John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham).

Mr. CORNYN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 71

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham).

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I had some concluding thoughts about the President's State of the Union speech on Tuesday night. Much of it we have heard before. In fact, what the President laid out was largely what his agenda has been for the last 6 years. In other words, we have been there and we have done that, and it hasn't worked very well. We have had tired big government proposals. In fact, the President seems as though he has doubled down in a lot of ways on higher taxes, more redistribution, and more regulations that are out of step with what the American people, I believe, want and need. I think what they want more than anything else, from a strictly economic point of view, is to get the economy growing again. Let's create jobs. Let the private sector actually create jobs--not government. We know government is pretty incompetent when it comes to job creation. And we now have this nagging little minor detail called the national debt where we keep borrowing money and pushing that down the road to the next generation and beyond. It is ironic in a lot of ways because the President came to the people's House to give his State of the Union speech, which is the House of Representatives, but his speech was anything but for the people. He claimed that really his focus was on middle-class economics. I think he had been listening to the senior Senator from New York who, after this last election, gave a speech at the National Press Club and said that Democrats had made a terrible mistake leading off with the President's new term in 2009 with ObamaCare and other big government programs and they had neglected stagnant wages and the middle class. So I think the President, in a tipping of his hat to Senator Schumer and his comments post election, has essentially acknowledged that his first 6 years have failed to address the needs of the middle class. That is why he kept using the phrase ``middle-class economics'' during his speech. But it wasn't really about the middle class. It wasn't about hard-working American taxpayers. Time and again, it seemed his most urgent priority was himself. His speech was really about him and his agenda, his pet projects, his vision for bigger government. I would just point out that the President quite candidly admitted it was his agenda and his policies that were on the ballot on November 4. I think that sent a shudder through every incumbent who was running for reelection who happened to have voted for his big government agenda. But the point is that it was soundly rejected on November 4. You couldn't tell that from the President's tone and his cheerleading last Tuesday night. But my point is we have been there, we have done that, and it didn't work. So let's try something different. We have felt the experience of this experiment in big government for the last 6 years. If anything, what the voters said on November 4 is enough is enough. I can't remember who originally said it, but someone said famously that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. You can't try the same old tired policies over and over and actually expect a different outcome. At least to my mind, reality wasn't what was driving the President's remarks. If it was, he would have focused on the biggest concerns Americans have right now. I mentioned jobs, stagnant wages, rising costs, and issues such as health care costs. Unfortunately, ObamaCare really backfired on a lot of middle-class workers, and it actually raised their health care costs rather than lowered them. Then there are the stagnant wages I mentioned a moment ago. But if he really cared about those issues as he should and as we do, he would be working with Congress to address those issues, and he would have given some attention to one of the first major pieces of legislation that we have taken up in the 114th Congress on a bipartisan basis. Of course I am referring to the Keystone XL Pipeline that we are debating now, where 11 Democrats joined all of the Republicans who are present to proceed to this bill. So when I say it is bipartisan, I am not just saying it. It actually is. Sometimes you can tell a lot from what a person doesn't say. In this case, the President spoke more than 6,000 words, and he didn't mention the word Keystone in one of them. Instead of using this opportunity when millions of Americans and people around the world were listening to the President to lay out sound reasons why he continues to oppose this jobs and infrastructure project year after year, the President merely said we should look beyond a single pipeline to meet America's infrastructure needs. We need to start somewhere, and the President won't even start by taking the first step of approving this infrastructure and job-creating project known as the Keystone XL Pipeline. I think there is a Chinese proverb that says a trip of a thousand miles has to start with the first step. That is true here as well. It may be a single pipeline, but it is a single pipeline that his own State Department has said has the potential to support more than 40,000 jobs. Here is what I don't get. There are 2.5 million miles of oil and gas pipelines in America today--2.5 million. What is this fixation with this roughly thousand-mile pipeline that comes from Canada down to southeast Texas where it is refined, turned into gasoline, and other refined products? Why has this become such a political football? It is because the President and, unfortunately, some of his own party who are wed to a political base that won't allow them to do the rational, realistic, practical thing, which would be to approve this pipeline. The President tried to minimize this. We have heard people say these are temporary jobs. My job here is temporary. The President's job is temporary. It is going to run out in a couple of years. Every job is temporary in that sense. To try to denigrate these well-paying construction jobs from welders and others-- people who make $125,000, $140,000 a year in my State--and to denigrate them, to minimize them, and to say it is just a temporary job and is really not all that important is a slap in the face to the people who are hungry to find work, people who are working part time who want to work full time, people who are working for minimum wage but want to improve their standard of living and their ability to provide for their family. Then there is this. We need to remember the percentage of Americans participating in the workforce is at a 30-year low--a 30-year low. What that means to me is that some people just simply have given up looking for work, and so they have dropped out. They have retired. They have gone on to do other things. But it is a symptom of a disease in our economy. It is not something we should be proud of. If we are actually interested in getting more Americans back in the workforce, the