[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 4, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5026-S5028]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            CLIMATE SECURITY

  Mrs. BOXER. I was hoping that I could engage my friend the majority 
leader as the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. 
He has entrusted me, and my colleagues have, and I do not think we 
should leave here without me asking you a couple of questions because I 
think people who were watching this debate were very confused. I wanted 
to make sure I ask a series of questions to my friend, and then we will 
all go home because it is time to go home.
  We expected to have a robust debate on the global warming bill and 
finally get this country off of fossil fuel, off of foreign oil, off of 
big oil. And we found that although my understanding was the majority 
leader had no idea about this, the Republican side, of course, forced 
the clerks to read the amendment, which took us 6 to 7 hours or so and 
took us all the way into the night; is that correct?
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend, I have had the good fortune to be 
chairman of your committee twice; one of them was a very short period 
of time because we were in the majority for a little while. It is a 
wonderful committee, and I do

[[Page S5027]]

not know of a better committee in the whole Congress--so many important 
things to do and deal with. Not only is the distinguished Senator from 
California, who represents almost 40 million people--she is a person 
who is suited to be the chairman of this committee like no other 
committee chairman we have ever had. I know where your heart is. I have 
known you for 26 years. We came here in 1982 together. And this piece 
of legislation--you worked on it on a bipartisan basis--is a good piece 
of legislation. Is it perfect? The chairman acknowledged it is not a 
perfect bill.
  But I would only say to the chairman of the Committee, I do not think 
the American people are confused at all. I think they know what has 
happened. We have seen today a situation where we have read into the 
Record the Republican's play book; that is, they are playing political 
games, they are stalling, they do not want to deal with the most 
important issues we face in the world today--global warming. They want 
to wait, hoping above hope that something will happen in November and 
that they will be in the majority.
  Mrs. BOXER. Isn't it true that as a result of these dilatory tactics 
and slowing us down and making us waste 30 hours to proceed, to get to 
a motion to proceed and then doing all this, isn't it true it puts us 
into a terrible bind here? We know the days have to be filled with 
legislative work. They have stopped work to fight for the status quo. 
They have stopped us in our tracks on this issue. I guess what I would 
like to say, yes, we will go to a vote. Because the Republicans don't 
seem--there is a few of them over there who help us, but most of them 
won't help us. We may not be able to move forward on this bill. At this 
late time of night, I ask the majority leader to comment, and that will 
be the end of my questions, I know there are a lot of people out there 
who are still up and watching, believe me, especially a lot of people 
in your home State and my home State. They understand this. They 
understand what is happening. Eighty-nine percent of the people polled 
said: Do something about global warming. The faith-based groups want 
it. The scientists are telling us this is right.
  Tomorrow or I should say later today, we will have an amazing press 
conference with John Warner, myself and others, with former military 
people testifying to the fact that global warming is one of the looming 
threats to our national security. Still, the other side would stop us 
from getting to energy independence, stopping us from getting off 
foreign oil, stopping us from getting off big oil and using these 
ludicrous arguments about gas prices when, under George Bush's watch 
and their watch, gas prices went up 250 percent in 7 years and, in less 
than 1 year, 82 cents. It is ridiculous.
  I hope the people hearing us tonight will pick up their phones and 
call their Senators first thing in the later hours of the morning and 
tell them to vote yes to allow this debate to move forward.
  I thank my leaders, my majority leader and the assistant majority 
leader, for their courage in scheduling this, for standing up for the 
American people, and for doing everything they could to get us to a 
full debate. If we don't have it now, we will have it when we have a 
President in the White House--and you know where I come down on that 
one--who is going to send over a bill here, and we will get started on 
this work and get it done.
  I guess, because I have to ask the question, I will ask you, my 
friend, if you look forward to that day.
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend, if not now, when? If not now, when are 
we going to debate this most important issue? I feel very good that 
this committee, led by Senator Boxer, was able to report out of that 
committee, under the most trying circumstances, because of the courage 
of one Republican by the name of John Warner of Virginia, was able to 
get enough votes to put this bill on the floor. I go to the playbook of 
the Republicans on this. Listen to this:

       The focus is much more on making political points than 
     amending the bill.

