Lisa Murkowski

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, February 3; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business for 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak therein; further, that the time be equally divided, with the Democrats controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half; further, that following morning business, the Senate then resume consideration of S. 2012; finally, that the filing deadline for all first-degree amendments to the Murkowski substitute amendment No. 2953 and the underlying bill, S. 2012, be at 1 p.m. tomorrow.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I understand that there is a bill at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I know of no further debate on these amendments.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I do think that at some point in time it is fair to discuss disclosure when it comes to campaign finance and campaign finance disclosure. However what this amendment does is require campaign finance disclosures from individuals receiving over $1 million from fossil fuel activities--no other activities. What activities are we talking about? It defines fossil fuel activities as those including ``the extraction, production, refining, transportation, or combustion of oil, natural gas, or coal.'' That is pretty broad. We are talking about explorers, producers, refiners, perhaps even the automotive industry, the rail industry, powerplants, and many others. We can have a discussion about campaign finance disclosure and what may or may not be appropriate. We defeated an amendment similar to this when we had the Keystone debate last January. We tabled another. The time and the place to debate this issue is not in this Energy Policy Modernization Act. Therefore, I will be opposing the amendment and encourage my colleagues to do the same.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I appreciate again the cooperation and the working relationship with my ranking member, as well as her very strong and able team working with mine, as well as the floor staff who have been doing a great job.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now vote on these amendments en bloc.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, at this point in time we are now ready to process some amendments by voice vote. I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be called up and reported by number: Hirono amendment No. 3064; Hirono amendment No. 3065, with modification; Klobuchar amendment No. 3179; Inhofe-Carper amendment No. 3145; Heitkamp amendment No. 3174; Collins-Klobuchar amendment No. 3140, with modification; Baldwin amendment No. 3156; Carper-Inhofe amendment No. 3143; Boxer-Feinstein amendment No. 3194, with modification; Inhofe-King amendment No. 3205; and Booker amendment No. 3160.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I understand that we have an agreement to voice vote the Durbin amendment. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that the 60-vote threshold with respect to the Durbin amendment No. 3095 be rescinded.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I urge that Members oppose this amendment that would impose a Federal mandate on retail electricity and natural gas suppliers to reduce a certain percentage of electricity or natural gas that their customers use annually. We have considered this before. We have seen it. It has been under consideration for about a decade. Most recently, the energy committee rejected this same proposal as we were moving forward on this bipartisan Energy bill. A national mandate like this depends on the behavior of end-use customers. The concern that you take a one-size-fits-all policy that refuses to recognize very real regional differences that are in play out there with energy use is problematic. As the Senator from Minnesota said, 25 States already have this in place, but what we do by imposing a new national mandate is we upend those existing State programs. We have a good, bipartisan efficiency measure contained in this. That is why a Federal EERS has not worked before. Now is not the right time to move forward with it. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the votes in this series be 10 minutes in length so we can move through the amendments we have in front of us.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I appreciate Senator Rounds bringing this measure before us. It appears we do have an agreement to do a voice vote on the Rounds amendment, as modified; therefore, I ask unanimous consent that the 60-vote threshold with respect to Rounds amendment No. 3182, as modified, be vitiated.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, we have just concluded this series of eight votes. You combine that with the rollcall votes we had yesterday, as well as the voice votes we have taken, and we are up to 27 amendments that we have processed. We are moving right along. I appreciate the cooperation of Members on both sides and the staff who are working as we speak to see if we can pull together yet another block of amendments we will be able to accept by voice vote. We will not have any more rollcall votes for the remainder of today, but know that we are working aggressively to try to process as many amendments as we can by voice vote and then set up a process tomorrow. We will notify Members in terms of when we might be able to expect votes on amendments. I thank colleagues for the good work today. We encourage you to come down to the floor, speak to your amendments, speak to the issues you are hoping to advance. We would like to get this bill through to completion by the end of this week. I thank Members for their support. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. At the heart of the problem is a broken Federal permitting process that has created an unnavigable gauntlet for our hydropower projects. It can now take well over a decade to relicense an existing dam. I will say it again. We are not talking about licensing a new dam; we are talking about relicensing an existing dam--a process that can take over a decade. For the California consumers of Pacific Gas and Electric, relicensing costs have run as high as $50 million per dam simply to continue an existing project. We are not building anything new. We want to relicense it. It is costing $50 million and taking over 10 years. There was a recent editorial in a Eugene, OR, newspaper, the Register-Guard, which called for the preservation of hydropower assets, and it noted that the existing Carmon Smith project has been mired in the relicensing process for over 10 years, with a pricetag estimated at $226 million. It amounts to 10 times as much and 3 times as long as it took to build the project when it was constructed in 1963. What is wrong with this picture? Taking 10 times as much--requiring 10 times as much money--$226 million--and taking 3 times as long to build as when they built that project back in 1963. We are going in the wrong direction. This is not progress. We are headed exactly in the wrong direction. We can change that. Let us put it in the context of what we have existing in this country right now. I said that right now hydro is providing about 