President would approve this pipeline. Let me tell you about one person with whom I met last Friday in Beaumont, TX. We call it the golden triangle. It is a place where refineries are seemingly almost everywhere. It is a blue-collar community but one that is proud and contributes a lot to the Texas economy. I was in Beaumont, as I said, and we were there to mark the 1- year anniversary of the southern leg of the Keystone XL Pipeline's coming online. This is a little confusing. But this is the portion of pipeline that is already in place, and it doesn't require a transit with Presidential approval to cross from Canada into the United States. Believe it or not, there are already 4,800 jobs that have been created and an average of 400,000 barrels of Canadian crude pumped into southeast Texas already. We are not talking about doing something that is new. We are talking about adding to what already exists by completion of this pipeline. My point is this. If the President wants to see what the potential economic impact and the impact on jobs and on the standard of living would be for the entire Keystone XL Pipeline, all he needs to do is to look to southeast Texas--to Beaumont, TX--where the impact has been nothing but positive. I met with the mayor of Beaumont, the county judge, other local businesses, officials, and stakeholders. The mayor and the county judge pointed out that it is the taxes they get from the economic activity caused by this pipeline--which exists and which would do nothing but be enhanced by the Keystone XL Pipeline--that helps pay the taxes that pave roads, provide health care to people who don't have access to it-- who can't afford health care. It provides to pay the law enforcement. It provides all of the governmental functions, including education. This is what adds to the tax base which allows local governments, including school districts, to provide for the education of our children. Then there is this. There is the multiplier effect of the investment by the private investment on this pipeline. It is the multiplier effect because people who earn these good wages spend the money at restaurants, buy homes, rent apartments. They buy things at retail outlets. That is the multiplier effect from this pipeline. One person in particular I want to close with is a gentleman I met by the name of Kenneth Edwards who is a vice president with the United Association, the union of plumbers, fitters, welders, and service techs. I think Mr. Edwards would agree with me that we wouldn't necessarily see eye to eye on everything. But after being married 35 years, I don't know many married couples that agree on everything. So that is not all that unusual. It isn't a surprise that Republicans and unions haven't been on the same page on every issue. But there is an issue where we agree 100 percent, and that is the need for the President to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline after 6 long years. Mr. Edwards speaks on behalf of many union workers nationwide who, as he put it, earn their living from a series of temporary jobs that happen to add up to a lifelong career. He told me last week he wants the President to put his famous veto pen away, to take out his approval pen, and to sign his approval of this project right away. Speaking of temporary jobs, the President is ending his time in office. He has 2 more years left. His State of the Union Address leads me to believe he is not open to changing course and making much of a departure from the partisanship and gridlock that marked his first term and a half. But there is still time to change his mind. With the Keystone XL Pipeline bill that a bipartisan majority of Congress will soon send his way, we are presenting him an opportunity to say that he heard the message that voters delivered on November 4. I heard the American people say we are tired of the dysfunction in Washington, DC. We actually want to see Congress and the White House work together to get things done on behalf of the American people. It is not too late. I hope he will listen not only to people such as Kenneth Edwards and union workers across the country but to the vast majority of Americans who support this important project. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 69

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, similar to the rest of the country, I listened with close attention to the President's State of the Union Address last night. I had a pretty good seat down front. I got to listen to the President very closely. Of course I was interested because this presented a great opportunity for the President, following a very eventful election on November 4, to state his vision for the country and most particularly to talk about his plans for working with the new Congress that was elected in November. It was a big election for a lot of reasons but one was that we got nine new Republican Members of the Senate. I have been in the Senate in the minority and I have been in the Senate in the majority. I can tell you I like it a lot better in the majority. But the fact is that notwithstanding a very good election, from my perspective, on November 4, one that sent a real clear message, I was left to wonder whether the President got that message. While I believe this was a referendum on Washington's dysfunction in dealing with so many of the issues that face hard-working American families, what the President seemed to promise was more dysfunction. But I for one am here to say we are not going to follow the President down this low road. We will try to find areas where we can work with the President. He did mention a few: things such as trade, things such as criminal justice reform. There are a few things the President seemed to indicate were not partisan issues. We look forward to working with him on those issues. But the biggest problem we have and which still faces our country is the fact that notwithstanding one pretty good quarter of economic growth, our economy and our recovery are still pretty fragile. We know the number of people, the percentage of Americans in the workforce is at about a 30-year low. Some of that is because they have looked for work and they cannot find work, Americans who are seeking full-time work and have to settle for part-time work. Part of it is because of the President's own policies, things such as the Affordable Care Act-- ObamaCare--which incentivizes employers to put people on part-time work in order to avoid some of the penalties. But notwithstanding my optimism after this important election we had in November and the potential we have working together--the President and Congress--to try to address the challenges that face our country, my optimism was quickly tempered. Why only tempered optimism? I heard, as the Senator from Wyoming, my friend Mr. Barrasso, mentioned, the President has issued seven veto threats since the election--seven veto threats; this from a President who in the first 6 years of his term of office has only vetoed one bill. But the first thing he does