  I didn't make this up. That is what they said.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant majority leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. Because it is after midnight and the staff has gone 
through so much today reading this bill, I will make my comments brief. 
It is hard to believe how much time we wasted today when we could have 
been considering the global warming bill and passing and considering 
important amendments. Now we find ourselves past midnight, after 
wasting hour after hour, when the Republican minority asked the 
amendment be read, every word of it read into the record, when that was 
totally unnecessary, an amendment which was available to us days ago, 
at least in summary form weeks ago, a total waste of time. It is a 
continued effort by the Republican side of the aisle to slow down and 
stop any effort to make progress on legislation people care about 
across America.
  It is all their party has left. GOP stands for graveyard of progress. 
They don't want us to do anything. Today they wasted an entire day of 
the Senate.
  I will close by saying, what troubles me the most is that the 
Republican minority leader would come to the floor with this sense of 
urgency about three district court Federal judges, a sense of urgency, 
yet does not share that same sense of urgency about the global warming 
that is changing the world we live in. The world will little note nor 
long remember those three judges, as good as they may be individually, 
but it will remember that we wasted an entire day and perhaps wasted 
our best efforts this session to take up the single most important 
issue for the survival of the planet.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I will add my thoughts that it is an 
important issue for us to deal with, global warming, and energy 
security and elimination of pollution and a healthy economy not being 
damaged by excessive imports of oil or high prices of oil. We wish to 
deal with that. This bill is a tremendously large bill that dwarfs the 
prior Clean Air Act of 1990 in significance. I wish to say what 
happened tonight was the majority leader, utilizing the power of his 
recognition, has now filled the tree and not one amendment can be 
offered, as I understand the procedures, he does not agree to. When we 
did the Clean Air Act, some 200 or more amendments were offered, 5 
weeks was spent on it, and 130 amendments, as I recall, were disposed 
of in some fashion. So we have this tremendous bill we want to talk 
about.
  I would suggest it is as plain as day that as people learn more about 
it, they are going to be even more concerned than they are today and 
less supportive of it and hostile to it. That is why it looks to me 
like an effort is under way to put the Republican Members who would 
like to offer amendments and discuss the bill in a position where they 
have no realistic possibility to do so in a meaningful way. This will 
end with a whimper. The bill can be withdrawn because the majority does 
not want to stay on it because they can't defend the massive nature of 
it, the incredible intervention into the economy by Washington 
bureaucracies that will be created, the trillions of dollars that will 
have to be raised through this cap and trade, which is nothing more 
than a way to tax carbon. I wish to protest a moment. We know what is 
happening. Anybody who is sophisticated here knows this bill is not 
going to pass. It is losing what support it had. An effort is underway 
by the Democratic majority to figure a way to pull the bill and then 
blame the Republicans because we want to talk about it, and we want to 
entertain a discussion about it. We wish to offer amendments to make it 
better. That is the truth.
  It disturbs me a little bit to hear the comments that have been made 
earlier. I know we have had a long day. But I wish to make clear this 
is not an itty-bitty issue. This is a tremendous issue of great 
importance, both to the world, our economy, and to the environment. We 
need to do better. We can do better. I hope maybe in the morning things 
will be in a better posture. I don't think, with regard to the cap-and-
trade bill, that the majority is going to want to see it go forward. 
That indicates a lack of confidence in their own legislation.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant majority leader.

[[Page S5028]]

  Mr. DURBIN. The Record speaks for itself. First, the Republicans 
insisted on the entire 30 hours, that the 30 hours be set aside for 
general debate on the bill before we could reach an amendment. We gave 
them their 30 hours for general debate and asked them during that 
period of time to produce the list of amendments that they wanted to 
consider on the bill. We gave them a list of amendments we would start 
with. The first was a bipartisan amendment, Senators Biden and Lugar. 
When we asked them for amendments to the bill, once again, they failed 
to produce the list. It was very clear what was going on.
  Then they proceeded, unfortunately, to tax the energy and stamina of 
the staff by having them read every word of the bill into the record, a 
complete waste of time. First, we burned off 30 hours in general debate 
with no amendments being produced by the Republican side. Then they 
came to the floor and took another 5 or 6 hours, maybe more, for the 
staff to read this into the record. This was not a good-faith effort in 
amending the bill or even debating the bill. That, unfortunately, is a 
reflection of what we have seen over and over and over, a record number 
of filibusters, a record number of Republican attempts to stop or slow 
down the debate on pending legislation. It is because, of course, they 
don't want us to see us enact legislation. They don't want to see us 
address the issues of the day. They are hoping this Congress will be as 
unproductive as the last Republican Congress.
  We are not going to let that happen. We are still going to fight for 
important legislation. On this particular bill, on a global warming 
bill, we will have another vote. But if it goes down, if it doesn't 
move forward, it is because the Republicans are following their 
strategy that has been read into the Record, a strategy which focuses, 
as they say, ``much more on making political points than amending the 
bill.''
  That is their strategy. It has been made a part of the Record. It is 
very clear what has happened.

                          ____________________