[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.

[[Page S5435]]

  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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