[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 94 (Tuesday, June 12, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7498-S7502]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ENERGY
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, a story in today's Los Angeles Times
states that the approval rating of Congress is the lowest in a decade.
The poll reported in today's Los Angeles Times says 27 percent of
Americans approve of how Congress is doing its job, and most see
business as usual. After Congress has diverted its attention from what
I consider to be the most important domestic issue confronting the
Nation today; that is, fixing our broken borders and actually enforcing
our immigration laws, in order to have a vote of no confidence on the
Attorney General in what is clearly a political exercise rather than
anything that would produce a meaningful result, we now turn our
attention to an important issue and one I hope Congress will embrace in
order to address energy concerns in this country.
Of course, we all know--all we have to do is to drive up to fill up
our gas tank--the price of gasoline has gone through the roof. While it
is true that Congress can pass laws and Congress can even repeal laws
that have been passed by previous Congresses, what Congress cannot do
is repeal the laws of supply and demand.
It is important as we look at this legislation before us that we look
at whether this legislation is, in fact, designed to fix problems. One
of the questions I suggest we need to look to is, Does this bill
increase supply? In a global economy we know there is going to be more
and more competition for oil and gasoline. We know we are competing,
not only in the United States, but literally with China and India, each
of which have 1 billion people. Their economies are growing, and the
number of people driving and their economic activity is directly
related to access to a reasonably priced energy supply. We need to look
to see what we are doing at home to try to increase supply.
We all know we are dangerously reliant on imported oil from dangerous
parts of the world or from places such as Venezuela, governed by the
likes of Hugo Chavez. Current energy policy in this country does
nothing but make our enemies richer. It does nothing but line the
pockets of people like Hugo Chavez or somebody like President
Ahmadinejad in Iran--countries pursuing weapons of mass destruction.
We have to eliminate the schizophrenia that has characterized our
energy policy in the past and look at what commonsense steps Congress
can take in order to improve the supply of oil and gas, preferably from
our own domestic sources at home, so we are less reliant on these
dangerous rulers in other parts of the world for the very lifeblood of
our economy.
By any measure, the bill that is now before us is an incomplete bill.
It deals nearly exclusively with the demand side of the energy
equation. While it is worthwhile to aggressively pursue better
efficiencies and alternative sources of energy to meet our future
energy needs, the provisions in this bill fail to address much of our
current energy needs. It is a matter of simple economics. This bill
will do nothing to deal with our current energy needs without
addressing supply.
I fear this bill will also end up being even more expensive for
consumers. Both the provisions in the bill and some of the expected
amendments from the majority set up unreasonable mandates for renewable
and alternative energy sources, which are more expensive. I do not
question our need to produce more of our energy from clean and
renewable sources, but I believe the winners and losers should be
determined by the market, not by the Government. Indeed, this bill
determines for Americans which fuels we will use, how much, and at what
time. That is the last thing we need the Federal Government to
dictate--to determine which fuels we will use, how much, and at what
time--when public confidence in Congress under this new majority is at
a 10-year low. The last thing we need to do is say: Give us the power
to determine what fuels you will use, how much, and at what time.
I do believe there is great promise in renewable energy. I am proud
that my State, Texas, continues its energy leadership. As a traditional
oil and gas State, it now is the largest producer of wind energy in the
country--2,749 megawatts as of last year. We are also the largest
producer of biodiesel, an industry that has grown rapidly in just the
last few years.
It is also unwise to turn away from proven and developing
technologies to meet our Nation's clean air goals. For example, nuclear
energy has the lowest impact on the environment, including land, air,
water, and wildlife, of any energy source because it does not emit
harmful gasses. It isolates its waste from the environment and requires
less area to produce the same amount of electricity as other sources.
I wouldn't necessarily hold out other countries as a model for
America when it comes to their energy policies, but I must say a
country such as France that generates 80 percent of its electricity by
nuclear power does represent a goal that I think the United States
ought to strive for, particularly when nuclear power is cheap. It is
conducive of a good environment, and it requires a lot less for us to
produce in terms of cost and other collateral issues. I think this is
one area where we clearly ought to be encouraging greater use of
nuclear power, particularly when it comes to our electricity supply.
I want to say a word about coal. Coal should also continue to play an
important role in our energy future. There are clean coal technologies
being developed that could enable us to continue utilizing this
abundant domestic resource and--this is important--improve air quality.
