[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 93 (Monday, June 11, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7417-S7418]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             CONSIDERATION OF IMMIGRATION AND ENERGY ISSUES

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we have spent 2 weeks on the immigration 
bill, and we listened to hour after hour of debate. I don't think there 
is a single Senator, no matter how one may have finally voted on the 
motion to proceed or not to proceed to the bill, who doesn't see an 
urgent need to fix our badly broken immigration system. Even those 
people who oppose this legislation vehemently believe the system is 
broken and needs to be fixed.
  So everyone agrees that we need to fix it, and I think the best way 
to fix it is to legislate. When it came time to vote on the bipartisan 
compromise last Thursday, 7 Republicans joined with 38 Democrats to 
invoke cloture. Let us put that in proper perspective. Fourth-fifths of 
Democrats voted to proceed to complete this legislation, and one-
seventh of the Republicans voted to proceed. That is 80 percent and 14 
percent--80 percent of the Democrats said move forward and 14 percent 
of the Republicans said move forward. Eighty-six percent of the 
Republicans said no.
  Today, in an hour or so, I am going to send a letter to President 
Bush to lay out my hope that we can still move forward on this 
legislation, but I want him to know that further progress will require 
active support from more Republicans, which is something he has to make 
sure his Republicans understand.
  I see in today's Roll Call newspaper that one Republican Senator 
said: I think the Democrats are going to have to take care of most of 
those votes, the newspaper article says. Without mentioning the 
Senator's name, the article states:

       Put the onus on Democrats to make up the 15-vote deficit on 
     cloture, saying Republicans have nearly maxed out support 
     on their side.

  This appears on page 24 of Roll Call: ``I think the Democrats are 
going to have to deal with most of those [votes],'' the Senator said.
  Mr. President, 80 percent and 14 percent. It is the President's bill. 
So if other Republican Senators feel the

[[Page S7418]]

same as the Senator who is expressed on page 24 of Roll Call, saying we 
have to overcome the 15-vote deficit, it won't happen. We have about 
maxed out at 80 percent.
  The letter I am going to send to the President will say a number of 
things. Among other things, it will say:

       A strong spirit of bipartisanship has held together the 
     coalition of Democrats and Republicans who negotiated the 
     compromise and has sustained the Senate through 2 full weeks 
     of debate on the bill. Unfortunately, that bipartisanship was 
     largely absent in a crucial vote last Thursday.

  Then I will go on to state to the President the percentages I just 
outlined.
  I further say in the letter to the President:

       We appreciate the efforts of you and other Republicans who 
     have worked with us to get the bill this far. But we believe 
     it will take stronger leadership by you to ensure that 
     opponents of the bill do not block the path to final passage. 
     Simply put, we need many more than seven Republicans to vote 
     for cloture and final passage of the bill.

  This letter will be signed by Senators Reid, Durbin, Schumer, and 
Murray, the Democratic leadership team.
  I want to get the bill done. The overwhelming majority of the 
Democratic caucus has already voted for cloture. The American people 
are certainly looking to Congress for leadership. We hope President 
Bush and his Republican allies in Congress will find a way to work with 
us to deliver this bill to the immigrants, businesses, and all other 
Americans who deserve it.
  If we see new cooperation and a clear way forward from the Republican 
caucus, I will do everything possible to readdress the immigration 
issue after the debate on the Energy bill is completed. And it is 
difficult for me to even say this because I really wanted to move next 
to the Defense authorization bill. If we can work out something, when 
we finish this Energy bill, to complete immigration, I want to do that.
  Finally, Mr. President, on energy, we will turn our focus this week 
to one of the great remaining challenges of our time: our national 
energy policy.
  In 1931, Thomas Alva Edison had a meeting with Henry Ford, whose cars 
were driving up consumer demand for gasoline. This is what Edison told 
Ford:

       I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source 
     of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run 
     out before we tackle that.

  Here it is, 76 years later--76 years later--and we haven't tackled 
our addiction to oil, and it has grown into a three-pronged crisis: 
threatening our economy, threatening our Nation's security, and 
threatening our environment.
  Today, we will use 21 million barrels of oil and tomorrow the same. 
How much is 21 million barrels of oil? It is a ditch 10 feet deep and 
200 football fields long or a ditch 10 feet deep and 11 miles long. 
Every day, we use that oil--every day.
  The bill we begin debate on today--the Renewable Fuels, Consumer 
Protection Energy Efficiency Act of 2007--takes several major steps 
toward reducing our dependence on foreign oil, promoting renewable 
energy that we produce right here in America, and protecting our 
environment from global warming. This bill is a substitute to H.R. 6. 
This bill is a bipartisan bill.
  A number of my chairmen came to me and said: We have this great 
legislation in my committee; can we bring it forward? I said: No, we 
have to have an energy bill; our initial energy bill has to be 
bipartisan. So the Energy Committee, under the direction of Senators 
Bingaman and Domenici, came up with a good package. That is part of 
what we are going to be debating in the Senate.
  Then, in the Commerce Committee, Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye 
also came up with an extremely important piece of legislation dealing 
with CAFE standards, which is making cars more efficient. That is going 
to be in the bill to be brought to the floor.
  Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe also worked together to come up with 
another piece of legislation that we have put in this one bill. Their 
part of this bill is also excellent and deals with green buildings and 
making the massive fleet of Federal cars more energy efficient. It is a 
good piece of legislation, and it is a bipartisan bill.
  There will be people wanting to put tax measures on this, but I think 
we should wait until the tax committee--Senators Baucus and Grassley--
does that. This is a bill which we should try to protect the bipartisan 
aspect of. It really is quite a good bill, and if we are able to pass 
it, we will save 4 million barrels of oil every day. That is pretty 
good.
  This bill will set new energy efficiency standards for lighting, 
appliances, and water use. This bill alone will save \1/2\ trillion 
gallons of water every year. For a place like Nevada, where we get 4 
inches of rain every year in Las Vegas, that is a lot of water.
  This is a bill which protects consumers by punishing companies that 
price gouge and manipulate supply for their profits. It is a bill which 
invests in carbon capture and storage, and it directs the President and 
his Cabinet to improve diplomatic relations with our energy partners in 
order to give us more leverage in the global energy market.
  Altogether, this bill will save American consumers tens of billions 
of dollars every year, cut our oil consumption, reduce our dependence 
on foreign energy, and, by the way, might just save the planet while we 
are at it.
  It is a good, important bill, a bipartisan bill, and as I have 
indicated, many of my colleagues will be tempted to offer tax 
amendments. I ask that they wait until the Finance Committee has had an 
opportunity to make recommendations on an energy tax amendment before 
any additional amendments are offered on this bill.
  I hope my colleagues will vote in favor of the motion to proceed. In 
fact, I hope we can proceed to the bill immediately and not have to use 
the 30 hours. That will allow time for more amendments.

                          ____________________