Maria Cantwell

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, just to reiterate our opposition to this legislation, new polling has come out showing that the American public really does--over 60 percent--support going through a normal process and not subverting what are environmental laws. But we are going to move forward in getting this legislation voted on. My colleague just outlined a process for this afternoon. So I would encourage Members to come to the floor to offer their amendments. I know Senator Franken is coming to speak on his amendment, and I see the Senator from Massachusetts here to speak on his amendment. So hopefully while they are speaking we can get a vote schedule firmed up and talk about other amendments besides the three we have pending. But I would agree with the Senator from Alaska that Members should come down here and talk on their amendments and we should keep the process moving. With that, I am not sure who is queued up to speak.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, as we go back and forth on offering amendments, I wish to turn to the Senator from Hawaii for him to offer his amendment.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I know we are running against a time clock here in getting ready for the State of the Union Address tonight. I appreciate my colleague from Alaska going back and forth on these amendments and allowing both sides of the aisle to set up some pending amendments. I will just say the Toomey amendment asks for an exemption of the Clean Air Act which I wouldn't support. I know we will have a chance later on to have that discussion. Our colleague from Nebraska came to the floor and offered an amendment that would make it incredibly difficult without first proving there was negative management of Federal land to get any more national monuments. National monuments have been big economic drivers in a lot of communities and have preserved some very unique parts of our country. We will have a chance to talk about that a little bit later. But I wish to make sure we get our colleague recognized so he can offer his amendment. Then, I think we will probably, as my colleague from Alaska said, be finished for this afternoon as it relates to offering amendments back and forth. I wish to recognize the Senator from Rhode Island for his amendment.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I know my colleagues are coming to the floor to talk about various amendments. It is likely that on Tuesday we will start voting on at least the pending amendments we have discussed so far. I come to the floor today to talk about the proposal by TransCanada Corporation and about the fact that, obviously, there are some here who want to give an expedited approval to that and usurp the President, who needs to review this project in detail to make sure we understand the interests of various people, property owners, and people affected by the pipeline. One particular issue in this debate is why Congress should be hurrying to give a special interest permitting go-ahead while the President still has issues to address and as do the local communities. I know many of my colleagues are going to come to the floor to talk about those special interest concerns, as well as the issues of energy efficiency, property rights, climate change, and a whole host of priorities. But I am here today to talk about an issue I think is particularly important, which is the fact that tar sands has a loophole and doesn't pay into the oilspill liability trust fund. Both of my colleagues, Senator Markey and Senator Wyden, are going to be putting forward amendments to close this loophole. As a country we have made sure the taxpayers aren't stuck with the tab of cleaning up oil spills. The principle behind that is to keep our waters safe and to keep our communities from paying the cost of this pollution. It means really to have commonsense laws on the books providing that polluters pay for cleanup. So that is the principle that drives the oilspill liability trust fund. It is something we have had in place for a while. Basically, what the oilspill liability trust fund means is simply that American taxpayers won't be left holding the bag for the responsibility of spills that happen. We currently in law have a loophole that means that companies that produce the tar sands don't have to pay into the trust fund. That is because they are considered as synthetic petroleum. So just by the definition, they basically have had a loophole. It is important to me, as the United States considers whether a pipeline should be built across our country that would include these tar sands, which is very thick and heavy material and it is often diluted with lighter oil so it can be easier to handle. But when the spills happen, and it spills in water as we saw with the Kalamazoo spill, it leaves a thicker oil behind that usually sinks to the bottom of the water. That makes it hugely expensive to clean up and really almost nearly impossible to clean up. These concerns are driving us to make sure that as the United States and Canada continue to look at tar sands production, we are getting the technology in place to deal with this and to get the job done and to make sure that those who are liable for those kinds of spills are actually paying into a fund that would help clean up the mess. That is why it is so important that the Senate take up action on one of these amendments, so that we will be paying into the oilspill liability trust fund for any pipeline that is carrying this crude material. I want to go back to why this trust fund was created and why it was so important. The oilspill liability trust fund was created in 1986 as part of the Comprehensive Environmental Response and Liability Act. This bill was signed by President Reagan, but it took 4 more years and a major disaster before the country actually funded the oilspill liability trust fund, and that disaster was Exxon Valdez. My colleague from Alaska will be on the floor later today, and I am sure she could talk a lot about this issue as well. I had many conversations with the late Senator Ted Stevens about this issue, and there were various times when we increased payments into the oilspill liability trust fund. When one comes from the State of Washington and Pacific waters and when one comes from Alaska, how we clean up these oil spills is incredibly important to our economies. What happened in 1989 is that an oil tanker hit a reef and ended up spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil. It didn't take long for those pristine waters of Prince William Sound in Alaska to be impacted. So the impacts of the Exxon Valdez disaster were devastating not just to Prince William Sound but to the entire Pacific Northwest, and the total cost of that cleanup was $2.5 billion. Ten years ago, a Federal judge ordered Exxon to pay $6.7 billion to thousands of Alaskans affected by that oil spill. Fishermen in the Northwest lost more than $300 million as a result of that oil spill. At the time, the livelihood of individuals was impacted and, obviously, the wildlife was impacted. It killed sea otters, harbor seals, and approximately 250,000 birds. The images of all this wildlife are seared into our memories even 25 years after the spill. When the gulf spill just recently happened, we revisited a lot of those issues because we wanted to make sure we were getting things right. It was very interesting to see the environmental effects years later and some of the things that still had not recuperated from the oil spill in Prince William Sound. In 1990 Congress passed the Oil Spill Pollution Act, and it was signed into law by President Bush. It added sweeping improvements to the oil spill response and held parties responsible. It