Coal is also expected to remain one of the lowest cost fuels available.
I do believe with Federal investment in programs such as FutureGen,
which is a $1 billion investment in clean coal-burning technology, we
can use this 300-year supply of coal in our country in a way that is
compatible with a good environment and allows us to maintain the
diversity of our energy sources which are essential to the growth of
our economy, as well as our national security, from the standpoint of
depending less and less on people who are trying to do us harm for the
very energy we need.
It is ironic at a time that we are engaged in the global war on
terror that many of the state sponsors of terrorism, many of those
areas that are in unstable regions of the world, from the standpoint of
the global war on terror, are the very ones being enriched by our
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current energy policies, which puts a lot of our domestic resources
here at home out of bounds and depends, as I say, too much on imported
oil and gas.
It is important to note there are some differences between the
approaches of those of us in this Chamber on how we achieve that sort
of energy self-sufficiency in this country, which I believe ought to be
our goal.
It is important that we, as I said a moment ago, increase supply and
that we not inadvertently or otherwise create disincentives for those
currently exploring and producing oil and gas. On this side of the
aisle, we support increasing America's energy supplies while reducing
consumption.
For example, the bill we passed in 2005, under Republican leadership,
provided incentives for domestic exploration of potential new natural
resource supplies and aided the production of affordable domestic
energy. Now we are seeing the new majority threaten to overturn several
of those successful provisions.
Then when it comes to trying to increase supply of gasoline in this
country by enhancing capacity of refineries, we have seen those efforts
blocked by our friends on the other side of the aisle in the last
Congress. Now the majority leader will be offering a substitute
amendment, we are told, based on S. 1419 to H.R. 6.
This amendment by the Democratic majority leader contains some
positive provisions. But, unfortunately, it is promise that is being
oversold. Very simply, the legislation produces no new energy and may
actually end up raising prices, not lowering them. The Reid substitute,
in my opinion, does not produce a viable energy policy for the United
States.
As a matter of fact, many of the proposals we will hear from the
other side of the aisle may actually increase energy prices. For
example, we are likely to hear a proposal for a 15-percent renewable
portfolio standard which ignores clean energy sources such as nuclear
power.
This proposal would cost consumers billions of dollars because States
simply would not be able to meet it. The majority leader's substitute
amendment will also, it looks like, ignore the need for domestic energy
supplies and ignores the problem of refining capacity, which experts
say is a leading cause of high gas prices; again, simply a matter of
supply and demand.
With the static supply not catching up to demand, you are going to
see gas prices go up. That is what we have all experienced at the pump.
This bill makes no effort to increase domestic production and reduce
our reliance on foreign oil.
This bill also does not pay enough attention to clean alternatives,
attempting to mandate energy production solely from renewable sources.
While alternative and renewable energy has made a great start in
reducing our foreign imports needed for energy, it will be decades
before we can produce enough alternative fuels to replace oil and other
carbon fuels.
It is important we support efforts to increase the use of renewable
and alternative fuels, but we should not be sold on unrealistic
proposals that will suggest that somehow, in the short term, we are
going to be able to replace our dependence on oil and gas, particularly
in the transportation sector, where there is not any other viable
alternative. It is unrealistic to think we can address our current
dependance without producing as much of America's energy as we can here
at home.
Overlooking sources of new clean energy demonstrates, once again, we
are not paying enough attention to our domestic energy supply. Of
course, gas prices are up to record levels, particularly since the new
majority took over in November.
The Reid substitute does nothing to reduce them. We have seen
gasoline prices increase almost 50 percent during the last 5 months.
Now, when our friends on the other side of the aisle were put in
control in last November's election, the price of gasoline was about
$2.20 a gallon. Today it averages $3.15 a gallon. The proposals in this
bill do nothing to reduce high gasoline prices. In fact, some of the
amendments I am told that our friends on the other side of the aisle
are considering would actually increase energy prices for the
consumers.
Neither the Federal Trade Commission nor any State agency that has
explored the issue has found any evidence that there has actually been
price gouging. I am told there will be proposals to prohibit price
gouging, which is already illegal I might add, but by new and vague
standards which are impossible for anybody to determine whether their
actions are covered, unless perhaps it is too late.
