[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 118 (Thursday, July 17, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6903-S6907]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I came to the floor on June 19 to address 
my colleagues and the Senate about energy prices, as many of us have, 
because there is no question that the Senator from Colorado and I, when 
we go home on the weekends, hear as the No. 1 concern on the part of 
Coloradans or Idahoans their energy bill--the price of gas at the pump.
  We are big western States. We travel long distances. When you roll 
into a gas station with your Ford F-150 and you start filling it up and 
you drive away, because it has dual tanks on it, having paid over $100 
to fill it, you have a problem. You have a problem because you had 
bought that vehicle to facilitate your ranch or your farm or your job 
and you had anticipated that the most you would probably ever pay was 
$25 or $30 to fill up. That is what you budgeted. That is what you 
understood the economic impact of that vehicle, necessary to your job 
or your business, would be on your job or your business. But in less 
than a year, that changed.
  That is the working man or woman's side of it. What about the soccer 
mom who travels around all over the community every day, dropping off 
her kids and going to the store and picking up goods and services and 
coming home and all of a sudden having an energy bill in the family 
budget that she and her husband had never anticipated would be there. 
We all know their salaries or their jobs are not going to compensate 
them because they are going to spend $500, $600, $1,000 or $2,000 more 
this year on their energy bill. That is only at pump, let alone at the 
meter that monitors the electricity at their home that is going to be 
going up; and the natural gas that is going to go through and into 
their heating systems and their stoves. That is going to be going up. 
There is no way for them, other than taking money from something else 
in their life, to offset that impact.
  Those people such as myself who spend a good deal of time, and have 
for 28 years, on the issue of energy, were very fearful that a day such 
as today would come, a day of reckoning, a day when our country that, 
almost 20 years ago, decided it would no longer be a producer but 
because of environmental policy and political attitude, we began to 
change. We decided we would try to offset production with conservation 
and, in large part, we said to the energy-producing segment of our 
economy it could no longer drill in America, go elsewhere.
  I will never forget meeting with the President of Amoco in Los 
Angeles about 15 years ago. He opined to me that the day would come 
when his company would have to leave this country because it could no 
longer produce in this country--and that is what happened. And doggone 
it, that is the truth. You can document it. You can see it happening. 
It happened. We put millions of acres off limits for one reason or 
another but largely because of an attitude in this country that somehow 
we were going to muck it up a little bit environmentally and we ought 
to leave it alone and it ought to be pure and it ought to be pristine. 
And, oh, by the way, energy is cheap. It was inexpensive at the time 
and we could buy it from somebody else. So basically we set the rest of 
the world to producing and we became increased consumers and increased 
buyers of foreign oil.
  During that last 20-year period, something else began to happen. The 
oil we were consuming was no longer owned by companies we had interests 
in, it was owned by nations. It was owned by nations that were 
sometimes friendly to us, sometimes not so friendly to us, but nations 
that began to recognize they could gain the wealth of America by 
selling it oil because America no longer wanted to produce. We grew 
from about 35 percent dependent upon oil when I came to Congress in 
1980, to, today, nearly 70 percent dependent. And those nations have us 
right by the gas nozzle today. They can do what they want. They are 
reaping our wealth at unprecedented rates--$1.2 billion a day--and they 
are turning around and buying back our companies and buying back our 
real estate with our money. But it is now under their ownership.

  The greatest wealth transfer in the world is taking place as we 
speak, as America drains itself dry for the need of energy, and a 
Congress unwilling to act responsibly and having failed to act 
responsibly for the last 20 years. It is a dilemma unparalleled in 
American history.
  When I came to the floor on June 19, I said there is an old country 
western song that says ``a little less talk and a lot more action.'' 
That was June 19. Now we are into mid-July. Oil prices went up nearly 
$15 more a barrel during that period of time and gas went from about 
$3.90 on average to $4.11 on the pump nationwide. Guess what. We still 
got a lot more talk but very little action.
  Why is America angry today at their politician? Because their 
politician is fearful of action.
  I once voted to lock up ANWR. I once voted to put off limits drilling 
out on the Outer Continental Shelf. It was for all my environmental 
friends. How do I change? How do I shift the political gears to meet 
the American people today who are saying simply go where the oil is, 
explore and develop and bring it on line. We need it desperately. It is 
draining our pocketbooks dry.
  That is the domestic economics side. What about the national security 
side, when we are 70 percent dependent on foreign oil? So it is a 
national domestic economic issue and it is a U.S. national security 
issue. Guess what, folks. A lot more talk and hardly any action. So 
when the President stepped up a month ago and said why don't you in 
Congress lift the ban on Outer Continental Shelf oil drilling, I turned 
around and called the White House and said: Why don't you, Mr. 
President? You did it by Executive order a couple of years ago for the 
politics of Florida. Why don't you act?
  He did act. He acted last week, in a responsible fashion, to lift the 
Executive order that limited the exploration