established the mechanism actually to invest in the oilspill liability trust fund. Specifically, the bill said: Let's have a per-barrel tax to raise the revenue for the fund. So today that is an 8 cents per-barrel tax on oil products. As I mentioned, this was signed into law by President Bush, who specifically praised the funding of the oilspill liability trust fund. He said that ``the prevention, response, liability, and compensation components fit together into a compatible and workable system that strengthens the protection of our environment.'' The reason I am bringing that up is because if the oilspill liability trust fund was good enough for oil products promoted by a Republican President, then it ought to be good enough for us in Congress to add tar sands. That literally was just not thought of under the current definition because of the way the definition was written. Because it is a synthetic fuel, they have a loophole. It is a question whether we are going to close this loophole or whether we are going to let them pay zero into the trust fund. The fund is used to pay for immediate cleanup costs and spills in navigable waters. This is a very important point. Some people would say: Well, aren't people just liable for their own mess, and why don't they just clean it up? I can tell you that in trying to protect Puget Sound and trying to clean up the waters off the coast of Washington, you might think it would be easy to figure out where the oil came from. It is not. When you have a busy waterway like Puget Sound, and all of a sudden somebody sights an oil slick or oil product in the water, they don't know how serious it is. It takes months and months, sometimes years, to figure out where the pollution came from. Yes, in the case of Exxon Valdez we had a ship that hit a reef and caused a problem. But in many cases, sometimes you don't know where the spill is coming from. A lot of people will say: Well, it wasn't us. Or they start this process. An oil spill needs an immediate response, and that is why we established the oilspill liability trust fund--to have an immediate response so that we are not sitting around waiting for weeks and months to figure out who did the oil spill, and so somebody can start the process immediately and work with the Coast Guard to actually clean it up. You would think this doesn't happen that frequently, but it happens a lot more frequently than people realize. That is why an immediate fund is important, and that is why everybody who is producing oil should pay into it. Yet there is a loophole in the law, so the per-barrel tax doesn't apply to tar sands. In 2011 the IRS issued a ruling stating that the tar sands imported into the United States were not subject to the excise tax on petroleum. The ruling was actually based on a 1980 House Ways and Means Committee report that crude oil does not include tar sands. As I said earlier, it is considered synthetic. Therefore, according to the IRS, it is not subject to the tax. We should simply clean this up and have those responsible for their mess also be responsible for paying in to clean it up. When the oilspill liability trust fund was established, it was intended to be a mechanism for all oil spills--not the definition of oil as a product. Congress should fix this next week when we vote on this legislation and figure out exactly how to make sure the Commandant of the Coast Guard would have the tools to deal with this. I, too, have concerns about the fact that we don't really have the tools yet to accurately clean up tar sands. When the Commandant of the Coast Guard was before a commerce hearing just a year ago--because I have a great deal of concern about the moving of this product on a variety of transportation means--I asked him about tar sands because the last thing we want to see is product out on our waterways. He said: Our technology is not as sophisticated when you have tar sands. They are heavier, they sink into the water, into the ocean bottom, so it is a challenge for us. Once it settles on the sea floor, our technology is lacking in that regard. Basically, I am finding that some of the dirtiest oil out there does not pay into the oilspill trust fund, and we don't even have the mechanisms for cleaning up. Unfortunately, we learned that lesson very hard in the 2010 Enbridge pipeline, which was owned by another Canadian company, along the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. It ruptured, and it spilled 1 million gallons of tar sands into the river. This is a picture of that cleanup and the process, which was $1.2 billion that was spent. So for those of you who don't know Kalamazoo, it was an incredible economic, environmental, and historic issue for the people of Michigan. The river was closed for business for 18 months after that spill. More than 35 miles of the river had to be off limits because it was difficult to clean up. Today, 4 years later, they are still impacted. As I said, the cost was $1.2 billion because they had to dredge the bottom of the river. So any oil spill of that magnitude is damaging. Yet, when we look at this issue, the fact that these tar sands were sinking to the bottom made that dredging even more serious. It is the reason why we need to make sure these tar sands are taxed just as any other oil that is produced in the United States and pays into this trust fund. A Cornell University study found that ``this spill affected the health of hundreds of residents, displaced residents, hurt businesses, and caused a loss of jobs'' in Kalamazoo. This study is located online at: https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/sites/ ilr.cornell.edu/files/GLI_Impact-of-Tar-Sands-Pipeline-Spills.pdf. I think it is just the start of what the challenges will be for us when we allow this kind of tar sands development to move through the United States. Our spill responders are very skilled. First, they know we need to do everything we can to prevent spills, to begin with. They are developing technologies to respond to the case of an emergency. They are doing everything they can to use this trust fund. So we need to make sure we are having those who are producing this product pay into the trust fund. We need to make sure we are closing this loophole. So my colleagues--as I said, Senator Wyden and Markey-- have been working on this issue for some time. Senator Wyden, the ranking member on the Finance Committee, I know he feels very strongly they should be paying into the oil spill liability trust fund and paying their fair share of revenue. I know Senator Markey has worked on this issue in the House of Representatives before coming to the Senate. So we need to make sure people understand that dredging is not good enough, that our country needs a plan, that we need not just to rush through this pipeline and basically to think that we have all of the technology, all of the methods, all of the appropriate emergency funds to clean this up. We need to make sure we are not sitting here arguing with a company--a Canadian company--that just wants us to clean up the mess and leave the U.S. taxpayer paying the bill. In fact, there was some debate in the Kalamazoo spill whether the Enbridge company had hit their liability cap and so the trust fund should pay for it, even though they never paid into the trust fund. So are we going to let the American taxpayers clean up a Canadian oil mess at our expense--that we paid in--and everybody is affected by that? I think we should slow down this process and make sure we are getting things like the oil spill liability trust fund right and that we are getting this added to this legislation before it moves out of the Senate. I know my colleagues will get a chance to look at this next week. As I said, we will probably start voting early next week on some of these amendments that are being offered. But I hope my colleagues will close these loopholes and make sure that the U.S. citizen and taxpayer is not left on the hook paying for oil spill responsibility that should be the responsibility of these individual companies. I know we are expecting some of our other colleagues to come to the floor shortly to speak on their amendments. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. My colleague has already given me some time this morning--and I can certainly come back and add more to the debate--but what I am outlining is exactly how this process has circumvented the laws of this land. One more action by this body is exactly what this special interest company is seeking. If Congress had succeeded in pushing the President of the United States into agreeing to the original route through Nebraska in 2011, the route would have been right through the Ogallala Aquifer. Even TransCanada had already agreed that it needed to change the route. I don't know why we are being asked to push something through when we really should allow the State Department to do its job. I will have much more to say on this process of the circumventing of public interest; about the devastating spill in the Kalamazoo River, and the fact that we don't know all we need to know about tar sands cleanup in water; and the fact that Midwest gasoline prices could be affected if this pipeline is approved. There are many issues. So I will gladly debate this with my colleagues throughout the rest of this week. I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL. I thank the Senator from North Dakota. I know we are going to be going back and forth on this issue and that we have other people coming. Later this morning we are going to have time divided. But I appreciate the Senator from North Dakota allowing us to join in the debate this morning and make a few points. I do want to say I appreciate the hard work of the Senator from North Dakota on the energy committee in general. I look forward to working with him on many energy policies. He and I have worked together on a couple of different agricultural issues. I certainly appreciate his due diligence, but needless to say I do not agree with the process of moving forward with this motion to proceed to the Keystone XL Pipeline bill. Many of my colleagues are going to be coming down and talking about the issues. Two of my colleagues, including the Senators from Utah and Arkansas, along with the Senator from North Dakota, brought up a couple of different points. But in my mind, they are talking about a 19th century energy policy and fossil fuel instead of us focusing on what should be a 21st century energy policy for our country. It is unfortunate that S. 1 is a very narrow, specific, special interest measure for a pipeline that did not go through the proper channels of a permitting process and because of that is flawed. As people are heralding it as the new Congress. This process continues today with people saying: Let's just give it more special interest attention and approve it. I believe America should be a leader in energy policy and that our job creation is dependent upon that energy policy for the future. We want to see America be a leader in this. I applaud the fact that the President reached a climate and clean energy agreement with China. We are over 60 percent of the world's energy consumption. If the two countries can work together on a clean energy strategy, I guarantee that will be good business for the U.S. economy. In fact, I read a statistic that something like 50 percent of all energy is going to be consumed by the buildings in China--there is huge growth in building development, but they do not have good building standards so those buildings consume too much energy. So there is a lot to do on energy efficiency that will grow U.S. jobs and help us. That is why we would rather see us focusing on some of the energy policies that we did in 2005 and 2007. Those things unleash huge opportunities for American jobs and huge opportunities for American consumers to get a better deal and not be subject to price spikes. The 2007 bill had fuel efficiency standards in it and laid the foundation for the growth of the hybrid electric car industry and has added over 263,000 jobs in the last 5 years. That is the kind of smart policy we should be pursuing. We also have had energy bills that made investments in clean energy tax credits, something I was just talking about with my colleague from Utah, saying we needed to move forward on energy tax credits. If there is nothing else that we should be doing, we should be doing that as S. 1, because the predictability and certainty we would be giving to that industry would certainly unleash many jobs. So the 2005 and 2007 energy bills that we did in a bipartisan fashion helped foster an energy-efficient economy and helped support 450,000 jobs according to a 2011 Brookings Institution report. These are examples of the types of things we have done in the past that have unleashed investment, and have grown jobs in the United States of America. They are important milestones in the type of clarity Congress can give to the private sector to spur growth and development. I can guarantee this is the opposite of that. This is about a special interest deal and overriding a process, including the White House process and local government process, that is so essential. Two examples of what we should be doing instead: As I said, the energy tax credits which have been delayed. As my colleagues from Oregon pointed out at the end of last year, we basically authorized them for about 2 more weeks in December. That was about all the certainty we gave the industry. A McKinsey report has estimated that providing the right incentives for retrofitting buildings and energy efficiency would help employ 900,000 people over the next decade; that the wind energy tax credit would employ 54,000 people, and there are other issues about modernizing our grid and new technology storage. There is also very important work to be done in the manufacturing sector; that is, to help unleash innovation by making sure we set standards on improving efficiency and focusing on lightweight materials for both automobiles and aviation. We have seen huge job growth in the Pacific Northwest because we were able to transform aerospace into lighter weight materials. We are also working on a biojet fuel. So all of these things mean we have to get the R&D right, we have to get the tax credits right, and we need to help protect consumers from spiking energy prices. This is the evolution. I do not think anybody in America thinks we are going to hold on to a 19th century fossil fuel economy forever. The question is, Whether Congress is going to spend its time moving forward on a 21st century plan that gives the predictability and certainty to unleash that leadership and capture the opportunities in developing markets around the globe or whether we are going to hold on to the last elements of fossil fuel forever and leave our constituents more at risk. But I would like to take a few minutes and talk about this process my colleagues are trying to describe as to why we need to hurry. Because I can guarantee that is what people have been trying to do all along, hurry this along for a special interest. I do not believe that is good for the American people. I do not think it is good for this process. If we think about where we have been, this process is about people who are trying to push a route through no matter what the circumstances. Every State, people are saying, has approved this process. I can guarantee there are a lot of people in Nebraska and a lot of people in South Dakota who do not