Keystone XL Pipeline Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we are back again with the Keystone XL Pipeline, S. 1, the bipartisan 60-sponsor bill in front of us. We had a good day yesterday debating three amendments and ultimately disposing of them. We have a half dozen of them in front of us this morning and this afternoon.

I think it is worth noting, there have been several Members who have come to the floor to give comments about the State of the Union last evening delivered by President Obama. It was his sixth official State of the Union Address. It marked the sixth address that he has given to the Congress and the Nation while this project has been under review the whole time throughout his entire administration. Every one of those State of the Union Addresses has happened at a time when the Keystone XL application has been pending. It puts into context how long we have been considering this legislation.

The President didn't really speak much to the demerits or the opposition to Keystone XL--it was basically a quick reference--but he did in a manner attempt to compare this bipartisan, subsidy-free bill to major taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects. Whether it is our highways or bridges, the need is clear. But I think we also recognize those are projects that are taxpayer-funded that will require millions and perhaps billions of dollars a year. What we are talking about with the Keystone XL is something where we don't have any Federal subsidies going in. It is not taxpayer-funded. I think it is important to make sure that we understand the difference.

What we didn't hear last night was how this project could be advanced. Once again, there was no indicator. I would like to remind everyone that we are sitting at over 2,300 days where we have not had a Presidential decision. I think the good news for us here on this floor is the debate on this issue is not going to last that long, thankfully.

Again, we moved into regular order, and I think it was helpful for Members of the body to not only know that there was a series of amendments that were called up, but that we were able to have debate on them, and then we were able to dispense with them.

The majority of the Senate voted to table two of those proposals, but then when it came to the Portman-Shaheen bill, the energy efficiency provision, we were able to move that by a vote of 94 to 5, demonstrating again a great deal of support for this small energy efficiency provision. I wish it had been bigger, in fairness to the bill sponsors who have been working so hard for years on that. We just advanced a very small piece of that. I think we have more to do in the area of energy efficiency, and I am looking forward to working with them on that.

What we have in front of us now at this point in the process is we have a bill that will approve the cross-border permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline and we will work to deal with some aspects of energy efficiency. I think that is some good progress.

Once again this morning I will encourage Senators. We have called for an open amendment process, but as the leader has reminded us, it is not open-ended. We are not going to be on this bill indefinitely. So move to file your amendments. If you want a vote on them, you need to be filing them now and talking to us now.

We are at 77 amendments that have been filed and that was as of last night. So there is clearly already a line, and my hope is we will be able to dispense with this half dozen today.

Briefly speaking to the measures that we have from each side, we have Senator Fischer's amendment 18; Schatz amendment No. 58; No. 33 is the Lee amendment; we have Senator Durbin's amendment 69; we have Senator Toomey's amendment 41, as well as the Whitehouse amendment No. 29.

I spoke a little bit on a couple of these measures yesterday, and I will be speaking more this afternoon before we move, hopefully, to votes.

I do want to take a minute before I turn it over to Senator Cantwell to be recognized and then to Senator Hoeven. There have been several sense-of-the-Senate amendments that have been filed--presented on the issue of climate change. I think it is important for people to note that in order to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline, as the legislation itself lays out, there is no climate change provision that is required. I find it a little ironic that in neither of the two pending amendments that we have before us--Senator Schatz's and Senator Whitehouse's--neither of them actually quotes the parts of the State Department's final EIS that explains, I think in pretty fair detail, that this project will not significantly contribute to climate change. In fact, the State Department found that without the Keystone XL Pipeline greenhouse gas emissions associated with transporting Canadian oil could actually increase, and the estimate is increasing somewhere between 28 and as high as 42 percent. One might ask, how can that be? The reality is that not only is a pipeline less costly and more efficient, but it has the least environmental impact in terms of any additional emissions.

So I think it is important to recognize that when we are talking about the oil coming from Canada, oil that Canada is producing for lots of different reasons that benefit Canada, that that oil is going to move. So our challenge is, is that oil going to move in a manner that benefits Americans with increased jobs and opportunities? Is it going to help fill our refineries in the gulf coast? Is it going to help from a safety perspective in terms of transporting a product in the safest manner as well as providing the least environmental impact?

