The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS” mentioning the Department of Interior was published in the Senate section on pages S600-S604 on Jan. 29, 2014.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Ms. COLLINS (for herself and Mr. Nelson):
S. 1970. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify safe harbor requirements applicable to automatic contribution arrangements, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Finance.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Retirement Security Act of 2014, legislation I am sponsoring with my good friend, the senior Senator from Florida and the chairman of the Special Committee on Aging. Our bill would encourage small employers to offer retirement plans, encourage employees to save more for their retirement, and ensure that low- and middle-income taxpayers are able to claim tax benefits for retirement savings already authorized in law.
I thought it was interesting last night that the President, in his speech, highlighted what is a growing problem in this country; that is, that people who have not saved sufficiently to have a comfortable retirement.
The legislation we are introducing today is an outgrowth of our work together on the Special Committee on Aging. Last fall, the committee conducted a hearing on retirement security, where we heard from witnesses that far too many American seniors have real reason to fear that they will outlive their savings. According to the nonpartisan Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, there is an estimated
$6.6 trillion gap between the savings American households need to maintain their standard of living in retirement and what they actually have. That is an enormous gap that speaks to the fact that we need to shine a light on this problem.
Nationally, one in four retired Americans has no source of income beyond Social Security--in Maine, the number is one in three. Four in ten seniors rely on that vital program for 90 percent of their retirement income. Yet Social Security provides an average benefit of just $1,294 per month--less than $16,000 per year. It is hard to imagine stretching those dollars far enough to pay the bills--certainly a ``comfortable retirement'' is out of the question.
According to a Gallup survey published in 2012, more than half of all Americans are worried they will not be able to maintain their standard of living in retirement, up sharply from 34 percent two decades ago. They are right to be concerned: projections published in 2010 by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) show that nearly half of
``Early Boomers''--those between the ages of 56 and 62 when the study was conducted--are at risk of not having enough money to pay for basic costs in retirement, including uninsured health care costs.
There are many reasons for the decline in retirement security facing American seniors, including the severity of the recent financial crisis, rising health care costs, the need for long-term care, and the fact that Americans are simply living far longer than they did in the past. The shift from employer-based ``defined benefit'' plans--
pensions--to ``defined contribution'' plans like 401(k)s, also has played a role.
Another contributing factor we found is that employees of small businesses are much less likely to participate in employer-based retirement plans. According to a recent GAO study, more than half of the 42 million Americans who work for businesses with fewer than 100 employees lack access to a work-based plan to save for retirement. Cost and complexity are among the reasons plans are not more widely offered by small businesses.
Chairman Nelson and I believe that making it easier for smaller businesses to provide access to retirement plans for their workers would make a significant difference in the financial security for many Americans. That is why the bill we are introducing today focuses on reducing the cost and complexity of retirement plans, especially for small businesses, and on encouraging individuals to save more for their retirement. Let me describe some of the provisions of our bill:
First, our bill would allow small businesses to enter into multiple employer plans (MEPs) to jointly offer retirement programs to their employees. This allows small companies to share the administrative burden of a retirement plan, which helps to lower costs. Current law discourages the use of MEPs because it requires a connection, or
``nexus,'' between unrelated businesses in order to join a MEP, such as membership in the same trade association. Our bill would waive the nexus requirement for businesses with fewer than 500 employees. So as not to discourage growth, our bill provides a long phase-out, under which businesses are not automatically disqualified from a MEP when they hire their 500th employee.
Second, our bill makes joining a MEP a more attractive option for small businesses. Under current law, if one employer in a MEP fails to meet the minimum criteria necessary for retirement plans to obtain tax benefits, all employers and their employees could lose their tax benefits. These benefits are substantial. For employees, they include delaying the taxation of income contributed to a plan until funds are withdrawn. For employers, plan disqualification could result in limited deductions and a higher tax burden. Our bill directs Treasury to issue regulations to address this uncertainty, and protect members of a MEP from the failure of one bad apple to meet its obligations.
