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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I will take a couple of minutes before we vote to speak to the Franken amendment. I think all of us want to buy American and buy local whenever and wherever we can. We strongly support that since it does mean jobs--whether we are talking about a pipeline or otherwise.
But I think the bigger question here--and what we have in front of us with the Keystone XL Pipeline--is what this amendment would do. This amendment would mandate specific materials for the Keystone XL pipeline, and I think we need to put this into context. This pipeline is a private project. This is not a federally funded infrastructure project. This would be the first time that Congress has directed or forced private parties to purchase domestic goods and materials.
We actually asked the Congressional Research Service to look into this to see if there was any other instance at the Federal level where private parties were told that they must purchase 100-percent domestic goods and materials, and so far the answer to that inquiry has been that they can find no instance of that.
I think we need to be careful about this as a precedent because if we are going to direct this particular project--the Keystone XL--to have this requirement on it, where do we go next? What will happen to the next project that we have? Will it be the next pipeline or the next renewable energy project? Where does this slippery slope go?
I think it is fair to note that TransCanada has made a commitment to have 75 percent of the pipes for this project come from North America, and fully half of that--more than 332,000 tons of steel will come from the State of Arkansas.
I am with the Senator from Minnesota. We want to make sure we get as many jobs as we absolutely can and make sure they are good-paying jobs--whether it is in steel making or widget making or welders. This is about jobs. This is what we want to do to encourage jobs. I think we need to be very cognizant of what this particular amendment would do. This amendment--for the first time ever--would direct a private entity to utilize all American-made products throughout the process of the construction.
It is important to note that the American Iron and Steel Institute has been a strong supporter of the Keystone XL Pipeline. We have all received a letter--they called it a Steelgram--from the American Iron and Steel Institute. They let us know very clearly and in no uncertain terms that they support Keystone XL. They said it is essential that Congress act to ensure the approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline without further delay. Again, I agree.
We need to get moving on it. We need to do it without delay. I do think it is interesting to note that the amendment does allow for the President to waive the requirements for American materials based on certain findings he can make. I appreciate that is in there, and I think that is good. But think about where we are. It has been 3,200-and-some-odd days now where we have been waiting for the President to act to make a decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline. So I don't have any real confidence that he will move to act quickly on any kind of a waiver requirement.
I just wanted to put that out there before we moved to take up the amendments that we have pending before us this afternoon and note that we will be doing that in a few short minutes.
I yield the floor.
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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we have disposed of three pending amendments that were before us. As we mentioned earlier, we are looking forward to Members coming down to the floor to offer their amendments. We have agreed to a process here this afternoon.
Today will be a somewhat truncated day on the Senate floor because of the State of the Union Address, but it is our hope that we will be able to get three amendments pending on our side and three amendments pending on the Democrats' side.
The Senator from Nebraska, Mrs. Fischer, is prepared to speak to her amendment, and then we will move to the other side of the aisle. After that, I will be calling up an amendment from Senator Lee. We will then go to the Democratic side and come back here for a third round.
Just to give Members an idea of what we will have in front of us, we will not be having votes on these amendments today, but I do think it should be clear to Members that we will be looking forward to doing a similar series of votes tomorrow. So I would encourage folks to come to the floor, talk to us, and let's get this process moving.
With that, Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Nebraska.
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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Very briefly on Senator Lee's amendment--he will be here to speak to it--this is a measure which would ensure that the rate of legal fees that are paid in Endangered Species Act cases would be consistent with those in other cases that are eligible for lawyer's fee compensation. Right now there is no cap on the hourly rate lawyers can be paid in connection with lawsuits that are brought regarding violations under the ESA. So this amendment would standardize the award of attorney's fees to parties prevailing against the Federal Government by applying a $125-an-hour rate cap under the Equal Access to Justice Act requirement. This applies to small business-related claims, among other things, and this would apply the same standard to ESA cases.
This is a measure Senator Lee will come to the floor to speak to further, but I would just give a little preview of that.
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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, obviously, Senator Toomey will come to the floor to speak to his amendment.
