[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 95 (Tuesday, June 10, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5431-S5436]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONSUMER-FIRST ENERGY ACT OF 2008--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued
Mr. REID. I move to proceed to S. 3044.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is pending.
The Senator from Michigan is recognized.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, before our leader leaves the floor, I
thank him for his patience and tenacity to continue, despite objection
after objection, as we try to govern on behalf of the people of this
country--whether it be addressing issues of global warming, whether it
be gas prices, whether it be what just happened, which is to bring
forward a Medicare bill that will stop a large cut to physicians all
around the country and affect our ability to have access to health
care. It is a bill that includes the ability to focus on rural health
care and telehealth and e-prescribing and a number of things that will
increase access to health care.
[[Page S5432]]
To emphasize what just happened one more time: There was an objection
to moving ahead on something that is important to the American people:
to expand, under Medicare, health care for communities and our seniors.
This goes back to my original point now: 75 Republican filibusters and
counting. It is going to continue and continue, unfortunately, because
there is not the willingness to work together to get things done.
Let me mention two other issues. I mentioned what is happening in
terms of blocking our Consumer-First Energy Act, which focuses on a
number of ways to go after price gouging. The bill would stop
manipulation by greedy oil traders and give the Attorney General the
power to stand up to OPEC nations that are price fixing--a number of
different ways for us to immediately address what is happening to gas
prices on behalf of the American people. That was blocked.
The second thing that was blocked was the Renewable Energy and Job
Creation Act of 2008. This is about jobs. This is about jobs in my
great State of Michigan, in New Jersey, all across this country, based
on the new green economy--production tax credits to build those wind
turbines and solar panels and new vehicles and, again, the consumer tax
credits and investing in the ability for businesses that use the R&D
tax credit to have that continue, to be able to invest in other
economic development tax credits. That is what was blocked--jobs
focused on alternative energy.
So we went after the oil companies. No. We want to put forward a
proposal that will invest in new jobs. No. That is what we are hearing
every day. And every day that is happening, more and more people in my
great State are finding themselves without a job, trying to keep the
lights on, keep food on the table, trying to be able to put gas in
their automobile. And they are looking and saying: What is going on
here? Each month, tens of thousands of people across the country, not
just in Michigan--I mean, we were hit the hardest first, but this is
across the country--are losing their jobs. Hundreds of those are losing
unemployment insurance benefits they paid into.
There seems to be a notion that somehow, if someone is required to go
on unemployment insurance benefits, they will not look for work. Well,
that is about 40 percent of what the average wage is for an individual.
You can barely keep things together. In many cases, you cannot keep
things together. I would suggest that the unemployment insurance
benefit is not a disincentive for folks to work. And obviously people
in my State work hard. They work. They work very hard. Too many are
working two jobs, three jobs, four jobs, trying to piece it together.
But we have never had an economic situation like we have today under
a Republican or Democratic President where there has not been a
willingness in a difficult economic situation to extend unemployment
benefits. Yet President Bush has threatened to veto an extension of
unemployment insurance which we have already passed here in the Senate.
As I indicated before, the numbers are high--324,000 good-paying
American jobs have been lost since January of this year. We also know
there are 8.5 million unemployed workers in America competing for 3.7
million jobs. That is why the bill that was blocked earlier that
invests in new taxation and new technologies, production tax credits to
build new plants, to create new processes, is so important, because
right now we have more than twice as many people looking for work as
there are jobs available. We as a Democratic majority understand that.
We understand that so much of what is happening right now for families
goes to the basic foundation of this economy, which is the ability to
have a good-paying job and to be able to pay those costs that come at
families day after day after day.
In May, the number of Americans who have been out of work for at
least 27 weeks--right now, unemployment goes to 26 weeks--rose to 1.6
million workers; 1.6 million middle-class workers as of May who saw
their benefits exhausted and in most or many cases were not able to
find a job. What happened? What happens to those families? In the past
year, 2.75 million people who are unemployed have exhausted their
benefits.
