Energy Policy Modernization Bill

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Now, Mr. President, passing the FAA reauthorization bill isn't the only legislative milestone we will mark this week. Today we will pass, as the New York Times put it, ``the first major energy bill to come to the Senate floor since the Bush administration,'' the passage of which, as the paper has also noted, would represent a significant step forward for the Nation's energy policy.

It has been nearly a decade since the Senate last debated major energy legislation and much has changed in that time. That is why Senator Murkowski, the Energy Committee chair, and Senator Cantwell, the ranking member, worked for the past year to move broad bipartisan energy legislation, the Energy Policy Modernization Act.

Like the FAA reauthorization bill I mentioned earlier, this bill won't raise taxes on American families, but it can help them by making energy more affordable and more abundant, by building on technological advances and bolstering national security, and by growing the economy and furthering innovation. In short, the bill before us takes a comprehensive approach to bring America's energy policies in line with the kind of challenges and opportunities we now face.

The bill managers worked ceaselessly to see this bill through to final passage. Now, following the passage of the most pro-passenger, pro-security FAA reauthorization in years, the Republican-led Senate will today pass the first major Energy bill in nearly a decade. It is broad, it is bipartisan, and it is just the kind of legislation we are seeing a lot of in a Republican-led Senate that continues to show what is possible with good ideas and good old hard work.

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