I wish to follow up on the comments of the Senator from Illinois, who was referring to petcoke. Senator Toomey in his amendment is attempting to deal with a situation in specific parts of the country that are impacted by coal refuse. Coal refuse, as it is defined in his amendment, effectively comes about from some centuries-old, 19th century mining operations that left behind this coal refuse in certain parts of the coal mining regions around the country. They remain a legacy problem that is acknowledged, a legacy problem that creates environmental issues, including contamination of local streams with heavy metals, acid, and mine drainage, that, again, I think we all recognize there is a responsibility to address.
The good news is there is a solution to cleaning up this problem. Coal refuse powerplants take this coal and these waste piles and turn them into energy and heat for consumers, for businesses. They follow EPA regulations. This is not a situation where we are bypassing EPA regulations when it comes to the emissions issues. But remediating these mine sites, removing these waste piles, and at the same time generating electricity with the coal and applying the basic ash from the process reclaims the land at a lower cost. So we are able to do several things at the same time. We are dealing with an environmental issue that has been in place for far too long. We are generating electricity that can be used to the benefit of consumers and businesses, and we are also able to reclaim the land.
So it is viewed, clearly, as a win here. It also creates some jobs. It improves the environment and it boosts economic growth.
Burning these coal waste piles is basically a carbon-neutral process because the carbon in these piles is currently being emitted into the atmosphere through the slow chemical process that is at play there, and we also have fires that burn within these piles. So just sitting there is not an answer to a better environment and reduced emissions.
The plants that burn this waste coal cannot economically be as clean as plants using higher quality coal. But the side benefits of removing these waste piles, again, from the perspective of dealing with emissions, generating electricity, and reclaiming the land--the benefits do compensate for the differences that are out there.
Historically, environmental regulators have recognized these benefits. They have carved out the plants from regulatory standards that would cause them to shut down. There have been EPA regulations recently that have failed to sustain this approach and, thus there is the amendment of the Senator from Pennsylvania that would allow these coal waste plants to run.
I encourage my colleagues to look at this amendment in front of us and consider the merits as Senator Toomey has laid out.
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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I thank my colleague. I think discussions we have had just in the past hour here since we have had the vote and the various amendments we now have pending before us--this is a good conversation. This is a good discussion and debate for us to be having as a body. We haven't had energy-related issues brought before this floor in some years now. We had a very limited debate on Keystone back in December, but I am hopeful that with the opportunity for amendments--and again, not just some amendments we on our side have handpicked and then decided what the Democrats might be able to move on their side--an opportunity for some real issues to be brought forward and to be debated on this floor.
The Senator from Rhode Island is very passionate on the issue of climate change. I think it is fair to say that he has singlehandedly raised the awareness not only in this body but for those loyal followers on C-SPAN.
When it comes to the issue of climate change, I think the Senator comes up once a week with his charts and a series of speeches that I think is meant to educate colleagues. I don't agree with all of it. I think that is a fair statement to say. But what is equally fair is that there is a care and concern for not only our country and our country's environment--truly the public safety of our people, a care for our land, the stewardship we have as Americans--but it goes well beyond our borders to that of our entire globe, our entire planet, and how we care for planet Earth and how we move forward responsibly.
One aspect of the energy debate that I continue to advance is that we must ensure that if we are to make advances when it comes to caring for our environment and truly the whole issue of global climate, we have to be a nation that is economically secure in the sense that the technologies we will have to help us be cleaner in all that we do, do not come without cost. Here in this country, we have been the leaders, we have been the innovators when it comes to clean-energy technologies, and we should challenge ourselves every day to do more in that regard, to build out, to push out that R&D so that we are making--whether it is making clean coal truly clean, whether it is advancing those clean energy technologies.
I, for one, coming from a fossil fuel-producing State, am a huge proponent of nuclear-powered generation in this country because I believe very strongly that it is the cleanest energy source we have at this point in time.
So what are we doing in this country to make sure our energy is abundant, affordable, clean, diverse, and secure? These are the challenges I put out to my colleagues.
I clearly appreciate the need that we have in this body and in this country to be moving forward with technologies that allow us to have reduced emissions, to have a cleaner environment, but I also want to make sure we do so in a way that doesn't cripple our economy. So how we lead in this way, which I believe we must, while keeping our economy where it must be--in the front and moving forward all the time--is our great challenge.
Again, I look forward to the debate we will have. I am pleased we were able to process the amendments we had before us today. I look forward to advancing those that we have pending in front of us now and to good, continued, and robust discussion on this floor.
I note the majority leader is here, and I yield the floor.