[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 189 (Wednesday, October 27, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7395-S7398]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EXECUTIVES SESSION
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EXECUTIVE CALENDAR
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the following
nomination, which the clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Omar
Antonio Williams, of Connecticut, to be United States District Judge
for the District of Connecticut.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to seek
unanimous consent to proceed to the consideration of two very qualified
nominees to USAID. They are the kind of nominees who, in previous
Congresses, would have been approved, without debate, through voice
vote. I will make the motion, expecting, unfortunately, an objection.
Then I will proceed to comments on why I think this is incredibly
damaging to the United States to not proceed forward with these
nominees.
Thus, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate consider
the following nominations: Calendar No. 323 and Calendar No. 337; that
the nominations be confirmed; that the motions to reconsider be
considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or
debate; that no further motions be in order on the nominations; that
any related statements be printed in the Record; and that the President
be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, EcoHealth Alliance received hundreds of
millions of dollars in taxpayer grants and contracts, including $65
million from USAID. This company and their research may well hold in
their hands the smoking gun to getting to the bottom of COVID's
origins, and millions of families who lost loved ones deserve closure.
Any Federal Agency that has given them money must be transparent and
provide Congress all information on what EcoHealth used that money for.
We asked for this information months ago. USAID has failed to do so,
and that is why I am here to object to these two unanimous consent
requests.
Therefore, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I would just ask unanimous consent for two
incredibly qualified, noncontroversial Administrators at USAID.
Isobel Coleman is the nominee to be the USAID Deputy Administrator.
She is a seasoned foreign policy professional who has been nominated by
the President to oversee and provide strategic leadership over the
Agency's programs. She has been previously confirmed by this body by
unanimous consent. There are, as far as I can tell, no objections to
her candidacy based upon the merits of it; and there were no objections
to her candidacy to serve as our Ambassador to the U.N. for Management
and Reform in December of 2014. She is a former Ambassador, and she has
spent 20 years in the study and practice of global development. She has
worked in the public and the private sectors.
I ask unanimous consent to proceed to the nomination of Marcela
Escobari, the nominee for USAID Assistant Administrator for Latin
America and the Caribbean. Ms. Escobari is a regional expert on Latin
America and the Caribbean. She has previously served in the exact same
role at the Agency, and she has done really incredible work reinforcing
U.S. support work for Peace Colombia. She has been heavily engaged in
the long-term development plan for Haiti, as well as in Congress's
plans to double funding for Central America to try to stem the root
causes of migration.
I think it is incredibly concerning that this blockade of capable
diplomats, professional diplomats, continues on the Senate floor. By
this time in the Trump administration, President Trump had had 22
Ambassadors who had been confirmed by the U.S. Senate, 17 of them by
voice vote. Thus far, President Biden has had 4 Ambassadors confirmed.
Today, I was asking for consideration not of Ambassadors but of
professionals who oversee the expenditure of U.S. taxpayer dollars
abroad. There is nothing that Senate Republicans can do to stop the
expenditure of taxpayer dollars in the Caribbean or Latin America. What
they are preventing is the appointment and seating of individuals who
oversee that funding, who represent us abroad.
This blockade--this unprecedented blockade--has never happened before
in the history of the Senate. This kind of obstruction of standing in
the way of the President's diplomatic team being seated compromises our
national security. It makes us weaker as a nation.
As the President heads to the G20, he doesn't have Ambassadors seated
to
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most of the countries with which he is going to be conducting
diplomatic negotiations and relations. USAID, today, only has two
Senate-confirmed positions, leaving most of its top leadership
positions vacant.
So forgive my sense of outrage when I listen to the minority leader
come down to the Senate floor and chide the Biden administration for
not having a strong enough policy in the Middle East when his minority
is using its power to block Ambassadors to the Middle East and is using
its power to stop an Assistant Secretary to the Middle East from being
seated.
You can't have it both ways. You can't come down to the Senate floor
and eviscerate the President's foreign policy and then deliberately
stop him from having the personnel to conduct that foreign policy. It
is like tying your buddy's hands behind his back and then criticizing
him for not fighting back against a bully.