American families are running out of time. They want us to take
action. There needs to be a sense of urgency about what is going on for
families in this country. It is not that we do not have the ability to
act; there is not the will to act, not the will to join with us in a
bipartisan effort to act. We as Democrats come to the floor every day,
our leader comes to the floor every day, multiple times a day, making
motions to proceed to solve problems through legislation that is
critical for our families. Time after time, all we hear is: I object. I
object. I object.
People in Michigan know what the pain of inaction is like and the
effort to try to hold it together when help is not there. Over the last
year, more than 150,000 people have exhausted their unemployment
benefits, over 10,000 people a month now looking for work but do not
have the support anymore to at least be able to keep things going a
little bit.
But you know it is not just Michigan anymore. Unfortunately, other
States are now catching up. We heard as of last Friday that the
national unemployment rate is now 5.5 percent. When we first started
talking about this, it was 4.9. Now it is up to 5.5, and the experts
tell us they expect it will reach 6.5 percent by January. Alaska,
California, Rhode Island, Mississippi, Nevada, Missouri, Oregon, South
Carolina, Kentucky, and Ohio all have unemployment rates at or above
5.5 percent.
We need to act, not only because it is the right thing to do, the
moral thing to do for our families, but we know that for every $1 that
is spent on unemployment benefits in the economy, the dollars turn over
and the economy is stimulated by $1.64. So there is an opportunity to
not only do the right thing for Americans, which ought to be enough,
but it is also an opportunity to stimulate the economy and one of the
top ways we are told it can be stimulated. In other words, for every $1
we invest to help struggling American families, we get a 64-percent
return on our investment. I would take that. That is a deal worth
making.
So I close by once again calling on the President to join with us at
this critical time in American history where families are being hit in
so many different ways and to say yes to extending unemployment
benefits for those who are out of work but looking very hard to find a
job and are counting on us to do the right thing.
I would love it if we did not have to stand up and change this Velcro
anymore. I would love it if we could just frame this right here--75
Republican filibusters--and stop. But that is not what is happening. We
can do better than that. Certainly, the people in Michigan expect us to
do better than that. I am going to do everything in my power--I know
the Chair will as well--to be able to make good on what people are
asking of us.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, like a lot of Members of the Senate, I also
heard from my constituents last weekend about high energy prices. I do
not know how any Member of Congress can go back into their
congressional district and their State and not be inundated by people
who are very concerned about the impact high fuel prices are having on
their pocketbooks and on our economy.
In fact, in my State of South Dakota, the studies bear this out. I
think it has a disproportionate impact because it is a rural area. In
rural areas, we are very energy dependent. We drive long distances. We
are very agriculturally dependent in terms of our economy. Tourism is a
big thing in our economy in rural areas. We also, in most cases, have
lower incomes relative to the incomes of people in other parts of the
country. In fact, there are some studies out that suggest that 15
percent, 16 percent on average of a person's income in a rural area is
spent just paying the energy bill. Now, that is something that ought to
concern everybody across this country because even though it might
disproportionally impact rural areas today, it is clearly going to
impact all Americans and continue to impact our economic activities in
this country as time goes on if we do not get our arms around these
escalating and daily increasing energy costs.
I had someone in my office today who said that he has a small
refinery. He
[[Page S5433]]
said if the cap-and-trade bill we debated last week had been enacted or
passed, immediately they would have seen a 38-cent increase in the
price per gallon of gasoline.
There is a proposal to build a powerplant in my State of South
Dakota, a coal-fired powerplant. I was visiting with some folks last
week in my State who informed me that if, in fact, that cap-and-trade
proposal had passed, it would have tripled the cost to construct that
powerplant, something that is necessary to provide base load energy for
the energy demands and requirements we have in the upper Midwest.
