WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. highlighted three of the amendments he filed to the Senate budget proposal to help encourage domestic energy exploration, improve Medicaid and stop the EPA’s costly regulations that are hurting jobs.
Watch his remarks HERE and read excerpts below.
A full list of amendments can be found below.
#341: Encouraging Offshore Energy Production
“A principal challenge in our society today is how do we create better jobs with better benefits for working families? There are some industries that clearly have done that. Those include the energy industry and by extension the low-cost energy being produced domestically is in turn creating new manufacturing jobs. Over 85 percent of the United States’ outer continental shelf is closed off to energy exploration and production. Opening the OCS will provide hundreds of thousands of jobs and increase our national security by increasing our energy security. My amendment encourages the security and these jobs by opening up America’s outer continental shelf to energy exploration and production.”
#539: Improving Medicaid
“I’m a doctor. I’ve been working in the public hospital system of Louisiana for the last 25 years caring for the uninsured. I am so aware of the importance of safety net programs like Medicaid. I will point out though that Medicaid is a broken program, so broken, that it is bankrupting state governments and contributing to our runaway national debt. The question is, how do we preserve this important program, but at the same time also preserve the financial integrity of our state government, of our federal government, [and] ultimately, the pocketbook of the taxpayer? In this amendment, we build upon proven models that will provide financial security for the patients that benefit from Medicaid as well as for the states that provide those benefits for those Medicaid patients. This is an important beginning to reform Medicaid, to preserve its benefits, but again to protect the American taxpayer.”
#795: EPA Federal Permitting for Manufacturing and Energy Construction
“The EPA is promulgating new regulations which they estimate for ambient air quality standards the cost of compliance will be $3.9 billion in the year 2025. This is estimated to decrease our GDP by $140 billion. A $3.9 billion cost leading to $140 billion decrease in our economy. Inevitably there are lost jobs associated with it, working families that are less well off. The EPA would prevent construction of manufacturing and energy-intensive enterprises. My amendment ensures the American energy and manufacturing renaissance is not interrupted by EPA’s costly regulations. It preserves those jobs for the American people.”
Amendments filed by Dr. Cassidy include:
#341: Encouraging Offshore Energy Production
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Establishes a spending-neutral reserve fund to encourage offshore energy production that would result in American job growth, lower energy prices, economic growth and stronger national security.
#539: Improving Medicaid
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Provides stable and predictable Medicaid funding to states for long-term services and support to ensure that the program is protected and sustainable for both the federal government and the states.
#795: EPA Federal permitting for Manufacturing and Energy Construction
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Establishes a spending-neutral reserve fund relating to the authorizing of federal permitting for manufacturing and energy construction projects relating to national primary or secondary ambient air quality standard for ozone lower than a certain existing standard.
#527: Improving Biomedical Research
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Establishes a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to improving the translation of biomedical research into treatments and cures.
#528: Improved Data Collection at the Veterans Health Administration (VHA)
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Establishes a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to upgrading data collection and statistical analysis conducted on health care services delivered at the facilities of the Veterans Health Administration.
#529: Screening for Viral Hepatitis
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Establishes a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to increasing screening, testing, and diagnosis for Viral Hepatitis.
#807: Establishing a Point of Order Against Using Certain Funds to Process Applications for Immigration Benefits
- To prohibit the Department of Homeland Security from using funds to process and adjudicate immigration benefit applications for any other purpose other than to process and adjudicate that same type of immigration benefit application.
#806: Establishing a Point of Order Against Legislation Authorizing Federal Funds Appropriated for Processing Naturalization Applications to be Used for Any Other Purpose
- To prohibit the Department of Homeland Security from using funds to process and adjudicate naturalization applications for any other purpose other than to process and adjudicate that same type of naturalization application.
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