mr. hoeven: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to make the case for lifting the 40-year-old ban on exporting crude oil. it will benefit not only my home state of north dakota but our nation and our allies in a host of different ways. he that'sie worked hard to include legislation repealing the ban in the year-end legislation congress now has under consideration. importantly, this is must-pass legislation, meaning that it will be very hard for the president to veto the oil exporl export ban. taken together, the reasons for lifting the oil export ban are very powerful. doing so would encourage more domestic production. it would increase the global supply of crude oil, reducing the cost at the pump for our consumers, particularly over the long term. it will help grow our economy and create good-paying jobs for our citizens. and the last reason is vital the important as well -- vitally important as well, particularly now as we work on making sure our nation is secure, and that is that it will help make our nation more sec

mr. hoeven: mr. president, i rise today to speak in support of repealing obamacare and replacing it with a step-by-step choice that restories -- restores competition to consumers. the problems have been reported here on the floor of the united states senate. i know we've all heard from our constituents, hundreds of thousands have written and called all of our offices. as a matter of fact, i'll read one of the letters that came in to my office, at least part of it. it's addressed to me and it says, it starts out, "i'm sure i'm not the first one to contact you about rising health insurance deductibles. i've had this job for three years. the first two years my company plan had a $3,000 yearly deductible with no co-pay. $3,000 yearly deductible with no co-pay. last year it went to $4,000 with a 20% co-pay. it goes from $3,000 to $4,000 in annual premium -- deductible, excuse me. and go from no co-pay to a 20% co-pay. this coming year, 2016, it will go to $6,700 for the deductible with a 20% co-pay. so in