So here we are talking about high energy prices, high fuel prices,
and the only solutions our colleagues are putting on the floor are
solutions that would actually increase fuel costs. The cap-and-trade
proposal last week, by any estimate--and there were 11 studies that
were done of the five cap-and-trade proposals put before or introduced
in the Senate, one which was put before the Senate last week. All 11
studies concluded that if enacted, that proposal would increase fuel
costs, it would increase electricity costs, and it would lead to
negative gross domestic product growth. The question was not if, it was
how much would it increase costs. By as much as a dollar a gallon for
gasoline. There were a number of studies conducted that suggested that
it would cost the economy up to $6 trillion in GDP, negative GDP, as a
result of that cap-and-trade proposal.
So here we are on the floor of the Senate. Everyone, I assume, is
hearing the same thing I am hearing, when they go back to their
respective States, from their constituents: We have high energy prices;
we need some action; we need you to do something about that. And
everything that has been put before the Senate last week and this week
by the Democratic leadership does one thing: increases energy costs.
We had a vote today on an ``energy bill.'' What did it do? It imposed
new taxes on energy. That was tried. That was tried back in the 1980s,
the windfall profits tax. It led to reduced energy production in this
country. The other thing that was talked about today was, well, let's
sue OPEC, let's sue OPEC; that will somehow drive down the cost of
energy.
There is not anything in any of those proposals that does anything to
address the problem because you cannot address this problem, you cannot
fix the energy crisis in this country unless you address the issue of
supply. There is not anything in any of those bills that have been put
forward, that have been put forward by the other side, that addresses
the fundamental issue of supply. I believe the American people
understand that. They understand full well that you do not raise taxes
to get more of something; if you raise taxes, you are going to get less
of something. They realize that we cannot just sort of unilaterally
decide to sue an oil cartel and expect that is going to lead to
additional energy supply in this country.
There is one thing and one thing only that we can do to lower
gasoline prices for people in this country; that is, increase homegrown
domestic energy supplies so that we do not have to rely upon other
nations around the world for our energy.
I wish to share a couple of statics that I think are important in
this debate. One is that 60 percent of our oil comes from outside the
United States. That means that on any given day we are getting 60
percent of our energy to fuel our automobiles and to keep our economy
going from countries around the world, many of which are run by petro-
dictators who have nothing but hostile and ill intentions toward the
United States. Sixty percent of our oil supply is coming from outside
the United States.
We use 140 billion gallons of gasoline every year in this country. I
point that out because I want to use that to get to another point; that
is, we are generating about 8 billion gallons of renewable energy or
ethanol on an annual basis. At the end of this year, we will be
generating 1 billion gallons in my State of South Dakota alone. But the
studies that have been done have suggested that that 8 billion gallons
of ethanol, out of the 140 billion gallons of fuel we use in this
country, of gasoline we use in this country, has reduced energy prices
by about 15 percent--price per barrel of oil, price per gallon of
gasoline reduced by about 15 percent by the contribution that 8 billion
gallons of ethanol is making to our overall fuel supply.
In today's gasoline prices, 15 percent would be about 50 cents, 60
cents on the gallon. So we have lower fuel prices today than we would
otherwise have as a result of adding to our supply of energy, homegrown
energy, through the hard work and production of our farmers across the
country who raise the corn that is converted into ethanol.
I suggest perhaps the way to address this problem, if, in fact, 8
billion gallons of ethanol has helped reduce gasoline prices by 50
cents a gallon, maybe what we ought to be doing is looking at ways we
can grow additional energy supply. We don't need less biofuels, we need
more. We are going to be moving now from corn-based ethanol into
cellulosic ethanol that can be made from other forms of biomass. We
hope that technology will be progressing quickly enough that it will
enable us to meet the targets we have of 36 billion gallons called for
in the renewable fuels standard. That is what we are doing in the area
of biofuels.
