On the recordJanuary 21, 2015
I thought last night, as the majority whip just mentioned, that the President once again showed his sense of why the majority in the Congress and the majority of people in the country support the Keystone XL Pipeline. It is not just about the pipeline, even though he doesn't quite seem ever to get that. It is about whether we are going to truly take advantage of more American energy. Clearly, the President suggested that was one of the great accomplishments of his administration. I think we could make the argument--and make it effectively--that his administration hasn't done much to implement the great steps we have made forward. In fact, on public lands and other measures that we were in the process of considering when he became President, they have backed away from that rather than stepped forward. We seem to be unwilling to step forward and embrace this great opportunity that is so much more than the jobs for just the pipeline itself. I filed two amendments today on the pipeline bill--the topic we are talking about, the topic my good friend from North Dakota has done so much to bring attention to since the day he arrived in the Senate. It was 4 years ago, when the Keystone XL Pipeline application was only 2 years old at the time. Now 6 years later, we are continuing to miss an opportunity. It seems that on this topic, as once was said about seeking a solution to the Middle East, we can't seem to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.…
