Energy

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, too often in Washington our friends on the left seem to operate under a very dangerous assumption: that good intentions are more important than a good outcome. I say it is dangerous because we see all the time how liberal Washington politics that aim to alleviate problems such as poverty or wage stagnation or other social or economic problems just seem to make things worse. Yet, despite the evidence, the policies never seem to change. More money just gets thrown at the same failed programs year after year with barely any thought as to whether they actually work.

ObamaCare is a case in point. Here is a big-government bill that Washington Democrats thought they could just pass and--poof--health care would magically be made more affordable for everybody. Yet for millions of Americans just the opposite happened. Contrary to the assurances, ObamaCare has upended lives and businesses all across our country. It has forced painful choices for people who could barely get by as it was. It is a mess.

So one would assume Washington Democrats would step back and take a long hard look at the accumulating evidence and start thinking about ways to keep this thing from pummeling even more Americans. But we would be wrong. They just keep doubling down.

When the Web site crashed, they called it a glitch. When people started losing their doctors and their plans, they told them: You can live with it. When Americans started sharing their ObamaCare horror stories, they basically called them all liars. That would tell us something we need to know about how much Washington liberals care about middle-class Americans. They are captive to the most extreme ideologies of the left, and they don't even try to hide it anymore. Forget reason or economics or sound argument; it is all about ideology with these guys.

We saw it all on vivid display a couple nights ago with the Democrats' all-night talkathon on global warming. The reason for the all-nighter was pretty obvious: It was a command performance for a leftwing activist donor out in California. And the fact that taxpayers were basically subsidizing the whole thing was bad enough, but what about the basic substance of the issue Democrats were talking about the other night. What about that. It is just one more case where good intentions trump the impact their proposals would have on ordinary Americans.

See, the Obama administration seems to think that if it just wishes really hard and issues enough regulations, it can singlehandedly reduce global carbon emissions--without bringing Beijing and New Delhi onboard. It is an alternate universe where ``victory'' means U.S. emissions going down by some negligible amount--and where China and India don't simultaneously eclipse that tiny emissions reduction with expanded energy of their own. It is a universe where the massive economic consequence of acting so recklessly doesn't seem to matter, and it is a universe where middle-class Americans somehow don't take the hit to our economic output right on the chin. In other words, it is the kind of thing that could only make sense to a party blinded by extremist ideology.

Of course, Washington Democrats love to pull out that old straw man and say: Either you support our approach completely--even if it won't actually solve the problem it purports to--or you hate the environment. It is kind of like when they said: Either you vote for ObamaCare or you hate affordable health care. Well, our constituents remember how that worked out, and our constituents are quite capable of seeing the complexity in the world which so often eludes our friends on the left. They are capable of caring deeply about the environment, for instance, while disagreeing with the administration's ideological crusade.

Of course, every ideological crusade needs an enemy. In the administration's war on coal, Washington Democrats appear to have found their foil. It is not some fat cat. It is not some Wall Street titan. No. This time it seems to be middle-class Kentucky families--miners who struggle every day just to put food on the table, the kinds of Americans who work hard so the rest of us can have a better life. Well, it is unfair and it is wrong.

Where Washington Democrats seem to see faceless adversaries, I see human beings, people who are hurting. I wish my Democratic colleagues would join me sometime as I travel around Kentucky listening to their concerns.

At one recent hearing, a miner named Howard Abshire had this message for President Obama:

Come and look at our little children, look at our people, Mr. President. You're not hurting for a job; you've got one. I don't have one.

Another miner, Gary Lockhart, said his biggest worry was just trying to keep a roof over his family's head and food on the table. When it comes to his fellow miners, here is what he had to say:

Many of these men, who have never asked the government for any kind of assistance in their lives ..... [are] having to go home and tell their families that their pay's going to be cut to practically nothing, [that] there'll be very little Christmas this year, no vacations, nothing extra.

Miners aren't the only ones affected by all the pain out there in coal country. I will read a letter I received from Bill Scaggs, a businessman and pastor from Pikeville. Here is what Bill had to say:

We have had to lay off employees due to the closings of mines and the [effect] they have had. Our business is losing thousands of dollars due to the negative impact of the EPA. As a pastor ..... our benevolence to the community has increased fivefold with help for food, power bills, clothing, and just the day to day living expenses that families need.

Americans may not always know it, but they owe a lot to coal miners like the ones I represent in Kentucky. Whether it is watching a TV show, drying a pair of jeans, or saving some leftover takeout for tomorrow, we often probably have a miner to thank for the electricity that makes it all possible. That is also true if we try to keep the lights on all night long.

So I hope our friends on the other side will remember to be thankful for the electricity that makes all-night talkathons actually possible. Honestly, I still don't get the point of the stunt. They didn't introduce legislation or schedule votes on the national electricity tax they seem to want so badly. Remember, they control the Senate, so they can bring it up for debate whenever they want to. Where is the climate change debate? Where is the bill? People who were speaking all night control the Senate. Bring up the bill.

Here is the point: Republicans care deeply about the environment. We also care deeply about creating jobs and growing the middle class, and we do not think our country should have to sacrifice one priority for the other. The American people do not either. So it is time for Washington Democrats to drop the billionaire-approved ideological crusades, to quit all the talk and get onboard with sensible forward-looking action to create jobs. We have tried the left's wish-upon-a-star approach already and real people have been hurt. So why not try some things that will actually work.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Will the Senator withhold his request?

Mr. McCONNELL. I will withhold.

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