I say that because if we look at what we have in terms of domestic
resources, whether that is biofuels or oil, if we could get some of
that oil into the pipeline, we could do a lot to impact prices people
are paying for a gallon of gasoline. Back in 1995, President Clinton
vetoed a bill passed by Congress that would have allowed for
exploration on the North Slope of Alaska. We have somewhere between 6
and 16 billion barrels of oil on the North Slope underneath the ground.
With modern technology and in an environmentally friendly way,
directional and horizontal drilling, with a minimal imprint on the
surface, we can get access to somewhere between 6 and 16 barrels of
oil. What does that translate into? That translates into 1 million
barrels a day coming into this country--1 million barrels a day. And
you figure a barrel translates into 42 gallons, and of that about half
can be refined into gasoline, a million barrels a day would translate
into about 7 billion gallons of gasoline a year or roughly equivalent
to what we are generating in ethanol. And the 8 billion gallons in
ethanol is reducing the price of gas by about 50 cents a gallon. So if
you do the math, more energy, more supply at the margin is going to
lead to lower cost. That is the fundamental economic rule of supply and
demand that most people understand.
Any of my constituents in South Dakota, if I went home and told them
that the Democratic leadership has put a bill on the floor that is
going to allow us to file lawsuits against OPEC or that is going to
impose new taxes on oil exploration, a windfall profits tax, they would
say: What does that do to affect the law of supply and demand? Get more
supply in the marketplace so that we can do something about reducing
the price per gallon of gasoline?
This problem gets addressed when America gets serious about domestic
energy supplies. We have tried again and again to get a vote on
exploration on the North Slope. We have tried again and again to get a
vote on deep sea exploration for energy--all of which has been blocked
in the Senate.
We have even tried to get legislation moved that would expedite the
permitting process for new refineries because we have a shortage of
refining capacity. These are all things that we could be doing that
would help address the supply problem.
I suggest when we get to what we are focusing on that we can do,
there are pieces of legislation on which there is broad agreement. We
passed a bill a couple weeks ago that Senators Ensign and Cantwell
offered of tax extenders that would help promote more investment in
renewable energy. It passed out of the Senate by a vote of 88 to 8,
broad bipartisan support. Why are we not focusing on those things we
can do rather than spending our time having the Democrats throw out
solutions that impose new taxes, new regulations, new bailouts to trial
lawyers, which was included in this bill, an earmark for the Senator
from New York at $1.2 billion, all of which we know are not going to
pass?
We aren't going to get the votes to get that sort of thing through.
But there are things we can be doing, such as extending the production
tax credit
[[Page S5434]]
for wind, which was included in the Energy bill to which I just
referred. Those are the things we ought to be looking at. What can we
do to add to the supply of electricity, to add to the supply of fuels
so that we don't have to get 60 percent of our energy from outside the
United States, so we are actually doing something that will in a
positive way impact the price our constituents pay for a gallon of
gasoline?
This impact is going to be felt all across the economy. Look at the
statistics on airlines. We are using actually less fuel on airlines
today, if we look at this green line, than we were going back even to
2000 and 2001. But look at the fuel costs of the airlines. They are
exploding. We have airlines facing bankruptcy, making service cutbacks,
not serving smaller communities, laying off employees because of high
fuel costs. There is no end in sight.
It is $4 today. What is to stop it from going to $5? If Ahmadinejad
and Chavez decide they want to get $200 for a barrel of oil, what is to
stop them, if we have no leverage? We need to be taking steps in the
United States that will increase our domestic supply of energy so we
don't have to rely upon those other countries for our energy supply. We
have those resources here. We have oil. We have biofuels. We need new
refineries. We can build new nuclear plants. All are being blocked.
