barrasso lebanon and 17 other members who joined with him in that very important measure. we also agreed to include my american mineral security act critical minerals bill sponsored by sen. risch of idaho, sen. crapo, sen. heller of nevada. of nevada. again, a piece that many would agree is vitally important as we see vulnerability in the country on energy security rely on sources of supply, we can ever forget how important minerals are in noand i want to go down the same road we have been with oil historically we are talking about critical minerals. this is a huge issue. we agreed to to wrote the use of clean renewable hydropower including senator gartner who held the lead, sen. cantwell for myself. we. we agreed to expedite the permitting of natural gas pipelines without sacrificing environmental review of public participation led by sen. of west virginia. they agreed to a new pilot program for oil and gas permitting comeau one of many good ideas at the senator has. we took up a proposal senator collins of maine to boost the efficiency within our schools. we all recogniz

barrasso: i thank the distinguished chairman of the energy committee. she does a remarkable job, has brought many people together on this bipartisan piece of legislation, passed the committee 18-4, and people are energetic about this energy bill because it is such a critical, important thing for our communities and our economy. so i come to the floor today as the senate is discussing this important energy legislation because energy is one of those areas that we should actually all be able to agree on in terms of the basic idea, the basic idea and my goal for this energy bill is that we make energy in america as enclue as wclean as o it in a way that don't raise costs on american families. i think most of us would consider this to be a worthy commonsense goal. that's why the energy bill before the senate today is so important and why it has such broad, bipartisan support. as said, the bill passed the committee 18-4. and this is a bill that actually takes concrete steps to help our country produce the energy that we need. i think one of the good ideas in

we have an amendment from senator barrasso, amendmen to se imponing dying mol molecules. at noon we are scheduled to proceed to a roll call vote on amendmenamendment 30231 promoteh into nuclear energy. there is a strong list of members that are supporting this amendment. senators crapo and risch from idaho along with senator whitehouse of rhode island, senator booker of new jersey, senator hatch of utah, and senators kirk and durbin from illinois. so a good bipartisan mix of senators from around the country coming together to promote nuclear research with this amendment. at 1:45 we will proceed to amendment 2565, introduced by senator schatz. it would increase the authorized funding levels for arpa-e in the underlying energy bill. senator cantwell and i are both working with our staffs to reach agreement on any additional amendments that can be brought up for votes today. we'll try to keep members apprised as to what they can expect. i think both of us are hopeful that we will see more votes added to the list that i have just described. we may have one as early as 11:30,

background you will not be shocked to learn that her new baby girl is -- please welcome caroline barrasso. [applause] >> thank you andrew, it's great to be back. it's an honor for me to introduce our groups. not too long ago as a conservative but the university of virginia i found great role models so it's a delight to have defenders of freedom with at the zoo today but i like to introduce our moderator keith open chain. she is has served in various leadership roles at the foundation and is now one of our most popular students the gazette onto campuses and challenges the liberal agenda. a proud virginian she has been active in virginia politics or many are serving as an adviser to governor george allen and the first woman chairman of the women's gop and the sought-after voice in a regular news outlets such as "fox news" and cnbc. she's a contributor, and other printer being british is. the book lot of them praised by many conservative leaders. kate is the proud mother of four beautiful children who devoted her work to promote freedom for generations. now it like to tell you about governor

barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, tonight president obama will be coming to congress to deliver his final state of the union address. his advisors have been all over television talking about what the president is planning to s say. tonight i expect president obama will talk a little about the health care law. last year in his state of the union address, the president bragged, he actually bragged that more people have insurance now than when he took office. i expect he'll probably say something similar tonight. well, mr. president, i want to talk a little bit about the other side of the sorry. i want to talk about what president obama is not going to say tonight to the american people. the president is not going to admit that many americans are actually worse off under his health care law. he's not going to say that under the health care law, there is a ve

from alaska for her hard work in working on both sides of the aisle today on these amendments, the barrasso amendment about energy, the indian energy bill that was reported out of the indian affairs committee, the baldwin amendment about water treatment, wyden amendment on u.s. geothermal and capito on ethane storage facilities, daines on hydrolicense issue and hirono on removing offensive language in the d.o.e. organization act. members have worked very hard throughout the day on these issues, and i just want to make this point as my colleague and i try to finish working through the rest of this week and into next week to wrap up this bill, and to thank all our colleagues for helping us on this, but i will not object. i am glad we have gotten to this point. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. ms. murkowski: mr. president, i know of no further debate on these amendments. the presiding officer: if there is no further debate, the question is on the amendment en bloc. all those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the amendment

