[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 118 (Thursday, July 17, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6911-S6916]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am very pleased to have a chance 
to speak today about the problem of health care in our country.
  We are coming into a potentially very exciting time, when a new 
President and new administration will open up new opportunities to 
reform our ailing and broken health care system. It is a matter of 
urgency that we do so. It is also a matter of urgency that we get it 
right.
  I have spoken on this issue on a number of occasions on the floor and 
elsewhere, and I often describe the marks

[[Page S6912]]

of failure of our health care system, which are many. For example, the 
number of uninsured Americans is now climbing toward 50 million people. 
The fact is that despite the best doctors, the best nurses, the best 
medical equipment and procedures, the best medical education in the 
world, as many as 100,000 Americans are killed every year by avoidable 
medical errors. In the United States, our life expectancy, our obesity, 
and our infant mortality rates are an embarrassment compared to other 
nations.
  The health care system cost is over $2 trillion. The last report I 
saw was at $2.3 trillion, and it is anticipated shortly to reach $4 
trillion. At this point, we are spending 16 percent of our gross 
domestic product on health care, which is far more than any other 
nation; the closest nation comes to 11 percent. The average of the 
European Union countries is only 8 percent. So we are putting twice as 
much of our national product into our health care system as our 
European competitors are.
  Within our own system, the insurance companies' overhead eats up 31 
percent of private insurance health care expenditures. In the battle 
between insurers and providers over getting paid--which is becoming 
increasingly an arms race--$20 billion per year gets burned up and 
lost.
  More American families are bankrupted by health care emergencies and 
health care expenses than any other cause. It is not just uninsured 
families who are being bankrupted. It is the insured as well because of 
the thinness of so much of our coverage. There is more health care than 
coffee beans in Starbucks coffee. There is more health care than steel 
in Ford automobiles.
  So when you look at it from that perspective, you truly see a 
troubled system.
  The Commonwealth Fund has recently put forward a report that drills 
into the problems of our system even further. I would like to take some 
time to share with my colleagues the findings from the Commonwealth 
Fund study. They are quite impressive, but not in a positive way.
  They found that Americans spend more on health care expenses than any 
other of the countries they tracked. This axis of the graph shows total 
health care spending. This axis of the graph shows the out-of-pocket 
spending in addition to the insured health care spending. You can see 
that the United States stands as an extreme outlier to all of these 
other nations, including France, Germany, Canada, Netherlands, 
Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, and the average of the OECD 
countries--a group of 30 market economy countries that are very 
competitive with ours.
  It is astonishing. We cannot remain competitive when total health 
care spending is this much above those countries, plus out-of-pocket 
demands on individual Americans, in addition to that national health 
care spending, is so much greater than those other countries.
  People who spent more than $1,000 out of pocket for medical care in 
2004 when the study was done: In the United States, nearly a third of 
the above-average income people; a quarter of below-average income 
people, compared to the United Kingdom, 2 percent and 5 percent; New 
Zealand, 4 percent and 6 percent; Canada, 10 percent and 12 percent; 
Australia, 8 percent and 21 percent. We are not even close.
  Spending on physician services: In the United States, we pay $1,362 
every year per capita on physician services. In the Nations with which 
we compete: Japan $563; OECD, the average is $482; Australia, $436; 
France, $371; Canada, $319; Germany, $307. That is a quarter of what we 
spend. And they are not receiving bad health care in those countries.
  Pharmaceutical spending is a little bit more even but, once again, 
who has to spend the most? Good old USA, more than twice what the OECD 
average is or The Netherlands; about twice what Australia is. Over and 
over, we see persons punished by the cost of the health care system.