[[Page S6904]]

and development in the Outer Continental Shelf. Guess what happened. 
Between the combination of a realization that Americans were consuming 
less in the summer of 2008 versus the summer of 2007--down by nearly 15 
percent because they simply can't afford the oil and the gas anymore--
coupled with the President saying to the marketplace, there is a 
potential for development and more production, the oil price began to 
slide. In the last few days it has dropped from $147 to $134. If it 
continues to do that, we might see gas prices at the pump slip 15 cents 
or 20 cents. But I doubt that it will unless this Congress acts.
  The majority leader, the Democratic leader, came to the floor 
yesterday with a bill, 3268. What is it about? He says it is about 
speculation. What is speculation today? Is speculation the futures 
market that anticipates that gas may be going up so you hedge your 
investment against the future so you can offset the expense of new 
energy? Is that speculation or is that wise investment? I don't know. 
But I do know this, that in the legislation the Democratic leader has 
put up, there is not one drop of new oil in it; not one gallon of new 
gas in it; not one oil rig worth of new production in it.
  We listened to two experts today who came to the Senate to talk about 
energy. They said there is no easy way out. You have to have some 
production, but you need conservation.
  OK, look at the speculation side. Create greater transparency. Do all 
of those things. But it is truly a supply-and-demand market today and 
we are supplying less and demanding more. In this country in the last 
10 years, our demand curve went up dramatically as everybody rolled out 
in their F-150 Ford pickups--and I don't mean to be picking on Ford 
Motor Company or their big SUVs--and they were getting 12 or 15 or 16 
miles to the gallon and it was $2 and aren't we having fun, until it 
hit $4. Now they are mad and frustrated and angry and fearful of their 
future--and they have a right to be.
  Many of us believed this day would come; we just didn't know what day 
on the calendar it would occur. Because the old principle of supply and 
demand in the marketplace, you can't divert. It happens. When you are 
supplying less and demanding more, it happens.
  Here is a simple formula. Take every oil field in the world today 
that is producing, that has those big rigs on it pumping the oil--it 
depletes, meaning it uses up the oil in the strata that is underneath, 
at a rate of 4 percent to 5 percent a year. So the ability to have a 
field to continue to produce at the level it is begins to decline.
  On top of that, the world is demanding about 1.5 percent more oil 
every year than it did the year before. Why? We are growing, we are 
buying big cars, our economy grows--but something else has happened. 
There is a new economy across the Pacific known as China. All of a 
sudden, they became consumers of oil. They begin to buy in the world 
marketplace.
  Then there is another country further on across Asia known as India. 
They are consuming more and they are buying out of the same pools we 
are buying out of. All of a sudden the perfect marketplace storm 
occurred. We began to consume a great deal more than we were willing to 
produce. In this country we were consuming a great deal more than we 
were willing to produce, so the marketplace looked at it and said: Oh, 
we have a problem here. All of a sudden those who look at markets began 
to try to protect their future by buying into the future through the 
system--with no indication from us that we were going to do what was 
not politically correct, from the standpoint of our politics back home, 
but what was politically right for the American consumer; and that is, 
to get us back into the business of production.

