have essentially no impact--no impact--on the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Even the President's own former EPA Administrator admitted: ``U.S. action alone will not impact world CO2 levels.''

The truth is, as long as the United States is acting unilaterally, global emissions will not be reduced in any meaningful way. In fact, the President's proposals could actually drive up emissions in other countries as manufacturers send jobs from the United States to some of the world's top polluters such as India and China.

Manufacturers in the United States are already reducing emissions. U.S. manufacturing and other industrial carbon dioxide emissions are down 13 percent since 2005. In the meantime, however, China's CO2 emissions have grown by 69 percent, while India's have grown by 53 percent.

After 5\1/2\ years of the Obama economy, Americans are struggling-- struggling to pay for health care, for college tuition, for food, and for gas--and they are wondering where the promised recovery is and how long they are going to have to live paycheck to paycheck, praying they can afford unexpected bills. Too many of them are wondering if they will be able to find a job to replace the one they lost. Others are wondering if they ever will find the better paying job they have been waiting for.

Now the President is prepared to hike electricity prices for every one of these Americans. Worse, he is prepared to eliminate thousands of their jobs. For what? For a significant reduction in global carbon dioxide concentration levels? No. He is prepared to damage their budgets and destroy their jobs just so they can appear to be doing something about global warming. He is willing to overlook the economic havoc these regulations will create as long as his extreme environmental base is content.

News reports have suggested the President has backed these new carbon regulations because he believes they will be an impressive addition to his legacy. I wish to suggest that the record of lost jobs and struggling families is not the kind of legacy the President would want to leave.

I hope in the coming days we will hear from the President's party on this issue. I challenge my Democratic colleagues in the Senate to stand and tell the American people where they stand. Do they stand with American jobs and American families or do they stand with their party's environmental fringe?

The American people deserve to know. Their jobs, their standard of living, and their future hang in the balance.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the Internet Tax Freedom Forever Act, legislation I introduced on a bipartisan basis with my colleague Senator Ron Wyden to make the expiring Internet tax moratorium permanent. Because of the moratorium Americans have not been taxed on Internet access for 16 years, but this is going to change and new taxes will be levied starting in November if Congress doesn't act soon.

I am proud to work with Senator Wyden on this bill, the lead Senate sponsor of the original Internet Tax Freedom Act that passed in 1998. This landmark law known as ITFA imposed a Federal moratorium that stopped State and local governments from placing taxes on Internet access. This moratorium has been extended three times, and it has been critical to the rapid growth of the Internet.

As we all know, the Internet provides unprecedented economic and social benefits. Mom and pop businesses in places such as South Dakota, Oregon, and across America found access to consumers and new business opportunities that are only possible through the Internet. Job seekers and entrepreneurs are finding opportunities that were once difficult to discover. Educators are exploring innovative tools and techniques that are powered by the Internet to equip students with the skills they will need for the 21st Century, and health care professionals are remotely providing services that are saving lives in rural areas. The idea behind the moratorium is straightforward. By not taxing Internet access we encourage broadband adoption and investment, which spurs all of the exciting activities that I just mentioned.

The Internet is a gateway to tremendous societal benefits. It is, frankly, astounding when you consider that it wasn't very long ago that the Internet was considered a novelty and only for the tech savvy. Today it is a must-have resource, the existence of which we almost take for granted. We cannot take for granted, however, that the moratorium on Internet access taxes has contributed to the Internet being accessed by hundreds of millions of Americans every single day. Thanks to the 16-year ban, consumer access to the Internet is free from State and local taxation for nearly all Americans. This gives consumers a welcome break on their monthly bills.

In the commerce committee we talk a lot about finding ways to encourage greater broadband deployment across all of America, and as cochair of the Congressional Internet Caucus, I worked with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to find ways to promote the Internet as an engine of economic growth and economic freedom. One of the ways that we can do that is by making broadband more affordable.

State taxation of Internet service will make broadband more expensive, which is at cross-purposes with our goal of encouraging Internet access and deployment. This doesn't make a lot of sense. The moratorium also benefits consumers by prohibiting multiple and discriminatory taxes on goods and services sold over the Internet. This means consumers won't be taxed by multiple States on the same sale and States won't tax Internet sales more than mail order or telephone sales.

Unfortunately, the Internet tax moratorium is set to expire on November 1. Because of this, many Internet service providers are planning to send out notices to their customers informing them that they may have to start paying taxes on Internet access if Congress fails to act. I expect that many millions of Americans who use the Internet will not be happy when they realize that their phone or Internet bill is going to suddenly increase. Two things are for sure: Expiration of ITFA will not encourage more Americans to get online to do commerce, civic engagement, or social media; and countless Americans will be calling Congress demanding that we keep taxes off of Internet access.