Third, our bill reduces the cost of maintaining a retirement plan. Current law requires that participants in a retirement plan receive a variety of notices. Our bill would direct Treasury to simplify, clarify, and consolidate these required notices, which creates savings that can be passed on to employers.
As ranking member of the Special Committee on Aging, I have heard countless stories of retirees whose savings did not go as far as they anticipated. Adequate savings reduce poverty among our seniors during what should be their golden years. As the HELP Committee noted in a July 2012 report, elder poverty also increases Medicare and Medicaid costs and strains our social safety net. Giving those not yet at retirement age more opportunities to save, and to save more, may help to ease this additional burden on entitlement programs that already are projected to be unsustainable.
The Retirement Security Act of 2014 encourages those still in the workforce to save more for retirement. Retirement plans are often designed to comply with existing safe harbors to prevent the IRS from challenging the tax benefits that flow to employees and employers. The existing safe harbor for so-called ``automatic enrollment'' plans effectively caps employee contributions at 10 percent of annual pay, with the employer contributing a ``matching'' amount on up to 6 percent. Our bill creates an additional safe harbor for these plans that would allow employees to receive an employer match on contributions of up to 10 percent of their pay. Employees would be able to contribute more than 10 percent, albeit without an employer match for contributions above 10 percent.
I recognize that businesses that choose to adopt a plan with this new optional safe harbor may face additional costs due to the increased employer match. That is why our bill helps the smallest businesses--
those with fewer than 100 employees--offset this cost by providing a new tax credit equal to the increased match.
I wish to emphasize that the new retirement plan options for businesses included in our bill are just that--options. No business, large or small, would be required to offer a retirement plan under the Retirement Security Act of 2014. Some firms, facing an uncertain economy and rising health care costs, may choose to spend their limited resources elsewhere. Accordingly, our bill ensures that current measures to encourage savings are functioning as they were intended. One such measure is the so-called ``saver's credit,'' which reduces the tax burden on low- and middle-income individuals who contribute to retirement plans, including IRAs and 401(k) plans. Yet this credit cannot be claimed on a Form 1040EZ, which is used by individuals with income under $100,000. A 2013 survey found that only 23 percent of people with household incomes of less than $50,000 per year, the group most likely to qualify, was even aware of the saver's credit. To address this, our bill directs Treasury to make the credit available on Form 1040EZ.
In light of the positive effects this bill would have in strengthening retirement security for millions of Americans, I urge my colleagues to join Chairman Nelson and me in supporting the Retirement Security Act of 2014. I am very pleased we have a number of groups that have endorsed our bill. I expect to have more to say about that next week. But at this point I encourage my colleagues to take a look at the hearing that Chairman Nelson and I held in the Special Committee on Aging that focused the spotlight on this problem. We simply have too many of our seniors who are in their retirement years without sufficient funds for a comfortable retirement, and that can and should change.
Thank you.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, first of all, I thank my coleader of the committee, the great Senator from the State of Maine, who has been not only a great leader but also a terrific copartner as we try to offer leadership to the Special Committee on Aging.
We are literally trying to make bipartisanship work. It is only because of folks such as Senator Collins that this is working and, as a result, we have a terrific committee. The members participate, they come, they are engaged, they ask the questions of the witnesses. As Senator Collins said, as a result of one of these hearings, under her leadership, she suggested putting together this important piece of legislation.
Our committee held a hearing last fall called ``The State of the American Senior.'' We wanted to look at the financial security of the average senior in retirement. We didn't like what we heard. Fewer than half of the workers even have access to a retirement plan, and those numbers shrink when we talk about employees who work for small businesses. One-third of the private sector employees work at small businesses, and nearly 72 percent of businesses with under 100 employees offer no savings plan. I will repeat that: Of businesses under 100 employees, 72 percent do not offer a savings plan.