  Here is what I mentioned earlier, the percentage of the gross 
domestic product spent on health care: America, 16 percent; the next 
highest is just under 11; OECD, the average is 8.7 percent. This is not 
a sustainable situation.
  Health care spending per capita, $6,102 for Americans, compared to 
the competing systems: Canada, $3,165; France, $3,159; The Netherlands, 
Germany, Australia, OECD, UK, Japan, New Zealand, down to $2,083, about 
a third of what we spend in the United States of America. And they have 
very decent health care systems and, in many cases, better health care 
outcomes.
  This is similar to the other graph showing that $6,102 goes per 
capita per year to support our health care system. This shows that if 
you break it up into public spending in the yellow, out-of-pocket 
spending in the white, and private insurance spending in the blue, if 
you take the private and out-of-pocket spending, it is more than every 
other country with which we compete. That entire $2,572 per person in 
private insurance spending is all above what everybody else has to pay 
for health care in their countries. No wonder facts such as these 
emerge.
  Physicians perceive that patients often have difficulty paying for 
medications: 51 percent of American doctors have observed in their 
professions that we Americans have difficulty paying for our 
prescriptions--51 percent. In New Zealand, the next highest, it is 27 
percent; Canada, 24 percent; Germany, 23 percent; Australia, 15 
percent; UK, 13 percent; down to Netherlands, 7 percent. Wouldn't we be 
better off as a country if only 7 percent of physicians reported that 
their patients often had trouble paying for medications?
  And for all of that, look at some of the results we get. Deaths due 
to surgical or medical mishaps per 100,000 population: America leads 
the nations with .7 mishaps per 100,000; .6 for Germany; .5 for Canada 
and France, all the way down to .2 for Japan and The Netherlands. We 
pay more, but we don't get better results.
  This one makes me cringe to look at. Infant mortality rate for our 
country: 7 deaths per 1,000 live births. Look at the countries that 
beat us in infant mortality: New Zealand, Canada, United Kingdom, 
Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Australia, Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, 
Denmark, Belgium, Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, France, Spain, 
Norway, Sweden, Finland, Japan, and Iceland, with many countries with 
an infant mortality rate half our country's, despite the fact we are 
spending twice as much on health care.
  If we look at potential years of life lost to circulatory illness, 
which means dying younger than you should have, America leads: 825 
potential years of life lost per 100,000 population; Australia, 419; 
France, 411, half as much. It is embarrassing.
  Potential years of life lost due to diabetes: In the U.S., again, 
101, down to Japan, 25, four times better. Look at how we are outliers 
against the rest of our competitors and against these other developed 
nations.
  Diseases of the respiratory system: Here we go again. Who is the 
worst? The USA.
  Obesity: This is a huge indicator of future illness and future health 
care expense. Again, who is the worst? Madam President, 30.6 percent in 
the U.S., down to 9.5 percent in France; 10.9 percent in The 
Netherlands; 12.9 percent for Germany; the OECD average, 13 percent. We 
are twice as bad as the OECD average.
  Look at the system that is backing it up. Patients reporting any 
error based on the number of doctors they have seen: If they have 4 or 
more doctors, 48 percent of American patients reported errors; with 1 
doctor, it is 22 percent. We are worse than all the other countries 
again and again.
  It is similar for medical, medication, and lab errors. Who is the 
worst? The United States, with 34 percent compared to 22 percent in the 
UK; 23 percent for Germany; 25 percent for New Zealand; 27 percent for 
Australia; 30 percent for Canada.
  Incorrect lab and diagnostic test or delay in receiving abnormal test 
results: Again, who has the worst record? The U.S., 23 percent. The 
Germans managed to get that down to 9 percent. We are more than twice 
as bad as they are.
  Coordination of care, vitally important for people who have multiple 
illnesses and multiple treatments, reporting of coordination problems: 
The U.S., 43 percent for those with 4 or more doctors; 22 percent for 
those with 1 doctor. That is again, worse than all of our competitors 
that were in the study.