Rather than wait for angry constituents, let us be proactive and pass the Internet Tax Freedom Forever Act without delay. My bill with Finance Committee Chairman Wyden provides for a permanent extension of the moratorium. By passing a permanent extension we will provide certainty to Internet consumers in every State. Making the moratorium permanent also means that Congress won't have to waste time and energy passing yet another extension, year after year, into the future. There are plenty of other areas for Congress to focus on.

Our bill also eliminates the grandfather clause that currently allows 6 States to tax Internet access. Eliminating the moratorium's grandfather provision will provide consumers and businesses with a tax break. This includes consumers and businesses in my State of South Dakota, where our legislation will make Internet access less expensive, thus helping to encourage broadband deployment.

The Internet Tax Freedom Forever Act currently has 46 cosponsors, nearly half of the Senate. The bipartisan cosponsors of the legislation understand the tremendous benefits provided by ensuring Internet access is not taxed and the discriminatory taxes are not applied to the Internet. I strongly encourage my colleagues in the Senate to join Senator Wyden and me and the 46 other cosponsors in this fight. When the Senate reconvenes after the Memorial Day recess, we should move quickly to extend the tax moratorium and to ensure that Americans don't wake up on November 2 with new, unexpected taxes.

In the coming weeks and months, I plan to continue raising the need to pass our bipartisan legislation.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, there were two polls that were released this week, one from Gallup and one from Politico. Both polls asked Americans what concerns them the most. Both polls got the same answer: the economy, jobs, and health care.

That response is not too surprising. Unemployment is high. In fact, there are 3\1/2\ million Americans who have been unemployed for 6 months or longer. Last month more than 800,000 Americans gave up hope of finding work and dropped out of the labor force entirely. The economy barely grew at all last quarter--one-tenth of 1 percent.

Household income is down by $3,500 since the President took office. Some 6.7 million Americans have fallen into poverty since 2008. Meanwhile, the price of everything from gas to college to health care keeps going up. It is no wonder Americans list jobs and the economy as two of the issues that concern them the most.

It is not surprising that the other top concern of Americans is health care, because over the past 4 years the President and his team have taken an imperfect health care system and made it much worse. Thanks to ObamaCare, millions of Americans have lost their health care plans, plans which in many cases they liked and wanted to keep.

Many of the 8 million exchange signups the President likes to brag about were actually people who were forced into the exchanges after their health care plans were canceled. In fact, according to a recent McKinsey survey, only one-quarter of the people who signed up on the exchanges were previously uninsured. In addition to losing their plans, millions of Americans have also seen their costs increase.

Family health insurance premiums, which the President claimed would fall by $2,500 under his health care law, have actually risen by $3,671, and they are still going up, no end in sight. I would like to read just a few of the headlines from last week. This is from the Fiscal Times. It says, ``Big Increases in ObamaCare Premiums and Deductibles Coming in November;'' from Forbes, ``First ObamaCare Premium Notices for 2015 Show Double Digit Increases;'' from the Los Angeles Times, ``Employer health costs to rise nearly 9% this year, survey finds;'' from Investors Business Daily, ``ObamaCare Deductibles to Rise to $6,600 by 2015;'' from the Associated Press, ``Cost-Control Plan for Health Care Could Cost You.''

There are more, but we get the idea. Prices are not on their way down; they are in fact on their way up. Then of course there is the President's ``if you like your doctor, you'll be able to keep your doctor'' promise. As too many Americans have found out, that was another promise destined to be broken. Over the past 4 years, Americans have not only discovered that in many cases they will no longer be able to see the doctors they have been seeing for years, they have also discovered their choice of a replacement is limited.

The New York Times reported last week:

In the midst of all of the turmoil in health care these

days, one thing is becoming clear. No matter what kind of

health plan consumers choose, they will find fewer doctors

and hospitals in their network or pay much more for the

privilege of going to any provider they want.

That is from the New York Times. One quote in that article struck me particularly. It was something Marcus Merz, the CEO of Minnesota insurer PreferredOne, told the Times. This is what he said:

We have to break people away from the choice habit that

everyone has. . . . We're all trying to break away from this

fixation on open access and broad networks.

Let me repeat that to get the full context of what he is saying. We have to break people away from the choice habit that everyone has. Is this what we wanted out of health care reform? Was that not one of the good things about our health care system, the fact that people are able to, by and large, go to the doctor they chose; that people could look around for the best doctor in a particular field or find a doctor who they felt comfortable with?

Do we really want a health care future where Americans don't have a choice about the doctor they see?

Limited choice doesn't just mean that Americans might not be able to find a doctor they like. It also means that Americans may not be able to go to a doctor they need.

A Daily Caller article from last week noted:

Cancer centers, with their top-of-the-line physicians and

expensive procedures, have been a primary casualty of narrow

networks. According to an Associated Press analysis, just

four of the top 19 comprehensive cancer centers are covered

by all Obamacare exchange plans in their states.