So what do seniors then end up with? They rely on Social Security to get by in retirement, and that is simply not enough money to pay for housing and medical care and other expenses. Take, for example, my State of Florida, where more than three in five people get half of their retirement income from Social Security. Here is a shocker: One-
third of Floridians only receive Social Security income--one-third of all of the 20 million people in Florida receive Social Security income. That is all they receive is their Social Security.
So there is a problem that needs to be fixed. Too many people are getting by with too little. So Senator Collins and I have come together on this legislation aimed at increasing access to savings plans and creating more opportunities for those in retirement, to put more money aside ahead of their retirement.
Senator Collins explained it: We are going to try to pool all the small businesses together with their resources to take advantage of the economies of scale to create one plan, and it increases safe harbors for things such as automatic enrollment and escalation contributions, which have been shown as ways to get people to save more.
This is commonsense legislation. It is bipartisan. It is a great privilege for me to work with Senator Collins on this legislation and on our committee work.
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By Ms. MURKOWSKI (for herself and Mr. Wyden):
S. 1971. A bill to establish an interagency coordination committee or subcommittee with the leadership of the Department of Energy and the Department of the Interior, focused on the nexus between energy and water production, use, and efficiency, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, vast amounts of water are used every day to produce vital fuels and to cool powerplants in the United States. Without this water supply, most of our electricity would stop flowing and our economy and other essential functions would come to a complete stop. At the same time, a great deal of electricity is needed to treat, transport, and convey water across the country not only to support economic growth and well-being but also to sustain basic life. These inseparable links of ``water for energy'' and ``energy for water'' comprise the energy-water nexus.
I believe that the Federal agencies can and must do more to ensure that we have the best possible data, technology, and know-how to ensure that this nexus is well understood and continuously optimized to sustain quality of life and promote economic growth. To that end, I am introducing a bill today entitled ``The Nexus of Energy and Water for Sustainability Act of 2014'' or the ``NEWS Act of 2014'' for short.
The NEWS Act instructs the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to establish a committee or a subcommittee under the National Science and Technology Council to coordinate and streamline the activities of all Federal departments and agencies on energy-water nexus issues. This new panel will be cochaired by the Secretaries of Energy and Interior and will be tasked with identifying all relevant energy-water nexus activities across the Federal Government; enhancing the coordination of effective research and development activities, both ongoing and in the future; working to gather and disseminate data to enable better practices; and exploring relevant public-private collaboration. The bill also calls for the Office of Management and Budget to submit to the relevant congressional committees a so-called crosscut budget soon after enactment of this act. The cross-cut budget will detail various expenditures across the Federal Government related to energy-water activities and will greatly assist in our coordination and streamlining efforts.
I believe this is a strong bill that deserves to be considered and passed in this Congress. I am grateful to Senator Wyden for sponsoring it with me, and look forward to working with every member in this Chamber to address these important issues.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
S. 1971
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Nexus of Energy and Water for Sustainability Act of 2014'' or the ``NEWS Act of 2014''.
SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Director.--The term ``Director'' means the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
(2) Energy-water nexus.--The term ``energy-water nexus'' means the link between--
(A) energy efficiency and the quantity of water needed to produce fuels and energy; and
(B) the quantity of energy needed to transport, reclaim, and treat water .
(3) NSTC.--The term ``NSTC'' means the National Science and Technology Council.
(4) Committee or subcommittee.--The term ``Committee or Subcommittee'' means the Committee on Energy-Water Nexus for Sustainability or the Subcommittee on Energy-Water Nexus for Sustainability, whichever is established by section 3(a).
SEC. 3. INTERAGENCY COORDINATION COMMITTEE.
(a) Establishment.--The Director shall establish either a committee or a subcommittee under the NSTC, to be known as either the Committee on Energy-Water Nexus for Sustainability or the Subcommittee on Energy-Water Nexus for Sustainability, to carry out the duties described in subsection (c).