6 percent of our energy and about half of our renewables. One-third of our Nation's existing hydropower projects will require license renewals by 2030. One-third of the existing facilities are going to have to go through this decade-long relicensing process, which will cost millions of dollars. What we need to do is make the relicensing process more efficient by reducing bureaucratic and administrative delays that end up increasing electricity rates, slowing hydropower's expansion, and actually delaying the adoption of environmental mitigation measures. If you are concerned about the environment, you ought to be interested in making sure we have a better process because if we fail to improve the relicensing process, we are going to start losing hydropower projects, and we will backslide as other forms of generation replace them, just as we are seeing with nuclear power in some parts of our country. We are going to go backward. Whether your issue is climate change or whether it is electric reliability or just good, affordable energy, we should be able to agree that this is a situation we want to avoid. We do not want to be going backward on this. Coming from Washington State, Senator Cantwell understands and clearly appreciates the value of our hydropower resources. I have been very pleased to be able to work with her on many of these initiatives, as well as with many other members of our committee, on some of the bipartisan reforms we have contained within the Energy Policy Modernization Act. What we realize is that our current policies are holding this resource back and that we need to update, we need to modernize them, if we ever want to harness the amazing potential of domestic hydropower. Our joint hydropower language attempts to bring State and Federal agencies to the table with the applicants at the beginning of the process so they can identify where the potential problems may be and coordinate environmental reviews. Because hydropower licenses are issued by the FERC, our bill authorizes the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to be the lead agency so they set a schedule and they coordinate all the needed Federal authorizations. The schedule is to be established on a case-by- case basis, in consultation with other agencies, and if a resource agency then cannot meet a deadline, the White House Council on Environmental Quality is then tasked with resolving these interagency disputes. In terms of a step that is long overdue, we formally designate hydropower as a renewable resource for the purpose of all Federal programs. When I first came to the Senate some years ago and focused on energy issues, I just really had a hard time with the fact that hydropower was not considered a renewable resource. I was born in Ketchikan, AK. It is in the middle of a rainforest. I was raised in southeastern Alaska, where the annual precipitation is something that would take most people's breath away. If I were to tell the people of Juneau or Wrangell or Ketchikan that what is coming out of the sky today is not a renewable resource, I would be laughed out of the room. Hopefully we take care of this and formally designate hydropower as a renewable resource for the purposes of all Federal programs. We have very good, commonsense ideas carefully crafted within our bill. Our language does not alter the authority of Federal agencies to impose mandatory environmental conditions or weaken the stringent environmental review process. For those who are afraid that somehow or another we are going to run roughshod over the environmental regulators, that is not the case. What we are doing is, through efficiency, streamlining, and some coordination, we are going to be able to make a difference in our Nation's ability to develop hydropower, and that is why the members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee overwhelmingly supported the hydropower provisions in the bill we have before us today. There is always more good news we can add. We have looked at the amendments other Members have offered. We have already accepted an amendment from Senator Daines to extend the deadline for the relicensing of a hydropower project in Montana. We also have a number of other amendments from other Members from both sides of the aisle, and I am hoping we will be able to add them to the bill. For example, Senator Gillibrand has filed an amendment to extend the deadline for a hydroproject in her home State of New York. Senator Burr has filed an amendment to extend the deadline of a hydroproject in his home State of North Carolina. Senator Kaine has filed an amendment to extend the deadline for hydroprojects in his State of Virginia. All of these projects would add power to nonpowered dams. These projects already have licenses, but what they need is more time to deal with the technical and regulatory issues that often arise before construction can begin. We have a fair number of our western Members who are understandably prioritizing hydropower. Senator Barrasso is filing an amendment to authorize the use of active capacity of the Fontenelle Reservoir in southwest Wyoming. Senators Flake and Feinstein have come together with a pretty good amendment to improve the way the Army Corps of Engineers operates dams to increase their efficiency. Is this not just good common sense? It probably comes as no surprise that I have a couple of amendments that will benefit Alaska, including one that will expand the existing project at Terror Lake and allow the local community there--Kodiak--to remain powered almost entirely by renewable energy. Right now they are 99.7 percent powered by renewable energy between wind and their hydrocapacity. We want them to get to that full 100 percent. Finally, I want to recognize the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Markey, who has a proposal to encourage the development of pumped storage hydropower assets--one of the best ways to store baseload power and a technology that could help to smooth out the intermittency of other renewable resources. We are working on that one--checking it out--but it looks good. These are good proposals. As we continue our voting and clearing process here today, I am confident we will be able to accept many more of them. Again, I want to acknowledge the work and partnership I have with Senator Cantwell on many of these hydro issues. Her State certainly enjoys the benefit of lower cost energy because of the investments made in hydro. We have more work ahead of us. I know Members are anxious to talk on their amendments that they may have an interest in moving toward this afternoon, but this Senator is glad to be back on the bill, and hopefully we will have an exciting and energetic day. With that, I yield the floor to my ranking member.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I would note that there will now be a series of eight votes when we commence at 2:30 this afternoon, and recognizing that there are committees meeting and other Senate business going on, we would hope to be able to process these votes relatively efficiently, respecting that 10-minute vote parameter, so that we can move through them in a manner that respects others' schedules. With that, Madam President, I yield the floor.