  So I am telling the majority leader, you can bring a speculation bill 
to the floor, but this is a Senator who will not support it and will 
not vote for it if it does not have production in it. We cannot talk 
our way out of this one, we cannot manipulate our way out of this 
problem. We have to produce our way out of this problem, and we have to 
conserve our way out of this problem.
  Is it not interesting that when the world market began to discover 
that Americans had tightened their belts because they could no longer 
afford the gas at the pump and the consumption rate from last summer to 
this summer is down 15 to 20 percent and you have a world leader, this 
President, our President, stand and say: America, I am taking the 
limits off, in the ability of my office as President, through an 
Executive order, I am taking the limits off the Outer Continental 
Shelf, where we know there could be oil.
  Some of us have said we ought to do the same thing here. Next week 
there will be plenty of amendments, if the majority leader allows true 
legislative dynamics on this floor, a bill to come up and a bill to be 
amended because we will add production to his lots-more-talk and 
little-to-no-action bill.
  We will add production. If we do, and if it makes it to the President 
and if he signs it, I will bet you the price of oil in the world 
markets will begin to decline a little. Now, while that is all 
happening, in the next months and years, we have a lot of other work to 
do as a country. We have to bring on the hybrids, we have to bring on 
the electric cars, we have to learn to conserve in other ways.
  Last year, I broke stride with the auto industry. I said: Mandatory 4 
percent increase in CAFE fleet average standards. I had not done that 
in 28 years of my politics here. The auto companies came to me and 
said: Gee, why are you leaving us now?
  I said: I have not changed in 28 years and neither have you.
  I changed. I partnered with a Democrat, Byron Dorgan. We set a 
mandatory 4-percent CAFE standard for fleet averages of automobiles in 
this country. It became law. When it is fully implemented, over a 
period of time, it is akin to bringing on an oilfield that produces 1.5 
million barrels of oil a day because that is the amount that is saved.
  So as a Senator who has always been a supporter of production, I also 
recognize there is a lot that can be saved through conservation. There 
is a lot that can be saved through new technology. I believe the 
generation ahead of us, this next 10 years in the economy, is going to 
be the decade of energy.
  I think Americans are going to invest more and understand more about 
their energy and do more about their use of energy than they ever have 
in the decades before. Why? Because it is going to cost more. If it is 
going to cost more, there is probably more profit to be involved. If 
there is more profit to be involved, there is going to be more 
investment in it. But Congress, get out of the way. Quit being 
politically correct. Demand standards. Demand quality environmental 
procedure. But get out of the way, politicians. Let America produce 
once again. When we do, our economy will strengthen, the American 
families will fear less, our national security will be more assured, 
and we will not let the Venezuelas or the Nigerias or the Saudi Arabias 
or the Irans jerk us around by the gas nozzle the way they are doing 
now because, once again, as a great nation, we begin to stand on our 
own two feet.
  We have arrived at that break point in the world of energy. It is 
time we act, responsibly, directly, and that we deal with a lot more 
action and a lot less talk because our Nation became a nonproducing 
nation today because of politics and public policy, not because the oil 
was no longer there.
  Shame on us. Shame on the American politics of the last 10 years that 
denied production in this country. The American consumer, listen up: 
Call your Senator or call your Congressman right now and say: Pass a 
bill that allows us to drill.
  It is quite simple. Pass a bill that allows us to drill. The futures 
market will decline and gas at the pump will begin to drop and the 
American economy will begin to stabilize. It is going to take some 
time, but you have to act first. So, Mr. Leader, you can bring a 
talking bill to the floor but allow us to make it an action bill. Allow 
us to make it a production bill. Americans, call your Senators and say: 
Allow us to drill.
  It is that simple. That is how we change the world of American 
politics today, that for the last 20 years has denied the right of the 
American marketplace to produce the energy necessary to stay 
independent, free, and reasonable in price.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

[[Page S6905]]