Let's focus on what we can do to affect the fundamental rule of
supply and demand that will lead to lower energy costs, that will
increase the amount of energy we have relative to demand. That is how
we can impact in a positive way the price our constituents are paying
for a gallon of gasoline. Until we get serious about that, all this
other stuff done for optics because it is an election year and to gain
some political upper hand to go back to a constituency saying, we did
this or we are going to beat up the oil companies, raise taxes,
regulations and lawsuits and litigation, those sorts of things don't
solve the fundamental problem. We don't have enough domestic supply.
Until we address that fundamental problem, we will continue to be held
over a barrel and be at the mercy of these foreign countries telling us
what the price per barrel of oil and price per gallon of gasoline is
going to be.
I hope we can focus on that. We have some great solutions. My State
is a good example of what we have done with renewables. The Senator
from Iowa has a lot of great examples in his State of what we are doing
with renewable energy and wind. We have the resources to get this done.
It is high time we did it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from South
Dakota. He is expressing a very simple law that everybody learns in
economics 101: If you increase supply, it reduces price; if you
restrict supply, price goes up. What we want to do is increase the
supply of energy.
For myself, I want to explain earlier today my vote to invoke cloture
on the motion to proceed to S. 3044, the so-called Consumer-First
Energy Act or, another title, the antiprice-gouging bill. I want to
explain it because people might think that I am in support of
everything in the legislation. I will explain why I wasn't, but why I
thought we ought to move forward.
The legislation includes provisions that I have long supported,
including the no oil producing and exporting cartels legislation. I am
an original cosponsor of the NOPEC bill. This bill would authorize the
Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to bring
lawsuits against oil cartel members for antitrust violation because it
is a fact of American law, if oil companies were doing the price fixing
that OPEC countries do, these executives would be in jail. Yet we are
faced with the same anticompetitive environment from other countries.
As our gas prices continue to rise, it is time to say enough is
enough to OPEC anticompetitive activities. It is past time to let OPEC
know that we are committed to stopping illegal pricing, the same
illegal pricing that would put CEOs of major oil companies in jail.
This legislation also includes provisions aimed at reducing
speculation in oil markets. I support that. I can't say for certain
whether the provisions included in the bill will have the desired
effect. I can say, however, that something needs to be done to address
what seems to be out-of-control speculation in crude oil markets, and
speculation of crude oil tends to show up on the business pages of the
newspaper as a major cause of the increase in oil and, in turn,
gasoline.
I am pleased that recently the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
has taken steps in recent days and weeks to increase their access to
data and information that will hopefully allow them the proper
oversight and transparency of energy markets. Take a little bit of
speculation, take a little bit of unknown out of the market, more
transparency ought to help our markets work better.
In conjunction with what the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is
up to and my wanting to build on what they are doing, I asked Acting
Chairman Lukken and Commissioner Chilten very pointed questions during
a recent confirmation hearing in the Agriculture Committee on the
CFTC's oversight responsibilities. In addition, I sent a letter to the
CFTC today seeking more information about the CFTC's action to rein in
speculation by investment banks and traders on foreign exchanges.
I voted today as I did in a manner uncustomary of Republicans to
proceed to the bill because I think we need to have a debate on the
critical issue of energy prices. However, that doesn't mean I support
everything in S. 3044. The bill, for instance, included a windfall
profits tax on oil companies. I saw firsthand a couple decades ago the
result of a windfall profits tax the last time it was enacted. It
didn't do anything to produce more energy. Simple economics: You tax
something, you get less of it. Why would those on the other side
believe if you tax energy production, you would get more energy
produced? Of course, it is counterintuitive. Yet this bill doesn't
include a single provision to increase the production or supply of
traditional energy resources. Why aren't we considering policies to
develop the resources that God gave us at home? We have a huge supply
of oil and gas in Alaska. We could be opening areas of the Outer
Continental Shelf to exploration. We could be looking at Federal lands
onshore for energy production. These are things we could do this very
day that would increase supply and drive down prices. Yet they have
been blocked time after time by people on the other side.