Four of the top 19 cancer centers in the country--that is not what you want from of a health insurance plan if you have cancer.

Given the President's broken promises and the havoc that ObamaCare is wreaking on our health care system, it is no surprise that 83 percent of those Politico surveyed want to modify or repeal the law entirely or that health care was the most frequently cited reason for a negative experience with the government over the past year or that nearly 90 percent of respondents say that ObamaCare will be important in determining how they vote this fall.

There is a lot more that could be said about ObamaCare, such as the damage it is doing to our economy.

Veterans Affairs

I want to move on to talk about another, very serious instance of government mismanagement--what is going on in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Almost every day a new report surfaces of mistreatment or mismanagement at VA facilities across the country. At least 40 veterans have reportedly died because of delayed or inadequate care.

It is now clear that this is not an isolated problem at a few select locations but a system-wide crisis, and it is a national embarrassment.

Our contract with our servicemen and women is a sacred trust. They pledge their lives in the service of our country and take upon themselves the burden of defending liberty for the rest of us. In return, we promised them benefits, including health care and a college education.

Our men and women in uniform uphold their end of the contract, sometimes at the cost of their own lives. For us to fail to uphold ours is a disgrace and a betrayal of their sacrifice.

Every resource of this administration should be focused on discovering the full scope of this problem and immediately starting to fix it. Yet this administration has shown a startling lack of concern about the widespread mistreatment of veterans in our country.

When it became clear that his health care Web site was a disaster, the President employed an ``all hands on deck''

approach to fixing the problem, spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.

In response to the VA disaster, on the other hand, the President has dispatched just a single staffer to oversee the investigation. This is not acceptable. As Commander in Chief our Armed Forces, the President should be leading the charge to fix this problem, but he hasn't even spoken publicly about it for weeks.

Regardless of the President's inaction, Congress must take immediate step to address this crisis. This week the House of Representatives is taking up a version of Senator Rubio's bill, the Department of Veterans Affairs Management Accountability Act, which would allow the VA Secretary to fire or demote senior executives in the department when warranted.

Private organizations can fire employees who fail to fulfill their responsibilities. We ought to be able to fire officials who fail in their obligation to our veterans.

Yet all we have seen from the VA is the resignation of the Under Secretary for Health, Dr. Petzel, who was already planning to retire-- hardly the accountability our veterans deserve.

I have introduced a bill to require the VA inspector general to conduct a national investigation into the wait times veterans face. It is essential that we get an idea of the full scope of this problem so we can ensure that it gets fully fixed.

Under my bill the inspector general will have 6 months to investigate and submit a report to Congress. In the meantime, the VA would be forbidden from closing any of its medical facilities.

No facility--not the Hot Springs facility in my State of South Dakota or any other--should be closed unless we make very sure that veterans' care is not going to be affected.

There are other bills this body should be considering as well, including Senator Heller's bipartisan legislation, to reduce the backlog of veterans' disability claims, and I hope the Senate will take them up quickly.

This crisis can't wait. There is every likelihood that right now-- right now--veterans around our country are still failing to receive the care they need. I hope the President of the United States will come to his senses and treat this situation with the seriousness it deserves.

If he won't act, Congress must. It is the very least that we owe our veterans.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, last week the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled: ``Obama Team Crafts President's Midterm-Election Pitch.'' I want to read from the article's opening. This is what the article said:

The White House is carving out a role for President Barack

Obama in this fall's midterm elections, which he will try to

pose as a choice between the parties' economic visions. . . .

The driving theory in the White House is that this election,

like every one since the 2007 recession, is foremost about

the economy. Mr. Obama already has been drawing contrasts

between his economic program and that of Republicans.

That is from a Wall Street Journal article of last week.

All I can say is that Republicans welcome this debate. We agree this election will be first and foremost about the economy, and we look forward to discussing the contrast between our economic program and the President's. I am just surprised the President wants to discuss it because even many Democrats realize the Democrats' economic record over the past 5 years isn't going to win them any elections.

The Wall Street Journal article quoted Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, who said:

. . . the key for Democrats is to frame the election as a

choice between governing philosophies. ``If it's a referendum

on whether you like the way Democrats have governed . . .

that's a harder election for us to win.''

So since they can't run on their record, Democrats are going to make the case their philosophy offers the best hope for working Americans.

The Journal goes on to quote Joel Benenson, a pollster for the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaign, who says:

The fundamental question here that the country faces is:

Which party has a philosophy and an approach that puts

average, hard-working Americans front and center? . . . We

ought to be making that the centerpiece of the campaign.

Democrats have had 5\1/2\ years to take an approach that puts average hardworking Americans front and center, but their record has not been pretty. Despite the fact the recession technically ended almost 5 years ago, our economy continues to limp along. In the last quarter, growth averaged a miniscule one-tenth of 1 percent. Meanwhile, unemployment has remained at recession-level highs for the past several years.