agree with that. They are very concerned about the public interest. Unfortunately, in the case of the Keystone XL project, landowners and ranchers in Nebraska affected by the pipeline did not feel they were afforded equal opportunity before the law. In their view the process was set up to benefit a special interest, the TransCanada Corporation. On three separate occasions, beginning in 2011, the Nebraska Legislature passed carve-outs to circumvent the role of the public service commission to approve the Keystone Pipeline. If this was such a great deal, why can't it go through the normal process, as in every other State, with a transportation and utilities commission ruling on siting? Why do we have to take the public interest out of it? The first carve-out included the Major Oil Pipeline Siting Act of 2011. So this bill laid out the rule that the public service commission determined whether a new pipeline project was in the public interest. In making this decision, the legislature required that the commission consider eight criteria. Among them: the environmental impact of water and wildlife and vegetation, the economic and social impact, the alternative route, the impact to future development in the pipeline's proposal, and the views of counties and cities. OK. That all sounds great, right? That is what the legislature says they should be considering. But the legislature also required the commission to hold public hearings and have public comment--OK, we are still on the right track--and importantly required the commission to establish a process for appealing the decision, so that any aggrieved party could have due process rights under the Administrative Procedures Act. Here is the punch line. Tucked away in that Nebraska legislation was a special interest carve-out that exempted TransCanada--Keystone XL-- from having to comply with the public service commission process. Specifically, the legislation stated, ``. . . shall not apply to any major oil pipeline that has submitted an application to the US Department of State pursuant to Executive Order 13337 prior to the effective date of this act.'' There was only one company that qualified for this special interest exemption at the time of that legislation; that was TransCanada. So you got it. The legislature basically exempted them from that process, even though they were stating that these are the processes that you should go through. So at the very time the legislature created new rules for due process on the pipeline, it exempted them from those rules. I do not understand why TransCanada cannot play by the rules, but I guarantee you Congress does not have to join in and make S. 1 a special interest bill. They should make sure everyone plays by the rules. In this same legislative session, the Nebraska legislature also passed the Oil Pipeline Route Certification Act. This bill provided Keystone XL with an expedited review process by the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality and gave the sole authority to approve the project to the Governor. Unfortunately, for the legislature and for TransCanada, these carve-outs quickly became irrelevant because President Obama denied the application in 2012. That is in part due to the fact that Congress had decided to try to intervene in the matter. That is when Congress said this is important and we should go ahead and do this. I am going to get into more detail on that in a second. This is important to understand because the initial Nebraska legislation was so narrowly tailored, it was designed to benefit the TransCanada pipeline and its pending date of enactment. What happened next? The legislature went back to the drawing board and created a third new special carve- out for the Keystone XL Pipeline. The day following the President's denial of TransCanada's application, a new bill was introduced in the Nebraska Legislature. This bill was yet another path around the existing due process afforded to citizens in that State. The legislation allowed the company to choose whether to go through a formal process with the public service commission or seek expedited review with the Governor. I am sure a lot of U.S. companies would love to have that opportunity. These are U.S. companies that have to pay lawyers, go through environmental processes, make sure all of the issues are addressed. I am sure American companies would love to know any day of the week they can just go past a utility commission and get the Governor to stamp ``approved'' on their project. Under this expedited approach, the legislature authorized the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality to independently conduct an environmental impact report. However, unlike due process required by the public service commission, this process required only token outreach to the public. There was just one public hearing in 2012. This special process provided no recourse for aggrieved parties. There was no formal appeals process. Other than the courts, there was no administrative process with the ability for stakeholders to challenge the facts as a matter of record to base their formal appeal on. These are fundamental differences between an expedited consideration within the Governor's office and a process requiring a public interest determination by relevant decisionmakers at a commission. I know my colleagues here would like to argue that somehow this has been a long, drawn-out process. This has really been a process by one company constantly circumventing the rules on the books and trying to get a special deal for approval. We have to ask ourselves why. Why do they want to proceed this way? I know my colleagues always like to talk about their neighbors. My neighbors in British Columbia are not so thrilled about tar sands pipeline activity. They are not interested in it. So maybe that is why TransCanada wants to hurry and get this process through in the United States. I ask my colleagues, do you have confidence the public interest was really taken into consideration--that you run over the interests of private property owners on these issues? Was the department of environmental quality evaluation comprehensive? I can say one Nebraska landowner described the report as ``an incomplete evaluation of a natural resource with the magnitude of the Ogallala Aquifer, and now it is left in the hands of TransCanada to do their own policing.'' Another family, who has been ranching for more than five generations in Nebraska, said the process left landowners with nowhere to turn with their concerns of erosion, water contamination or eminent domain. Another landowner had this to say about circumventing the process in Nebraska: I feel it is not in the best interest of Nebraska, nor the citizens of Nebraska, to have our legislators crafting special legislation to meet the specific demands of an individual corporation. I couldn't agree with them more. That is exactly what we are trying to do today. The same stakeholders in Nebraska have also questioned the appearance of conflict of interest associated with the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality report since it was prepared by a contractor who also worked for TransCanada and Exxon on different joint pipeline projects. Meanwhile, a majority of the State Supreme Court, 4 out of 7 justices, just last week ruled that the legislature and the Governor's actions were unconstitutional.

Ms. CANTWELL. I ask unanimous consent that I be given an additional 2 minutes to wrap up.

Ms. CANTWELL. I know we have several colleagues who want to come and speak on other issues this morning, and then we have some Members who want to join back in on this debate, but I want to make a few points and finish up my remarks from earlier and then yield to our other colleagues.