This is a diversion from the real energy problems. We all oppose
price gouging. I know of no one who supports price gouging. But it is
important we understand we need to find new ways to increase our
domestic supply and particularly our refining capacities here at home.
We see nothing but roadblocks thrown up every time we introduce
proposals to try to encourage expansion of refinery capacity, which is
the only way we are going to make more gasoline to keep up with the
demand and hopefully keep prices down.
Now we will see alternatives offered during the course of this debate
that will lead to increased domestic production of oil, streamlined
refinery processes, and greater investment in research and development
and clean vehicles. I think this is an important debate.
But we need to be careful about what we are doing again to make sure
we do not oversell and underdeliver when it comes to energy policy,
because, frankly, I think when it comes to the way the Congress has
approached our energy needs, it has been more than a little
schizophrenic. The consequence, I think we can all see, is that
gasoline prices are too high because refinery capacity is too low. We
have actually increased the danger, in terms of our security, by
continuing to rely too much on imported oil and gas from dangerous
parts of the world, enriching our biggest enemies. At the same time, we
have put out of bounds too much of our domestic reserves.
So I hope as this debate goes forward, we will have a full
opportunity to debate amendments and offer constructive solutions to
this problem. That is why I think our constituents sent us here. If we
do that, then hopefully this poll I mentioned at the outset, reported
in today's Los Angeles Times that reflects 27 percent of Americans
approve of the way Congress is doing its job, hopefully those numbers
will go up as we produce constructive solutions to the problems that
confront the American people and we do the job we are sent here to do
by our constituents.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Utah.
Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, may I inquire how much time is available
to me.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There is 13 minutes 40 seconds.
Mr. BENNETT. I listened with interest to the Senator from Texas. I
wish to discuss basically the same thing, perhaps putting a slightly
different twist on it. People look at the economics of energy and make
this point. They say it costs something like a dollar a barrel to lift
the oil in Saudi Arabia. That is the elevating price, a dollar, a
dollar and a half, whatever. It doesn't sound like very much when oil
is selling for something like $60 a barrel.
They look at the difference between the lifting cost and what we are
paying, and then they look at the difference between the cost for a
barrel of oil and the cost of a gallon of gasoline and they say:
Somebody is making an awful lot of money here, and there has to be
something wrong. There has to be someone hiding in the weeds who is
profiteering off us. If we can find that ``someone'' and stop him from
doing the profiteering, then everything would be fine, we would have
plenty of oil, we would have lower prices at the pump, everything would
be fine. There is a conspiracy going on. There is somebody somewhere
who needs to be discovered, exposed, and attacked, and then everything
will be fine.
Well, unfortunately, the real world does not operate like that. In
the real world, there are reasons, valid reasons, for prices to be
where they are and for the situation to be as it is. The fundamental
fact, with respect to retail prices, that people forget, if indeed they
even know, is this: The retail price is not set on the basis of what it
costs to put a gallon of gas into the pump that you go to when you fill
up your tank; the retail price is set by
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what it would cost to replace the gallon of gas once it is gone out of
the tank and into your gas tank.
That means whoever is setting the price is concerned with
uncertainties that are there in the marketplace that will determine the
future replacement cost. If there is a geopolitical uncertainty, Iran,
Iraq, unrest in Saudi Arabia, instability in Venezuela, whatever it
might be, the marketplace will say: We have to have the uncertainty
return, we have to have a premium on what it would cost to protect us
against the uncertainty because it may well be that supply is suddenly
disrupted around the world, and if we are going to have an additional
gallon of gas in that service station tank in the future, we are going
to have to pay for that uncertainty there, so we will charge an
uncertainty premium now.
This is the working of the marketplace. As I have said often, and
expect to say again, we cannot repeal the law of supply and demand. We
think we can. In Congress we keep passing laws that say we are going to
set prices here and there. But whenever we try, all we do is produce
one of two results. When we try to repeal the law of supply and demand,
when we try to interfere with market forces, we either create a
shortage or a surplus.
When we set the price artificially too high in the market, we create
a surplus, as everybody wants to get in on the very good price, people
want to sell for the highest price. We did that in Congress with
respect to silver. We wanted to have silver mined in the United States.
So the United States said: We are going to pay so much for silver. It
was above the price the market would pay. We opened up silver mines,
the Government ended up with a huge surplus of silver piling up in
warehouses because we set the price higher than the market would put
it.