Last month 806,000 Americans gave up hope of getting work and dropped out of the labor force entirely. Currently, nearly 10 million Americans are unemployed, 3\1/2\ million of them for 6 months or longer. Over the 5\1/2\ years the President has been in office, 6.7 million additional Americans have fallen into poverty.

Household income has declined by $3,500. The poverty rate for women has increased to 16.3 percent, income for women has fallen, and 19.4 million Americans have been forced to join the food stamp program.

Meanwhile, prices have risen. Gas prices are 99 percent higher per gallon today than they were when the President took office. Health care premiums are more than $3,600 higher. College tuition has soared.

Basically, thanks to the failed policies of the President and congressional Democrats, American families today are paying more and making less.

It is all very well and good to talk about the concern for the average hardworking American, but what really matters is not what you say but how you govern by what you do. Democrats seem to think their speeches and good intentions and the ``philosophy'' should give them a free pass, even if their policies are making it harder and harder for working families to achieve economic security and stability.

They want to coast on the fact that their party has historically been thought of as the party of working men and women, while ignoring the fact that the Democrat party today looks more like the party of billionaires and special interests than the party of hardworking Americans.

Take the Keystone Pipeline. Blue collar unions strongly support the pipeline and the more than 42,000 jobs it would support. The Washington Examiner reported yesterday morning the 750,000-member-strong International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is, as the paper notes, the latest of the growing number of traditional blue-collar unions taking an aggressive pro-Keystone position.

In a letter to Senate Democrats, the IBEW's president writes:

At a time when job creation should be a top priority, the

Keystone XL Pipeline project would put Americans back to work

and have ripple benefits throughout the economy. . . . From

pipe manufactured in Arkansas, to pump motors assembled in

Ohio

and transformers built in Pennsylvania, workers from all over

the United States will benefit from the project.

That is from the president of the IBEW.

So given the jobs and benefits the pipeline would create, how do you think the President and the party of so-called average hardworking Americans has responded? Has he approved the pipeline and the jobs it would create for American workers throughout the country? No.

Despite five separate environmental reviews from his own State Department, testifying to the minimal impact the pipeline would have on the environment, the President has aligned himself instead with far- left environmental special interests like billionaire Tom Steyer, who is pouring money into anti-Keystone campaigns. So much for being the party of working men and women.

Democrats may talk about putting hardworking Americans front and center, but over the past few years hardworking Americans have often come in last. Take ObamaCare. It is hard to even know where to start when talking about the negative impacts ObamaCare has had on American workers.

There is the 30-hour workweek rule, which has forced businesses to eliminate full-time positions and cut workers' hours below 30 hours per week.

There is the employer mandate, which has made it difficult or impossible for many businesses to expand and hire new workers.

There is the tax on lifesaving medical devices, such as pacemakers and insulin pumps, which has already cost thousands of jobs in the medical device industry and which will eliminate many more if it isn't repealed.

Then, of course, there are the numerous burdens placed on small businesses, the higher premiums and out-of-pocket costs, and the fact that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the law will shrink the full-time workforce by 2\1/2\ million workers and lower wages by more than $1 trillion.

Who suffers the most from all those provisions? Average, hardworking Americans, the small business owner who can no longer afford to hire new employees, the middle-class family suddenly faced with a $10,000 deductible, the low-income worker whose hours are suddenly slashed from 35 to 25 hours a week, and the out-of-work American who can't find a job because businesses are too reluctant to hire.

One would think the supposed party of average, hardworking Americans might sit back and rethink things a little bit after seeing the devastating economic impact of ObamaCare. But the Democrats and the President are pushing again with more job-killing policies.

Recently, the Democrats and the President have been pushing for a massive 40-percent minimum-wage hike--a measure the Congressional Budget Office says could eliminate up to 1 million jobs. Even the President's own Federal Reserve Chair recently testified before Congress that a minimum wage hike would negatively affect jobs.

Once again, the people most likely to lose their jobs as a result of this policy are those least able to afford it: Namely, low-income workers.

Mr. President, Democrats can talk all they want about their commitment to ordinary Americans, but actions speak louder than words. It is going to be hard to convince people to believe, when their actions over the past 5 years have made things harder for working Americans, that they are actually on their side.

If Democrats really wanted to provide permanent relief to the millions of Americans who are struggling to get by, they would focus on measures that would create jobs, improve wages, and expand opportunity.

