Keystone Energy Debate and 529S

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, thanks to the bill managers' efforts that I just referred to, along with the years-long work undertaken by Members on both sides--Senator Hoeven in particular--we expect this bipartisan bill to finally pass the Senate.

We expect the filibuster of good American jobs to soon come to an end. That is good news for the Senate. It is even better news for the people we represent. It would show their Congress is capable of defying the powerful special interests that oppose Keystone so we can get things done for the middle class.

Constructing this infrastructure project would pump literally billions of dollars into our economy. It would support thousands of jobs, and it would do it all with minimal environmental impact. That is according to what we have heard from the President's own State Department. So it makes sense to get this bipartisan legislation to the President for his signature. We hope he will sign the Keystone jobs bill into law. The President should expect more good ideas to head his way.

That is the goal of this new Congress. We want to get Washington functioning again, and we want to pass commonsense ideas. The Keystone debate is showing how we can do both.

One other issue. I am certainly glad to see President Obama dropped his plan to make it harder for the middle class to save for college with 529s. I fought to ensure these plans were tax-free at the Federal level. Thanks to this incentive to save, literally millions of Americans use 529s to help prepare for college expenses. These are good plans that promote responsible savings. I am not sure why President Obama would have sought to undermine them in the first place, but it certainly is good to see the President coming around to Republicans' pro-middle-class view on this matter.

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