after this election, where it should have been a wake-up call to him and others--should have been a wake-up call to all of us--he is issuing seven veto threats to bills that have not even been voted out of the Senate, that have not even made their way to his desk. To me that sends a very disturbing message that the President, instead of just being Commander in Chief, wants to be the obstructionist in chief. I do not know how else to interpret that. Then there is the President's disquieting tendency to take credit for things other people have done, and for his own failures, to blame them on someone else. It is truly disturbing. Since this new Congress has convened, it seems to me it has been a tale of two branches of government. While the Congress has shown a commitment to working together--and in my private conversations with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, many of them are eager to work with us to try to find solutions to these challenges on a bipartisan basis. This is one reason why the majority leader, Senator McConnell, chose the Keystone XL Pipeline legislation, because it enjoys broad, bipartisan support. We thought it was important to demonstrate, right out of the starting gates, that we actually listened to what the American people told us on November 4--that they want us to work together and they are tired of the dysfunction. But it appears the President hasn't noticed or, perhaps more accurately, he doesn't really care what the American people said on November 4. If the President isn't going to listen to the American people and the voters who voted in a referendum on his policies--those are not my words; those are his--I wish he would at least listen to what he himself has said. He has said time and again that elections have consequences. Well, I agree with that. Who wouldn't. But this is the same President who 22 times said he did not have the authority to issue an Executive action on immigration and then turned around and did it. Twenty-two times he said he didn't have the authority, and then he did it. What I have learned in Washington is we can't just listen to what people say. We have to watch what they do. We have a track record of the past 6 years of what this President has done and not just what he has said. As I say, the intransigence and the tone deafness was pretty shocking last night. Notwithstanding, the President gave a good speech. What I think the President really hadn't cracked the code on--as anybody in elected office has to understand--is that there is a difference between running for office and actually governing once the election is over. But this President seems to be in a perpetual campaign mode, making promises that sound like campaign promises rather than recognizing the reality of divided government and looking for opportunities to work together to actually solve problems. So he is back on the campaign trail again. I think he is going to Idaho and other places around the country touting his new agenda-- hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes. Of course, somebody has to pay the bills, but the President mainly talked about free stuff last night. Free stuff is always pretty popular. I am surprised he didn't offer Americans free beer and pizza while he was at it. It is very popular. But the American people are not dumb. They understand somebody is going to have to pay the bill, and the President ignored that entirely. He also ignored that for the past 6 years this President has added $7 trillion to the national debt. It is now over $18 trillion. Now, I know that it is impossible for the human mind to wrap itself around a figure that big. That is so big that it is incomprehensible in many ways. But we didn't hear a thing about the President adding $7 trillion to the national debt. What he did take credit for--this is interesting because I have mentioned he takes credit for things he had nothing to do with and he blames other people for his own failures. But here is where he was half right. He did say that the deficit--the difference between the money we bring in and the money we spend--actually had gone down a little bit. That is true, but the fact remains that we are still adding to the national debt for every dollar of deficit spending. But what the President also did not say is the main reason why the annual deficit had gone down was because he advocated one of the largest tax increases in recent history--perhaps in all of American history--during the fiscal cliff debate. Then, of course, there was the sequester, which are the caps put on discretionary spending, which the President railed against even though he was the one who thought this up during the so- called supercommittee deliberations. I couldn't help but think, as the President kept talking about raising taxes, increasing spending, and not dealing with problems such as the looming debt, that he was turning us more into Europe, a welfare state, where everybody would look to the government to take care of them, not a country that we were left by our parents and grandparents, where we could exercise our individual freedom and seek opportunities to rise above what we had been left by previous generations. To me that is the most important difference in what the President said last night and what he might have said, because our children do deserve more opportunities. The truth is that for most of us who are people my age, we are going to be OK. But the fact is the next generation, my children and beyond, have been bequeathed more debt. Now the President wants to add on to that debt--more taxes, more spending, bigger government. If there was one thing that was rejected in this last election, it was what we have had for the past 6 years. What we have had for the past 6 years was a grand experiment in government. We have always had this debate about the size and the role of the Federal Government, but we have never had such an aggressive attempt to grow the size of the government in recent memory, certainly since the New Deal, as under the past 6 years. What the American people, I believe, rejected was this experiment in big government. Perhaps that would be understandable if there weren't examples of what actually does work, what does grow the economy, what does put more money in hard-working taxpayers' pockets, and what does provide more jobs and opportunity. One reason why it seems somewhat obvious to me is because I see what has been done in places such as my home State of Texas, and it has been done in other States where they put their trust in people and not in bigger government that somebody has to pay for. The formula is not all that unique. Governor Perry, who just left office after 14 years, when people talked about the ``Texas miracle,'' said: No, it is not a miracle; a miracle is a supernatural event. This is the Texas model. It is a conscious effort to choose policies that actually work, that grow the economy and create jobs, lower taxes, and result in less red tape and a balanced budget. Wouldn't that be