(b) Administration.--
(1) Chairs.--The Secretary of Energy and Secretary of the Interior shall serve as co-chairs of the Committee or Subcommittee.
(2) Membership; staffing.--Membership and staffing shall be determined by the NSTC.
(c) Duties.--The Committee or Subcommittee shall--
(1) serve as a forum for developing common Federal goals and plans on energy-water nexus issues;
(2) promote coordination of the activities of all Federal departments and agencies on energy-water nexus issues, including the activities of--
(A) the Department of Energy;
(B) the Department of the Interior;
(C) the Corps of Engineers;
(D) the Department of Agriculture;
(E) the Department of Defense;
(F) the Department of State;
(G) the Environmental Protection Agency;
(H) the Council on Environmental Quality;
(I) the National Institute of Standards and Technology;
(J) the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration;
(K) the National Science Foundation;
(L) the Office of Management and Budget;
(M) the Office of Science and Technology Policy; and
(N) such other Federal departments and agencies as the Director or the Committee or Subcommittee consider appropriate; and
(3)(A) coordinate and develop capabilities for data collection, categorization, and dissemination of data from and to other Federal departments and agencies; and
(B) engage in information exchange between Federal departments and agencies--
(i) to identify and document Federal and non-Federal programs and funding opportunities that support basic and applied research, development, and demonstration proposals to advance the state of energy-water nexus related science and technologies;
(ii) if practicable, to leverage existing programs by encouraging joint solicitations, block grants, and matching programs with non-Federal entities; and
(iii) to identify opportunities for public-private partnerships, innovative financing mechanisms, and grant challenges.
(d) Review; Termination.--At the end of the 10-year period beginning on the date on which the Committee or Subcommittee is established, the Director--
(1) shall review the activities of the Committee or Subcommittee and determine the relevance and effectiveness of the Committee or Subcommittee; and
(2) based on the determination made under paragraph (1), may terminate the Committee or Subcommittee.
SEC. 4. CROSSCUT BUDGET.
Not later than 30 days after the President submits the budget of the United States Government under section 1105 of title 31, United States Code, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall submit to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the Senate and the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Natural Resources of the House of Representatives a report that contains--
(1) an interagency budget crosscut report that--
(A) displays the budget proposed, including any interagency or intraagency transfer, for each of the Federal agencies that carry out energy-water nexus projects for the upcoming fiscal year, separately showing funding requested under both preexisting authorities and under the new authorities granted by this Act; and
(B) identifies all expenditures since 2011 by the Federal and State governments on energy-water nexus projects;
(2) a detailed accounting of all funds received and obligated by all Federal agencies and State agencies responsible for implementing energy-water nexus projects during the previous fiscal year;
(3) a budget for the proposed energy-water nexus projects
(including a description of the project, authorization level, and project status) to be carried out in the upcoming fiscal year with the Federal portion of funds for energy-water nexus programs; and
(4) a listing of all energy-water nexus projects to be undertaken in the upcoming fiscal year with the Federal portion of funds for those projects.
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By Mr. COONS (for himself and Mr. Rubio):
S. 1973. A bill to improve management of the National Laboratories, enhance technology commercialization, facilitate public-private partnerships, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise to speak about a bill introduced today--a bipartisan bill--a bill that will strengthen America's innovation economy.
Over the last 60 years our national laboratories have served as leading centers of research and discovery in America. Today we have 17 DOE labs charged with three broad research missions: science, energy, and national security. Although they have grown and changed since their founding to encompass much broader ranges of work and are successful in carrying out their primary missions, labs are not fully optimized to take part in today's innovation culture. That is a problem, because in this century of rapid change, America's best competitive advantage remains our capacity to innovate.
Over the coming months, I will be talking more about a few things Congress can do to streamline and jumpstart our Nation's hubs of discovery so that we can thrive as a 21st-century innovation economy.