USAID is at the center of our COVID response. There is no way to
protect this Nation from this pandemic or future pandemics if we don't
have individuals who are confirmed at the top echelons of USAID.
I understand Senator Marshall's objection to be over questions he has
about gain-of-function research that may or may not have been conducted
in Wuhan.
What does Marcela Escobari--the nominee to be the USAID Assistant
Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean--have to do with
gain-of-function research in China?
First of all, I can show you fact check after fact check that
suggests these allegations about gain-of-function research being funded
in China are false, but even if the Senator thinks there is a
legitimate question, what does that have to do with our ability to
efficiently spend taxpayer dollars in Latin America and the Caribbean?
We just had two massive national disasters happen in Haiti. USAID is
managing that response. It is spending taxpayer dollars right now.
Why wouldn't we want to have somebody overseeing that spending? Why
is that a responsible exercise of U.S. taxpayer dollars to deny our
taxpayers the ability to know that there is someone, confirmed by the
Senate, overseeing the expenditure of their money in places like Haiti?
How do you complain about the border and then deny the President the
personnel necessary to oversee migration from the Northern Triangle
northward to the U.S. border?
One of the nominees we snuck through was the Assistant Secretary for
the Western Hemisphere, but USAID, right now, is engaged in programming
designed to stabilize the economic and security environment in the
Northern Triangle. I think both parties agree that this is a key
component of our strategy to prevent migration that ends in crises at
the border.
Once again, the Republicans are denying the President the ability to
have personnel in place that will address the border crisis. Once
again, the minority is denying the President the ability to have people
in place who could oversee our COVID response. Once again, the minority
is denying the President the ability to have people in place who will
oversee our strategy in the Middle East.
This is an attempt to decapitate American diplomacy. This is an
attempt to stop the President from being able to conduct the business
of the executive branch. Never before has this happened. Never before
has the minority used this amount of its power to slow down the
confirmation of Ambassadors.
Yes, we can spend floor time on every single one of these Assistant
Administrators, but we have never done that before. When it comes to
somebody like Marcela Escobari or Isobel Coleman--people who are
nonpolitical, who are unquestionably qualified to do these jobs--we
have approved those kinds of nominations through unanimous consent.
They have proceeded by voice vote because to require hours of debate on
every single one of these nominees would be to gum up the works of the
U.S. Senate.
That is why we have had this informal agreement over the years. It is
in order to move these kinds of noncontroversial, nonpolitical nominees
expeditiously. That agreement, obviously, has fallen apart, and the
cost not only comes to the reputation and the comity of the U.S. Senate
but to the security of the Nation.
You cannot complain about this President's foreign policy, as
Republicans, if you are, at the same time, using extraordinary powers
to deny the President the ability to have diplomats abroad to represent
us. It is making us weaker as a nation, and it should stop immediately.
I am very sorry that the Senator from Kansas has come to the floor to
object to two incredibly qualified, noncontroversial nominees to USAID.
I hope this blockade comes to an end soon.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to
complete my remarks before the start of the vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Reconciliation and the Green New Deal
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, it is another day and another really bad
idea that is coming from the Democrats to fund their reckless tax-and-
spending spree. It seems like, to fund this massive amount of spending,
they are trying desperately to come up with new revenue sources, so
much so that, as of yesterday, still under consideration was a tax on
unrealized gains--in other words, on income that people haven't
received yet.
Let's just put that into perspective.
If carried to its full conclusion and it became a precedent as part
of the tax policy in this country--and it never has been before--to put
it in terms for people to understand, a lot of people participate in
the 401(k) or they have some sort of retirement plan from their
employers. If there were a gain in a particular year--say that the
total value of the portfolios of assets in their retirement plans,
those 401(k)s, went up by 20 percent--they could be taxed on that 20
percent even though they haven't received the income yet.
That is what is being talked about here in terms of precedent. Never
before has that been attempted or tried or implemented in American
history, where you would actually have a tax on income before people
actually ever received the income.