nice? We haven't had a balanced budget in Washington since 2009. It is really malpractice. There are other policies that would foster a better business environment and encourage businesses to invest and grow because that creates jobs, that creates rising wages and a successful middle class. So the fact is that if it works in the States, it can work here too. Now, measures such as reforming the Tax Code to provide tax relief in a way that incentivizes people to work harder and produce more are pro- growth tax policies--not regressive policies such as the President has proposed, which would make it harder. Improving infrastructure projects--the President talked about infrastructure last night, but he has also issued a veto threat on the Keystone XL Pipeline. We are--I agree with the Senator from Wyoming-- going to approve it, put it on his desk, and then it is up to him. Then, of course, there is putting Americans back to work and repealing oppressive government overreach--such as ObamaCare. There is a difference between governing and campaigning. The President--there is no doubt about it--is a world class campaigner. He is right that he won two elections by running very successful campaigns, but he seems absolutely disinterested, detached, and, indeed, actually an obstacle to governing, which is the job in front of us. In closing, I would say the state of the Union is always a work in progress, but it should always be improving. It is my sincere hope the President will realize the hand he has been dealt, which is one of divided government, and that rather than campaigning perpetually, making promises for free stuff, higher taxes, and bigger government, that he would work with us to solve some of the very clear challenges that confront us, primarily ones that will help grow our economy and put Americans back to work. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, tonight the President of the United States will address the Nation on the state of our Union and talk a little bit about his priorities for the coming year. I am not sure how much more there is for the President to say than has already been leaked in the press in the drip, drip, drip of social media and other stories, but I am concerned he simply did not get the message that was delivered loud and clear on November 4 by the American voters. Just a couple of months ago they sent a message that was loud and it was clear. They are fed up with the way things operate in Washington, DC. They are fed up with the dysfunction, and they are fed up with the lack of real leadership that focuses on their concerns, not Washington's concerns--concerns such as more money in their pocket. I was amused to listen to our good friend, our colleague from New Jersey, complaining about additional exports of oil or actually gasoline and other fuel. It is actually the supply, the glut of gasoline onto the global markets that has caused a pay raise for most hard-working, middle-class families. The price of gasoline has plummeted because of the glut of supply. But we ought to be focused like a laser on how we put more money into the pocketbook of hard-working American taxpayers--after years of stagnant jobs and stagnant wages, the stagnant number of jobs for the record number of Americans who have been looking for them. So after sending a message loud and clear on November 4, what is the President's response? He says more of the same. He is set to announce a $320 billion tax hike and hundreds of billions of dollars in more spending--yes, hundreds of billions of dollars more in taxes and hundreds of billions of dollars in more Federal spending. Sadly, the President has doubled down on the same agenda which, in his own words, was on the ballot this last fall and was soundly rejected. But this agenda and these policies are not only wrong for America today, they are certainly wrong for the America of our future. Future generations deserve a country that provides them more opportunity than our parents had or than we have. That is called the American dream. But hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending and new taxes--when we already face an $18 trillion debt--well, that makes the American promise one unlikely to be fulfilled. The cause of this problem is pretty clear: The President remains focused on the priorities in Washington, DC, and not on the priorities of hard-working American taxpayers working from paycheck to paycheck, dealing with rising costs of living when it comes to food and other commodities and who are sorely in need of additional money in their pocket. Things clearly need to change. That to me was what the voters said on November 4. I think I speak for many Americans and many Texans when I say: Mr. President, enough is enough. The American people expect better, and, more importantly, they deserve better. Sure, we know there are always going to be big challenges, and they are not easy to deal with by any stretch of the imagination. But surely--surely--we can come up with better solutions than more taxes and more spending. This is really doubling down over the last 6 years. One would think that the President, giving the State of the Union now in his seventh year in office, could come up with something a little bit different, particularly after his own party lost nine Senate seats after this referendum on his failed policies that took place on November 4. The great news--and there is good news--is we do not have to start from scratch. We need to look no further than some of the laboratories of democracy--that is what Louis Brandeis called the State: the laboratories of democracy--to see what actually works. We know what does not work. So let's look and see what does work. We could learn a lot from States such as Arizona, where the Presiding Officer is from, and my home State of Texas. We are not perfect, but I think we have learned a few important lessons we could teach to the policymakers in the White House. Many policymakers in Washington seem to have forgotten the secret sauce, the formula, the recipe by which strong, sustainable economic growth that lifts the middle class in Texas and in so many other States across the country--why that is alive and well and why those policies actually work. Just last Friday I had the opportunity to visit Southeast Texas. I was in Beaumont, TX, actually, where the existing gulf coast leg of the Keystone Pipeline is already operating. I bet many of my colleagues would be amazed to know that we are already transporting Canadian crude from Canada all the way across the country, by and large on railcars, to refineries on the gulf coast. The Keystone XL Pipeline--the legislation that we will be voting on today-- will increase the supply, which means more product, and hopefully, that will result in downward pressure on prices for hard-working American taxpayers. While the President stood in the way of the building of this completed pipeline and the tens of thousands of jobs it would support, the gulf coast leg of the Keystone Pipeline in Texas is already