Instead of spending their time on far-left liberal policies and priorities, such as government-run health care and extreme environmental regulations, they would be supporting bills that have been offered by some of my colleagues here on our side of the aisle to provide one-time, low-interest loans to out-of-work Americans to enable them to relocate to cities and States with more job opportunities. That is a piece of legislation I have introduced. Or they could support the bill put forth by Senator Lee to improve workplace flexibility for working families; or the bill of Senator Hoeven, to approve the Keystone Pipeline and open up the 42,000- plus jobs it would support; or the bill of Senator Collins to fix the ObamaCare 30-hour workweek provision so we don't have so many part-time employees in this country and put more people to work on a full-time basis; or the numerous Republican proposals that have been offered by our colleagues to check EPA's overreach and to protect the millions of jobs EPA's proposed regulations could destroy; or the Democratic majority could allow an open amendment process to the tax extender bill we are going to be considering here soon to allow for the consideration of permanent tax relief measures for American families and small businesses.

Because Americans deserve tax certainty and not more short-term measures, I intend to file amendments to the tax extenders bill this week to make a number of important progrowth provisions permanent, such as the ability for small businesses and farmers to expense more of their business investments. I intend to work with Senator Cantwell and others on an amendment to make permanent the ability of taxpayers to deduct State and local sales taxes against their Federal income tax--a measure that is important for States without income taxes like South Dakota. And I intend to work with my colleagues to make permanent the existing moratorium on State and local taxes on Internet access before that moratorium expires on November 1 of this year. Failure to act is going to mean a tax increase on the many millions of Americans who use the Internet.

This week's tax debate also provides the Senate an opportunity to address the job-destroying taxes in ObamaCare. Several of my colleagues, including Senators Hatch, Toomey, and Coats, have been fighting for repeal, or at least delay, of the ObamaCare medical device tax. Repeal of this tax has the support of over 70 Senators, and it is time for a vote on this proposal.

However, the ObamaCare taxes don't stop there. This year, millions of young, middle-class families will face a tax penalty for failing to purchase government-approved health care. Many of these individuals and families may not be able to afford ObamaCare and cannot afford to pay the tax either. I will be filing an amendment to the tax extenders bill that would prohibit the IRS from ever collecting this penalty.

Considering this administration has already delayed the mandate for employers, it is only fair to waive this penalty for families and individuals as well.

Finally, Mr. President, I will be offering an amendment to exempt the long-term unemployed from the ObamaCare employer mandate head count. If you are a business in this country and you hire somebody who has been unemployed for 6 months or longer, then you wouldn't be subject to the ObamaCare employer mandate, which is so devastating to employers across this country.

The tax extender package on the floor today will reportedly retain the Hire Our Heroes Act, which is championed in the Senate by Senator Blunt. If that is the case, I am pleased to see the majority has finally realized the employer mandate is hurting the job prospects of veterans who have proudly served this country. We should expand this exemption to the 3\1/2\ million long-term unemployed as well, and that is what my amendment seeks to do.

Mr. President, Democrats may claim to be the party of average Americans, but their record over the past 5 years says some things entirely different. Ordinary Americans are suffering as a result of Democratic policies, and they are not getting any relief. It is time for Democrats to stop talking about helping Americans and to start actually helping them.

We have an opportunity with this tax extenders bill on the floor this week to do some things that are for jobs and the economy. If we can get a chance to get these amendments in front of the Senate and allow the voices of the American people to be heard and to get votes, we can start moving this country in a different direction--a direction that will lead to better paying jobs for middle-class families, a better standard of living for people in this country, and a brighter and more prosperous future

for future generations of Americans. I hope that will be the case.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, today I honor Dr. Kay Schallenkamp on her many accomplishments and upcoming retirement.

Dr. Kay Schallenkamp was born in Salem, SD. Her background includes three degrees in communication disorders; a bachelor's degree from Northern State University, a master's degree from the University of South Dakota, and a doctorate from the University of Colorado. Her career has spanned for over 40 years, and her dedication to education and the well-being of her students is unmatched.

Dr. Schallenkamp's career in higher education originated as a professor of communication disorders at Northern State University in Aberdeen, SD, in 1973. She served as department chair from 1982 to 1984, followed by an appointment as dean of graduate studies and research in 1984. Dr. Schallenkamp was named provost of Chadron State College in 1988, and in 1992 she was named provost of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Before making her way back to South Dakota, Dr. Schallenkamp served as the president of Emporia State University in Kansas from 1997 to 2006.

Since her arrival at Black Hills State University, BHSU, in 2006, Dr. Schallenkamp has placed the needs of BHSU ahead of her own. Due to her diligent work, BHSU is the State of South Dakota's third-largest university. She has been vital in physical renovations across campus, including a key transformation and addition to the Student Union, the construction of the Life Sciences Laboratory, and updates to the campus residence halls. Preparations are also being made for the addition of a new residence hall and a remodel of Jonas Science Hall in partnership with the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, SD. Dr. Schallenkamp has served as the president for the last 8 years and in that time BHSU has significantly grown.

Dr. Schallenkamp is retiring after a long and successful career to spend more time with her family. She and her husband Ken have two daughters: Heather (Shad) in Kansas have two children, Alyssa and Tyler. Jenni (Danny) Simon in North Carolina have two sons, Keenan and Reece.

