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WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell called on Senate Democrat Leadership to consider bipartisan amendments to the Sportsmen’s Act that would improve the legislation to better serve Kentucky’s interests. Senator McConnell is supporting amendments offered by Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) that should be included in the Sportsmen’s Act.

The Wicker amendment would protect individuals’ rights to bear arms on lands owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, including Lake Barkley, Lake Cumberland, Martins Fork Lake, and Laurel River Lake in Kentucky. Senator McConnell is a cosponsor of this bipartisan measure.

“The Wicker amendment would protect the Second Amendment rights of Kentuckians while they are legally camping, fishing and hunting on land owned by the Army Corps of Engineers,” Senator McConnell said. “From the sportsmen and sportswomen who hunt in Kentucky’s public recreation areas, to the many Kentuckians who find comfort in the protection that the Second Amendment guarantees for their homes and their families, this amendment helps to protect Kentuckians’ Right to Bear Arms.”

The Barrasso amendment, which Senator McConnell also cosponsored, would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from implementing their proposed rule expanding federal authority over waterways, wetlands and land use across the country. “This proposed rule by the Obama Administration would have a devastating impact on Kentucky land use, including on its farmers, the coal industry and other small businesses; it would also have a harmful effect on Kentucky jobs,” Senator McConnell said. “I have heard from Kentuckians across the state and from various different industries on this issue. All are concerned this is another power-grab by the EPA to essentially regulate every ditch and pothole whether it be in a Kentucky public park or on someone’s private land.”

The Barrasso language is supported by the Kentucky Cattlemen’s Association, the Kentucky Coal Association, the Home Builders Association of Kentucky and the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce.

“The bill as it stands now doesn’t go far enough for Kentucky, it needs to be improved. Both the Wicker and the Barrasso amendments are commonsense, bipartisan amendments that are timely and highly relevant to this bill. Both measures would greatly improve the bill for Kentuckians and I strongly encourage Senate Democrat Leadership to permit their consideration,” Senator McConnell said.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate Floor regarding the Washington Democrats’ War on Coal Jobs:

“Earlier this week, I hosted a tele-town hall with people from across Western Kentucky – from places like Lyon and Webster County. These constituents shared their thoughts on a range of issues, from Obamacare to taxes. But one issue kept coming up over and over again.

“The Kentuckians I spoke with were truly worried about the Obama Administration’s War on Coal Jobs. They’ve seen the devastation in Eastern Kentucky, and they know what the President’s newest regulations will likely mean for middle-class families like theirs.

“Skyrocketing utility bills, higher prices and fewer jobs.

“They know that the Administration’s War is an elitist crusade that threatens to ship good, well-paying jobs overseas, splinter our manufacturing base, and throw yet another load onto the backs of middle-class Kentuckians who’ve already struggled so much. The hard-working people I represent are worried enough just about making their mortgage payments, and paying for car repairs, and coping with energy bills and summer vacations.

“These are the people that President Obama and his Washington Democrat allies should be listening to: not the liberal elites that have been begging the President to go after the coal industry and the people whose livelihoods depend on it.

“But President Obama doesn’t seem terribly interested in these folks or their problems. Once again, he’ll be off campaigning this week. He’ll huddle with more Left-wing ideologues — the kind of folks who love to make a buck off of coal, and then attack coal families with ego-driven political crusades…like the ideologue the President rolled out the red carpet for just a couple weeks ago at the White House.

“Meanwhile, here in the Senate, the Democrat Majority will continue to block and tackle for the President in his anti-coal offensive.

“Senate Democrats block basically every attempt, however small, to inject congressional oversight into the Administration’s energy regulations. They shut down votes. They obstruct the committee process that should be at the heart of our work here. They gag their own members.

“And they even block common-sense legislation like the Coal Country Protection Act. What that bill – my bill – would do is require the Administration to certify that jobs will not be lost and that utility rates won’t go up as a result of the President’s energy regulations. That’s not too much to ask. But Washington Democrats are blocking my bill because they know that the President’s regulations will cost jobs and will raise utility rates – and they’re more interested in protecting the President’s ideological agenda than jobs.

“In other words, Senate Democrats block and tackle and obstruct. All to defend President Obama’s War on Coal Jobs.

“It’s a clear case of extreme devotion.

“And it makes sense, because the Democrat Majority really only has one mission these days: to protect the President and the Left at all costs.

“That’s why the average Democrat Senator has almost no power anymore.

“They’re just another backbencher fortifying President Obama’s Senate moat — the place where good ideas go to die.

“It’s a real shame.

“The Senate used to be the place where big ideas were debated and serious solutions were explored.

“Committees operated and amendments were offered.

“I remember a time not too long ago when there was even such a thing as an independent-minded Senate Democrat.

“But today’s Democrat leadership has put an end to all that.

“Well, it’s about time our Washington Democrat friends opened their eyes to the true cost of the President’s policies, both in my state and in theirs. And it’s time for these Washington Democrats to stop pretending that they’re not complicit in the Administration’s War on Coal Jobs, or in the harm that it’s causing to our constituents.

“Because there’s real pain out there beyond the Democrat echo chamber — out in real world places like Pike County.

“Washington Democrats need to understand that Kentuckians are more than just some statistic on a bureaucratic balance sheet. These are real Americans who are hurting. And they deserve to have their voices heard.

“One way to do that, as I’ve suggested, is for the Administration to hold some listening sessions on its new energy regulations in the areas that stand to suffer most from them: in places like Eastern and Western Kentucky.

“I’ve already issued multiple invitations for the President’s people to visit places like my home state.

“And I’m issuing one again today.