If you think this is a partisan shot by a senior Republican, let me
suggest to you that I can show you rollcall after rollcall after
rollcall, not just recently but over a long period, of opposition from
the other side to increasing the supply of fossil fuels and the use of
fossil fuels we know. My constituents need to know why they are paying
$4 at the gas pump. Yet we in Washington have done little to increase
our own supplies.
Speaking from the grassroots of the State of Iowa, I want to remind
my colleagues of what I said last week on the floor of the Senate. Of
at least 14 out of the 17 town meetings I have had, the question came
up very simply: Why aren't we producing more oil? Why aren't we going
where the oil exists, with $4 gas? I can give a simple answer, and I
tell the people ahead of time in my town meetings. I try not to make
partisan comments, but occasionally I think I can when it is
intellectually honest to do it. I suggest to them that there is
opposition in the other party to more exploration, where we know there
is oil. We just don't have the votes to get the job done.
That could be considered a partisan shot, but I think I can back it
up with rollcalls. It is a justification to my constituents when I am
asked why we don't drill more where we know there is oil. Most of my
constituents expect you to do this in an environmentally sound way as
well. That doesn't, to me or my constituents, appear to be incompatible
because the United States is dependent upon oil cartels and foreign
countries such as Iran and Venezuela, very unstable, yet we have done
nothing to help ourselves. That is the way my constituents see it, as
evidenced by 14 out of 17 town meetings I held during the week of
Memorial Day. In the other three town meetings, it just did not happen
to come up.
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I believe oil is trading today at around $135 a barrel. Yet there is
an overwhelming aversion to environmentally sound resources developed
at home. We ought to be developing our domestic resources. There is no
rational reason not to, and at $4-a-gallon gas, consumers ought to be
outraged they are not exploring for more domestic resources, and
Congress making decisions to do that, and to do it so quickly that it
is telling people why it is not being done. At the grassroots of
America, we ought to be having the same march on the Capitol as when
people are outraged about other things, which we do not seem to be
having this time.
Maybe we will have this outraged expressed. It is a little bit of a
quandary to me why, at the grassroots of America, when gas goes from
$3.50 to $4, or from $3 to $4, it does not seem we are having as much
outrage as we had when gasoline was going from $1.50 to $1.75 about 4
years ago. Maybe it is because people have lost confidence in Congress.
I do not know. I can understand why you can lose confidence in Congress
when you have $4 gasoline and we know where there is 13 billion barrels
of oil in this part of the country and 7 billion barrels of oil in
other areas of the country and we are importing 10 to 15 million
barrels of oil a day and paying out to some foreign country money that
if we drilled in the United States we would keep in the United States.
The bill I am explaining to you takes billions of dollars of
permanent tax provisions and dumps them into a special piggy bank
designed to let appropriators dole out special interests checks for
their favorite spending projects. I know the rhetoric you have heard
today is to make big oil pay to lower the price of gasoline. But I can
promise you, there is absolutely nothing in this bill that accomplishes
that charge. This bill, flawed as it is, would have to be amended. Any
permanent tax provisions on the backs of the energy industry should
immediately go back into tax benefits that expand conservation and
clean energy tax provisions currently in the Internal Revenue Code.
We cannot put the cart before the horse. It is irresponsible to
change taxes for future undisclosed spending. It is even more
irresponsible to do this before we make certain the current tax
benefits available for wind, solar, alternative fuels, and much needed
conservation in buildings and homes.
It was wrong for the Democratic leadership to dump permanent tax
provisions into a slush fund for future appropriations. But those types
of wrongs cannot be fixed if we never proceed to the bill, hence why
this Senator voted as I did today, contrary to what a lot of the
members of my party did.
House Extenders Bill
I turn now to the tax extenders bill. I voted today on the second
rollcall along with 43 other Senators against invoking cloture on the
motion to proceed to H.R. 6049, the House extenders bill.
Earlier today, the Democrat leadership released a description of a
substitute extenders bill that included many provisions that were not
extenders.