this bill includes senator barrasso's bill to expedite l.n.g. permitting so that natural gas produced in america can be sold to o our allies arod the world. innovation will be a key component in powering west virginia's energy economy. in addition to our rich natural gas reserves, west virginia has been one of the most -- one of the major producers of coal for energy generation in this country for decades. -- a century. my state and our nation have faced an uphill battle in the administration's war on coal, despite the fact that coal still remains america's baseload energy source. we need a commonsense approach to coal-fired energy generation, one that doesn't simply try to eliminate it but instead incorporates a modern, innovative energy policy. that's why i cosponsored language included in the bill with senators manchin and portman that would revitalize the fossil energy program at the department of energy. this program is critical to the research and development of new technologies that makes fossil energy more efficient and reliable while at

. >> senator barrasso? >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> ambassador olson, i want to talk more about what's happening with isis and you were just in afghanistan last week. i was the there for thanksgiving up in northern afghanistan, and hearing more and more about the spread of isis across the middle east, it's obviously serious concern to us in regard to national security. yesterday the department of defense warned about the growth of isis in afghanistan. the report from the department of defense stated that isis "has progressed from its initial exploratory phase to a point where they're openly fighting the taliban for establishment of a safe haven and becoming more operationally active. it went ton say that isis claimed responsibility for the ied attacks against united nations vehicle, attacks against i think ten checkpoints in september when i was in kabul. as you know, they're not taking vehicles back and forth to the embassy. things are now by helicopter just because of this increased concern. can you talk about the best e

this was the act that senator barrasso led on and 17 other members who joined with minimum in that veryery important measure. we also agreed to include my american minerals security act, the crit ca critical minerals b, sponsored by senator risch, senator crapo, senator heller of nevada. again, a piece that i think many would agree + is vitally important, as we see vulnerability in our country on energy security, where we rely on others for sources of supply. we can't ever forget how important minerals are. and we don't want to go down that same road that we have been, for instance, with oil historically, as when we were talking about our critical minerals. so this is a huge issue for us. we agreed to promote the use of clean renewable hydropower, a priority for members from western states, including senator gardner, who helped lead on this, senator daines, senator cantwell, myself. we agreed to expedite the permitting of natural gas pipelines, without sacrificing any environmental review or public participation. this was an effort that was led by senator capito of west virginia. we agr

barrasso: well, mr. president, i just want to agree and second everything that my colleague from missouri, senator blunt, has had to say. that map of missouri, 99.7% of his state under water according to the e.p.a. we had a hearing and i look at a map of -- i looked at a map of wyoming that the e.p.a. presented. it looked like the entire state of wyoming wasunder water according to the e.p.a. this is an incredible overreach on the part of this administration. this e.p.a. and it's so interesting because the president of the united states always says, if you have better ideas, bring them. if you have better ideas, bring them. well, we did. a number of us cosponsored legislation, bipartisan. we had a number of democrats supporting it as well to allow for congress to establish the principles of what a new e.p.a. rule would look like. didn't say get rid of the whole thing. it said, there are ways to make it better. ways to make it better. let people on the ground make those decisions. who are the best steward

the following ordem senator shaheen, amendment 2963, senator murkowski, amendment 3017, senator barrasso, amendment 2982, senator markey, amendment 3021, senator crapo, and amendment 2965, senator schatz. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the clerk will report the amendments by number. the clerk: the senator from alaska, ms. murkowski, proposes en bloc amendments numbered 2968, 2963, 3017, 2982, 3021, 2965. ms. murkowski: mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent that at 12:00 noon tomorrow, the senate vote on the crapo amendment number 3021, and at 1:45 p.m., the senate vote on the schatz amendment number 2965. that no second-degree amendments be in order to the crapo or schatz amendments prior to the votes. and finally, that the time until 12:00 noon and following the disposition of the crapo amendment until 1:45 p.m. be equally divided between the two managers or their designees. the presiding officer: is there objection? ms. cantwell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. ms. cantwell: mr. president, reserving the right to o