When we set the price too low, as we have done with gasoline, with
oil windfall profits, set the price too low, then we get a shortage;
nobody wants to produce for that low price. So we can tell ourselves
how wonderful we are. We can say we have the power to set prices by
legislation, but if we set them in the wrong places, if we go away from
where the market is, the market either gives you a surplus of things we
don't need or we create a shortage.
We saw the impact of the shortage during the Carter administration.
We all remember the long lines, where we were lined up to get gasoline.
There was a shortage. It was artificially created. When Ronald Reagan
became President, he said: No, we are going to let the market work. The
shortages all went away. The lines went away. Interestingly enough, the
prices actually came down in many areas of energy as the market then
responded to the reality of demand.
Our problem now is we do not have sufficient supply to bring the
prices down. One of the reasons, as the Senator from Texas made clear,
one of the reasons is we do not have the refinery capacity we need. It
is all very well and good to pump oil out of the ground, but the oil
you purchase out of the ground cannot be put into your car. The oil
pumped out of the ground has to be refined into gasoline. If it is not,
it sits there accumulating until the refinery capacity can be brought
on line.
We know that very well in Utah. We have a tremendous amount of
production going on in eastern Utah now. As oil is available, it can
come out of the ground. At the worldwide prices for oil now, even
though it might be more expensive than $1.50, with oil selling at $60 a
barrel, $70 a barrel on the international market, there is money to be
made. There is oil to be produced in eastern Utah, but it is sitting
there. It is not ending up in anybody's gas tank. It is not helping
bring down the price at the pump. What is the matter? We don't have the
refinery capacity to refine that particular kind of oil. There are
refineries in Salt Lake City. They are operating at 90 percent capacity
plus. They are refining oil that comes from Canada, because that
particular kind of oil is easier to refine than the oil coming out of
eastern Utah. If we could build a refinery in eastern Utah--and the
economics are there to justify it--we could bring down the price of
gasoline at the pump, because all of that oil would be turned into
gasoline.
So why aren't we building new refineries? The regulations that come
from the Federal Government are restricting refineries. People who own
refineries are doing everything they can to expand them. The refinery
capacity is up fairly dramatically, but the number of new refineries
has not gone up dramatically. We are pushing to have the limit our
ability to refine oil in the refineries we now have.
We are still told the real reason prices are up is because there is a
conspiracy. There is price gouging going on. Last week the Washington
Post commented on this issue about conspiracy and the people who are
deliberately driving up the price of gasoline. If I may quote from the
Washington Post editorial entitled ``Myths About That $3.18 Per
Gallon'':
Multiple investigations by the Federal Trade Commission
since 2000 have come up, well, dry. Conspiracy theorists say
this lack of evidence is proof that the regulators are in bed
with the oil companies. But last year, California's Energy
Commission undertook its own investigation of a May 2006
price increase--and found no smoking gun indicating market
manipulation. Today's high prices are the result of a
collision among consumers' increasing demand for gas, the
shortage of oil-refining capacity and 50 states with
different regulations that make it hard to trade gas across
state lines.
That is the reality. It is a collision of increasing demand for gas,
static oil refining capacity, and different State regulations. We
should be dealing with that reality. Why aren't we? Back to the
editorial:
So why protect consumers from this vaporous phantom?
Politics. More than 80 percent of Americans believe that high
gas prices are the result of oil company shenanigans rather
than market forces, according to the Opinion Research Corp.
So passing legislation against gouging is a bit of theater
that allows the political class to avoid the hard work of
getting Americans to use less gas.
We engage in political theater all the time around here--that is our
business--but occasionally, I would hope we would recognize reality, we
would understand the price of gasoline is set by market forces that
look at what it will cost to replace that gasoline.
I will make a last point. There would be more certainty about what it
would cost to replace that gasoline if President Clinton had not vetoed
legislation opening ANWR, making that oil available to us for our
domestic supply. One of the things that was said at the time was, that
is so far away in the future, that is 10 years away.
Well, it has been more than 10 years since he vetoed that bill. If he
had not, we would now have the supply coming down from Alaska, saying
we can mitigate the geopolitical uncertainties of oil in foreign
countries by having this supply of millions of barrels available in the
United States. The manufacturers of gasoline, refiners of gasoline,
would say: We have a stable source of supply here within the United
States. We need not charge as high an uncertainty premium as we might
otherwise do.
