[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 102 (Friday, June 22, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8275-S8276]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           PASSAGE OF H.R. 6

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, thank you for recognizing me. Also I want 
to thank the majority leader for his kind words. He and I work very 
closely together, spend more time together than we ever imagined as we 
embarked on this journey, now in leadership, to try to serve the people 
of this Nation.
  I want to say a word about my friend from Nevada. Senator Harry Reid 
is misunderstood by many Americans. Because he is soft spoken, and not 
as assertive as some politicians are, there are many on the outside who 
question his leadership capacity. No one on the inside questions it. He 
is the most highly respected leader I have ever had the good fortune to 
work with. It is based on the fact that he is inclusive, he is honest, 
outspoken, and stands by those who are willing to work harder to 
achieve our agenda.
  Last night was a perfect illustration of this. The Energy bill was 
just a dream, a theory, for so long. The question was, could we put 
together a bipartisan coalition. We had to find a level of compromise 
and a level of cooperation or we did not have a chance. It was not easy 
to try to put into law, for the first time in over 20 years, a new 
national goal for fuel efficiency of our cars and trucks. It changed a 
lot of things and was viewed as threatening by many people.
  My wife and I have made a point of doing our very best to buy 
American cars. We are loyal to the American automobile industry. With 
very few exceptions we have tried to make sure our purchases were on 
behalf of American workers. It was painful last night to be engaged in 
a debate where my good friends in the automobile industry, not just 
management--but I guess I have to be totally open with you, I am closer 
to those who work the lines, in Belvidere, IL and Bloomington, the 
United Auto Worker employees. I know these men and women. These are 
good people. They are hard-working people. They take pride in what they 
do.
  They have been disappointed. I have as well. But our automobile 
industry in this country has been falling farther and farther behind. 
Just a few months ago, the CEOs, the major corporate officers of the 
Big Three came, just a few feet away, and met with the leadership in 
Congress. I had a chance to ask a question of the CEOs of Ford and 
General Motors and Chrysler. I asked a pretty hard question, but it was 
one that has been bothering me.
  I said to them at the time: You know, I am one of your most loyal 
customers. I have owned cars and trucks from each of your companies and 
plan on continuing to try to buy your products in the future. But I am 
troubled because of the simple fact--I asked them--I said: Have any of 
you ever heard of a magazine called ``Consumer Reports''?
  There was this kind of embarrassed silence in the room. I said: Well, 
I want you to explain something to me. Why, for the last 20 years, have 
American cars consistently shown poorer performance results than 
imported cars? Why have foreign cars, particularly from Japan, over the 
last 20 years consistently shown better performance results, better 
trade-in value? Why? What has been happening out there? We have the 
best engineering schools in the world. We started this industry, at 
least on a mass volume basis. Why is there such a difference in 
quality?
  There was this pained silence while they waited for one of them to 
respond. Finally, one of the CEOs said: Well, we are getting better.

[[Page S8276]]

