Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act,

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I head home to Wyoming just about every weekend. Lots of people from Wyoming come here to Washington to visit as well. When I am home, I get a chance to talk to people, and here in Washington, I get to talk to people. So yesterday is a day I flew here. I had talked to folks in Wyoming early in the morning and then yesterday afternoon got off the plane, and there were a number of students here from Sheridan High School from ``We the People.'' One of our pages here is also from that high school. So you get to hear a lot from people. Some folks have been asking: What has the Republican Congress actually accomplished? So I would like to take a few minutes to talk a little bit about what the Senate has actually done this year and during this Congress since the Republicans have taken over the majority.

We are not even 4 months into this year, and we have already had a very productive year in the Senate. It is true. We have been active, we have been effective, and it is only April.

In February, we passed legislation to add tough new sanctions against North Korea. As the Presiding Officer knows, the President in the White House was very reluctant when we started proposing these sanctions-- hesitant about the sanctions that we proposed against North Korea. Let's face it. North Korea has been aggressively testing missiles, testing nuclear weapons, and needs to be stopped.

When other countries threaten their neighbors, as North Korea has done in their general geographic area, what happens is the United States must stand up and stop them. President Obama has done far too little. I am very concerned about the aggression and the ambitions of North Korea. That is why the Senate had to act. So Congress has stood up and pushed against this action. We had more action against North Korea; that is exactly what we did.

The Senate also acted by passing a Defend Trade Secrets Act to help businesses protect their confidential information.

We passed a piece of legislation called the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation to help fight the misuse of prescription drugs, in terms of prescription pain killers called opioids. Now, look, it has been a huge problem in our country-- communities all around the country. Senator Ayotte from New Hampshire and Senator Portman of Ohio were two of the main sponsors of this legislation. I know Senator Portman was on the floor recently, talking about different legislation. But he has shown heroic leadership in an area that certainly needed to be addressed.

The Senate worked and reauthorized the Older Americans Act. This was another bipartisan piece of legislation. It works to help provide senior citizens with things like meals, transportation--ways to help people live in their own homes longer and ways to help in terms of their quality of life, which is very important for Americans all across the country.

We passed legislation to overhaul and reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration. This is a significant accomplishment. This legislation promotes U.S. aerospace jobs by cutting through some of the redtape that has been hurting airplane designers.

Then, just last week, we passed a comprehensive overhaul of American energy policy, something we had not done in about 8 years. Over the past few years, hard-working Americans have made this country into an energy superpower. Yet we had not passed any kind of major energy legislation for about 8 years because Washington's regulations have simply not kept pace, and they have actually worked against the energy producers, people that are getting back to work, getting this country's economy returned.

The legislation we passed is going to rein in some of this needless, wasteful bureaucracy that the Federal Government has imposed on the people creating energy jobs and working to produce more energy because energy is called a master resource for a reason. We have it in great abundance.

One of the very important parts was language to expedite the shipment of America's natural gas to buyers around the world. It is good for our economy, and it is good for our allies who will be able to decrease their dependence on Russian gas.

Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska did an outstanding job of making sure that this legislation had ideas from both sides of the aisle. That is a big part of why this piece of major energy legislation--first time in 8 years--passed 85 to 12--85 to 12. That is another big accomplishment of the Senate this year that does not get enough attention. It is not just that we are passing important legislation that helps Americans, but we are doing it in a bipartisan way that allows every Senator--every Member of this body--to represent the people back home with their ideas and their suggestions.

We have voted on 129 amendments so far this year--129 amendments voted on this year. When the Democrats under Harry Reid were in control, a lot of people around here got used to the idea that people did not actually get to vote on amendments. In 2014, the last year under Democratic control under Harry Reid, the Senate had only 15 up- or-down votes on amendments all year--full calendar year 2014.

When Republicans took the majority, we changed that. The Senate has been working this year just as we worked last year. We could have done a lot more if a few Democrats had not blocked progress on some very important pieces of legislation. The people in Wyoming now know that there are some important things they really care about, and they were actually blocked by President Obama. In January, the President vetoed legislation that we had passed to improve health care in this country by repealing major parts of ObamaCare.

Remember, the President said to Democrats that they should forcefully defend and be proud of that health care law, but one out of four Americans--25 percent of Americans--say they have been personally harmed by the President's health care law. So we put it on his desk to do a repeal, and he vetoed that.

Now, only about one in eight people in this country say they have been helped by the health care law. When you take a look at major legislation that impacts the country, it is no surprise that this health care law continues to be very unpopular, especially when you see that for every one person who says they have been helped, there are almost two people who said they have personally been hurt by the law.

The President also vetoed legislation that we passed here to bring some sanity to something called the waters of the United States rule-- again, a rule put out in regulation by the President, a reinterpretation of the law. The law is very clear to me, but the President had his own approach. We put a bill on his desk to overturn what he has tried to do. The courts have actually stopped him in his tracks, but he once again vetoed our efforts.

Last year the President actually vetoed five different bills passed by Congress. This kind of obstructionism from President Obama doesn't help our country move forward. It is not helpful when the Democratic leaders do everything they can to convince people that nothing is being done in the Senate, but we hear that day after day from Minority Leader Harry Reid.

It is interesting, because when Senator Reid was the majority leader, he had a very firm strategy, and the strategy seemed to be to do as little as possible.

Well, he is now the minority leader, and I think he went from the majority to the minority for a reason. It seems to me that he is still hanging on, clinging on to that losing strategy. The plan didn't work then, and I think that one of the reasons that he continues to try to talk down and slow down some of our progress is because, actually, he is envious--envious of anyone who gets things done in the Senate.

Republicans in the Senate are not interested in working at Harry Reid's pace and neither are the Democrats--many of the Democrats. Most Senators agree that we have a lot of work to do and that it is good for America when we actually do the work.

That is why we have been working our way through the appropriations bills. This year we got the earliest start ever to appropriations bills--and really in the history of the modern budget process. So we continue to work on that.

I wish to be clear on one important point. Doing our job in the Senate doesn't mean setting aside the priorities of the American people just to help President Obama build a political legacy. That is why the Senate is going to stand firm and strong to give Americans a voice in who gets to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Now President Obama wants us to set aside everything else and let him appoint his Justice to the Supreme Court. It is not going to happen.

We do our job every day, doing the things that will make an immediate difference to the families all across the country, things that Republicans and Democrats agree on and that everybody knows we should be doing. That is what you are seeing with this Republican-run Senate. That is what the people want us to do. That is what they expect us to do, and that is what we will continue to do.

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