Ms. CANTWELL. Go right ahead.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, as I said, I know we have other colleagues here, so I will wrap up my opening remarks on the debate, then turn it over to other colleagues who are wanting to speak on this subject and other matters this morning. I want to respond to a couple of things, because I know our colleagues keep thinking this is something we have to do and we have to expedite. But the reason why this project hasn't been approved to date is because we haven't followed the process, and people keep bringing up objections to that process. Along those lines, I want to turn back to congressional involvement in this matter during the back-and-forth with Nebraska on the pipeline route change in the Sandhills region. During the time from 2008 until 2012, the U.S. State Department was reviewing TransCanada's initial pipeline application. This process requires a national interest determination by the President. It is worth reminding my colleagues this was a process laid out by President Bush. But in the review of that process, in their initial application, the State Department, in 2011, announced that an alternative route through Nebraska needed to be found to avoid the uniquely sensitive terrain of the Sandhills area. The President and the State Department said we need to go a different route. So what happens next? One would think that most people would stop and listen and say: Oh, my gosh, there is a concern about this aquifer. But that is not what happened. That is not what happened. People came to Congress and said: We should get the old route approved in the aquifer that provides 30 percent of the groundwater for irrigation through the United States--where a spill would have been disastrous. At the same time the State Department was telling the company, we have real concerns; you need to re-route the pipeline. The company was coming here to Congress trying to push the old route through at the same time the State Department was negotiating. So I would say to my colleagues, if you think you are helping this process, you are hurting it. You are trying to take away the negotiating power of the State Department to make sure that environmental and public interest issues are addressed here. Now I know my colleague, whom I look forward to working with on the energy committee, thinks his legislation has protected something in the area of property rights, but let me be clear: This legislation ensures that the status quo in Nebraska under the Supreme Court decision last week will stand. It simply affirms that the use of eminent domain on behalf of TransCanada will be the law. So we are not doing anything in this legislation to protect them. Jamming Keystone XL onto the temporary payroll tax cut bill was a mistake, and the bill today is also a mistake. This bill says, ``Don't try to answer all of these questions that we think the State Department should decide in our national interest.'' The President should have the ability to say yes or no on this. I would like the President to answer these questions as they relate to the tar sands oil in water, only because I had a chance to ask the Commandant of the Coast Guard a year ago about this issue. We are very concerned about the transport of tar sands out of the Pacific Northwest. The commandant at that time said we have no solution--no solution. So when my colleague from Michigan talked about the $1.2 billion that was spent on tar sands cleanup because it sank in the Kalamazoo River, I think these are issues that the State Department has every right to raise with the company to get answers on. Just recently TransCanada has been redoing some of its pipeline in other areas because it has also found that the welds in the pipeline were not properly done. So in the State Department's Environmental Impact Statement, it required TransCanada to get a third-party validator to validate whether it was actually meeting the standards we want to see on the pipeline; but, no, our colleagues would like to interrupt that and say: We know best, just like we were ready to make it right with the Sandhills aquifer. We know best. So I ask my colleagues not to rush a process that has been failed from the beginning, that did not allow for the public interest to be adequately afforded its right. I don't understand what the hurry is. I do want to hurry on energy policy, but it has much more to do with getting the tax credits and clean energy incentives in place that will unleash thousands of more jobs and give predictability. That is the prerogative and the responsibility of Congress, to look at these tax incentives to establish economic incentives. It is not our job to site pipelines when the local process has not played out. At least don't stop the President from making sure these environmental issues are addressed. My colleague from Massachusetts has been waiting, and I know he was a leader in the House of Representatives prior to his time in the Senate making sure that tar sands should pay into the oilspill liability trust fund, and I certainly appreciate his leadership on that. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, on behalf of Senator Franken, I call up his amendment No. 17.

Ms. CANTWELL. So while I think this is very interesting that Congress is trying to expedite a process here by which the TransCanada pipeline is approved and the Nebraska Supreme Court made a decision basically on standing and had four of the seven justices say that this was unconstitutional--what the legislature did in trying to take away the public interest standard--this company is not waiting one second to say that property owners who never got the public interest standard met are going to get short-shrifted again and they are just going to go ahead. So I don't see why Congress is trying to help a special interest hurry and make a decision when they are not trying to give any landowner the benefit of a process or give landowners the ability to negotiate. They are just going to go ahead with eminent domain. So it is a very interesting tale we are going to talk a lot more about in the ensuing days about all the special attempts that TransCanada has done to try move ahead with this pipeline without following due process. As I noted earlier this morning I found it very interesting that at the very time the State Department was saying to TransCanada that their current proposal goes through an aquifer and really should go somewhere else, TransCanada was looking for support in Congress to go ahead and approve the pipeline through the aquifer by saying the State Department had to approve it. Clearly, here is somebody who just wants this pipeline no matter what, no matter where, and is going to use every attempt to not follow the rules. So we hope that we will have a very healthy debate about why Congress shouldn't be entering into this kind of special interest deal on behalf of this company. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, we have made some progress with proceeding to this very important issue and Members are obviously coming to the floor to talk about their amendments and offer their viewpoints on this legislation. I would just point out that I hope we have a chance to consider some of the other amendments we have been talking about, the issue of whether companies in the tar sands business should be paying into the oilspill liability trust fund. We talked earlier today about how the oilspill liability trust fund which U.S. companies are required to pay into and is critical for cleanup. I want to add some documents to the Record of this case we had in Kalamazoo where the company may have hit its cap and where it may--for that Kalamazoo spill on tar sands--be asking the oilspill liability trust fund to actually recoup the benefits they had to pay out. To me this is a very important issue. Here is a company where we have tar sands spilling into the Kalamazoo River and actually costing, I think, something like $1.2 billion, and instead of this company paying into the trust fund and paying for costs on this, they basically are going to take money that U.S. companies paid into the trust fund and be recouped because of this. So I just want to get this right, and I hope we can work with our colleagues on another amendment on that process. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article that just appeared in the paper from the AP about how TransCanada is said to offer landowners a price for their land in Nebraska at which point if they don't come to an agreement by this Friday the company can use eminent domain to take the land.

Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object. I just want to note for my colleagues that this agreement has been worked out on both sides; that instead of staying until midnight and having a great deal of uncertainty as we approach the next 2 days for both of our caucuses to have retreats, giving people predictability about Friday and next Monday being a holiday, working out a back-and-forth on these agreements I think is a good way to proceed. I hope people will feel free on Friday to come and dialogue about these or other amendments. But this process is one I think we should pursue at this point, so I will not object.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Reserving the right to object. Is the vote scheduled for 4 minutes from now?

Ms. CANTWELL. I am happy if the Senator speaks until the time of the vote, but I think we should keep to the vote schedule.

Ms. CANTWELL. This is an article that just recently appeared in the paper about how South Dakota is bringing up objections to the pipeline, and they want to do due process with their public utility commission to make sure this project meets the criteria of environmental and safety concerns and security concerns that State wants to see met. The reason this is still an issue in South Dakota is because part of the pipeline will go through South Dakota. There have been many changes since the original proposal was put forth, and people in South Dakota want to know exactly what these changes are and exactly how they will go through the process. In fact, one Native American tribe representative who was objecting said: The company is not just asking to recertify its old project. They are going a step beyond that that is not allowed by law. So there are people who want them to go through the normal process because siting of a pipeline of this nature is of great concern to local residents, to property owners. I find it interesting that in the debate on this issue, we on this side of the aisle are the ones who are advocating and standing up for property owners to make sure there is not a taking of their property without a transparent process and input for that process because that is exactly what transpired here when the company, with the help of the State of Nebraska, did not continue to proceed through their public service commission, their public utility commission, and instead tried to pass a law saying that the environmental review and security issues and oversight could be done by the Governor. Now, my colleagues who are Governors know that when you are Governor, you do not have the most transparent process. It is not as if citizens are going to come to hearings in the Governor's office. It is not as though all of that is there for review. Certainly those citizens do not have the ability to object and make sure they are getting the right compensation for their property and make sure issues of safety and security are addressed. So that is why some private property owners sued. Because the legislature and the Governor did not have the right to act; the law taking the power away from the utility commission and giving it to the Governor was unconstitutional. The separation of powers is divided between the Governor and their public service commission. It is the job of those UTCs--utilities and transportation commissions around the country--to protect the interests of the public in the siting of these facilities. That this authority was now moved up through the legislature to the Governor to decide all of that was clearly something that was not constitutional. I find it very interesting that four of the seven supreme court justices said, in fact, yes, that law passed by the legislature was not constitutional. So my question is, What is the hurry? Now that this issue, based on standing and the other justices not deciding, has the process to move forward, Congress feels some sort of urgency to be a siting commission and site a pipeline that has, No. 1, failed to go through the public process in the State of Nebraska; No. 2, has a public process now being questioned in the State of South Dakota, raising concern and urgency that those issues of the public be addressed; and No. 3, goes over what the President of the United States has said he wants to follow as a due process and make sure all the issues are brought to the table. I will remind my colleagues that if everybody here had their way, the President would have approved the original Keystone XL pipeline route. Congress thought they should stick their hands in the middle of this siting and land use issue and put in legislative language on a passed bill by the Congress saying the President, if it was a national security interest, must decide and site the Keystone Pipeline. Thank God those at the State Department and the White House decided that was not such a smart idea because that current pipeline went through a major aquifer that served eight States and posed a great deal of concern to landowners, farmers, residents, and various individuals about that particular proposal. So if this body would have had its way before--those who support this pipeline--they would have pressured the President to approve what is now a defunct, horrible idea of what was proposed by TransCanada. So now I ask my colleagues, are you sure all of the issues have been addressed here at the local level? Because clearly there are people in Nebraska and people in South Dakota who do not think so. Last I checked, our job is not to site pipelines; our job is to move our country forward on an energy strategy that will produce jobs, diversify our resources, and make the United States a leader in energy. I know my colleagues feel as if we will get a chance to address a lot of issues if we do move forward in a debate, and I am sure there will be many on many sides. I question whether we shouldn't be spending our time focusing on a bipartisan energy bill with lots of support on a whole myriad of others issues we need to work on, as we did in 2007, to make sure we are helping in the transformation of energy policy moving forward that will produce a lot more jobs. This particular proposal, as many of my colleagues have pointed out, while there are some immediate construction jobs, the long-term jobs are very few compared to many of the other things we have been doing. I would also like to point out that since Keystone has undertaken more development in the United States, that part of that development in the United States has also come into question lately. The security of the welding on the pipeline that has been done in the southern part of that pipeline has come into question, even to the point where I think the State Department has said to the company: We are going to have a third-party validator approve whether you are actually meeting the standards we would like to see in the development of this pipeline in the United States. But there are many issues here about safety and security, as my colleagues can point out who have brought up these issues before. My colleague from Michigan suffered one of the most devastating oilspills in her area. That was a tar sands oilspill. My colleague from Michigan, Senator Stabenow, has actually flown over that oilspill and cited that it took 4 years and $1.2 billion to clean it up and that the tar sands sunk to the bottom of the river and the river had to be dredged. So this is something my colleagues may not quite understand, that the tar sands, even according to the Commandant of the Coast Guard--we do not really have a solution for its cleanup when it spills in water. That is why I want to make sure that tar sands pay into the oilspill liability trust fund, as any other oil source does, so that we can make sure we are planning for the future and for getting help and response for any of these oilspills that could occur in the future. But