  I said: I hope you are.
  But the bottom line is, this industry now has been challenged. If the 
bill we passed last night is passed in the House of Representatives and 
becomes law, they will face a challenge. I, for one, believe they can 
rise to this challenge. I honestly do. It is going to call for a 
different mindset among the management at the highest levels in our 
automobile companies. It is going to call for the same spirit of can-do 
approach we have seen on the assembly lines from the workers. I think 
they can rise to this challenge.
  I think America wants them to. I want to buy a car made in this 
country by American workers that is of the highest quality, that I can 
take pride in driving, knowing it is not only a good bargain for my 
family, but also a good deal for the environment.
  That, I think, is what most Americans want to do. Now, that means 
there is going to have to be some new thinking. It means a lot of 
people in the boardrooms of those major companies are going to have to 
sit down and rethink their game plan.
  I met with the man who is about to become the leader of Chrysler 
Corporation. He was talking about the fact that his private equity 
bought Chrysler because of their patriotic feelings. They do not want 
this great American car manufacturer to go away.
  Well, I know if you are in business, sentimentality takes you so far. 
At some point you have to produce a profitable product. I think there 
is a profitability product built into the Energy bill we talked about 
last night. I believe if there is a conscious effort by our automobile 
manufacturers, they can meet these fuel efficiency standards we have 
included in our bill.
  They can convince a lot of skeptical Americans it is time to come 
back home, to start buying these American cars. Now, it will be a 
painful process. There will be winners and losers. But, ultimately, I 
have confidence in this country, in the companies that work in this 
country, and in the workers of this country. When they come together, 
they can achieve great things.
  Last night we set down a challenge to them: Change what you are 
selling in America. Make it a better product. Make it a more efficient 
product. Make it a product that is going to help us deal with global 
warming and climate change.
  I think most American families are on board for that agenda. That is 
why I think the passage of this was so important. We never would have 
passed this energy bill late last night were it not for a bipartisan 
effort. We had many Republicans who crossed the aisle to join us. I 
think ultimately 17 or 18 came over to join the Democrats in the key 
procedural vote that moved this forward. Then the final vote was 65 to 
27; there were even more.
  We could have never achieved this goal of a new energy bill were it 
not for bipartisan cooperation, if Republicans had not come forward.
  For some, it wasn't easy. When the Republican Senate leader, Mr. 
McConnell of Kentucky, stood up last night late in the debate and said: 
I want this debate to end, I want this bill to be defeated, I am going 
to vote no on the cloture motion--I heard him make that announcement--I 
was stunned. This is a bill which the administration believes has good 
elements relative to fuel economy. Yet the Republican leader stood on 
the floor and said: I am going to try to stop this bill. He did not 
prevail because 17 or 18 of his colleagues thought it was more 
important that the bill move forward. I salute them. It took 
extraordinary courage for them to do what they did.
  There was another element in the Energy bill which is important to me 
because of my midwestern roots and because of my determination to see 
America shake its dependence on foreign oil. I am sick and tired of the 
United States hat in hand begging for oil from countries overseas. Many 
of these nations we turn to for oil don't share our values. In fact, 
some of them are on the wrong side in the war on terrorism. To think 
that every time you swipe that credit card through the gasoline pump or 
put the money on the counter, a portion of that is going to a nation 
which is funding terrorism is an outrage. It has to end. To think that 
time and again our brave soldiers, men and women in uniform, are drawn 
into conflicts in the Middle East because of oil is unacceptable. I 
don't want my grandchildren to face that. I want America to be as close 
to energy independent as possible. How do we reach that goal? Homegrown 
fuel, homegrown energy. We grow it in my State every year, a new crop 
of corn. With that new crop of corn, more ethanol, more alcohol fuels, 
and more biodiesel come from the soybean fields. That means we have 
less of a need to import oil.
  Last night, in this bill, we raised to a much higher level our 
national goals when it comes to alcohol fuels, renewable fuels. It 
means a growing industry in my part of the world, in the Midwest, in 
Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, where ethanol plants are being built. These 
plants use local production of agriculture, corn by and large, and turn 
it into alcohol. The construction workers are building the plants, 
good-paying jobs. There are people at the plants making sure they are 
producing ethanol. They are shipping products in trucks driven by 
Americans to put in the cars driven by Americans. I feel good about 
this. We are moving in the right direction.
  This bill made a significant commitment to strengthen the market for 
alcohol fuels. I was disappointed that my biodiesel program was not 
included. I wish it had been. I am not giving up. We have a farm bill 
coming up. We will have several other opportunities. I think biodiesel 
is great. It uses soybeans and other oilseeds to produce a vegetable 
oil added to diesel fuel so that we don't see that huge plume of black 
smoke coming out of the tailpipes of diesel trucks and cars, so there 
is less pollution. More homegrown energy is a good thing for the 
country. I want to include it as part of the energy picture.
  This was a hard debate over the last 2 weeks. I am sorry it took 2 
weeks. We wasted more time on the floor. I am sure the people who have 
C-SPAN on their cable often turn to it and say: What in the world is 
going on in the Senate? It doesn't look like there is any movement. Is 
anybody alive down there? The floor looks empty except for the handsome 
and beautiful staff we have here who are on television during the day. 
Many times there are periods when there is no activity. Time is wasted. 
There was time wasted on this bill. Time and again, the Republican 
minority forced us to wait 30 hours, file a motion, wait another 30 
hours.
  We have a lot to do. I think we owe it to the American people to roll 
up our sleeves and get it done. We need more bipartisan cooperation. We 
need to put an end to these endless motions and procedural delays. 
Let's get down to business. Wouldn't the American people cheer us if we 
said: Let's pass the 9/11 recommendations and turn them into law to 
make America safer; let's do something immediately about No Child Left 
Behind to send money to the schools so they can hire the very best 
teachers and produce students who are ready to compete in the 21st 
century. Wouldn't the American people cheer us if, instead of being 
lost in some procedural morass day after weary day, we came up with a 
way to help working families pay for college education expenses for 
their children so they don't end up graduating deep in debt and unable 
to take the jobs they had their hearts set on?
  There are so many things we need to do. With a little cooperation 
from the other side of the aisle and a better approach, we can say to 
our Republican friends: You are entitled under the rules of the Senate 
to produce amendments, to ask for a vote, to ask for debate. But at 
some point, it has to come to an end. At some point, we have to move 
forward.

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