Of course, if you carry that to its natural conclusion, as we all
know, markets go up and markets go down. If you had a year wherein your
total value went down by 20 percent, then what? Do you get a refund
from the Federal Government? My understanding is that they would offer
some sort of a tax credit, in a case like that, if you had a year when
you had losses.
Just think about the precedent that would establish, what that could
mean for the American people, if at some point the government literally
could tax you--tax you--on income that you hadn't received yet.
That is the latest really horrible idea which I think is being shot
down by Democrats because they recognize what a horrible idea that is.
But it is a good example of the desperate lengths to which Democrats
are trying to come up with new ways to fund this reckless tax-and-
spending spree that they seem to be insistent on trying to force
through Congress. With an evenly divided Senate and evenly divided
House of Representatives, it is hard to imagine that you could do
something that radical, but this entire proposal is that radical, which
is why they are having such a hard time getting even people in their
own caucuses to agree with it.
Two years ago, Democrats introduced their original Green New Deal
resolution. While the guiding principles of the Green New Deal was
climate change and energy, Democrats didn't limit themselves to these
issues. They outlined a radical, comprehensive socialist revamping of
our society with the Federal Government inserting itself into nearly
every aspect of American life. And while Democrats haven't advanced one
all-inclusive bill to implement the Green New Deal--probably because of
the absolutely staggering pricetag for a comprehensive piece of
legislation like that--the Green New
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Deal socialist vision has rapidly become an organizing principle of the
Democratic Party. For proof, look no further than the tax-and-spending
spree Democrats are contemplating with its massive expansion of
government and radical climate agenda.
One major problem with the Democrats is they never fully consider the
cost of their legislation, whether it is the actual dollar amount or
other costs their proposals might impose. And nowhere--nowhere--is that
more true than with the Democrats' tax-and-spending spree.
I have spent a lot of time on the floor talking about things like the
way this bill will further drive up inflation and the dangers it
imposes for economic growth. Today, I want to address some of the costs
of the bill's Green New Deal-esque energy provisions, starting with the
cost to American families.
We know some energy prices are increasing due to the rising demand
from the lows of the pandemic. Yesterday's average price for a gallon
of gas was $3.38. That is compared to an average price of $2.16 1 year
earlier. Meanwhile, natural gas prices recently hit a 7-year high, and
there are mounting concerns about supply.
Americans are paying a lot more to drive their cars, to heat their
homes, and to cook their food. The high cost of gasoline and natural
gas are two more reasons why Americans are finding that their paychecks
don't stretch as far these days.
Given the situation, you would think that finding ways to lower
energy costs would be among Democrats' top priorities right now, but
you would be wrong. Democrats' tax-and-spending spree isn't going to
lower energy prices; it is going to drive them even higher.
The new energy policies that Democrats are considering would drive up
the price of electricity, natural gas, and gasoline and subsidize
Democrats' preferred technologies with Americans' tax dollars. And the
icing on the cake is that Americans are likely to be paying higher
electric costs for possibly worse electric service.
A lot of Americans are familiar with the problems with California's
electric grid--namely, blackouts. Well, if Democrats have their way,
Americans around the country will be able to enjoy California-style
electricity; in other words, expensive and inconsistent electricity
delivery along with higher gas prices.
This is what I mean when I talk about Democrats not fully considering
the costs. Nobody--nobody--questions that clean energy is a good thing.
I have been a strong supporter--a strong supporter--of clean energy
innovation. My State of South Dakota leads the way, whether it is wind
energy, biofuel, or hydropower. Most of the energy generated in the
State of South Dakota comes from renewable sources. In 2020, 83 percent
of the electricity generated in my State of South Dakota came from
renewable sources.
But clean energy policies need to be realistic and practical for each
region of the country. We have to, for example, understand that we are
not yet at the point, innovationwise, where we can rely mostly on
intermittent renewable sources to power electric grids. We need
reliable baseload power from sources like clean natural gas and
nuclear. Additionally, forcing older electric plants to close before
the end of their remaining useful life, especially the most modern and
efficient ones, will strand those assets. Our utilities make long-term
investments, and when they can't recoup those facility investments,
they pass the costs on to consumers.