I am honored to recognize Dr. Schallenkamp for her accomplishments and wish her a happy retirement.

Mr. President, in a moment I intend to propound a unanimous consent request that it be in order for me to offer my amendment No. 3002 to S. 2262, but I will speak for just a moment if I might about it.

I think it is unfortunate that we are here in the Senate with Senate Democrats continuing to block Republican amendments that would approve the Keystone XL Pipeline, stop the administration's war on affordable energy, and expand liquid natural gas exports to our allies overseas.

My amendment No. 3002 is on the list of commonsense amendments that should be voted on as part of the Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill.

As with almost all of the President's energy policies, the EPA's anticipated ground level ozone regulations would do serious damage to our economy and to working Americans. In fact, this regulation is expected to be the most expensive in the EPA's history.

In 2010 the EPA proposed lowering the permitted ground level ozone levels from 75 parts per billion to 60 to 70 parts per billion. The energy industry estimate suggests that lowering the ground level ozone concentration to 60 parts per billion would cost businesses more than $1 trillion a year between 2020 and 2030--$1 trillion a year. Job losses as a result of this measure would total a staggering $7.3 million by the year 2020, devastating entire industries, especially U.S. manufacturing industries.

Even by the EPA's own estimates--this is the EPA's own estimate--this regulation could cost up to $90 billion per year--far outpacing the cost of any EPA regulations we have ever seen before. My own State of South Dakota would lose tens of thousands of jobs in manufacturing, natural resources, mining, and construction. In fact, the cost of this regulation is so great that when the EPA first proposed lower levels in 2010, the White House delayed the regulation until after the President's reelection.

My amendment No. 3002 would stop the administration's upcoming proposal on ground level ozone which is anticipated to be proposed and put out by December of this year. It is a very straightforward amendment. First, it would require the EPA to consider the cost and feasibility of new ozone regulations. It might surprise many Americans to know that the EPA isn't even allowed to consider costs when setting these new regulations. My amendment would fix that.

Additionally, my amendment would force the EPA to focus on the worst areas for smog before dramatically expanding this regulation to the rest of the country. There are 221 counties across 27 States in this country that don't meet the current standard of 75 parts per billion. This chart shows the areas of the country and, as we can see, they are heavily populated, more urban areas of the country.

It makes sense to me that we ought to focus on these urban areas before expanding ozone regulations to areas such as western South Dakota where we clearly don't have a smog problem. Under my amendment, 85 percent of these counties would have to achieve full compliance with the existing standard before the EPA could move forward with a lower level that dramatically expands the reach of ozone regulations.

So this is what it looks like today. These are the 200 some counties that are not in compliance, and my amendment would require 85 percent of those to be in compliance before we could expand the map to where it would look like this, referring to my chart. This is what the proposal would do. Now, look at how much of the United States is covered by that expanded map. The provision in the Clean Air Act was enacted in the 1970s to address smog in downtown L.A., not background ozone levels in western South Dakota.

We should continue to focus on the worst areas for ground level ozone before dramatically expanding those regulations to rural areas of the country.

I hope the majority will stop blocking votes on this and other job- creating amendments that are offered by Republican Members. Senator Reid has blocked all but nine rollcall votes on Republican amendments since last July. That is one a month. One Republican amendment, on average, a month has been voted on here in the Senate over the last nine months. By contrast, the House Democrats--the minority in the House--have gotten votes on 125 amendments over the same period--12 times the number of amendments that have been allowed Republicans here in the Senate.

A number of my colleagues have been to the floor, and we heard from the Senator from Alaska, Ms. Murkowski. Senator Barrasso has an LNG export amendment that I think is very relevant to this debate and very important to this country to both our energy security and national security interests. I am going to continue to ask that the majority provide a chance for Republicans to participate in this debate by allowing a vote on my amendment and the many others that are pertinent to the economy of this country, to creating jobs in this country, to providing energy independence for this country, to providing energy security for this country, and to making sure we don't get crazy regulations that subject areas of western South Dakota to smog regulations that were designed for downtown L.A. That is a fairly straightforward, simple, commonsense suggestion, and it is what my amendment would accomplish.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2262

So I see we have a Democratic Senator on the floor who would, I expect, object to this request.

I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for me to offer my amendment No. 3002 to S. 2262.

Thank you, Mr. President. I regret that. I think it is unfortunate. I know there are many others of my colleagues on this side who have amendments they would like to have votes on and to have an opportunity to debate. It is the first time we have debated an energy bill since 2007. It is of fundamental importance to this country on so many levels.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 30 seconds for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. President, I understand that a number of Senators have filed amendments related to energy policy, and I think they ought to be allowed to offer those amendments.

I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for me to offer amendment No. 3013.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President. Is it correct that no Senator is permitted to offer an amendment to this bill while the majority leader's amendments and motions are pending?

