[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.
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