Senate Proceeding 10-14-09 on Oct 14th, 2009 :: 2:11:35 to 2:24:15
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2:11:33 to 2:11:53( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: portsmouth without hurting jobs, good jobs, in other states. with that, madam president, i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: will call the roll. quorum call: mr. mccain: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that further proceedings

2:11:35 to 2:24:15( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: John McCain

2:11:54 to 2:12:14( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: madam president, as we take up the conference report to accompany the fiscal year 2010 energy and water appropriations bill, today it spends approximately approximately $33.9 billion, and let's not forget that congress

2:12:15 to 2:12:36( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: has already appropriated over water-related projects between the emergency appropriations provided in the 2009 supplemental, the continuing resolution, and the stimulus bill. equally as important is what this bill doesn't fund. the bill provides only

2:12:37 to 2:12:57( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: only $197 million for the yucca mountain nuclear waste repository, putting this project on life support. the department of energy has spent billions of dollars and decades studying the suitability of yucca mountain as the nation's repository for spent nuclear fuel and defen consistently, this science has borne out that the yucca

2:12:58 to 2:13:18( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: mountain is the best site to dispose of nucle waste. the president has made a point of telling all who would listen that his administration would be guided by science politics. at the same time, the president and the secretary of energy are saying the yucca mountain is no longer an option, even though science has proven that yucca is safe.

2:13:19 to 2:13:40( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: the fact that this administration has political problems with moving forward with the yucca mountain storage facility doesn't change the fact that the legal obligation to take this spent waste and that the licensing process is already under way. shelving the yucca mountain facility will slow the deployment of new nuclear

2:13:41 to 2:14:03( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: generating facilities, constrain our most abundant clean energy source and hinder efforts to combat climate change. the conference report that accompanies this bill contains 1,116 congressionally directed spending items. that's a fancy term for

2:14:04 to 2:14:24( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: earmarks, which is a fancy term for pork-barrel spending, which is a fancy term for corruption. a and almost doubling the number of earmarks that were included in the senate-approved bill. get that.

2:14:25 to 2:14:45( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: 1,116 earmarks in this bill. over a billion dollars. i know that's not much when we consider we've already rung up a a $9 trillion deficit over the next nine years, but a lot of americans would be surprised and think it's a fair amount of money. none of these projects were requested many of them weren't

2:14:46 to 2:15:06( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: or competively bid in any way. no hearing was held to judge whether or not these were national priorities worthy of scarce taxpayers' dol they're in this bill for one reason and one reason only. because of the self-serving prerogatives of a select few members of the senate, almost

2:15:07 to 2:15:28( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: all of whom serve on appropriations committee. sadly, serve their own interests over those of the american taxpayer. during sen this bill, i filed 24 amendments to strike these earmarks. the american peoe are tiredf this process. they're tired of watching their hard-earned money go down the drain.

2:15:29 to 2:15:50( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: not surprisingly, my amendments were defeated at every turn the appropriators and members on the other side of the aisle. here's some examples of the earmark contained in this bill. $2 million for the algae biofuels research in washington. that's washington state.

2:15:51 to 2:16:11( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: $750,000 for the algae to ethanol research and evaluation, new jersey. $1.2 million for the alternative energy school of the future, nevada. $6 million for the hawaii energy sustainability program, hawaii. $6 million for the hawaii

2:16:12 to 2:16:34( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: renewable energy development venture, hawaii. $2.25 million for theontana bioenergy center of excellence, montana. $10 million for the sustainable energy research center in mississippi.

2:16:35 to 2:16:55( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: $450,000 for the vermont e investment corporation in vermont. $1.2 million for the hydrogen fuel dispensing station, west virginia. $1.25 million for the long-term environmental and economic impacts of the development of a coal liquefication sector

2:16:56 to 2:17:17( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: china. that's west virginia. $1 million for the alaska climate center, alaska. $5 million for the computing capability -- whatever that is -- in north dakota. $1 million for the peformance assessment institute, nevada.

2:17:18 to 2:17:39( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: $1 million for the new school green building in new york. this bill also includes $106 million increase in funding the president's request for hydrogen fuel cell research. the secretary of energy pushed for the elimination of this funding but has since changed his mind after being bullied by

2:17:40 to 2:18:00( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: the senate appropriators. before his change of heart, dr. chu explained his reasoning for cutting the funding by stating -- quote -- "we asked ourselves, is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will convert to a hydrogen-car economy?