Then, Mr. President, in order to offer amendment No. 3013, I move to table the Reid amendment No. 3023, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my remarks, the Senator from Wyoming Mr. Barrasso be recognized, followed by the Senator from Arkansas Mr. Pryor.

Madam President, I modify the unanimous consent request and ask that Senator Pryor be recognized at the conclusion of my remarks, followed by Senator Barrasso.

Madam President, yesterday USA Today and the Pew Research Center released a new poll that found Americans, by more than a 2-to-1 margin, were dissatisfied with the direction the country is going. Sixty-two percent of Americans rate their personal financial situation as poor or fair. A whopping 65 percent want the next President to pursue policies different from those of the current President.

What I would suggest is that the American people are tired--they are tired of seeing their bills go up while their paychecks don't. They are tired of having to work harder just to stay in place--to say nothing of getting ahead. They are tired of economic promises that are often repeated but never fulfilled.

Our economy has supposedly been in recovery for years, but it is a recovery that feels a lot like a recession to ordinary hardworking Americans. More than 10 million Americans are unemployed, and more than one-third of them have been out of work for more than 6 months.

While unemployment finally declined last month, the decline was driven more by the fact that 806,000 Americans dropped out of the workforce entirely than by any meaningful surge in the number of those who are employed. Had the number of Americans participating in the labor force stayed flat last month, the unemployment rate would have actually gone up, not down. In fact, if the labor force participation rate today were the same as it was when President Obama took office, our Nation would have an unemployment rate of 10.4 percent.

So what is happening is more and more people are leaving the labor force. They are completely discouraged. But the labor force participation rate has fallen, and one of the main reasons it has fallen is because so many Americans have grown so discouraged that they have given up looking for work entirely.

Our country has experienced recessions before, but we have always bounced back. But our recovery from this recession has been so slow--at times, seemingly nonexistent--that many are wondering if the last 5 years of sluggish growth and recession-level unemployment could be the new normal. And they are right; it could be, if we continue the policies of the last 5 years.

The widespread dissatisfaction with the economy reflected in the Pew poll may not be what Democrats want to see, but it is the natural outcome of their policies. They have spent 5 years pursuing policies that have not only been unsuccessful in creating jobs but have all too frequently actually hurt job creation.

Take ObamaCare. It is hard to even know where to start when talking about the damage ObamaCare is wreaking on the jobs and the economy. There is the ObamaCare tax on lifesaving medical devices, such as pacemakers and insulin pumps, which has cost thousands of jobs in this industry already and is going to cost thousands more. There is the 30- hour workweek rule, which has forced businesses, State and local governments, and nonprofits to cut the hours of workers in this country. There is the employer mandate, which has caused many businesses to rethink their plans to expand and hire new workers. Then, of course, there is the burden the law places on small businesses.

The title of an article that appeared in the Las Vegas Review Journal over the weekend summed it up nicely, and the headline went like this: ``Own a small business? Brace for ObamaCare pain.'' This article pointed out something that is often overlooked in discussions of the law--that the people who will suffer the most from the small business health plan cancellations that ObamaCare will cause in Nevada and around the country are those who can least afford it--the kind of people the law was supposed to help.

To quote from the article:

Some workers are at higher risk than others of losing

company-sponsored coverage. Professional, white-collar

companies such as law or engineering firms will bite the

bullet and renew at higher prices. . . . But moderately

skilled or low-skilled people making $8 to $14 an hour

working for landscaping businesses, fire prevention firms or

fencing companies could lose work-based coverage because the

plans cost so much relative to salaries.

That is right, Madam President. It is low-income workers in places like Nevada who stand in the greatest danger of losing their employer- sponsored coverage. That is frequently the story when it comes to the Democrats' so-called job-creating policies. Democrats like to suggest that Republicans are indifferent to workers' plight, and that only Democrats really have a plan to offer help. But in fact the Democrats' plans to help often pose the most danger to low-income workers.

There is ObamaCare, of course, as I mentioned, but there is also the minimum wage proposal, which the Congressional Budget Office says will eliminate up to 1 million jobs. Those 1 million jobs that will be eliminated are not doctors' jobs and they are not lawyers' jobs. They are positions held by low-income workers who will be the first to suffer when employers have to cut back on hiring or on hours as a result of the minimum wage hike.

Then, of course, there is the Keystone Pipeline, which we are talking a little about today, and which the President has resolutely refused to approve, despite the fact that it would support, according to his own State Department estimates, 42,000 jobs without spending a dime of taxpayer money.

The people who will be hurt the worst by the President's decision to cow to the relentless pressure of far-left environmentalists are the workers who would actually build the pipeline and the restaurants and small businesses who would benefit from pipeline workers' business during construction.