  Difficulty getting care on nights, weekends, and holidays without 
going

[[Page S6913]]

to the ER: It has become standard in America that the place you get 
care on nights, weekends, and holidays is the emergency room, and that 
is why 61 percent of adults who sought care reported it was very or 
somewhat difficult to get care without going to the emergency room. In 
Germany and New Zealand, they managed to get that to 25 percent and 28 
percent respectively, another measure that the system is not serving 
the American people.
  Test results or medical records not available at the time of 
appointment: 23 percent compared to 11 in Germany. Again, we are the 
worst on the table.
  Doctors who report they routinely receive alerts about potential 
problems with drug dosage or drug interactions: In the United Kingdom, 
91 percent report they receive alerts about a potential problem with a 
drug dosage or interaction; 97 if you include those who use a manual 
system; 93 percent total in New Zealand; 95 percent in The Netherlands; 
90 percent in Australia; 51 percent in the United States. We are not 
even close by a lot of these measures.
  Here is our public investment per capita in health information 
technology, which is probably the platform to the solution of our 
health care dilemma: United Kingdom, 192 bucks per person in 2005; 
Canada, $31; Germany, $21; Australia, $4.93. Here is what we invest in 
the U.S.: 43 cents--43 cents--to develop health information technology. 
No wonder we are getting those results we saw.
  And here they are, primary care doctors' use of electronic patient 
medical records: 98 percent of primary care doctors use electronic 
patient medical records in The Netherlands; 92 percent in New Zealand; 
89 percent in the UK; 79 percent in Australia; 42 percent in Germany; 
and look at us, 28 percent. It is pathetic.
  And where are the financial incentives to encourage doctors to do it? 
Why is it at 28 percent? Look who reports they have financial 
incentives for quality of care improvements: 95 percent do in the UK; 
79 percent in New Zealand; 72 percent in Australia. Who, again, is the 
worst? Who again is trailing the civilized, developed world? The United 
States of America. Again, it is embarrassing.
  If you are managing patients with chronic disease, which is where the 
big money is and where the biggest health risks are, how many primary 
care doctors get financial incentives for quality of care improvement: 
79 percent do in the United Kingdom; 68 percent do in New Zealand; 62 
percent in Australia; in The Netherlands, 47 percent; in Canada, 37 
percent; in Germany, 24 percent. Look at us, 8 percent. And we wonder 
why there is a problem.
  We are not even happy about the system and our interactions dealing 
with it. Does your doctor always listen carefully? Who comes in last? 
The U.S.
  Does your doctor always explain things so you can understand them? 
Who comes in last? The U.S.
  Does your doctor always spend enough time with you? Who comes in 
last? The U.S.
  I know I have taken everybody through a lot of graphs. There are a 
lot more in the overall study by the Commonwealth Fund. This is the 
wrap-up of the ranks for 2004, 2006, and 2007 of the six nations. Who 
is last every year? Sixth place for six; sixth place for six; sixth 
place for six; and for $6,102 per person compared to about $3,000 or 
less for almost every other one of our competitors.
  This is what it leads to. This is spending on health per capita. Back 
in 1980, all the nations were grouped fairly closely together. The 
other nations have remained fairly closely grouped. But look at what 
has happened to our cost profile, and it is going to continue to go up 
and up and up and up, and we are going to come to a breaking point.
  David Walker, the former Comptroller General, has said the cost of 
the unfunded liability we bear for the future costs of entitlement 
programs is $53 trillion. I come from Rhode Island. We don't deal in 
trillions of dollars. Our whole State budget is a little over $5 
billion.
  What is $53 trillion? If a penny is $1 billion and 5 pennies is a 
stack about this high, which will be the entire State of Rhode Island 
budget, $53 trillion is a stack of pennies more than 250 feet high, 
through the roof of this building and hundreds of feet into the air.
  What we are going to have is a health care calamity. We have two 
choices as to how we deal with it. We can wait around. We can wait 
until the wolf is at the door and then we can decide we cannot afford 
$53 trillion. We can make fiscal adjustments to that. We know what 
fiscal adjustments we can make. We have done some already. You pay 
providers less. You throw more people off health care. You make 
insurance coverage thinner. You raise taxes to pay for it. But we have 
gone down all those roads already. We have gone too far down those 
roads already. And if we are left with only those tools in the toolbox 
to solve this health care problem, we will be doing one of the gravest 
disservices this Congress has ever done to the country we are here to 
serve. Instead, we have to go and look at the health care delivery 
system and repair it so it provides better results.

  The good news from all the bad news on those charts is that there is 
enormous room for improvement. We can substantially reduce the cost. 
There are three important ways I think we can go about doing this. The 
first is to improve our health information technology. We need to have 
a national health information technology infrastructure. The RAND 
Corporation values having a national health information technology 
infrastructure at somewhere between $81 billion and $346 billion per 
year. That type of savings is worth spending some serious money to 
achieve--not the 43 cents per person we saw on the graph. We have to 
engage in a national urgent construction project of a health 
information technology infrastructure.
  The second thing we have to address significantly is the problem of 
quality and the underinvestment in prevention in our system right now. 
There are enormous savings to be reached there. In a project we are 
doing in Rhode Island, copying the Keystone project in Michigan, we are 
seeing significant savings in our intensive care units and improving 
quality of care. In Michigan, in 15 months, they saved about 1,500 
lives, and they saved about $150 million. And it wasn't even in all the 
intensive care units in Michigan. There are huge savings from quality 
improvement if you can set up the incentives so people will do it.
  When we set this up in Rhode Island, the hospitals came to me--I was 
attorney general then--and they said: we will do this, but it is going 
to cost $400,000 a year. And I said: Yes, but it saves money. Keystone 
showed that. We think it will save $8 million. That is a 20-to-1 
return. Go. And they said: No, no, no, you don't understand how it 
works in the health care system. That $400,000 comes out of our 
expenditures. That is a negative on our bottom line. That $8 million 
savings comes out of our revenues. We get reimbursed for that care. So 
we will lose $8 million in revenues if you ask us to spend this 
$400,000. That is a big hit.
  They agreed to do it, but I have taken aboard in my mind and my heart 
the lesson of how badly our health care system supports providers when 
they try to improve the quality of care in this very tough financial 
environment they are in.
  That brings us to the third piece. Health information technology was 
first, quality prevention investment in ways that will save costs is 
second, and the third is to reform the reimbursement system so the 
price signal that gets sent into the market by our health care system 
directs people in ways we want.
  We can't do this on a piecemeal basis any longer. These three ideas 
can dramatically reform our health care system. They have one problem. 
They will take some time. You can't turn the switch and make them go. 
We have some work to do to develop the strategy, to implement it, and 
to build what new infrastructure has to be constructed to make it work. 
I would guess, based on an experience I had in Rhode Island with a 
similar reform, that it is a 10-to-15-year lead time to have the full 
effect begin to show itself.
  And you know what, if you dial back from the time when that $53 
trillion fiscal tsunami is going to hit this country, that 10 to 15 
years is probably right now. So not only is a new administration with a 
new President and new energy and new opportunities a great chance in 
the coming year to begin to

