Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015 --- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. DAINES. Madam President, it is an incredible honor to represent
Montana in the Senate. More than 150 years ago, a young Norwegian woman
named Karine Dyrud immigrated to this country. She came in search of
freedom and opportunity. She came to a nation where government served
the people and not the other way around. After her husband passed away,
this tough widow and mother of seven headed West to Montana and settled
with her children about an hour north of Great Falls.

Karine Dyrud was my great-great-grandmother and the beginning of my
Montana story. Her perseverance is the reason why my family has called
Montana home for five generations. It is why Cindy and I have been able to pass along the legacy of faith and freedom, of personal responsibility, to our four children.

We are blessed to live in the greatest Nation on Earth, and it is a
solemn responsibility of the Senate to do everything in its power to
keep it that way.

Before I was elected to Congress, I spent 28 years in the private
sector growing companies and creating jobs. In fact, I am the only
chemical engineer in Congress. In the private sector, we understand the
importance of hard work, of innovation, accountability, and not
spending more than you take in.

The freedom of ideas and trade, private property and opportunity, are
the fundamental elements of liberty and of prosperity. These are the
elements that helped RightNow Technologies--a Montana-based cloud
computing business that I served as vice president of for 12 years--
grow from a small startup into a publicly traded company and a global
leader in cloud computing. We created over 1,000 high-paying jobs--jobs
that support a vibrant community with good schools and quality of life
for Montana families.

Unfortunately, Washington, DC, under the guise of equality, is
encroaching upon these freedoms, replacing the constitutional rule of
law through elected officials with bureaucratic rule that is
unaccountable, inefficient, ineffective, and far too costly. Washington
is more concerned with its own self-interest and self-gain than the
well-being of the American people.

As we begin consideration of the Federal budget this week, we must
hold government accountable to the people. Last year, the New York
Times did an assessment of the health and wealth of every county in the
Nation. You might expect folks in Silicon Valley to be doing fairly
well or perhaps in the suburbs of New York City. What shocked me was
seeing that six of the Nation's top 10 wealthiest counties surround
Washington, DC. That sends a pretty clear message about where
Washington priorities are.

During the recession, while millions of Americans were struggling to
make ends meet amidst layoffs and economic instability, Washington, DC,
thrived. The Federal Government poured millions of dollars into new
buildings, and salaries kept growing and growing.

It is time for Washington to be held accountable to the American
people, and that is why the first bill I introduced in the Senate was
the Balanced Budget Accountability Act. It simply requires Congress to
balance the budget or Members won't get paid. It is not that
complicated. It is easy to measure. It is very simple. No balanced
budget, no paycheck.

Washington is out of touch with the day-to-day struggles that
American farmers, ranchers, union workers, and tribal members face
every day. Look no farther than President Obama's recent veto of the
Keystone XL Pipeline. Instead of working toward North American energy
independence, President Obama continues to play politics with good-
paying American jobs. Instead of advancing economic opportunity for
hard-working Montana families, President Obama is instead perpetuating
his war on energy and standing in the way of affordable made-in-Montana
and made-in-America energy.

While serving in the House, I invited Crow tribal chairman Darrin Old
Coyote to testify before the Natural Resources Committee. The Crow
Reservation in Montana is home to some of the richest energy reserves
in our country, but the President's senseless agenda is preventing them
from developing their resources. What Chairman Old Coyote said has
stuck with me. He said, ``A war on coal is a war on the Crow people.''

President Obama and the EPA's regulatory overreach is a direct threat
to thousands of jobs and our Nation's economic future. We shouldn't be
hitting pause on American energy production. We need to encourage it.
More made-in-America energy doesn't just mean more money in the pockets
of hard-working families. It also means more jobs. It means energy
independence.

Our energy security, though, isn't just about jobs and low energy
prices. It is tied directly to our national security. I am happy to
report the United States will become the largest oil and gas producer
in the world this year, surpassing both Russia and Saudi Arabia. As we
see the growing threat of ISIS and a nuclear Iran, one thing is clear:
We need more made-in-America energy, not more made-in-the-Middle East
oil.