“The sad truth is, officials in Washington don’t want to come anywhere near Coal Country. They just want to impose their regulations, hear some quote-unquote ‘feedback’ from the echo chamber in order to check a box, and then move right along to the next front in their War on Coal. They don’t even want to talk to the very people they intend to put out of a job.

“Well, several tele-town hall participants want to know why the President won’t come down to see the mines and the coal families himself.

“And so do I.

“Mr. President: the campaign trips can wait.

“You’ve recently expressed an interest in hanging around Middle-Class Americans for a change.

“What I’m saying is, here’s your chance.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate Floor regarding the HHS Inspector General’s report highlighting the Obama administration’s inability to ensure safeguards are in place to protect taxpayers by preventing the payment of improper Obamacare tax credits and subsidies:

“Obamacare may not have existed in the English language just a few years ago.

“But in short order, it’s become a byword for broken promises and almost-cartoonish inefficiency.

“It’s no wonder why: ‘You can keep your plan.’ ‘You can keep your doctor.’ ‘Premiums will go down.’ ‘The law will create millions of jobs.’

“We knew the promises wouldn’t hold up.

“Many of us said so. One even earned the dubious distinction of being declared the ‘Lie of Year.’

“And that’s why it’s so hard to trust much of what the Obama Administration claims about Obamacare these days.

“Like back in December, when Administration officials issued another promise — that they’d make sure that any taxpayer-funded Obamacare subsidies would only go to enrollees who’d actually qualified for them under the law.

“We wanted this assurance not only because so many other promises had been broken. We wanted it because eligibility verification is so important. Middle-class taxpayers are feeling enough pain from this law already.

“They shouldn’t have to subsidize inaccurate, or even fraudulent, Obamacare claims now too.

“So I helped pass a law that required a non-partisan watchdog to keep an eye on the procedures that the Administration claimed would protect taxpayers to see how they were working.

“And then report back to Congress.

“Well, last week, that watchdog, the Inspector General, issued its first two reports on the issue. And it turns out we were right to worry.

“The Inspector General concluded that the Administration was often ineffective at verifying such basic details about Obamacare enrollees as their citizenship status, their income, their Social Security number, and whether or not they were even eligible to purchase Obamacare in the first place.

“The Administration, the IG reported, didn’t even follow its own eligibility verification procedures in many cases.

“And that wasn’t all.

“The IG also discovered nearly 3 million ‘inconsistencies’ in the information Obamacare enrollees provided in their applications, nearly 90% of which couldn’t even be resolved because the necessary software wasn’t operational.

“It’s completely ridiculous.

“And the Administration is still struggling just to get a handle on the problem. Computer systems that should have been ready to go last October still have not been built yet.

“It’s the kind of thing you’d expect to see in a Leslie Nielsen movie – not in real life.

“Worse still, Administration officials are now indicating that they’re going to just keep chugging ahead with their deeply flawed verification practices, even after everything the government’s own watchdog uncovered. Many individuals enrolled with the current flawed enrollment process will automatically be enrolled for the same taxpayer subsidies next year.

“They’re defiant in the face of all this.

“Well, this is precisely the kind of flippant attitude that’s so infuriating to so many of our constituents.

“Many of us predicted that these kinds of problems would be the likely outcome of giving government such expansive power over such a huge segment of our economy. Of course you’re going to have massive inefficiency. And probable fraud. And migraines for middle-class families that already have enough to deal with. Of course you’re going to see all this. It seems inevitable.

“That’s why Republicans say we need to start over with actual health care reform – reform that can actually lower costs and increase the quality of care without resorting to this tired government-centric approach.

“Obamacare is built upon the intellectually lazy idea that we can simply legislate a desirable outcome into existence; that we can tell a hulking federal bureaucracy to simply bureaucratize affordable healthcare into being.

“Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way.

“Reality always intervenes, just as we’ve been seeing with the pain of Obamacare these past few years — pain that will only continue until Washington Democrats join with us to enact a serious, bipartisan approach that actually addresses many of our health care challenges and dispenses with the failed policies of this Administration.

“And yet, that’s exactly the opposite of what we’ve seen from our friends on the other side.

“Instead of working with us to solve massive problems like the ones the Inspector General identified, Washington Democrats are simply hiding from the issue altogether. They’re trying to change the subject. Even hinting at it prompts the Democrat Majority to shut down the legislative process altogether. They cancel committee markups. They block votes and amendments. They won’t allow the Senate to consider numerous bipartisan, House-passed bills that would address some of Obamacare’s most glaring problems.

“Even when a bipartisan group proposes a plan to address a flaw in the law that’s reducing incomes for working families, they reject it. Instead, they schedule show votes designed to inflame one group or another.

“As for the President, he’s traveling around the country this week to give campaign speeches – not working with Congress help middle-class families struggling under the weight of his policies.

“So the Democrat plan seems to be to double down on the mess they created, and to hope that Americans can be distracted enough to forget about it in November.

“Well, if that’s their plan, it’s not going to work.

“Middle Class Americans know who’s been standing by their side throughout this entire Obamacare fiasco, and they know who’s been standing against them — serving as a shield for President Obama and the Hard Left.

“It’s not too late for Washington Democrats to work with Republicans to address the massive problem they created.

“And if they truly care about the millions they’ve hurt in this country already with their law, it’s time to do just that.”

Recent Press Releases

Senator McConnell Calls for Improvements to Sportsmen’s Bill

July 9, 2014

McConnell Invites Obama Officials to Visit Kentucky, See Firsthand How Their War on Coal Jobs is Harming Kentuckians

July 9, 2014

Administration Resistant to Fixing Deeply Flawed Obamacare Verification Process

July 8, 2014