[[Page S6914]]

get this work done and to open a substantial reform of our health care 
system, but it is also, in many respects, a deadline.
  You can go by a highway exit and it is too late to come back to it, 
and I am afraid that is where we are right now. So as I prepare to 
conclude my remarks and yield the floor, I want to say to my 
colleagues: we are going to have to work very hard together to fix our 
health care system in the coming year. I know the financing problems 
and the access problems are real, but I urge and implore you to 
consider that it is not enough to repair the finance and the access 
problems of our health care system. We need to get into the delivery 
system and fix it so it provides better, less expensive, more efficient 
health care for Americans.
  I believe we can do it, and I believe it is not a partisan issue. It 
is a question of right versus wrong, smart versus stupid, wasteful 
versus efficient, and not right versus left or Republican versus 
Democrat. So I challenge my colleagues to join me in this fight, and I 
look forward to the important results from it that America needs.
  I thank the Presiding Officer for recognizing me, and I yield the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I am introducing two bills today, the 
second of which resolves the problem of the gas price crisis at the 
pumps today.
  (The remarks of Mr. Inhofe pertaining to the introduction of S. 3280 
and S. 3281 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on 
Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized.
  Mr. VOINOVICH. Madam President, I rise today to speak about an issue 
that weighs heavily on the minds of every Ohioan--the skyrocketing cost 
of gasoline. There have been many elaborate theories bandied about on 
the floor of the Senate in the last month as to why gasoline is so 
expensive. We have heard that investors are driving up the cost of oil 
by 20 to 30 percent. But businessman Warren Buffett has said ``it's not 
speculation, it's supply and demand.'' And Paul Krugman wrote in an op-
ed, ``the hyperventilation over oil market speculation is distracting 
us from the real issues.''
  Madam President, I will insert for the Record an article which 
appeared in the July 7-14 Newsweek edition by Robert Samuelson titled 
``Let's Shoot the Speculators!'' The quote I want to make as part of my 
speech is:

       Gosh, if only it were that simple. Speculator-bashing is 
     another exercise in scapegoating and grandstanding. Leading 
     politicians either don't understand what's happening or don't 
     want to acknowledge their complicity.

  There have also been calls to increase production in the 68 million 
nonproducing acres that are already leased. Some of my colleagues are 
claiming that hundreds of small, medium, and large oil companies are 
colluding to not drill on their current leases because they want to 
restrict the supply so they can increase profits. At the same time, 
those same colleagues accuse the industry of wanting to open ANWR and 
the OCS to more drilling to increase profits by increasing supply. That 
makes absolutely no sense.