booming. But they are hungry for more crude feedstock so they can produce more and thereby create more jobs. It has been good for communities. I talked to the mayor of Beaumont and other communities. I talked to a county judge. These taxes, which are provided by investment from the Keystone XL Pipeline, not only create good jobs, but the tax base is necessary to educate our kids in K-12 education. They provide the products and services from local businesses that sell goods. In other words, projects such as the Keystone XL Pipeline is a force multiplier when it comes to our economy and economic growth and opportunity, and of course, it has been good for thousands of construction workers who built the pipeline. I heard our colleagues on the other side of the aisle try to denigrate these construction jobs. They say that they are just temporary jobs. Mr. President, you and I have a temporary job. We are elected for a term of office, and if we are not reelected, it is a temporary job. In effect, every job is a temporary job. But to denigrate these good, high-paying construction jobs, including those performed by welders--in Texas, properly trained welders can make $140,000 to $150,000 a year. Those are good, high-paying jobs, and we ought to respect and encourage them. That is just one example of how some of the folks at the White House look down their nose at these construction jobs and try to denigrate the economic contribution of projects such as the Keystone XL Pipeline and what they could learn from this project. In my State we reduced taxes, cut red tape in favor of sensible regulations, and encouraged businesses to come to Texas to grow and create jobs. If I heard the story one time, I heard it 100 times. In my State, Governor Perry has contacted people in California and said: Come to Texas, where you are welcome and the cost of doing business is lower and the cost of living is cheaper. You can actually buy an affordable home for your family. People have voted with their feet and have come where the opportunity is. If we add it all up, over the last 6 years two-thirds of all new net jobs created in the United States of America came from just one State, and that is my home State. Another thing Washington could learn from Texas is how to balance a budget. We actually balance our budget every year. Earlier I mentioned that the President seems to be proud of the fact that the deficit is actually going down. As the Presiding Officer knows, that is the annual difference between what we take in and what we spend. What he doesn't tell you is that we are actually adding to the debt every year because we are still spending more money than we are bringing in, and it has now gone up about $8 trillion during his administration to an unprecedented $18 trillion national debt. We need to roll up our sleeves, and we invite the President to join us and take on the priorities of hard-working American taxpayers in every State across the country. We know this is not going to be easy, but that is what we volunteered for. I know there are colleagues here in the Senate--Republicans and Democrats alike--who are eager to address the challenges that confront our country--whether it is economic, national security, or you name it. These are things that need to get done. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what I think the State of our Union is or, for that matter, it doesn't really matter what the President thinks the State of our Union is. What matters is whether the teacher in Katy, TX, believes his students will have the opportunities he did growing up or whether the single mom waiting tables in Fort Worth can find enough work to feed her family. Our Nation is truly strong when its people believe it to be, and I hope the President understands that and tries something new rather than the same old failed policies of the past. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Cassidy) and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Cassidy) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, even during moments of intense polarization here in Washington, especially over the past 6 years, it is really kind of refreshing to find a topic--maybe a handful of topics--on which there appears to be bipartisan consensus, and that includes the topic du jour, the Keystone XL Pipeline. I wish to share a few reasons why I believe that is the case. First, the Keystone XL Pipeline will be good for our economy, and it will be good because it will create jobs. I know there is some hairsplitting out there. Some people say: Well, these are not really good jobs; they are only temporary jobs or some such thing. But the truth is--I will tell you what the President's own administration said about that. The State Department--President Obama's State Department--said that roughly 42,000 American jobs would be created directly and indirectly from the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Now, it is true that some of these would be temporary construction positions, but by there nature, construction positions are such that you go to work on one job, finish that job, and move on to the next job. If the President has a problem with that, I am not sure what he or anybody else can do about it. There are also other permanent jobs that will be created by this Keystone XL Pipeline related to refining and transporting this oil, and many of them will be in Texas. As a matter of fact, this pipeline--which will go from Canada into North Dakota and across the United States--will end in southeast Texas, where we have most of our refining capacity here in the United States. It will then be refined into gasoline and other types of fuel. By the way, one of the blessings of having a plentiful supply of oil as a result of what has happened here in the United States is lower gasoline prices. Boy, those came just in time for the Christmas holidays and put money in people's pockets. It was like a pay raise for hard-working American taxpayers. The President has also tried to downplay the job-creation impact of the Keystone XL Pipeline by saying it would have a ``nominal'' impact on consumers and the Nation. I am curious. At a time when the national labor participation rate is hovering at its lowest point in three decades and we are coming off of the financial crisis that we have had since 2008--which has finally, after all of these years, recovered many of the lost jobs that were lost as result of that crisis--does the President truly feel that any additional jobs--especially 42,000 additional jobs--are just nominal and not worth the candle? Well, for those people who don't work and are now able to find work, those jobs are not nominal. For the people who are working part time and want to work full time, those jobs will not be nominal. When we need to grow the economy so we create more opportunity for more hard-working taxpayers, no job, in my view, should be deprecated as just a nominal job and not worth having. That is what the President is saying. I would also ask that the President