Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20150117 :

CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings January 17, 2015

Passthrough entity and so the president and the argument is that the americans gave the benefits. Well, if we didnt get any of the benefits, i think that we should be confident about that. And its important to know that this is not the first time had this discussion in front of us and it was defeated 33 to 65 and we have many of our democratic colleagues join with all the republicans to reject a statutory ban on exports. And this amendment that is pending, a they will see the same thing. And i say that because it continues to be unnecessary and i believe that it takes a pause in the wrong direction. And the department of energy has looked critically at this issue at the Keystone Xl Oil being exported. Whether or not that makes sense. So they have sent it pretty physically that without a surplus of heavy oil in the gulf coast area, there would be no economic incentive to ship canadian oil to asia where it is coming out of. The department of energys conclusion was pretty it was a pretty broad discussion about it. And that conclusion was reinforced by the state department. In its final supplemental for keystone, which is a document that everybody should read its a thousand pages long, but there is an executive summary that helps to condense so much of this. And in this final they say that it appears to be given transport costs on market conditions. So if we think about that these conclusions make some pretty good sense. And the purpose of the keystone xl pipeline is to bring canadians and americans and lets not forget the hundred thousand girls coming out of north dakota, it is to bring this oil to the gulf coast. And so it doesnt make any sense to bring oil on the way this is 849 850 miles, all the way to refineries that can refine it. These refineries are set up to deal with exactly this kind of oil. And so we have the line that brings it from the north to the south where you have refineries that are able to handle this. And so tell me why it would make sense to just use this as a Conveyor Belt or a straw and then ship it to refineries around the world. Adding that transport a cost to it. As the state department says, it is not economically justified. And it is important to understand kind of what is going on down there in the gulf coast with a refinery. The state department looks at this and what they found was that the traditional sources of heavy oil use on the gulf coast are declining. Why are they declining . Well what we traditionally see coming in as imports their coming in from venezuela, coming in from mexico, we are seeing a drawdown of bad, if you will a lessening of that. For a host of Different Reasons coming out of venezuela and out of mexico not the least of which we are producing more here in the lower 48 and so we talk a lot about the misalignment that is going on within the refinery and what is being produced and what we are capable of refining. And what we are seeing in the gulf coast is an ability to take on more capacity for a heavy oil is. And so the opportunity to refine the product coming out of canada in the gulf coast refinery is real and it is they are. And it is important to be honest here and i dont want to be written up in someones fact checker because believe me, we look at those. But there are small amounts of oil from keystone that could be exported as a matter of economic efficiency. But that should not get everyone all excited here or have a reason to panic it may come as a surprise to some, but the reexport of canadian oil that is not comingled with the domestic crude is already completely legal. It is already a routine matter and this is no big deal, this is no change in policy that is dramatic area the Obama Administration has already approved dozens of licenses to reexport crude oil across the world. And i think its important to recognize that again this amendment offered by my colleagues from massachusetts would not just block the export of the crude, but it would block the export of finished products. As was said it would be everything, the crude everything that is then produced every bit that we have, he would have stayed here. The blocking the export of the finished product would be a reversal of existing law and current practices and if you think about it from a practical how do you enforce this . So really, how would you realistically enforce this this this measure that came from this refinery and this pipeline, that you can go ahead and export and this is what we do and its not any great secret, but we moved our Refined Products and we do so in a significant way because of the benefits in our nation. And so how do we sense off everything that comes out of this and say that the refined product from this particular pipeline, you cannot move outside this country and i dont know, maybe that is the point here, but i do think that the senate should recognize that this amendment is not going to improve this bill and i dont think it will change anyones mind and i do not think it will bring new support. I think that it is meant to kind of poison the well here. And perhaps ensure that the pipeline is never going to be built. Then it cannot operate. So i would encourage my colleagues. Look at a couple different documents here. I mentioned the Supplemental Environmental Impact statement that the state department did. It is an important read for the critical analysis that went into it. And i have cited those areas where they speak specifically to the impact of the export. But there are other is that have reviewed not only that but other documents and other outside fax and i mentioned that president obama had made reference to the Conveyor Belt theory, tagging the keystone xl is being a Conveyor Belt for oil. He made that statement in burma in november. His specific words were that this would provide the ability of them to send it down to the gulf where it will be sold. The Fact Checkers got on president obama for that and it