  I think we can all agree this is a complicated issue with moving 
parts. Congress cannot afford to address the factors contributing to 
the high gas prices individually as we are doing today. We must look at 
the pieces comprehensively and find solutions to combat this crisis 
from all angles, and we have to act now.
  Over the past months, I have heard loudly and clearly from thousands 
of Ohioans how this crisis is directly affecting them and their loved 
ones. In fact, this past July 4 recess I was talking with folks about 
high gas prices. They are frustrated and angry--frustrated at the high 
cost of gasoline and angry that Congress wasn't getting off its you 
know what to do anything about it. They told me about how the price of 
gasoline is affecting them where it hurts--right in their pocketbook. 
It is affecting vacation plans for those families who planned to take 
long trips this summer. It is affecting people who have to drive long 
distances for a living. And it is particularly affecting people who 
live on the financial edge.
  The truth is, with the high cost of natural gas, and the high cost of 
gasoline and food, the standard of living of millions of Americans is 
being impacted substantially.
  Other Ohioans have written to me, and one letter I think about quite 
often was from Mary Keener, who works at the James Cancer Center in 
Columbus. She wrote to my office to tell me about her concerns for 
patients living in Ohio's Appalachian region. She says:

       Patients call our office and say: ``I know I need this 
     cancer treatment to live, but I can't afford to buy the gas 
     to get it. Can you help me?''

  Every day, more and more Ohioans contact me and it is becoming clear 
that they get it. They realize we need to increase our oil supply and 
develop a comprehensive energy strategy.
  Sadly, this crisis could have been averted. We have known for years 
that we need a comprehensive energy strategy, and I have been calling 
for one since I came to the Senate in 1999. In 2002, after the Senate 
failed to pass the provision that would have opened ANWR and 
dramatically increased our domestic energy production, I said:

       As we go down the road, I think those that voted against 
     this amendment will regret their vote when we face the 
     sticker shock at the gas pump and the eventual impact that 
     continued dependency on foreign oil will have on our national 
     security, economy, and our foreign trade deficit.

  Since that vote, gas prices have increased more than 200 percent. 
Meanwhile, it took 5 years and 6 weeks of floor debate for Congress to 
pass the 2005 Energy Policy Act, a bill that only provided limited 
strides forward. And while the bill took modest steps to improve 
national energy efficiency, boost research and development funding for 
advanced energy technologies, and promote increased use of biofuels, it 
did not go far enough toward increasing our domestic energy supply.
  For years, the gap in the United States between demand and domestic 
supply has been widening. In fact, U.S. oil production has steadily 
declined since 1970, when it was nearly 10 million barrels per day, to 
5.1 barrels in 2007. So with less domestic resources available, we have 
been forced to seek energy abroad.
  In 1973, the United States imported 6 million barrels of oil per day, 
or 34 percent of our total supply. By 2006, net oil imports were 12.4 
million barrels per day, or 60 percent of our total liquid fuel use.
  This chart gives you an idea of what has happened. Our domestic oil 
production has gone down and our need for imported oil has gone up. You 
can see the gap that exists. And the only way we are going to make any 
progress is to reduce that gap that is so pronounced today.
  While Americans understand we need to increase the supply of oil, I 
am not sure they fully realize to what extent our life is threatened by 
our reliance on foreign sources of oil. Every year we send billions of 
dollars overseas for oil to pad the coffers of many nations that don't 
have our best interest at heart, such as Venezuela, whose leader has 
threatened to cut oil off to the United States.
  In fact, in 2007, we spent more than $327 billion to import oil. 
Sixty percent of this, or nearly $200 billion, went to the oil 
exporting OPEC nations. In 2008, the amount we will spend to import oil 
is expected to double to more than $600 billion, $360 billion of which 
is going to go to the OPEC nations. Let's take a moment to put those 
figures into context, when compared to our fiscal year 2008 budget for 
our national defense, which was more than $693 billion. The $600 
billion we will spend to import oil in 2008 is nearly equal--it is 
nearly equal--to the entire defense budget of the United States.
  Our dependence on foreign oil has serious national security 
implications. In addition to funding our enemies, as I explained, we 
cannot ignore the fact that much of our oil comes from and travels 
through the most volatile regions of the world. A couple of years ago I 
attended a series of war games hosted by the National Defense 
University. I saw firsthand how our country's economy could be brought 
to its knees if somebody wanted to cut off our oil, as was done in 
1973.
  Do you know that 80 percent of the global oil routes flow through 
unstable countries, such as Iran? Over 40 percent of the world's oil 
travels through the Strait of Hormuz.