At the top level, it will mean reauthorizing the America COMPETES Act to reaffirm our commitment to the robust national strategy for science and technology programs that will continue to be a critical underpinning of American prosperity.
And one part of that is how our national labs operate, which is why today Senator Rubio and I have introduced the America INNOVATES Act.
Already, our labs have incubated many groundbreaking innovations.
Their research has led to breakthroughs from new Melanoma and HIV/
AIDS treatments to IED detonators that can save the lives of our troops in combat. And that research is critical because although the private sector will continue to be a key source of innovation, the Federal Government has and will continue to play a central role in advancing innovation.
Why is that? Private markets, historically speaking, tend to underinvest in R&D relative to the potential benefits to society. This is especially true in the energy sector.
But, if there is a problem that I have heard since coming to Congress, It is that too often, the great work of our scientists doesn't translate to the marketplace.
Right now, too much groundbreaking science and too many innovative ideas never leave the walls of our national labs, squandering enormous potential in the commercial market.
Now, in our bill, we continue to support our labs' core mission. We are not proposing anything drastic. What we are doing is modernizing the labs for the 21st century--so ideas in the lab can more effectively become innovations in the market. Luckily, we need only look to the labs themselves for inspiration on how to do this.
We make two broad proposals.
First we are integrating the management of the Department of Energy's science and energy programs to improve the linkages between basic and applied sciences. This will allow the early stages of research and development to be translated more efficiently, and it is something that Secretary Moniz has signaled he supports and is moving forward on.
Second we are giving the national labs more power to work with the private sector to ensure that more scientific discoveries can turn into commercial breakthroughs.
Together, these steps would allow us to streamline the labs' work so it can more quickly and effectively translate into the transformative innovations that can create jobs and grow our economy.
Now, to explain what our proposals intend to achieve, I will walk through what is known as the innovation pipeline, which shows how basic science research can become a world-changing innovation.
First, I will use the example of the great work that scientists at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, CO, are doing to advance cellulosic ethanol technologies.
One of our country's big challenges today is reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and to do that we need new fuel options that we can create here in America.
Cellulosic ethanol is an advanced biofuel with a lot of promise because it is produced from abundant materials like grasses and wood chips as well as other types of biomass and waste. And because these materials are so abundant, cellulosic ethanol has the potential to replace a significant portion of our Nation's petroleum consumption.
The challenge comes, however, because, unlike corn, these cellulosic materials are made of complex starches that are harder to break down into ethanol.
To make the promise of cellulosic ethanol a reality, we needed to develop the enzymes and micro-organisms that could break down and then ferment those complex starches.
That is where the innovation pipeline comes in. At the NREL in Colorado, scientists started at this first step here--basic science. Basic science is very fundamental, it is the study of the elementary principles of the universe--really discovery level science.
Enzymes are large biological molecules that are nature's catalysts--
accelerating metabolic processes that sustain life.
To develop enzymes and micro-organisms capable of converting starchy biomass into cellulosic ethanol, you need to start at the fundamentals of biology and biochemistry. This includes studying the intricate details of the relevant biochemical processes, as well as probing the proteins and amino-acids that form the building blocks of enzymes down to the submolecular level.
At this point, scientists can move into the applied science stage of the pipeline. Applied research generally concerns translating those basic, fundamental principles into an application.
In this example, scientists apply the insights gained from the fundamental basic science stage to develop new enzymes with desired performance traits such as high selectivity, specificity, and stability to enable effective and efficient conversion of the complex starches into ethanol.
Applied research can also include controlled lab-scale demonstrations to test how effectively these newly developed enzymes and micro-
organisms can turrijsay, wood chips, into fuel.
Still in the lab and far from full commercial scale production, the kinds of small discoveries that happen at the applied science level act as an early demonstration that something new is possible.
At the applied research stage, we are still far away from creating something ready for the market, but between these two stages our scientists have gone from the basic science of how an idea may work to actually demonstrating that it could work in practice.