gives a pretty good analysis laying it out in clear english and ultimately deciding that the president was going to be awarded three pinocchio is for that statement which is are those or not familiar if you have made significant factual error, you get three pinocchio points. It wasnt just the Washington Post that did this assessment but we also had another fact check coming out from political act and they also raided that statement mostly false on the truth meter. And i will submit both of these fact checks to the record after unanimous consent for that. Without objection. Mr. President i think it is important to look at a full understanding when we talk about the export of the Keystone Pipeline and the imperative that in order for something to work as the senator from massachusetts has the suggested, it has to make sense for those who are moving this product there has to be economic justification at the other end and where it makes sense is to move that product to the gulf coast where the refineries have the capacity to handle that heavy crude. Turning it into product and continuing to create the jobs within that region and event. And i think that i am not going to be supporting the senators amendment. I think that is obvious from my statement. But it is important to give some of the background there and we commend some of these articles that i have referenced. And there are two other amendments that are pending before us at this time. I will speak very quickly to the amendment that has been offered by the senators from ohio as well as New Hampshire they have once again teamed up to offer this bipartisan amendment on Energy Efficiency and they have worked very closely on the issues over the years. We are at a point where you cannot think about Energy Efficiency without this so i commend my colleagues for their diligence and i have been happy to support them in their effort. And im quite honestly happy that we will have an opportunity to vote on an amendment that does relate to the Energy Efficiency. It is not the full on bill but it is one with a text that is identical to the measure that came out of the house and the Energy Efficiency improvement act. This is a bill that moved through the house 375 to 36 during the last congress towards the end. We tried to move it through in the senate and became close to advancing it by unanimous consent area but there was still a few that were outstanding that we couldnt get around. So its back before us once again. But really nothing has changed since then and in my view, this is a good reason why this proposal is truly regarded as important and noncontroversial, it contains four contributions and its extremely time sensitive, sometimes people dont want to get down into the weeds of certain aspects of what we are dealing with, this provision that we are dealing with is the federal efficiency standards related to water heaters where we have this in 2010 that our water heater manufacturer spot until april 15 when they would have to meet the revised efficiency standards from the doe, but the problem that weve got here is that the doe standards effectively ban production of these grid enabled water heaters that many of the rural coops use for thermal storage or programs. So instead of saving energy the revised standards actually working against these goals you have a bizarre unintended consequence here and we have been working for a couple years to address this and to fix that and now it is urgent and now we have to deal with it because again we are in three short months and the manufacturers were you want is going to happen. And i think to the cooperation of the senators from ohio and New Hampshire once again there are other provisions in this that are equally noncontroversial and it all relates to voluntary efficiency programs and focuses on the efficiency of commercial Office Buildings and another provides greater information and the third looked at Energy Efficient Government Technology and practices. So again, this is one that i would hope that we could advance without further delay. This is really a commonsense effort fix a real problem. More importantly, lets embrace Energy Efficiency around here. We are talking now with the discussion about increased production being very real. I started off talking about this and the National Energy economy and i kind of view this as a threelegged stool perspective, increase production, all the technologies that are going to allow us to achieve our potential with clean and Renewable Resources which is hugely important and we will also have the efficiency and the conservation peace and we dont talk about that enough around here because we need to do more and this is one way to get us there and it will be that way in a small way. And the last amendment that we have pending is an amendment that is offered by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle from minnesota. And also serving on the energy committee, he has introduced an amendment that would require that all of the iron and steel and manufacturing that is used to construct the keystone xl be produced in the united states. And i think that all of us want to do everything that we can certainly to encourage more jobs and job creation in this country to put in place policies that would allow us to do so and i do appreciate the senators amendment that inserts language in the amendment that avoids a conflict with the International Trade agreement because we know that that could have threatened the bill and given the president real reason to threaten to veto this bipartisan bill but they have addressed that within the amendment and i also appreciate that the amendment allows the president to waive the ironman for this based upon findings and that is language that is included in it. And we are sitting here 310 days 3010 days since this application was submitted for the project and i was reminded that when the initial application was first presented the president was then senator obama and that much time has elapsed and so i see this language but i believe that it is