We have tremendous opportunities to develop our Nation's energy
resources and create new jobs across the entire Nation, but we must
allow the States to take the lead. Rather than moving forward with
commonsense, job-creating solutions, such as the Keystone Pipeline,
Washington continues to put barrier after barrier up to prevent job
creation and the responsible management of our resources.

We see that in our national forests and our public lands. Our public
lands out West are a tremendous asset to our tourism economy and our
way of life. It is one of the many reasons people come to Montana in
the first place. But the Federal Government's perpetual failure to
properly manage our national forests has led many of Montana's forested
counties into economic despair. Like many Western States, Montana once
boasted a robust timber industry. Now timber harvests in our national
forests have declined 82 percent. In fact, I had dinner one evening
with a couple from Eureka, MT, up in the northwest corner of our State,
in Lincoln County. They said: Steve, basically we describe this area
now as poverty with a view.

We must implement meaningful forest management reforms that get our
timber industry up and running again. It improves the health of our
forests and it ensures our rural counties aren't dependent on the whims
of the Federal Government's annual budget. But we must ensure that
States have primacy in these decisions. We must ensure the hard-working
farmers, the ranchers, the loggers, and the sportsmen who live, work,
and recreate on these lands every day have their voices heard, and that
those closest to the land are guiding management practices, not
bureaucrats in Washington, DC, or lawyers in San Francisco, who would
be hard pressed to find Montana on a map.

But Washington's overreach doesn't just affect our natural resources.
We are seeing it in our technology sector and the Internet. I worked in
the technology sector for more than 12 years. I know firsthand how the
Internet has removed geography as a constraint for countless businesses
in Montana and across our Nation.

I know technology has created jobs and economic opportunities in
communities where little previously existed. We must encourage the
growth of these high-tech jobs in Montana and across our country. These
are good-paying jobs that will help us grow economically and allow us
to remain globally competitive.

The Internet is a laboratory of innovation, yet DC wants to tie our
entrepreneurs' hands by placing more regulations on the Internet. The
FCC recently approved a 300-plus-page plan to regulate Americans'
Internet access as a title II utility, in short, a government takeover
of the Internet. That is like putting a buggy whip manufacturer in
charge of Tesla.

The Internet is unconstrained innovation. That is why I will stand
strong against DC's attempts to tax the Internet, to regulate the
Internet, and to stifle innovation. If we want to remain the greatest
Nation in the world, we need to remain globally competitive, and
technology plays a key role in that.

We also must implement meaningful tax reforms that encourage American
businesses, incentivize American businesses to grow and create jobs
here at home, not overseas. During my time at our software company, in
the last 5 years I managed Asia Pacific, and I had offices in Tokyo and
Sidney, but headquartered in Bozeman, MT, as we were growing and
competing against some of the world's best technology companies.

We must expand our trade opportunities, certainly for our farmers and
ranchers across our country. So it is important that innovation and
entrepreneurship are encouraged, not hindered. Unfortunately,
Washington, DC, is more interested in issuing press releases and
headlines than getting results.

As an engineer, I was trained to solve problems, find solutions, and
get results. It is time for Washington to look to the States for these
solutions--to adhere to the principles of federalism and States rights, as clearly found in our Constitution--and empowering local communities, State legislatures, Governors, and tribes to manage their resources, to grow economic opportunity, and to find and determine their own destiny.

In fact, it is time for Washington to listen to the States and it is
time for Washington, DC, to listen to Montana.

I have always said one of the best decisions I ever made in my life
was when I picked my great-great-grandmother. She got her family out to
Montana, and she is buried in a small country cemetery just east of a
small town called Conrad, MT. On her headstone, in this very remote
small country cemetery, reads three simple words: ``saved by grace.''
She placed her ultimate faith in her God, not in her government.

It is an honor to stand here today on the Senate floor to serve as
Montana's voice in Washington. I will continue working to bring more
Montana solutions to Washington and get it working again for all
Montanans.

I yield the floor.

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