2:18:01 to 2:18:26( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: the answer we felt was no." unfortunately, dr. chu has caved to demands and has decided to no longer object to funding research investments call a dead end. the bill dedicat to the army corps civil works program, which is $180 million higher than the president's request. as my colleagues know, the corps

2:18:27 to 2:18:48( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: is burdened with backlog as a result of years of abusing bills and the water resource development act as hot tickets for loading up new pet projects. as one would expect, this year's appropriations process was no different from previous years. as

2:18:49 to 2:19:10( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: committee received 256 request to fund new projects, imagine our surprise when we learned the committee rejected every single one of these requests to fund new projects, albeit a modest one, to the tenets of fiscal responsibility attempting in a way to address our current backlog; we c't

2:19:11 to 2:19:33( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: deny our system of funding existing projects isn't working. there is no way to know which projects warrant taxpayer dollars because the corps refuses to give congress any kind of idea of what it uses national -- what it views as national priorities. in fact, even when congress specifically requests a list of the corps' top priorities, they

2:19:34 to 2:19:55( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: are unable to provide them. that leaves it up to politicians on capitol hill to blindly throw money at flood control, hurricane protection, navigation, and environmental restoration projects, in some cases matters of life or death, without knowing which projects may or may not benefit the larger good. we owe it to the american people

2:19:56 to 2:20:16( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: to do our current economic situation and our vital national security concerns require that now more than ever we prioritize our federal spending. but our appropriations bills don't always put our priorities first. it is abundantly clear that the time has come for us to

2:20:17 to 2:20:38( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: eliminate the corrupt wasteful actice of earmarking. we made some progress on the issue in the but we haven't obviously gone far enough. legislation we passed in 2007 providedor greater disclosure of earmarks. while that was a good step forward, the bottom line is that we simply don't need more disclosure of earmarks.

2:20:39 to 2:21:04( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: we need to eliminate them. the time has come to get serious about how we're spending hard-working americans' tax dollars, and there is no better way to prove we're serious than by ending the wasteful practice of earmarking funds in the appropriations bills. the process is broken, and it's long overdue to be now, madam president, we are

2:21:07 to 2:21:30( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: period, consuming it because of th senator from oklahoma had an amendment which required for -- which required greater transparency. the senator from wanting a recorded vote, was assured by the managers of the bill tha

2:21:31 to 2:21:54( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: provision would be added to the final conference report which would then be passed by both houses president's signare. unaccountably, that which was simple transparency so that all members of the senate would know what information that

2:21:55 to 2:22:15( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: the senate prorpgs received was dropped conference. understandably, the senator from oklaho view in many ways is the conscience of this body, is upset and concerned that the american people, much their representatives, are not able to obtain informati

2:22:16 to 2:22:38( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: is obviously very important in the decision-making process that goes on here. it's really shows again what has happened here in the process legislation that the appropriations committee now seems to wishes of the american people

2:22:39 to 2:22:59( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: with projects such as those i just outlined, but als even the other members of the united states senate. so, but the good news probably is for members of the body and for citizens of this but bad news for the appropriators is that we'll be back.

2:23:00 to 2:23:21( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: we'll be back again and again and again. and the ameri this country are having tea parties. they're having uprisings. they know that we've laid on future generations of americans, and they're not going to stand for it. they're going to find out whether we really need to spend

2:23:22 to 2:23:42( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: $450,000 for the vermont energy investment corporation, whether we need $1 million for a peformance assessment institute in nevada, and whether we really need to spend $1 million for the newchool green building in new

2:23:43 to 2:24:04( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: york, not to mention all those projects that ar will send our tax dollars to the state of hawaii as well as mississippi. so, madam president, i can warn my colleagues again, we'll be back. we'll be back. we'll talk not only here on the floor of the senate, but across

2:24:05 to 2:24:15( Edit History Discussion )

John McCain: this country, about this egregious practice of the waste of their taxpayers dollars, of their hard-earned dollars and the way that this earmark and pork-barreling process is still