There is no question it would have a significant impact on lowering
gas prices, if only we had done it. The Congress did it. The President
vetoed it. Now the leadership of Congress continues to oppose ANWR. One
of the arguments is: That is more than 10 years away.
We did it more than 10 years ago. We need to do it now for the
advantage of people 10 years ahead.
This is not to denigrate the good things in the Energy bill before
us. This is not to say conservation is not important. This is not to
say alternative sources of energy are not important. But this is to say
we need to look at the whole picture and recognize we cannot conserve
our way into a solution. Just because conservation is a good idea
doesn't mean increasing the source of supply is a bad one.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the energy
legislation that will be the topic of the Senate this week. It is
critically important. I congratulate the cochairs of the Energy
Committee, particularly Senators Bingaman and Domenici, for the work
they have done, along with other committees, including Commerce and the
Environment Committee on which I am privileged to serve.
We are dealing with a critical national crisis. In some ways, if we
can adopt bipartisan, strong energy security legislation, we will have
dealt with the most serious challenge facing our country. Because in
dealing with our
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dependence on foreign sources of oil and reducing that dependence, we
can make our economy more secure, protect American consumers from the
painful price spikes in the cost of gasoline and home heating oil and
other fuels they have become accustomed to, and that not only drain
individual budgets but hurt our national economic growth potential and
reality.
Second, we will make our Nation more secure. Because no matter how
strong we are militarily or even economically, if we end up depending
so much on foreign sources of oil, our independence can be compromised.
We cannot tolerate that.
Here is the reality. Ninety-seven percent of transportation in the
United States is fueled by oil we buy from a unified global oil market.
Saudi Arabia holds 20 percent of the world's oil reserves. Iran has 10
percent, led by a man who today repeatedly says to crowds in Iran,
imagine a world without America; 10 percent of the world's oil reserves
are in Iran. Venezuela, led by a virulently anti-American president,
holds 6 percent of the world's oil reserves; Russia has 4.5 percent;
Libya, 3 percent; the United States today has 1.5 percent of the
world's oil reserves. We cannot leave our national and economic
security dependent, therefore, on a resource that lies largely in the
hands of others, including other nations that are either volatile or
undemocratic or aligned against the United States.
H.R. 6, which combines the work of three or four different
committees, contains many significant provisions that would reduce our
Nation's oil consumption. I truly commend the heads of these
committees, the chairmen and ranking members, for bringing this
legislation forward. This may be the only opportunity we have in the
110th Congress, certainly the only opportunity we will have in this
first year of the 110th session, to confront our energy dependence and
deal with it. Therefore, it is very important that we work hard to make
this bill as strong as we possibly can and, of course, as bipartisan.
Our constituents, our Nation just watched the Senate unfortunately
grind itself into gridlock over the comprehensive immigration bill.
Let's not turn that show into a double feature with stalemate over
energy security legislation as well, certainly not as prices soar and
American consumers sour.
I want to speak briefly in favor of a bipartisan consensus amendment
I and others will introduce as part of this debate. I am speaking on
behalf of a bipartisan and geographically diverse group of Senators led
by Senators Bayh, Brownback, Salazar, Coleman, and many others. We will
offer an amendment to replace the gasoline savings goal of H.R. 6, the
underlying legislation, with title I of our so-called DRIVE Act. DRIVE,
in the strange world of acronyms, stands for Dependence Reduction
Through Innovation in Vehicles and Energy. This is the successor to an
earlier version--which title didn't make a good acronym, but which
title I loved--which was the Set America Free Act, because right now we
are not free. We are dependent on others for our energy. The DRIVE
Act's title I, which we will introduce as an amendment, would direct
the executive branch of Government to identify within 9 months and to
publish within 18 months Federal requirements that will achieve a 2.5
million barrel-per-day reduction in U.S. oil consumption by 2016, a 7
million barrel-per-day reduction by 2026, and a 10 million barrel-per-
day reduction by 2031. That is about 50 percent of the per-day oil
consumption of the United States today.
This amendment would also direct the Office of Management and Budget
to publish an analysis identifying the oil savings projected to be
achieved by each requirement to be created and demonstrating that the
listed measures will, in the aggregate, achieve the overall specified
oil savings.