visit the Texas leg of this pipeline. As a matter of fact, the President did go to Cushing, OK. The irony of that is, once again, the President seems to be taking credit for something he didn't have anything to do with because this domestic portion of the pipeline from Cushing, OK, down to southeast Texas didn't require his approval at all. But what does he do? He holds a press conference there. It is just like the President taking credit for this renaissance of American energy. He has had absolutely nothing to do with it. All of that has happened as a result of private investment on private lands and not on public lands. As a matter of fact, the Federal Government continues to make it harder and harder to produce more American energy, which, again, according to the laws of supply and demand, as we have seen, will bring down gasoline prices for American consumers. At a time when wages have been stagnant for so long as a result of the policies of this administration, why wouldn't we do something to put more money into the pockets of hard-working American families? Why wouldn't we do that? Well, I would ask the President to visit the Texas leg of the pipeline, which was constructed and went operational about a year ago this month and is already transporting about 400,000 barrels of oil a day to gulf coast refineries. Of course, again, this does not require his approval, but that didn't stop him from claiming credit for it. I think he would find it edifying and educational to go there. In Texas alone more than 4,800 jobs were created to construct that gulf coast portion of the pipeline. That includes heavy equipment operators, welders, laborers, transportation operators, and supervisory personnel. When our friends across the aisle spend so much time and effort trying to argue for a minimum wage increase, they turn around at the same time and deny hard-working Americans from earning these high- paying wages and these high-paying jobs. I was reading an article today about a welder in Texas who went to school to learn how to be a welder. Now, it was not a 4-year liberal arts education such as many of us have had. He didn't go to law school or medical school, but he is earning $140,000 a year as a welder. Those are good jobs. Those are the kinds of jobs we ought to encourage, and they are the kinds of jobs that the Keystone XL Pipeline would help pay for. Well, perhaps these kinds of jobs don't count in the President's book because they are not funded by the taxpayer. In other words, they are not a result of stimulus funds. The President seems to believe that the only jobs worth having are those that are paid for by borrowing money, increasing the debt, and having the Federal Government pay for them. We have recently been down that road once before when we had the nearly $1 trillion stimulus package. Remember that? The President said these were shovel-ready jobs. I remember at the time Speaker Pelosi said they were targeted, temporary, and timely, I think it was. It was the three t's. The President came back later on--when the stimulus did not have the desired effect and the $1 trillion of borrowed money, including interest, didn't create the kind of economic recovery he had hoped for--and said: Well, I guess shovel ready didn't really mean shovel ready, as if it were a joke. Well, this Keystone XL Pipeline is paid for as a result of private investment and not as a result of tax dollars--your money and my money going into this pipeline. The Texas portion of the pipeline was a $2.3 billion private sector investment. The taxpayer funded infrastructure project seemed to be the only kind of investment the President actually wants to see and encourage. There are many examples, and perhaps the most notorious of which was Solyndra, where the Federal taxpayer was asked to sink a bunch of money into a project that basically flopped because there was no market for what they were making. It was not economically viable. But that is the kind of investment the President wants to encourage while discouraging private investment that creates jobs. Now, in Texas we are proud of that portion of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and like so much of what makes my State successful, it was not built by the government. I am proud of the fact that my State is doing better than the rest of the country. I wish the rest of the country would do as well when it comes to job creation and opportunity because I worry, as I think many parents worry, that we are somehow losing the hope and the aspiration for the American dream. When young men and women graduate from college and can't find jobs so they end up living with their parents, we here in Washington say, that is OK, because we will let your parents keep you on their health insurance coverage until you are 26, as if that is supposed to be some kind of answer to their inability to find work commensurate with their education and training. Well, this is not a government solution. Of course, we all remember the President notoriously said to the private sector: Well, you didn't build that. That certainly doesn't apply here because the private sector did build the Texas portion, and what we would like to do is complete the Canadian-U.S. portion so we can get even more of this oil down to Texas and refine it into gasoline so it is available to consumers here in the United States. The President acts as though if we don't complete this pipeline, this oil is not going to be produced. That is malarkey. We know that China is starved for natural resources, and Canada is not just going to sit on this valuable natural resource. They are going to build a pipeline to the Pacific Ocean, put it on a tanker, and send it to China or other countries that need those natural resources. Well, I am beginning to think the one reason why the Texas leg of the Keystone XL Pipeline was so successful is because the Federal Government didn't have anything to do with it. That seems to be the test. If the Federal Government has something to do with it, it ends up not delivering as promised. But if the private sector does it, it has the potential of living up to expectations. Well, we all know the President has continued to delay making a final decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline. I know last year the distinguished Presiding Officer sponsored the bill in the House that approved the Keystone XL Pipeline. Over here in the Senate, I remember the Senator from Louisiana, Ms. Landrieu, was urging--in almost desperate terms--that Senator Harry Reid allow a vote on the Keystone XL Pipeline after denying it for many months, even years. Well, we know what happened. It failed because very few Democrats on that side of the aisle decided to support the Keystone XL Pipeline. Perhaps it was because even at that time the President said he was undecided whether to sign it or to veto it. There have been times when the President has said--of course, he says lots of things, but I have learned one thing around Washington, DC: We can't just