  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I have been coming to the Senate floor 
to address the price of oil for several months now. It continues to 
astound me that every time I speak, the prices continue to go up.
  The average price of a gallon of regular gas hit $3.95 in Minnesota 
and $4.11 cents nationwide. The price of diesel fuel is at $4.76 per 
gallon. The price of crude oil recently hit an unbelievable $145 per 
barrel.
  There seems to be no relief in sight. Prices have gone up more than 
$1 per gallon over the last 6 months. Everyone knows that demand has 
not gone up 25 percent over the last 6 months, but the prices have gone 
up $1 per gallon over the last 6 months.
  This increase is astonishing. Even more astonishing is the fact that 
the administration has continued to do nothing about the speculation 
issue, continues to do nothing to push the CFTC to use the tools it has 
and to push for more tools to do something about the excessive 
speculation that is going on in this market.
  We cannot continue to do business as usual. I have heard from people 
in Minnesota who have canceled their trips up to their cabins because 
they simply cannot afford to fill their car with gas anymore. They have 
canceled their summer vacations. These are not glamorous summer 
vacations, these are little cabins up on the lakes of Minnesota.
  I have heard from farmers who are having a hard time making ends 
meet, even in spite of the high commodity prices, because the cost of 
their input, diesel fuel for farm equipment and fertilizer made from 
natural gas, has spiraled out of control.
  I have heard from the CEO of Northwest Airlines, based in Minnesota, 
about how the speculation in the oil markets has so greatly contributed 
to their cost and made it very difficult for them to continue business 
as usual with prices going up, grounding flights, not having as many 
flights leaving, leading to more delays in the summer, because if a 
passenger misses it, and we had a hearing on this in the Commerce 
Committee--there are not as many backup flights because there are not 
as many flights.
  So the list goes on. The high price of energy has inflated the price 
of everything from groceries, to transportation, to home heating. It 
has impacted every sector of the economy, from manufacturing to 
forestry, to farms and small businesses.
  Middle-class families are already struggling, as you know, with the 
high cost of health care and college education. We know we need to do 
things about that, but we keep getting blocked. We are very hopeful, 
with the new President, that we are going to be able to get things done 
for the middle class.
  But for now, we have people in my State who simply cannot afford the 
price of gas when you couple it with everything else that has been 
going on in their lives. We know the statistics. We know what has been 
happening, where average families in the last 8 years, their wages have 
gone down about $1,000 a year, but their expenses have gone up about 
$4,000; so that is a net loss of $5,000 a year to them.

  Many of the people in my State, and I know you know this, Mr. 
Presiding Officer, in Colorado, many of the people in my State are in 
rural areas. They do not have access to public transportation. They do 
not have a choice in how much they drive. They have to get to work. 
They have to get to the grocery store. They have to get to the doctor. 
Any pay increase they have gotten in the last year, if they have gotten 
one, has been eaten up by the cost of gas.
  More often than not, I will tell you, there has not been a pay 
increase. But yet, as recently as February of this year, the President 
seemed taken aback when someone asked him about $4-a-gallon gas. He 
said:

       You are predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline? That is 
     interesting. I had not heard that.

  The fact is this administration has failed to provide Americans with 
a meaningful energy policy that would provide relief from high gas and 
energy prices. They saw this coming. They saw it was going on in the 
international markets but they failed to act. This country needs a bold 
energy policy for the future, a policy that will stabilize prices and 
give consumers more alternatives and reduce our dependence on foreign 
oil and provide us with the next generation of homegrown biofuels.
  In short, I believe we have to invest in the people, the farmers and 
the workers, from my perspective, of the Midwest, not the oil cartels 
of the Mideast. The same could be said of any area of this country. 
This country spends $600,000 every minute on imported oil. That money 
leaves the pockets of American drivers, going overseas, and 
contributing to our enormous trade deficit. It amounts to a tax on the 
families and businesses of this country, and it undermines our national 
security.
  Why does it affect our national security? That is because America has 
roughly 3 percent of the world's proven crude oil reserves, but we are 
responsible for about 25 percent of the world's oil consumption. Now, 
we know we cannot continue on this path without becoming more and more 
vulnerable to other parts of the world, some of which are politically 
unstable, some of which we do not want to do business with.
  But there is another way. If you look at what is going on in Brazil, 
they have achieved energy security with a combination of biofuels. Now, 
they have sugarcane, so it is easier. But we have all kinds of things. 
We have all kinds of things: Switchgrass, prairie grass, that has not 
even been developed, other parts of the corn. We know we cannot do it 
all with corn. We are talking about algae, we are talking about 
biofuels. We are talking about residue from logging. There are all 
kinds of possibilities.
  But Brazil was able to do it with a combination of sugarcane and 
domestic production and a government policy that drove them to energy 
independence. We need to put together a forward-looking energy policy 
with the same sense of urgency we had 40 years ago when we put a man on 
the Moon.
  In the long term, this is going to mean strategic investment, putting 
these standards in place so people will push to buy the hybrid cars, 
electric cars, new solar technologies, cellulosic ethanol, other forms 
of energy for biomass.
  We need to have better fuel efficiency standards for our cars and 
trucks. I am proud the Senate, on a bipartisan basis, for the first 
time since I was in junior high school, increased the gas mileage 
standards on cars by 10 miles a gallon. But there is so much more we 
can do.
  We need a renewable electricity standard, we need to look at other 
sources, as I said, solar, we need to do more with nuclear, we need to 
do more to increase responsibly our domestic production. We need to 
have functioning refineries.
  These are long-term solutions. I believe very strongly they are 
important, and we need to get them done.
  But there is also something we can do in the short term about high 
gas prices that will bring immediate relief; that is, to address the 
role market speculation is playing in driving up energy prices. The 
administration likes to tell us these high gas prices are just a simple 
case of supply and demand; more people are driving, so the price of gas 
goes up. We know that is not true in our country. Fewer people are 
driving. There have been some increases internationally, but when the 
expert, Mr. Yergin, testified before our committee, he said there has 
been sort of a leveling off in terms of demand for world oil. Whatever 
it is, we know that even if there has been an increase in demand, it 
hasn't been 25 percent, such as we have seen with the dollar-a-gallon 
increase in only the last 6 months. The answer that it is just supply 
and demand doesn't hold true any longer.
  Listen to the oil executives on this matter. On October 30, 2007, the 
CEO of Marathon Oil said:

       $100 oil isn't justified by the physical demand in the 
     market.

  On April 11 of this year, the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell said:

       The [oil] fundamentals are no problem. They are the same as 
     they were when oil was selling for $60 a barrel.

  On April 1, a senior vice president of ExxonMobil testified before 
the House:

       The price of oil should be about $50-55 per barrel.


[[Page S6906]]


  If oil should be roughly $50 to $60 a barrel given market 
fundamentals, as we heard from the oil executives, why is it trading so 
high? Why is it trading at over $100 a barrel? If supply and demand, 
which should be the market forces which determine price, don't explain 
the high price of gas, what does? According to the experts, there is a 
frenzy of unregulated market speculation in the oil futures market that 
is driving prices up to record highs.
  I would like to share a quote from an energy market analyst with 
Oppenheimer and Co. who was recently named by Bloomberg as the top-
ranked energy analyst in the country:

       I'm absolutely convinced that oil prices shouldn't be a 
     dime above $55 a barrel . . . Oil speculators include the 
     largest financial institutions in the world. I call it the 
     world's largest gambling hall . . . It's open 24/7 . . . It's 
     totally unregulated . . . This is like a highway with no cops 
     and no speed limit, and everybody's going 120 miles per hour.

  Why are these trades in a commodity as vital as oil unregulated? You 
have to go back in time, to the middle of the night in 2000. A 
provision was inserted into the Commodities Futures Modernization Act 
that exempted electronic energy trades from Federal regulation. In the 
absence of oversight, what was once a small niche market became a 
booming industry, attracting rampant speculation from hedge funds and 
investment banks, the largest financial institutions in the world. Oil 
and natural gas prices became volatile. The provision came to be known 
as the Enron loophole because it made possible the many abuses that 
triggered the Western energy crisis and led, in part, to the collapse 
of Enron and cost the economy $35 billion and 600,000 jobs.
  I am pleased to say that we succeeded in partly closing the Enron 
loophole in the farm bill. Those provisions will provide new 
protections in the natural gas market. They will put a new regulatory 
structure on ICE, the electronic exchange in Atlanta, where large 
traders try to game natural gas futures on an unregulated electronic 
exchange. But we need to do more. That is why I am proud to be a 
cosponsor of the Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act of 2008. It was 
introduced by our leader, Harry Reid, and my colleagues, Senators 
Durbin, Schumer, Dorgan, Murray, and others.
  This bill has a number of provisions that will fight the kind of 
excessive speculation that drives up energy prices for hard-working 
American families.
  This bill will close the so-called London loophole. It will stop 
traders from routing transactions through offshore markets in order to 
get around limits on speculation put in place by U.S. regulators. 
Specifically, the Intercontinental Exchange, or ICE, in London allows 
trading in American oil futures, gasoline and home heating oil, with 
far less stringent reporting requirements than what we have at home. 
This has driven a lot of energy trading offshore and out of the reach 
of our regulators. This bill will make those foreign trades in American 
oil and gasoline futures subject to the same reporting requirements as 
trades made at home, so we can stop a glut of overseas trades from 
driving up our energy prices.
  The bill would also require the CFTC to review letters of no action 
it has issued to the ICE electronic exchange in Atlanta and the Dubai 
electronic exchange which operates in cooperation with NYMEX in New 
York. With those no-action letters, the CFTC gave these exchanges 
permission to operate in this country and trade in American energy 
futures with no oversight from U.S. regulators. I don't think I can 
tell the people of my State, in Duluth or Rochester, that they should 
rest easy because the Dubai Financial Services Authority is looking out 
for them. They know that is not true. We need to let speculators know 
that if they want to trade in American energy futures, they are going 
to be subject to American regulation.
  We had the head of the CFTC testify before a joint meeting of the 
Agriculture and Appropriations Committees. I still can't quite believe 
the meeting. He was happy that we will give him more people to work in 
his agency since they have had an enormous decrease at the same time we 
have seen an enormous increase in rampant speculation. But I tried to 
push him. I said: When I was a prosecutor, I would want every potential 