Finally, the measure includes specific requirements for the executive
branch to evaluate, review, and update the action plan so we can
achieve these critical national goals.
The targets for savings in H.R. 6 are expressed in terms of American
gasoline consumption. The amendment would express them in terms of what
we think is a more relevant standard which is overall oil consumption,
because reducing gasoline use can be achieved by increasing the use of
diesel which, of course, is also made from oil. So oil consumption
reduction is, in our opinion, the more appropriate goal for this law,
and that is why we are going to introduce this as an amendment to H.R.
6. The gasoline savings goal in H.R. 6 amounts to about a 20-percent
reduction in projected oil consumption by 2030, 23 years from now. The
oil savings requirement in our amendment amounts to a 35-percent
reduction in projected oil consumption in 2030. That is a significant
increase in reduction and one we can achieve, if we set the goal as
high as it should be, high enough to cut our dependence on foreign oil
and free America from that dependence.
I believe there is broad bipartisan support in the Senate for these
stronger targets. Indeed, the fuel economy and renewable fuels
provisions already found elsewhere in H.R. 6 will themselves go a long
way toward achieving the stronger targets. The DRIVE amendment's
cosponsors believe that we need targets that will keep the pressure on
the Executive branch to use the authorities Congress has provided to
achieve robust oil savings.
The DRIVE Act has 26 cosponsors, including 6 Republicans. Thus, the
language of our DRIVE amendment is bipartisan and consensus-based. I
hope my colleagues will adopt it overwhelmingly.
I would like to explain my opposition to an amendment that I
understand will be offered, an amendment that--while intricately
drafted--has the sole purpose of opening the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to
oil drilling.
Most of my colleagues have been through enough Senate debates over
this issue to know that it is highly controversial and deeply divisive.
I believe that if an Arctic drilling amendment were added to this bill,
it would prevent Senate passage of otherwise bipartisan legislation
that could reshape--but not despoil--our energy landscape.
I myself filibustered the last bill to which an Arctic drilling
provision was attached.
Let me just repeat a fact that I stated at the beginning of my
remarks: The United States holds just 1.5 percent of the world's oil
reserves. Oil is a global commodity--like wheat or corn, gold or
copper--that essentially has a single world benchmark price.
That means we could drain every last drop of oil from U.S. territory,
despoiling our last stretches of wilderness in the process, and U.S.
production still would amount to no more than a trickle in the stream
of global supply.
We would do irrevocable damage to our natural heritage without having
an appreciable effect on the price that Americans pay for oil, and
without reducing our crippling oil addiction by one iota.
It is time we face up to the fact that we cannot drill our way out of
this problem. The only effective and permanent solution to high gas
prices--the only effective and permanent solution to energy
dependence--is to dramatically reduce our oil consumption. H.R. 6 takes
an impressive step in that direction. The DRIVE amendment would
lengthen that step to a stride. But adding an Arctic drilling provision
would kill the entire enterprise, leaving us in the same, unacceptable
situation we find ourselves in now. So I respectfully ask that my
colleagues vote ``yes'' on the DRIVE amendment, and ``no'' on any
measure that would open the treasured Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
to drilling.
The American people are energized on this issue. Let's not let them
look to the Senate and think they have hit a dry well of gridlock.
Mr. President, I note the presence of one of my colleagues on the
floor who I know wants to speak during this half hour of morning
business, so I will say, very briefly, we have an opportunity to do
something right for the American people, if we can work across party
lines--and none of this should be partisan--to get this done.
Again I note in that regard, with some regret, some of my colleagues
have indicated an intention to once again introduce an amendment that
would open the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to oil and drilling. Obviously,
they have a right to do so. This has been debated often in the Senate.
My only word of caution is I fear such an amendment, if it is attached
to this
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bill, may doom the overall bill; therefore, we would all lose as a
result of it.
I say to my colleagues, we have a fresh opportunity here, a kind of
fresh start. This institution is in need of a bipartisan agreement that
solves some real problems, such as the cost of gasoline and home
heating oil and other fuels the American people are facing. So it is
not just that the institution would benefit in its credibility with a
bipartisan agreement on this critical issue; the country needs us to
show leadership on this issue. I am confident, as we begin this debate,
we can rise to the opportunity.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Wisconsin.
____________________