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

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, we are making some good progress here in the intervening hours since we came to the floor this morning and began business. Working with the ranking member on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, we have come to an agreement to announce a series of amendments that will be voted on. I want to acknowledge the effort that has gone back and forth on both sides to make sure folks have an opportunity to weigh in and vote on amendments that are important to them. I think we have a good series here that we will announce. It is our hope that as we move to vote on these amendments, we will also continue the good work we have done to try to advance some other measures that will be able to go by voice votes, and we will be working on those throughout the day. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call up the following amendments: No. 3182, Rounds, as modified; No. 3030, Barrasso; No. 2996, Sullivan; No. 3176, Schatz; No. 3095, Durbin; and No. 3125, Whitehouse; that following the disposition of the Franken amendment No. 3115, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the above amendments in the order listed with no second-degree amendments in order prior to the votes; that a 60-vote affirmative threshold be required for adoption; and that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided prior to each vote.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

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

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we have had an opportunity to have a few speakers here this afternoon. Senator Cantwell and I have come to the floor and urged our colleagues to help us as we work to advance the Energy Policy Modernization Act. We have, for the information of colleagues, an order, in terms of several--a couple of votes tomorrow. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call up the following amendments: amendment No. 3023 by Senator Lee and amendment No. 3115 by Senator Franken; that on Tuesday, February 2, 2016, at 2:30 p.m., the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the above amendments in the order listed, with no second-degree amendments in order prior to the votes and a 60-vote affirmative threshold required for adoption; further, that the time between 2:15 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. be equally divided in the usual form and that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided prior to each vote.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Tuesday, February 2; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business until 11 a.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; further, that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of S. 2012; finally, that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly conference meetings.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.