[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.
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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.
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