way of trying to get evidence, trying to prosecute a case or get a 
sentence or a bill if it made sense and we could use it in going after 
a crook. It wouldn't mean we always used them. Some of them we maybe 
used once a year. With some of them, we have a hammer over someone's 
head. Some of them we used all the time. But you want to have those 
tools. He didn't seem that interested. That was the moment I thought: 
We are going to do everything we can to prop up this agency and get it 
moving, but we have to have people in charge who really want to do the 
job.
  That is why I am so concerned about this administration. You haven't 
seen the same thing in the financial services area, where you have 
Secretary Paulson and Ben Bernanke working hard on this crisis, along 
with people in Congress on an equal footing, trying to get things done, 
communicating with us. I just didn't get that same feeling when we had 
that testimony before our committee.
  What else will this bill do? This bill will also convene an 
international working group of financial market regulators to develop 
uniform reporting and regulatory standards in the major trading centers 
of the world to put an end to this problem of speculators shopping 
around the world for the weakest regulations.
  The bill will require the CFTC to impose position limits on 
speculators who trade in energy futures but don't actually produce 
energy or receive physical delivery of energy commodities. So if you 
are an investor who buys and sells oil futures but you don't plan to 
even take delivery of actual barrels of oil, this bill will limit how 
much you can buy and sell so that you won't be distorting prices for 
your own personal gain. We know that has been going on. A lot of these 
people took the money, the funds, out of the subprime mortgage market 
and then started playing around in the oil market even though they are 
not truly involved.
  Lastly, this bill is going to give the Commodity Futures Trading 
Commission the funding authority to hire at least 100 full-time 
employees so that the Commission can strengthen its regulations and 
improve its enforcement over the energy derivative markets. As a former 
prosecutor, I can tell you that good laws are not enough. You also need 
strong enforcement. You need the cops on the beat so that you can 
follow the money. When we follow the money in this $4-a-gallon gas, 
when we follow the money, we know where it is going to lead. We know it 
is going to lead--at least a piece of it--to market manipulation and 
speculation.
  In conclusion, the cost of energy is hurting Americans from all walks 
of life and businesses in every sector of the economy. I don't think 
there is one silver bullet that will solve our energy crisis. It is 
more like a silver buckshot. We need a bold energy policy to carry the 
Nation forward. It needs to include both short-term and long-term 
solutions.

  In the short term, we need to pass this bill and place stronger 
limits on market speculation. That will make a difference in the short 
term.
  In the long term, we need to develop our energy resources at home. We 
need to improve refining capacity. We need to improve our domestic 
production. This is for the long term, so when speculators, even 
legitimate ones, are looking at America and thinking how much the price 
of oil is, they need to know we actually have a long-term plan. That, 
ultimately, is what will bring down the price, when they know we are 
ready to compete with big oil, that we have a plan, using increased 
efficiency of cars and trucks, that we have a plan which means looking 
at biofuels and truly having a competitive force. Maybe it is not E85; 
maybe it is E10, E20, so we have a blend of fuel. We have to invest in 
the research to get us those vehicles and get us that energy. We have 
to make a national commitment to generate electricity from renewable 
sources, just as my State of Minnesota does. I know there is 
groundbreaking work occurring in Colorado.
  Finally, we have to embrace conservation. This is no longer Jimmy 
Carter going on TV in a sweater and looking glum. The people of this 
country see this not only as an environmental issue, they see it as an 
economic issue. They want to save a few

[[Page S6907]]

bucks, whether it means putting in the right kind of lightbulbs or 
meters on their washers and dryers so they can figure out when to run 
them, whether it is more fuel-efficient cars. They want to do something 
differently. They are ready in my State to embrace conservation as a 
way to save money for their families.
  The time is now for Congress to take strong steps toward creating a 
bold energy policy. American families are depending on us.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. McCASKILL: I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________