The State Department also provided in the EIS that:

Approval or denial of any one crude oil transport project, including the proposed project, is unlikely to significantly impact the rate of extraction in the oil sands or the continued demand for heavy crude oil at refineries in the United States based on expected oil prices, oil sands supply costs, transport costs, and supply and demand scenarios.

I think we are going to have some discussion this afternoon about what is contained in the State Department EIS. At 1,000 pages the full EIS is substantive. There is an executive summary that helps us all out and distills all of this. But I think it is important that Members look at what that report outlines.

I previously mentioned that we have about 77 amendments in front of us that have been filed at this point in time. We have nine, as of this morning, separate sense-of-the-Senate or sense-of-the-Congress amendments relating to climate change.

I have noted that this is the first time we have had an energy-related bill on the floor in a while where there has been an opportunity for debate. You will recall that this same measure was on the floor in December when the Democrats were in charge. The floor was managed at that point in time by the Senator from Louisiana, obviously very passionate in her support of the Keystone XL Pipeline. But in that debate there was no opportunity for amendments. You didn't see colleagues on either side of the aisle able to offer any amendments. We didn't see any amendments on climate. Now we have nine climate-related amendments here. So when you think about the urgency, we are having folks coming down and saying we must act on this now. I will remind people the reason we are able to have this debate and the reason we are able to have votes on this issue is because we are operating under a regular order process where we are allowing for amendments, whether it is on issues such as climate change or whether it is on issues such as dealing with exports as we took up yesterday. We are not going to agree in many of these areas, but at least we are going to get back to being a deliberative body that not only talks about issues, but has an opportunity to vote on them.

So, again, I think we are probably going to hear a lot of different conversations about climate change.

I want to point out an article before I conclude this morning. This is an article that ran November 27, 2014, just a few months ago. It ran in the Financial Post, and it is entitled ``New emissions from Canada's oil sands `extremely low,' says IEA's chief economist.'' The article has some interesting quotes that I think are relevant to our discussion.

The first line of that article states:

As an energy advisor to some of the world's most developed economies, Fatih Birol worries about critical issues including security of energy and the impact of fossil fuels on the climate. One issue he does not spend any time worrying about, however, is carbon emissions from oil sands.

Mr. Birol is quoted as saying: ``There is a lot of discussion on oil sands projects in Canada and the United States and other parts of the world, but to be frank, the additional CO

2 emissions coming from the oil sands is extremely low.''

So here we have a statement by IEA's chief economist. If we combine that with what we have contained in the State Department's final EIS--again, I think these are important statements of support or fact to have on the record.

As we are debating these amendments today, I encourage everyone to keep in mind that oftentimes much of what we hear can be a little amped-up. I understand the passion that goes on, but we need to make sure we are looking critically at the facts as they exist.

I am just going to conclude my comments this morning by saying that what is happening in Canada--the simple facts are that Canada is producing its oil and it will move that oil to markets. Canada is our strongest partner, and they supply us with more oil than any of our other trading partners. So Canada is going to continue to produce oil, and they will move that oil.

The question is, Who will ultimately benefit from that production of oil? Will the United States gain the benefit of those construction jobs? Will the United States gain the benefit from the crude that will come down through the line and go into the gulf coast and benefit from the refineries that are built to handle and process that heavy crude coming from the north?

I want the United States to be a participant in this important project for a lot of different reasons, and I am encouraged that more than 60 of my colleagues seem to share that view.

We will continue the discussion through the series of amendments we have before us today. I know my colleague from North Dakota is prepared to speak, but at this time I will turn it over to my ranking member, the Senator from Washington.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I wish to acknowledge the comments of the ranking member of the energy committee and her focus on energy innovation. I think we can look to that as not only a bright spot in our economy where we have seen great progress in recent years, but we have also seen great enthusiasm and an optimism about the future of our country when we allow our great minds to work on some of the problems of the day to get us to these advanced solutions.

The Presiding Officer and I come from an energy-producing State. We are also a State that has some of the highest energy costs in the country. Right now in the village of Fort Yukon, they are paying $7.25 for a gallon of fuel. Up in Kobuk--in the northwest part of the State--they are paying $10 for a gallon of fuel.

The rest of the country is enjoying a price break because of the drop in fuel, but in Alaska, when there is no neighborhood filling station that is connected to a road that is connected to someplace that brings people somewhere, people have to bring in their fuel by barge or by plane. The contract for that fuel in July--July's prices were not what they are now. Folks are locked in. Talk about being frozen in someplace--well, their prices are also frozen in.

