“We do our jobs every day, doing things that will make an immediate difference to families all across the country.”
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor highlighting the accomplishments of the Republican-led Senate.
Transcript of Senator Barrasso’s remarks:
“I head home just about every weekend to Wyoming and lots of people from Wyoming come here to Washington to visit, as well.
“When I’m home, I get a chance to talk to people and here in Washington I get to talk to people.
“I talked to folks early in the morning in Wyoming, and yesterday afternoon got off the plane and there were a number of students here from Sheridan High School with We the People. One of our pages is here also from that high school.
“So we get to hear a lot from people.
“Some folks have been asking what the Republican Congress has actually accomplished.
“So I’d like to take a few minutes to talk about a little bit about what the Senate has actually done this year and during this Congress since the Republicans have taken over the majority.
“You know, we’re not even four months into the year, and it has already been a very productive year in the Senate.
“It’s true.
“We’ve been active, we have been effective – and it’s still only April.
“In February, we passed legislation to add tough new sanctions against North Korea.
“And as the president knows, the president in the White House as opposed to the president in the Senate, who was reluctant when we started proposing these sanctions, hesitant about the sanctions we proposed against North Korea.
“Let’s face it, North Korea has been aggressively testing missiles, testing nuclear weapons and needs to be stopped.
“When other countries threaten their neighbors as North Korea has done in their general geographic area, what happens is the United States must stand up and stop them.
“President Obama has done far too little, and I’m very concerned about the aggressions and the ambitions of North Korea. And that’s why the Senate had to act.
“So Congress stood up, pushed against this action. We had more action against North Korea – and that’s exactly what we did.
“The Senate also acted by passing the Defend Trade Secrets Act, to help businesses protect their confidential information.
“We passed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation to help fight the misuse of prescription drugs in terms of prescription painkillers called opioids.
“It’s been a huge problem in our country. Communities all around the country.
“Senator Ayotte of New Hampshire and Senator Portman of Ohio were two of the main sponsors of this important legislation. I know Senator Portman was just on the floor recently talking about different legislation, but he has shown heroic leadership in an area that certainly needed to be and needs to be addressed.
“The Senate worked and reauthorized the Older Americans Act.
“This was another bipartisan piece of legislation.
“It works to provide senior citizens with things like meals, transportation, and ways to help people live in their own homes for longer, in terms of their quality of life which is very important for Americans all across the country.
“We passed legislation to overhaul and reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration.
“This is a significant accomplishment.
“This legislation promotes U.S. aerospace jobs by cutting through some of the red tape that has hurting airplane designers.
“And then, just last week we passed a comprehensive overhaul of American energy – American energy policy, something we hadn’t done in about eight years.
“Over the past few years, hard-working Americans have made this country into an energy superpower.
“But yet, we hadn’t passed any kind of major energy legislation for about eight years.
“Because Washington’s regulations have simply not kept pace – and they’ve actually worked against the energy producers, people that are getting back to work, getting this country’s economy returned.
“So the legislation that we passed is going to rein in some of that needless, wasteful bureaucracy that the federal government has imposed on the people creating energy jobs, working to produce more energy because energy is called a master resource for a reason, and we have it in great abundance.
“One of the very important parts was language to expedite shipments of America’s natural gas to buyers around the world.
“Look, it’s good for our economy – and it’s good for our allies, who will be able to decrease their dependence on Russian gas.
“Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska did an outstanding job of making sure that this legislation had ideas from both sides of the aisle.
“It’s a big part of why this piece of legislation – first time in eight years, major energy legislation – passed 85 to 12. 85-12.
“That’s another big accomplishment of the Senate this year that doesn’t get enough attention.
“It’s not just that we’re passing important legislation that helps Americans.
“We’re doing it in a bipartisan way that allows every senator- every senator, every member of this body – to represent the people back home with their ideas and their suggestions.
“We’ve voted on 129 amendments so far this year. 129 amendments voted on this year.
“When the Democrats under Harry Reid were in control, a lot of people around here had gotten used to the idea that people didn’t actually get to vote on amendments.
“In 2014, the last year under Democratic control under Harry Reid, the Senate only had 15 up-or-down votes on amendments all year. Full-calendar year, 2014
“When Republicans took over the majority, we changed that.
“The Senate has been working hard this year, just like we were working hard last year.
“Now, we could do a lot more if a few Democrats hadn’t blocked progress on some very important pieces of legislation.
“People in Wyoming now know that there are some important things that they really care about, and they were actually blocked by President Obama.
“In January, the president vetoed legislation that we had passed to improve health care in this country by repealing major parts of Obamacare.
“Now, remember, the president said to Democrats that they should defend and forcefully – they should forcefully defend and be proud of the that health care law.
“But one out of four Americans, 25 percent of Americans, say that they have personally been harmed by the president’s health care law.
“So, we put it on his desk to do a repeal. He vetoed that.
Now, only about one in eight people who are in this country say that they’ve been helped by the health care law.
“So when you take a look at major legislation that impacts the country, it is no surprise that the health care law continues to be very unpopular, especially when you see that for every one person that says they have been helped, there are almost two people who say that they have been personally hurt by the law.
“The president also vetoed legislation that we passed to bring some sanity to something called the Waters of the U.S. rule.
“Again, a rule put out – a regulation by the president, a reinterpretation of the law – the law is pretty clear to me, but the president had his own approach.
“We put a bill on his desk to overturn what he has tried to do.
“The Supreme Court – the courts have actually stopped him in his tracks, but he once again vetoed our efforts.
“Last year, the president actually vetoed five different bills passed by Congress.
“This kind of obstructionism from President Obama doesn’t help our country move forward.
“It’s also not helpful when the Democrat leaders do everything they can to convince people that nothing is getting done in the Senate. But we hear that day after day from the Minority Leader Harry Reid.
“You know, it’s interesting, when Senator Reid was the majority leader, he had a firm strategy of doing as little as possible.
“He is now the minority leader. I think he went from the majority to the minority for a reason.
“And it seems to me that he’s hanging on, clinging on to that losing strategy.
“The plan didn’t work then, and I think that one of the reasons that he continues to try to talk down and slow down some of our progress is because actually he’s envious.
“He’s envious of anyone who gets things done in the Senate.
“Republicans in the Senate are not interested in working at Harry Reid’s pace, and neither are many of the Democrats.
“Most senators agree that we have a lot of work to do – and that it’s good for America when we do that work.
“That’s why we’ve been making our way through appropriations bills.
“This year we got the earliest start ever to appropriations work in the history of the modern budget process. So we continue to work on that.
“I want to be clear on one important point.
“Doing our job in the Senate doesn’t mean setting aside the priorities of the American people just to help President Obama build a political legacy.
“That’s why the Senate will stand strong to give Americans a voice in who gets to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court.
“President Obama wants us to set aside everything else and let him appoint his justice to the court.
“It’s not going to happen.
“We do our jobs every day, doing things that will make an immediate difference to families all across the country.
“Things that Republicans and Democrats agree on – and that everybody knows we should be doing.
“That’s what you’re seeing with this Republican-run Senate. That’s what the people want us to do, that’s what they expect us to do and that’s what we’ll continue to do.”
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