{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-senate-votes-sen-rand-pauls-economic-freedom-zones-amendment-energy-bill/", "Senate Votes on Sen. Rand Paul\u2019s \u201cEconomic Freedom Zones\u201d Amendment to Energy Bill", "2016-04-19", "2016", "2016-04", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Rand Paul", "P000603", "www.paul.senate.gov", "paul", "https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/", "scraper", "Biggest Anti-Poverty Initiative Since the War on Poverty if Passed\n\nWASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 The U.S. Senate today voted on Senator Rand Paul\u2019s amendment, known as the Economic Freedom Zones Act of 2015 (S.790), to H.R. 2028, the Energy Policy Modernization Act. The legislation will establish free market enterprise zones and dramatically reduce taxes in order to help facilitate the creation of new jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities, enhance and renew educational opportunities and increase community involvement in bankrupt or economically distressed areas. These zones will apply to any zip code with unemployment greater than one and a half times the national average. Sen. Paul originally introduced the legislation for the 114th Congress in March 2015.\n\nThe vote, which needed 60 to pass, was 35-62.\n\nPrior to the vote, Sen. Rand Paul delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor urging his colleagues to support the Economic Freedom Zones Act. A video and transcript of Sen. Paul\u2019s floor speech are available below.\n\nAdditionally, top-line bullet points and background information on the Economic Freedom Zones Act can be found HERE.\n\nCLICK HERE TO WATCH SEN. PAUL\u2019S FLOOR SPEECH\n\nTRANSCRIPT\n\nSen. Paul: Jack Kemp and others who have looked and examined the issue of poverty have often found that we haven\u2019t done a great job alleviating poverty. We\u2019ve tried government programs in my state. We\u2019ve tried them in rural Appalachia for 40 years, and yet we still have persistent poverty.\n\nMany of us believe that we would have a better chance with poverty if we would lower taxes in these areas, lessen regulation and instead of sending the money to Washington, leave it where the poverty is.\n\nMy bill alone would leave $500 million in eastern Kentucky, $200 million in Louisville. We\u2019ve had much discussion of Flint, Michigan, and the water problem there.\n\nMy bill would leave $124 million in Flint, Michigan next week. My bill would leave over $1 billion in Detroit. If there are those in this body who can come together and say that we have a unified presence and a unified ability and desire to combat poverty, this is the bill to do it.\n\nIt\u2019s called Economic Freedom Zones, and I hope we\u2019ll get bipartisan support in favor of leaving money in these impoverished communities to help them get started again. Thank you.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T20:49:20Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-senate-votes-sen-rand-pauls-economic-freedom-zones-amendment-energy-bill/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.449280884116888, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}