listen to what people say, we have to watch what they do. The President indicated, with the start of this new Congress following the November 4 election, that he was looking forward to working with the new Congress in a constructive way. I just have to ask you, Mr. President: Is it constructive to issue a veto threat on a piece of legislation before it is even voted out of the energy committee and isn't even on the floor for consideration by the Senate? The majority leader, Senator McConnell, the senior Senator from Kentucky, has said we are going to have an open amendment process, a procedure many of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and actually many on this side of the aisle, haven't experienced under the former majority leader--an open amendment process. I anticipate there are going to be a number of amendments offered, some of which will succeed and some of which will not succeed. I don't know anybody who can tell us right now exactly how this bill will leave the Senate, although I am confident it will pass since there are at least 63 Senators, on a bipartisan basis, who said they will vote for it. As we know, 60 is the magic number in the Senate, so we have a pretty good idea it will pass. But we don't know what other measures will be attached to it, some of which may command more Democratic votes, some of which may make the President more interested in taking another look at this legislation. So to prematurely issue a veto threat before the Keystone XL Pipeline is even voted out of committee, much less comes to the Senate floor, does not strike me as wanting to work with the Congress; just the opposite. I say enough is enough. That is what we heard from the voters on November 4: Enough is enough. They are sick and tired of the dysfunction in Washington, DC. I heard that story daily back in Texas and around the country as I traveled: Enough is enough. We want Congress to function. We want our elected representatives to work together to find solutions to the problems facing our country, and the No. 1 problem is not enough jobs. There are not enough good jobs for hard-working Americans. So now the President has, in spite of this, said: I am not going to sign that legislation once it reaches my desk. He said this before the Senate has even acted on it. It is just breathtaking. Is that within the President's authority under the Constitution? Yes, it is. The President can either sign legislation or he can veto legislation. The Constitution gives him that authority. But I think the President ought to have to explain to the American people his reasons for saying he will not sign this legislation. Again, this is the same project his own State Department said would create 42,000 jobs, again at a time when the percentage of people in the workforce is at a 30-year low. While unemployment is coming down, unfortunately a lot of it has to do with the fact that people are not looking for work and have dropped out of the workforce. They have given up. Hopefully, in spite of the Federal Government--and I say it is in spite of the Federal Government--the economy seems to be strong enough to be growing, finally, but we need to continue to have our economy grow. We need to continue to let this American economy create jobs for hard-working American taxpayers. I say in closing that I hope the President makes his decision not wearing ideological blinders, not just listening to the hard left base of the Democratic Party that thinks we can somehow survive and prosper with only wind turbines and solar panels. By the way, Texas actually produces more electricity on wind energy than any other State in the Nation. We do believe in an ``all of the above'' policy. The President says he does but apparently does not, at least his actions would so indicate. So we are missing out on a golden opportunity to further enhance North American energy security with one of our strongest allies, and that is another very important reason for this. Why in the world would we continue to import oil from Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East that have their own problems, in an unstable region of the world, when we could import that oil from our best ally and next-door neighbor, Canada, and in a way that benefits our economy and creates jobs. I believe what the American people said on November 4 is they want effective, efficient, and accountable government and one that benefits all hard-working Americans and especially hard-working American taxpayers. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito).

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, under the direction of our new majority leader, the Senator from Kentucky, we have been entrusted with a great opportunity to lead this new Congress--the 114th Congress--and it is a great honor. Maybe people assume that to be the case, but it is always a good idea to express it out loud and to say how grateful we are for the opportunity to be able to lead the 114th Congress and serve in the majority in the Senate. It is also important to say we approach this opportunity with great humility--not just with humility but with also a determination and a commitment to address the top priorities of the American people. If there is one issue I heard about from my constituents in Texas during my reelection campaign, which concluded on November 4, it is: Why can't you guys and gals get things done? How come you can't address the problems that confront the American people? By and large, at the top of that list were jobs and stagnant wages, part-time work when people want to work full-time. They were kitchen table, bread-and-butter sorts of issues. Now we have an opportunity starting this week to address one of those priorities, which is creating jobs with the approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Keystone XL Pipeline is important for a lot of reasons, one of which is job creation. It obviously transports oil from Canada through the United States, bypassing the delivery of this oil in railcars, which has been the subject of some news reports when some of them have gone off-rail and created some accidents. The oil ends up in Southeast Texas, where we have a lot of refineries which create a lot of jobs but where that crude oil will then be refined into gasoline and jet fuel and other refined products. This is also important because this is a supply of oil from a friendly neighbor, Canada--one of our closest allies--and reduces our dependence on oil from parts of the world that aren't quite as stable certainly as Canada is. So it is important from a jobs perspective. It is important from a geopolitical perspective and a national security perspective as well. I went back and looked and noted that the President actually formed a Jobs Council during his first term in office. The job of the members of the council was to put their heads together and provide strategic advice on ways to boost the economy. This is the President's Jobs Council that he created during the first term of his Presidency. The