needless to say Michigan and the Kalamazoo spill taught our Nation how dangerous this oilspill process could be. So why are we prematurely trying to cut off the debate on this issue at the local government level and say that we in Congress know better than these utility and transportation commissions and their transparent siting process for the American public? Why do we somehow know better that this is where a pipeline should go and how the process should work? So I hope my colleagues will stop and think more about how TransCanada proposal. I know some of my colleagues like to talk about being a good neighbor, and I like to say, you know, we in the Pacific Northwest consider British Columbia a very big friend and neighbor. There are many times that people talk about two provinces and five States working together as an organization on economic issues. So that structure has been in place for many years in the Pacific Northwest. But the people of British Columbia have not been a big supporter of tar sands oil expansion. Something like 60 percent of the public of British Columbia opposes having a tar sands pipeline cross their province. TransCanada knows they are not going to be successful in getting this oil from Alberta across British Columbia out to the Pacific because the people of British Columbia do not want it. So, of course, why not come to the United States? Why not ask them if they want a pipeline going through the middle of their country? British Columbia Premier Christy Clark laid out five principles that ought to have been met in order to site a pipeline of tar sands. Those conditions have not been met, and the province is officially opposed to the pipeline. So there was a lot of opposition and concern there. I will note for my colleagues that when a public UTC--a utility commission or public service commission--when they evaluate a project, they have to look at the environmental impact, and that is water supply, wildlife, vegetation, plants, and they have to look at the economic and social impact. They need to look at alternative routes, the impact to future development near the pipeline, and the views of cities and counties. Again, I will note that I think all of those are a part of having a transparent process instead of a political process on siting. So I am not for moving forward on what I consider special interest legislation, Congress siting for a special interest--this TransCanada company--a project that even people in Canada have raised suspicion about. I hope that we will allow the President to still do due process on such an important issue of environmental concern and that we will not start setting a standard that if you want to short-circuit the eminent domain and protection rights of individuals, we will just bypass all of that at the local level and somehow go to Congress and they will get that done for you. I think that is a very bad message. I hope my colleagues will turn down this legislation, I hope that we can move on to other energy issues that will help our country diversify and move forward in the future. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, we are going to be voting shortly on the motion to proceed to S. 1, the Keystone XL Pipeline. I am here to urge my colleagues to vote no on that motion to proceed. We had a couple of chances to come to the Senate floor already today and last week and talk about the important issue of energy development in the United States and how we move our country forward with job creation and energy development. The President--we got to hear his remarks and certainly we respect people's points of view that this issue is an issue we have had a lot of time to discuss. Mr. President, the issue is whether the American public and people in affected States have had a lot of time to talk about this issue and whether they have had a transparent process to talk about this issue. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article that was in USA TODAY whose headline is ``Permit problems plague Keystone XL pipeline's S.D. leg.''

Ms. CANTWELL. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor this morning to talk about the Keystone XL Pipeline. I see my colleague from Alaska is here this morning, and I think she and I were thinking we would be continuing this debate next Monday as the Senate moves forward on the motion to proceed to rule XIV of the bill that relates to this issue. Obviously we had committee action yesterday, but we are both here this morning. I wish to say to my colleague before she leaves the floor that I do look forward to the opportunity where she and I can sit down and talk about an energy strategy and other issues that will help move our country forward so we can produce jobs. I had a chance to work with Senator Murkowski's father and other Republicans on the energy committee. We produced some very good energy legislation in both 2005 and 2007 that did result in moving our country forward. It was bipartisan legislation and definitely not unanimous. I mean, there was a great deal of debate about them, but we got them done nonetheless. I am looking forward to working with the Senator from Alaska on these issues. It is probably safe to say the Senator from Alaska and I had plans this morning other than coming to the Senate floor; nonetheless, I am more than happy to talk about the recent decision by the Nebraska Supreme Court and how Congress will continue to discuss the issue of Keystone XL approval. Many of my colleagues probably know that the House will take up this action sometime today. The President has consistently said he is interested in having the process play out in Nebraska before he makes a decision about whether this pipeline is in the national interest. The President of the United States and the State Department have the authority and responsibility to look at this issue as it relates to what is in the national interest of the United States of America. This decision by the Nebraska Supreme Court today is a very interesting decision. It is a very interesting decision because a majority of the Nebraska Supreme Court, four out of the seven justices on the court, said this law was unconstitutional--this attempt to circumvent the public interest process by which the citizens of Nebraska can raise concerns about a pipeline going through their community. The majority of the supreme court said, yes, that decision to short circuit the public process in Nebraska was unconstitutional. Unfortunately for those citizens in Nebraska and those citizens in the United States of America who want to make sure the environmental security issues and economic issues are fully discussed, they are getting shut down by a supermajority of the Nebraska Supreme Court. They failed to get five out of the seven supreme court justices to side with them. Nonetheless, I think there is a lot in this decision for all of us to think about; that is, just how much this process has been circumvented. To me it is very unusual that the Senate would be asked to vote on a bill that would expedite the siting of a pipeline through the United States of America simply because a Canadian company wants us to do so. It is perplexing to me because I hear a lot of people talk about our neighbors, and I definitely value the relationship that the United States and Canada have. We are in the process of a major discussion with them on issues that impact the Pacific Northwest, and we have to work with our neighbors. I am struck that my state has a great relationship with British Columbia, which is Washington's neighbor to the north. Sixty-eight percent of British Columbian residents oppose a tar sands pipeline across their province. That is right, a Canadian province definitely does not want a tar sands pipeline going through their neighborhood. We have First Nations all across Canada who don't want tar