It is not just Keystone. Almost all of the President's energy policies would do serious damage to our economy and to working Americans. Take the restrictions on ground-level ozone levels the President's EPA is scheduled to release by December of this year.

In 2010, the EPA proposed lowering the permitted ozone levels from 75 parts per billion to 60 to 70 parts per billion. Energy industry estimates suggest that lowering the ground-level ozone concentration to 60 parts per billion would cost businesses--get this--more than $1 trillion per year--$1 trillion per year--between 2020 and 2030. Job losses as a result of this measure would total a staggering 7.3 million by 2020, devastating entire industries--most especially U.S. manufacturing. My own State of South Dakota would lose tens of thousands of jobs in manufacturing, natural resources and mining, and construction.

Take a look at what this would actually do. These are the areas under these proposals that have been put forward. Today there are probably a couple hundred counties in the country that are not in compliance, in what we call nonattainment areas--mostly urban, heavily populated areas. But if we take a look at what their proposal would do on this map, this map represents those who would be affected if we went to 60 parts per billion as opposed to the 75 parts per billion today.

So instead of focusing on those counties in this country that are not currently in attainment and getting them to full attainment first, we are talking about expanding dramatically the impact this would have all across the country.

Look at my State of South Dakota, for example. We have areas that wouldn't be in attainment. We don't think of South Dakota as being a place where we have problems with clean air and ozone issues, but this is clearly a regulation which, if put into effect, would cost the economy literally billions and billions of dollars--in one estimate $1 trillion per year between 2020 and 2030.

If we look at where this hurts people the most, again, it is the people who are in the lower and middle-income range--people whose budgets are more heavily affected by hikes in their energy bills.

Today the President will hold press events to raise the alarm about climate change and push for more job-killing, industry crippling energy policies, but it will be interesting to see if he spares a line or two for the millions of Americans whose jobs will be lost and whose household budgets will be shattered as a result of his proposals.

This week the Senate is going to be considering the Shaheen-Portman energy legislation. I plan to introduce three amendments to check EPA overreach and to protect American workers from the devastating effects of the EPA's ground-level ozone and greenhouse gas proposal.

The first amendment will require Congress to vote up or down on any EPA regulation that has an annual cost of more than $1 billion. Pretty straightforward. Let the people's representatives vote. If they are going to put regulations out there that are going to cost more than $1 billion, let us have Congress vote on those.

The second amendment would prohibit the EPA from finalizing greenhouse gas regulations for new and existing power plants if the Department of Energy and the GAO determine those regulations will raise energy prices or cost jobs. So if the Department of Energy and the GAO determine the regulations will not impact jobs or energy prices, the EPA can go forward and finalize those regulations.

It is time to be honest with the American people about the cost of these regulations. Taken together, these two amendments are a strong step toward placing a check on EPA's regulatory train wreck.

The final amendment I will offer is specific to the administration's upcoming proposal on ground-level ozone, which as I just mentioned is the most expensive regulation in EPA's history. The cost of this regulation is so great that when the EPA first proposed lower levels in 2010, the White House delayed those regulations until after the President's reelection.

My amendment is straightforward.

First, it would require the EPA to consider the costs and feasibility of new ozone regulations. Many Americans would be surprised to know the EPA isn't even allowed to consider costs when setting these new regulations. My amendment would fix that.

Additionally, my amendment would force the EPA to focus on the worst areas for smog before dramatically expanding this regulation to the rest of the country. As I mentioned on the map here, 221 counties across 27 States don't even meet the current standard of 75 parts per billion. It makes sense to focus on these urban areas before expanding ozone regulations to places such as western South Dakota, where we clearly don't have a smog problem.

Under my amendment, 85 percent of these counties would have to achieve full compliance with the existing standard before the EPA can move forward with a lower level which dramatically expands the reach of ozone regulations. I hope the Senate will get the chance to vote on these proposals.

I also hope the Senate will get a chance to vote on the Keystone amendment so we can get those 42,000 jobs opened to American workers.

It has been a long time since we have had a real energy debate in the Senate. But given our sluggish economy and the danger the President's energy proposals pose to any future growth, I am hoping the majority leader will decide it is time for a debate.

The election-year agenda offered by Democrats and the President is just more of the same job-killing, growth-stifling legislation that Democrats have been offering for the past 5 years. Like the legislation the Democrats and the President have offered for the last 5 years, it will do the worst injury to those Americans who can least afford it.

Pundits may warn that our current economic malaise is the new normal, but it doesn't have to be that way. We can get the economy going again. We can lift the heavy burden of government regulation and free businesses to grow and create jobs. We can make it easier, not harder, for middle-class workers to find stability and for lower income workers to make it into the middle class.

According to the Pew/USA Today poll, 65 percent of Americans want the next President to pursue different policies. It is still a couple more years until the next Presidential election, but there is no reason Congress can't start pursuing different policies today. The American people have been struggling for long enough.

I yield the floor.