Overreaching clean energy policies that place heavy burdens on
working families are unacceptable. Wealthy Democratic politicians and
the wealthy donor class that supports them may not have to worry much
if they have to spend more on their electric bill or an extra $20 to
$25 filling up their gas tank. But that is a big deal to a family on a
budget, especially when that family is also dealing with the increased
price of food and other basics.
Thanks to inflation and other pressures on gas prices, Americans are
already having to spend a lot more money to fill their gas tanks, and
with the Democrats' tax-and-spending spree, many working families would
end up unable to fill their gas tank when they need to in a diminished
oil and gas sector. Maybe that is the goal of some of the more extreme
members of the Democratic Party, but it is an unacceptable one.
Working families are likely to have a tough time thanks to the energy
provisions in the Democrats' tax-and-spending spree, but wealthy
families should do a little better. Not only are they more likely to be
able to afford increases in the price of electricity and gas, but they
will also be able to claim a tax credit from the Federal Government if
they want to purchase an expensive electric vehicle.
Democrats' tax-and-spending spree will offer tax credits of up to
$12,500 for the purchase of an electric car or truck with the biggest
credit naturally going to those who purchase union-made vehicles.
That is right. Only electric vehicles produced at facilities under a
union-negotiated collective bargaining agreement would be eligible for
the $4,500 plus-up, which would take the credit up to $12,500. And
anyone making up to $400,000 a year will be able to claim this credit.
That is right.
Under Democrats' legislation, you could be making nearly half a
million dollars a year and still receive a substantial tax break for
the purchase of an electric car.
Meanwhile, more accessible and readily available clean energy
technologies--notably, biofuels--take a backseat in this bill.
Electric vehicles are Democrats' chosen winner in the transportation
sector, no matter how impractical they may still be for a lot of
working Americans.
Speaking of impractical, if you want an electric bike to go along
with your electric car, Democrats will also give you a tax credit for
that as well. Yes, the Democrats' bill contains a tax credit for
electric bicycles--a credit that would go to bicycles that can cost up
to $8,000.
Now, maybe it is just me, but if you can afford an $8,000 electric
bike, I am not sure you need a tax credit for it from the Federal
Government. Also, while electric bicycles may have their appeal in
urban and maybe some suburban communities, they are a completely
impractical option for most individuals in States like South Dakota.
When you live 20 miles away from the nearest grocery store, an electric
bicycle is not going to be your vehicle of choice for getting around.
And I am pretty sure that South Dakota agricultural producers will back
me up when I say that electric bicycles are not going to be much use
for getting out to check the fences in the far corners of their ranch.
However, I have got to say that tax credits for electric bicycles are
far from the most wasteful use of government money in this bill. That
honor may have to go for the new tax credit to higher education
institutions for teaching environmental justice programs. That is
right. I am sure Americans will be relieved to know that Democrats are
planning to create a new tax credit for higher education institutions--
including Ivy league schools and other well-funded universities--so
that they can teach courses on environmental justice, whatever that is.
You would think colleges that charge students tens of thousands, if not
hundreds of thousands, of dollars in tuition could perhaps afford to
fund their own environmental justice programs. But, again, I guess you
would be wrong.
Then there is the $3 billion the bill provides for tree equity--tree
equity.
Now, I support and encourage the planting of trees, and I have
introduced a straightforward bill to rapidly expand tree planting
across the country without any Federal spending. But I am fairly sure
the Federal Government cannot afford to spend $3 billion on tree
equity, especially when Democrats need to save money for their civilian
climate corps--a new government program to provide government jobs and
subsidized housing to climate activists.
There is so much more.
The word is that Democrats will soon be releasing a new version of
their tax-and-spending spree, and I can only hope that it will be less
extreme than the current version because if the bill's current Green
New Deal-esque energy provisions go into effect, Americans are going to
be looking at a future of higher energy costs, diminished energy
resources, and a weakened energy independence, not to mention a lot of
wasted taxpayer dollars.
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Once again, it is abundantly clear that the Green New Deal is a bad
deal for American families.
I yield the floor.
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