As you know, I joined Senator McConnell in filing an extenders bill
last Friday that is not offset by increases in taxes elsewhere because
it is our policy that if you extend existing tax policy, you should not
have to raise taxes on somebody else for an extension of tax policies
that in some instances have been in place for 20 years.
Here are some of the reasons, then, why I opposed the Democratic
leadership bill and support the Republican leadership bill.
The Senate Democratic leadership bill contains numerous provisions
that do not either extend or make permanent expiring tax provisions. On
the other hand, the Republican bill really is an extenders bill, with
all the provisions in the Senate bill extending or making permanent
expiring tax provisions.
Included in the Senate Democratic leadership bill is a proposal to
give $1.2 billion in tax credits to New York City, even though New York
City does not pay Federal tax. This proposal is widely reported to fund
the building of a train from Manhattan to John F. Kennedy Airport,
through the use of New York Liberty Zone tax credits.
According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Congress has
never--and I want to emphasize ``never''--before provided a limited tax
benefit such as this to a governmental unit.
In addition, the bill provides a new $1.6 billion tax benefit just
for trial lawyers. Now, think about that. We are trying to extend tax
policy to bring economic development and create jobs, and it has
something in it for trial lawyers. It allows trial lawyers to deduct
their upfront expenses in contingency fee cases, even though they
expect to recover them when they win or settle the case. And these
trial lawyers do expect to win or settle their case; otherwise, they
would not take the case on a contingency fee basis.
So why should trial lawyers get a deduction for something they expect
to get back? We do not give lenders a current deduction when they make
a loan. Some would argue that this is a large chunk of pork that the
Democratic leadership bill is trying to feed to trial lawyers.
The Democratic leadership bill, for the first time in history, makes
tax benefits directly conditioned on the Davis-Bacon Act. That is the
prevailing wage requirement. It is added to a new provision called the
New Clean Renewable Energy Bonds.
The Senate Democratic leadership bill only extends provisions that
expire at the end of 2007 until the end of 2008, setting up another
extenders fire drill early next year. In contrast, our bill on the
Republican side generally extends provisions that expired at the end of
2007 until the end of 2009.
The Democratic leadership bill contains permanent tax provisions to
offset temporary extensions of current law. Anonymous Democratic
lobbyists are misstating the Republican position on offsetting expiring
tax relief provisions. The lobbyists have been quoted in the Roll Call
newspaper and other publications stating that part of the Republican
theology is opposition to offsets.
Republicans will support offsets if they make sense on the policy
merits. If the revenue-raising proposals make policy sense and offset
the revenue loss for new tax policy--I want to emphasize ``new tax
policy'' as opposed to extending existing tax policy--then it will
likely garner majority support among Senate Republicans.
However, one of the revenue raisers in the Democratic leadership bill
is a proposal to delay the effective date of the worldwide interest
allocation rules. This provision was enacted in the American Jobs
Creation Act of 2004, with a delayed effective date for revenue
purposes.
The decision to reform the interest allocation rules was bipartisan
back then in 2004. The reform came out of the Finance Committee working
group set up by Chairman Baucus in 2002 and passed the full Senate by a
vote of 92 to 5. So after a vote of 92 to 5--bipartisan--why would they
try to undo a very important provision in it? The current rules
actually penalize domestic manufacturers who compete in global markets
by making it more likely they will be double taxed on their foreign
income.
The Senate Democratic leadership bill would delay the effective date
even further--can you believe it--by 9 years, giving it an effective
date of 2018. This provision raises almost $29 billion over 10 years.
The President of the United States, aware of how important this
provision is that is going to take effect in 2009--that was actually
passed in 2004 to make our manufacturing competitive with international
competition--issued a statement of administration policy noting that
``the Administration strongly opposes the provision in the bill that
would subject U.S. companies to continued double taxation by delaying
the effect of new rules for allocating worldwide interest for foreign
tax credit purposes.''