group's main homework assignment was to produce this framework for job creation and enhance national competitiveness. In fact, they produced something entitled ``Road Map to Renewal.'' I haven't Googled that or Binged it or put it in a search engine, but I bet if anybody who happens to be listening is interested, they could type that into a search engine on the Internet--the ``Road Map to Renewal''--and find out all they want to know about it. It includes a number of specific and practical recommendations for action. One of those recommendations to the President was to ``optimize all of the nation's natural resources and construct pathways (pipelines, transmission and distribution) to deliver electricity and fuel.'' That would seem to be right in the wheelhouse of the Keystone XL Pipeline. The report added that regulatory and ``permitting obstacles that could threaten the development of some energy projects, negatively impact jobs and weaken our energy infrastructure need to be addressed.'' So the President's own Jobs Council recognized that the key to America's energy security is to focus on America's energy development, including the transmission lines and pipelines by which this natural resource is transported. I know perhaps coming from an energy State such as Texas we are perhaps a lot more familiar with the pipelines and the oil and gas industry because it creates so many jobs and so much prosperity in my State, but some people are a little apprehensive about the idea of a pipeline going under the ground. I invite them to again type into their favorite search engine on the Internet ``oil and gas pipelines'' and look at the map that pops up. It is astonishing how many existing pipelines exist in the United States today. I bet 98 percent of Americans don't even know they exist. Maybe that is too high; maybe it is 95 percent. So this is a safe and efficient and effective way of transporting these natural resources all around the United States. Obviously, if they are transported by pipeline, they don't have to be transported by railcar, including through some populated parts of our country, and subjected to some of the accidents we have read and heard so much about. These underground pipelines are a fairly common reality in our country, which leads me to be absolutely mystified at the resistance from some on the other side of the aisle and in the White House to doing what should be in our self-interests, which should be something that addresses one of the most important things the American people care about, which is jobs, and the other thing they care an awful lot about, which is security and reducing our dependence on imported energy from the Middle East. That was 3 years ago last month that the President's Jobs Council made this recommendation. Then there is last month, when the President said this: ``I'm being absolutely sincere when I say I want to work with this new Congress to get things done.'' Hearing that was like music to my ears and I think to a lot of people, to have the President say he wants to work with the Congress, even though Republicans won the majority in the House and in the Senate. So imagine my confusion and the confusion on the part of so many Americans when yesterday the White House Press Secretary said the President would veto any legislative approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Think about the timing of that statement. We had an election on November 4, we had the new Congress sworn in yesterday, the President said a month ago he wanted to work with the Congress, and then the first day of the Congress, before the legislation was even filed much less voted out of committee and brought to the floor, the President said: If you pass that, I am going to veto it. I am probably not the only one who is confused by the contradiction. We know this pipeline would produce thousands of well-paying jobs and would enhance the supply of energy from a close ally and neighbor, as I said earlier. So the President issued a veto threat on the day the new Congress was sworn in, and it is clear to me that notwithstanding the President's previous statements, he is either confused or he has changed his mind about cooperating with the Congress. I hope he meant what he said when he said he would work with us to try to address the concerns of middle- class families when it comes to jobs and help grow the economy and help America prosper. But I am here to say that Republicans who now have the honor and responsibility of serving as the majority in the Senate and in the House did listen. We heard the message delivered to us by the voters on November 4. We know they don't want more bickering. They don't want more dysfunction. The American people, including my constituents in Texas, want results. They want jobs. They want full- time, not just part-time work, and they want the security that would come with legislation such as this that we are considering today. That is why this week our new majority leader, the senior Senator from Kentucky, Mr. McConnell, has decided we will take up this energy project as job No. 1. This is bipartisan legislation. I was watching TV this morning, I think with the Presiding Officer, and we were together and saw that Senator Manchin from West Virginia and Senator Hoeven from North Dakota were appearing on a morning TV show talking about the importance of this legislation, and they estimate they have as many as 63 votes in the Senate, which by definition is a bipartisan majority, to pass this legislation. This place can be pretty confusing at different times, and I am perplexed why the same President who said he wants to work with us is issuing premature veto threats, even though there is a bipartisan majority for this legislation. Again, the President said he is for an ``all of the above'' approach to take care of our energy future. If that is true, then this should be a part of that approach. He has acknowledged the important connection between job growth and energy development. If there is a poster child for the role that the energy sector can play in growing the economy, it is my State. Texas is a State where we are quite familiar with the oil and gas industry. We are not just sold on oil and gas because we do produce the most electricity from wind turbine of anywhere in the country. We are truly an ``all of the above'' State. But after years of anemic economic growth and the lowest workforce participation in four decades, does the President of the United States think this is an inconsequential piece of legislation? Why does he not work with us as opposed to remaining an obstruction to real progress the American people are crying out for? I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee), and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee), and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee), and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns), and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns), and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).