At this point now, the private sector is more likely to see its potential value. Our scientists have shown that the technology is possible, and next we move to the commercialization and scaling and deployment phases, where private investors and companies take the technology our lab scientists have developed and make it a product that can succeed in the market.
During the applied research stage at NREL, scientists were hard at work showing that they really could produce cellulosic ethanol efficiently and cheaply--eventually meeting their goal to make it price competitive with conventional fuels in today's commercial market.
That is where we are right now with cellulosic ethanol. Companies across the country, such as DuPont, Poet, and others, are currently building plants to produce cellulosic ethanol at large scale and at competitive prices.
So that is one model of public-private partnerships for innovation--
where the basic and applied science research can begin in the lab and then be transferred to private sector companies who can create a commercial product.
I had the opportunity last year to witness another model of public-
private partnerships for innovation at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, which is home to the Advanced Light Source, or ALS. The ALS serves thousands of researchers--from private sector scientists to university researchers--who use light sources such as soft xrays, ultraviolet light, and infrared light to conduct a wide range of scientific experiments. Experiments at the ALS are performed at nearly 40 beam lines that can operate simultaneously around the clock and year-round.
The facility's resources would be too expensive for any one company to invest in alone, but by building a public facility that then is partly sustained by fees and targeted infrastructure investments by users, the ALS becomes a place where many different partners can come to test new ideas and approaches.
In terms of the innovation pipeline, what the Berkeley Lab and its ALS do is allow a diverse range of researchers to engage in various stages of research under one roof. The unique capabilities offered at the ALS also attract many industry partners and encourages productive public-private collaboration.
A good example of this is the partnership between the lab and the semiconductor industry.
Semiconductor technology is one of the most transformative scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century. Semiconductors are at the heart of what makes a computer work. Their constant advancement is what allows us today to hold the computing power of last generation's supercomputer in our pockets.
However, the manufacturing techniques previously used to produce new, smaller, and more powerful semiconductor products aren't adequate to build the next generation of nano-electronic devices.
So what has happened is a consortium of companies including Intel, IBM, HP, and Dow Chemical--called SEMATECH--came together to leverage the unique capabilities at the lab to advance semiconductor manufacturing technology for next-generation electronics.
As the lab reports, ``[By] tapping into the Center's long term expertise in short wavelength optics and the unique properties of the ALS Synchotron facility, SEMATECH funded the development of the world's highest resolution projection lithography tool and highest performance
[extreme-ultraviolet] microscope''--developments that were only possible because of the facilities and expertise at the lab.
Having then developed new tools capable of manufacturing the next generation of semiconductor devices, a company like Intel can take the new technology and scale it up in their own plants.
Of course, there are many variations of public private partnerships that our labs can and have utilized to take ideas from the lab to the market. These two examples--cellulosic ethanol and the advancement of semiconductor manufacturing technology--show us what is really possible by working in partnership with our national labs.
In our bill Senator Rubio and I are trying to expand the flexibility and freedom of all our labs to innovate and build productive partnerships so that every research project has the potential and opportunity to eventually enter the market.
As we see here on the innovation pipeline, the payoff for all this work doesn't come until the very end, so one of the best things we can do is focus our policies to make the movement of ideas through the pipeline as efficient as possible.
While there are plenty of areas where Senator Rubio and I disagree, we have come together on the America INNOVATES Act because we both agree that government has a role to play investing in the early scientific research that can lead to innovations that change our world.
In this bill, we aren't talking about expanding government or calling for new spending or regulation, we are talking about the early science work that only government can fund because there isn't yet a clear payoff for the private sector and finding out how to connect the national labs and the private sector along this innovation pipeline in a better and stronger way to deliver more products to the American marketplace and the world markets.
Once again, I thank my Republican colleague Senator Marco Rubio. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join us in supporting this bipartisan innovation jobs bill.
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