Let's look at the Senate Republican alternative. I hope people
listening know that a minority in the Senate has a responsibility to
have alternatives, not just jab at the majority position. So we have
this responsible alternative. It contains alternative minimum tax
relief and extensions of individual and business tax provisions, but
with no offsets, following the philosophy we have that if you have had
tax policy in place for decades that tends to sunset from time to
time--it has been on the books--you should not
[[Page S5436]]
have to raise taxes on new people to extend it for a few more years. So
there are no offsets for the continuation of existing tax policy.
It also includes the Ensign-Cantwell energy tax incentives, an
unoffset provision which was approved by the Senate by a vote of 88 to
8. This means an overwhelming majority of this body were willing to
pass energy extenders without requiring offsets.
So why, if we have a vote of 88 to 8 to extend energy tax credits for
a few years, and we do not have to offset it--how does the other side
get the idea that if you had other tax policies that maybe have been on
the books for decades and sunset, you have to have offsets for that? I
do not understand the inconsistency.
The bottom line is, we need a package that can garner 60 votes in the
Senate and get a signature by the President of the United States. So
Senate Republicans will seek to proceed to the Senate Republican
leadership bill which contains a package of proposals that have
bipartisan agreement.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, and since I do not see other
Members ready to speak, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, this morning we had two more opportunities
to address rising gas prices and do something immediately as the price
of gas per gallon goes over $4 in Steubenville and almost $4 in Dayton
and even higher in some places in my State and in the Presiding
Officer's State of New Jersey. We had two more opportunities to address
rising gas prices immediately and longer term.
We need to start immediately to invest in renewable energy rather
than the other choice of continuing to line the pockets of big oil. We
could have helped to begin to create tens of thousands of good-paying,
green-collar jobs right here at home. Once again, the Bush
administration opposed our efforts and Republican Senators joined the
Bush administration and refused to put middle-class families first.
The Consumer-First Energy Act is a good first step in providing
immediate relief to drivers in Ohio and across the land who are faced
with soaring gasoline and diesel prices.
The other night I had a conference call with 20 truckers. Think about
what this has done to them. Many of them have had to sell their trucks.
They are simply not able to afford the $4.50 and up per gallon price of
diesel. Oil prices are setting record highs, it seems, every week, and
yesterday closed at over $136 a barrel.
This legislation will help in the short term and allow us to get
through and offer some assistance to motorists to get through the
summer driving season. The policies that created this gas price crisis
didn't happen overnight. Before we attack the long-term problems,
Ohioans need help now to get through the summer to keep trucks running,
to keep the economy moving, to keep food prices in check as the cost of
energy ripples through the whole economy and causes prices to go up
generally.
Cities throughout Ohio are struggling to pay gas bills for the police
cars, for EMS, for fire department vehicles, school buses, garbage
trucks, and mass transit services.
We need to roll back the massive tax breaks for oil companies which
would generate more than $17 billion to be used for green energy, for
renewable energy, and for energy efficiency. We will impose a 25-
percent windfall profits tax on companies that fail to invest in
increased capacity and renewable energy sources. We will ensure
purchases for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve do not resume, especially
when we are paying $120, $130, $140, $150 a barrel to put oil in the
reserve. We will provide protection for consumers from price gouging.
We call on the Justice Department again to be active and take on the
oil companies as they seem to price gouge. We will work to stop market
speculation, prevent traders of U.S. crude oil from routing
transmissions through offshore markets to evade speculative limits.
Ohioans play by the rules. Americans play by the rules. So should the
oil industry. So should the speculator. So should Wall Street.
There is so much we need to do. I call on my friends on that side of
the aisle to join with majority Democrats: no more filibusters and
let's get to work. Let's do the right thing short term to help American
motorists deal with these outrageously high prices, long term to, in
fact, after 30 years become energy independent and create the kinds of
green jobs a good energy policy can create.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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