included in good faith, but i cant be convinced that the president would actually exercise this type of a waiver in a timely manner. He certainly hasnt demonstrated it at any point throughout this long and drawn out process that we have been on after six years. So i am going to be opposing this amendment for the same reason that i oppose the one we had it inside of this 2012 it was included as part of a broader amendment at that time and it did fall upon a strong bipartisan basis and, you know these important issues we are thinking about and considering and i did take a good time to review this. But again i believe that all of us want to do more to encourage job production job creation i buy american and i buy local wherever and whenever i can i strongly support the use of american materials, whether it is in my state or round the country and i know that you probably do as well, the senator from minnesota does it well. But considering whether we here in the congress should mandate specific materials of the keystone xl pipeline, i have come down on the side that we should not mandate that and i think we need to look at several things, first off it is a commitment that has been made to buy american without any sort of mandate or any requirement coming out of congress, at least 75 from this project will come from north america. [inaudible] and this is part of the commitment that has been made to ensure that america does derive benefits and we do see those direct and indirect jobs. So when you make a commitment you say that we will pledge a full 75 of the project from north america and that is important and it would be important enough that transcanada announced that three years ago. So this is not just something that they decided oh, in order to facilitate this, we are going to save 75 . No, they made this the while ago. So we have passed this act and bad act specifically is applied to projects that are federally funded. But keep in mind when we are talking about the keystone xl that this is a private project they get no subsidy is they receive no taxpayer dollars it will be built to the government specifications and we have seen that when we look to that final were the additional mitigation measures that are required once the permit is approved it will be built to the specifications. But i do not think that the government should decide what it is actually the web. We are going to decide the parameters in terms of mitigation but again, this is a private project that receives no federal funds and so it would be somewhat precedentsetting. So i asked them to see, can you identify for me any other projects where the congress has got to force or direct the private company to purchase domestic goods and materials. Until all of the materials that go into it, not just us but Everything Else as well, and we have some pretty sharp folks over there and so far they have not been able to come up with an example in our lives. So i am concerned about this quite honestly, as much as i support buying american, making sure that we see the benefits of these jobs from creating these products, i am concerned about the Congress Setting a precedent here and i think it has put us on a very slippery slope. So if we are going to set the precedent president and say that we have to do it for the pipeline, why would we not do it for other images as well . Wouldnt that be a representative or meant that we have to place as well . I know that some of my colleagues in some states where they manufactured goods made in america, i am all over that, but is that a policy that we are going to take on where we are going to say no, it is an important industry . It is an important sector and it requires that it be all made in america . If that is the case why not everything. I worry about that. I worry about where we go beyond the keystone xl beyond the ironman and i think its also important to listen to industrys perspective on this perspective. The american iron and Steel Institute has been a huge supporter for years now and i think they have 19 different member companies, 125 associate members and on january 8 is when right after we came in to session before this amendment was even filed the american iron and Steel Institute sent every one of us reiterating their support for the Keystone Pipeline and letter is pretty definite. They are not nuancing about it. They say that it is essential that congress act to ensure the approval without further delay. And so i think we need to listen to those words because those words are not coming from transcanada or an oil company, they are coming from an association and from workers around the country. Those believed earnestly they believed earnestly and honestly that construction of the pipeline will be good for this country and it will be good for these families. So lets agree that 2310 days and counting is more than enough time to make a decision. We saw the Supreme Court nebraska came out with their determination and the decision had come out of nebraska, it was not unconstitutional. And so there is a way that excuse for that reason to say that we cannot move forward, there is really Nothing Holding up a decision at this point in time other than the president s unwillingness to do so. And so i think that if we want to move forward and we want to provide these jobs and we had the debate about how many jobs are really created, we have had this final in terms of direct and indirect jobs if you want tos on the permanent jobs, that is definitely a much lower number, 35 to 50 per minute. But when you build something the opportunity for good honest work and wellpayingobs and for welders and Truck Drivers and operators people are looking for an opportunity like this. In alaska, when were debating how were going to move our natural gas to market and how were going to build this natural gas pipeline that will move this, nobody is saying we cant build this because its only going to be temporary construction jobs. Thats not what theyre talking about. They kn

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