sands development and pipelines across Canada. In addition, there are a lot of concerns about environmental practices for tar sands production that are in place in Alberta. People should know that the oil and gas producing province of Alberta, not the federal government of Canada, regulates tar sands development. Alberta does not require what we in the U.S. would consider ``best practices'' for development of some of the dirtiest oil production in the world. In the U.S., we actually have federal laws that make oil production cleaner than in Alberta. There is a lot of concern about these not only tar sands production, but also about byproducts, such as pet coke. As my colleague from Michigan stated in our business meeting yesterday, uncovered pet coke mounds, which could just blow around in the wind, caused serious environmental concerns in Michigan and Illinois. In addition, I am sure my colleague from California has been down here talking about benzene, which is a byproduct that is left behind and can adversely affect individuals. To say that just because this Nebraska court decision became final today, that all those environmental issues and public safety issues have gone away, is surely a misstatement. Congress is being pressured to make a sweetheart deal for a business interest. I believe tar sands producers should pay into the oil spill liability trust fund, just as companies that produce other oil products have to do. This is a very important issue for me because oilspills are a situation that we in the Pacific Northwest have cared about for a long period of time. In fact, the Commandant of the Coast Guard appeared before the Senate commerce committee last year, and I had a chance to ask the commandant whether the Coast Guard had a way to respond to a tar sands oilspill, and he basically told me that, no, they didn't. So, to me, there are a lot of environmental issues, a lot of process issues, and issues of paying a fair share for helping to clean up oilspills--and these issues all add up to serious concerns with legislatively approving a construction project. My colleagues on the other side want to turn Congress into a siting commission, to give a special interest the certainty to move forward on a project that needs to go through the proper process and channels. In the State of Nebraska, the public said we have concerns about a tar sands pipeline running through our state, straight through the environmentally sensitive Sand Hills region and the Ogallala Aquifer, which provides drinking water to six states. Instead of dealing with those environmental issues, the company and its advocates came to the Congress and tried to get that route approved. This is why the President had to reject the proposal in 2012--because TransCanada did not want to do right be the citizens of Nebraska or the environment. The long and short of it is, if TransCanada had been successful in getting the original route approved, that pipeline would go across the Ogallala Aquifer. There is now a broad consensus that this would have been the wrong route, endangering the water supply in America's agricultural heartland. So, thank God, Congress, which tried to act and give a sweetheart deal to TransCanada, was thwarted by the President. The President said, I cannot approve this project now. And guess what happened. The company said, yes, that is right; we have to figure out a better route for the pipeline. And TransCanada had to start the process all over with a new application for a better route through Nebraska. In my State, a utility and transportation commission--in the State of Nebraska I think it is called a public service commission--oversees the siting process for these kinds of infrastructure projects. That commission has a public process and answers all of the questions the public raises, debates the issues that are before the public and makes sure those issues are taken into account--I know many of my colleagues probably can relate to this more from the perspective of siting transmission lines or a grid system. I am sure people have seen a neighborhood complaining about a transmission line going through their neighborhood. This is a pipeline, and for us pipelines are very important in the Pacific Northwest. We had a natural gas pipeline that blew up, killing some young children in the Bellingham area. So, for me, pipeline siting, and the process that goes into assuring the safety and security of the siting, should be decided in the broad daylight of public discussion through the proper channels. In this case, people circumvented that public commission process in Nebraska, circumvented what would have been a utilities and transportation commission process, and let the Governor decide the route. Then the decision was sent to the Nebraska Supreme Court to determine whether in fact the Governor had the authority to do that. Four of those seven justices said it was unconstitutional--not the supermajority for sure, but four of them said it was unconstitutional. But nothing in that decision corrected the original problem of them circumventing the environmental and economic and security issues that a public commission is supposed to go through in this process. I ask my colleagues, why are we in such a big hurry to make this decision on behalf of a utility commission and on behalf of the President of the United States when there are real issues of safety and security that need to be discussed? Next week my colleagues are going to have a lot of discussion on a lot of different amendments, but I still advocate that Congress has no business deciding for a special interest where a pipeline should go without the due process of citizens who are affected by pipeline having input to the decision. I hope my colleagues will continue to let the process play out. I hope my colleagues will care more about public process and public interest than special interest. There is a great article, which I will submit for the Record, in Business Week citing welding issues with the current Keystone Pipeline. That existing pipeline has had safety problems. We in the Pacific Northwest celebrate that we are a gateway to Asia, and we celebrate the fact that a lot of people will want to use that gateway. But we are very concerned about due process for infrastructure projects. We see other countries wanting to move energy and other products through our gateway when safety, security, environmental, and public issues are not being fully addressed. I hope my colleagues will continue to make sure due process is given and that we will continue to make sure all of these public interest and environmental issues are addressed. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor. I see the leader on the floor, so I will not suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his leadership on the Finance Committee and just point out to my colleagues who come from States that don't have an income tax that this legislation before us tonight includes making sure we are able to deduct our State sales tax from our Federal tax obligations. I hope we will be here someday when we can actually get tax fairness in the code. This is a permanent solution. We don't have to go back every year to try to get the tax fairness our States deserve. My colleague Senator Murray is here and knows this issue well. But tonight at least we can say Washingtonians can take the sales receipts they have this year and make sure they are deducted from their tax obligations for 2014. But as the Presiding Officer said, let's make sure we take these provisions that are so important for our economy to move forward and give the taxpayers predictability and certainty. I would say that is making the sales tax deduction permanent, but I am glad Washingtonians will at least have this opportunity this year and we will move forward to have a more robust debate.