So we know and understand the challenges when it comes to energy. We know and understand the challenges when it comes to paying to keep your house warm or your lights on. We have every interest--every interest--to make sure that we are pushing out, that we are being innovative, that we are being as efficient as we possibly can be when it comes to energy use and consumption. I want to urge us, to push us, to be really aggressive in pushing us toward those technologies that will allow us, in a small-population State that has no real energy grid, so to speak, to figure out how we can be more self-sufficient, get us off diesel, get us off $10-a-gallon oil in Kobuk, AK. We have to figure this out.

We are talking about the challenges we face, but as we begin this good, robust debate on issues such as the climate, I think we need to be careful about what we are doing in response to the issue of a changing climate. If the answer is to increase energy costs, if it is to implement a carbon tax, if it is to make it more expensive, if it is to cripple our economy, then we don't have the ability to move out on these technologies because they are expensive.

We need to have a strong economy. We need to figure out how we can address climate through adaptation, mitigation, and new technologies that are going to take us to cleaner fuel sources, to renewable energy sources we have in great abundance in Alaska and elsewhere. But it takes money. It takes a strong economy. So I am not willing to do anything that is going to put the brakes on our economic strength and viability.

This is a good part of the discussion. It is very germane to where we are right now.

I mentioned in my comments that we currently have six amendments pending to the bill. Our side would like to set up votes on these amendments, with a 60-vote threshold required for any amendment that is not germane. We are working on a side-by-side right now on the Schatz amendment as well as a potential modification to the Fischer amendment. But I don't think there is any reason why we wouldn't be voting on most, if not all, of the pending amendments shortly after lunch today. Once we have gotten through those amendments, Senator Cantwell and I will queue up the next batch of two to three amendments from each side so we can continue to make progress on this bill.

At this time, I turn to my colleague Senator Hoeven, the sponsor of S. 1, who has been waiting to address the body.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. When Canadian oil sands are refined, they produce petroleum coke, which is this high-energy, mostly carbon, coal-like substance, but it does have economic value. It can be used for fuel; it can be used for smelting; it can be used for producing dry cell batteries and other purposes.

The EPA's own Web site states--and this is from their Web site--petroleum coke itself has a low level of toxicity, and there is no evidence of carcinogenicity. The EPA's hazard characterization has also shown there are no adverse environmental effects associated with petroleum coke piles and the EPA's words are ``they are essentially inert.''

I have listened to the comments of my colleague from Illinois, and I appreciate the concerns those in neighborhoods have, but I think it is important that we recognize we are not trying to skip the science. We are not trying to add regulations for the transport and storage of something that is apparently not hazardous, according to the EPA.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I urge colleagues to oppose the Schatz amendment. There is a distinct difference between this amendment and what was previously considered in the sense of the Congress, which would refer to human activity that significantly contributes to climate change, and the issue of degrees. And I would suggest to colleagues that the inclusion of that word is sufficient to merit a ``no'' vote at this time.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, at this time I know Senators are interested in coming to the floor and offering their amendments. We have been discussing a process forward on this side of the aisle.

Earlier in the day Senator Fischer had been working on an amendment that she has agreed to modify. I understand that the other side has a side-by-side that they will ask for consideration on.

I know the Senator from Louisiana will be on the floor to speak on an amendment he would like considered, and I understand there are a couple of other Senators on the other side who wish to speak as well.

There will be no more votes today on these amendments, but again, given the interest in this subject, I encourage Members to come down and speak to their amendments. We would like to figure out that process to get a series of amendments pending.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we are wrapped up here for the evening so far as amendments, and I just want to thank colleagues for the discussion we have had today, the opportunity to bring forward some issues that clearly generate their own level of passion and emotion, and again the chance to bring forth issues we have been waiting for some period of time to have before us.

While some may suggest these are hard issues and hard votes to take, nobody ever said voting should be easy here in the Senate. The issues that come before us are issues the Nation considers and that we as their representatives should take seriously. So sometimes there are hard votes, and we will argue and debate over the wording and critically, and that is appropriate.

So again, looking forward to tomorrow, we have an opportunity to have now eight amendments that will be pending tomorrow afternoon, and I look forward to the continued discussion and a new day.

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

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