[[Page S6915]]

  Just to give an idea, this graph reflects where we are getting our 
oil. Here is Venezuela--Chavez, the dictator down there who is working 
against our interests constantly in South America. He is no friend of 
ours. The Middle East. We know what we have over in this unstable part 
of the world. Our concern about Iran is also impacting on the price of 
oil, because people are not certain what is going to happen in terms of 
Iran.
  Our dependence on foreign oil is even more troubling when you 
consider our Nation's financial situation. The decline of the dollar 
has had a direct effect on increasing prices of gasoline. In fact, many 
experts say we are paying substantially more to export oil today 
because of the weak dollar.
  We cannot overlook our national debt. Today, 51 percent of the 
privately owned national debt is held by foreign creditors, mostly 
foreign central banks. That is up from 6 years ago. Foreign creditors 
provided more than 70 percent of the funds the United States has 
borrowed since 2001, according to the Department of the Treasury.
  Who are these creditors? According to the Treasury Department, the 
three largest holders of U.S. debt are China, Japan, and OPEC. This is 
insane. It has to stop. We cannot afford to allow at this time 
countries that control our oil and our debt to control the future of 
the United States of America.
  We need to enact an energy policy that broadens our base of energy 
resources to create stability, maintain reasonable prices, and protect 
our Nation's security. It must be a policy that will keep energy 
affordable, and it must be a policy that will not cripple the engines 
of commerce that fund the research that will yield environmental 
protection technologies for the future.
  We need a second Declaration of Independence to move us away from 
foreign sources of energy in the near term and away from oil in the 
long term.
  This is not going to be easy. As you know, oil is not easily found 
nor substituted, and it will remain an integral part of our economy in 
the short term. But we must make investments today that will help us 
achieve our goal tomorrow. To do this, I believe we must increase our 
supply, reduce our demand through alternative energies, and conserve 
what we already have.
  We are trying to get folks to understand that if we want relief from 
high gas costs, we must begin to make investments today that will help 
us achieve our goal tomorrow. We talked a lot in recent weeks about 
finding more and using less. If we had accomplished this 10 years ago, 
I would not be here talking about the high price of gasoline and the 
suffering of Ohioans in my State.
  In order to stabilize our Nation's energy supply, we must enact 
policies to increase development of domestic oil. While these resources 
will not physically come on line for a number of years--and people 
better understand it--moves to expand the development will send a clear 
signal to the market that we are serious about meeting our future 
energy demands and immediately begin to drive down the cost of oil 
because our investors will know that gas will not be worth as much in 
the future, and therefore they will sell it off today. It will have an 
impact on the price.
  The fact is, we have more energy resources in the United States than 
any other country in the world. We are the No. 3 oil producer in the 
world, but the majority of our oil resources are locked up. Madam 
President, 85 percent of our offshore acreage and 65 percent of our 
onshore acreage is off limits. I was embarrassed that we have gone to 
Saudi Arabia with our hat in our hand to beg them to increase oil 
production. Rather than begging the Saudi Government, we need to be 
utilizing our own resources.
  The other day I said if I were King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia, I would 
say to President Bush: Mr. President, why do you come to me asking for 
more of our oil when you have great resources in your country? You want 
to use all of our resources. In Alaska you have more than 10 billion 
barrels of oil. You had a chance to open ANWR to responsible 
environmentally friendly oil exploration in 1995, but President Clinton 
vetoed it. Your country could be producing an extra 1 million barrels 
of oil today, an increase of 20 percent over your current production.
  Did you know that Prudhoe Bay, located west of ANWR, has cleanly 
delivered billions of barrels of crude oil since the 1970s, providing a 
strong example of the drilling that can be done safely with minimal 
environmental impact with today's technology and environmental 
safeguards.
  You could also give your States the option of drilling on the Outer 
Continental Shelf. These reserves are believed to equal 8.5 billion 
barrels of oil, and undiscovered resources could equal 10 times that. 
That is 85 billion barrels of oil. But a moratorium currently prohibits 
access to the OCS.
  By the way, I commend President Bush for lifting the executive 
moratorium. I will just keep talking for King Abdallah.
  I know some of your environmentalists are concerned, but it is my 
understanding that there has not been a significant oilspill on the 
gulf coast for nearly 30 years, and in 2005 Hurricane Katrina passed 
overhead nearly 4,000 rigs without causing a significant spill.
  You could make use of your vast reserves of oil shale. There are 
currently 800 billion barrels of oil, technically recoverable reserves, 
in the United States. That is three times larger than the total proven 
oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Think of that, three times as much.
  The Rand Corporation noted that:

       If oil shale could be used to meet a quarter of United 
     States' demand, 800 billion barrels would last for more than 
     400 years.

  Again, you passed a moratorium that prohibits access to these 
reserves--regulations even to go in there. Your friend up north, 
Canada, has some of the largest tar sand reserves in the world. A 
Congressman named Waxman passed a provision that jeopardizes access to 
those resources.
  Don't forget coal. You have 250 years of coal in the United States, 
more than any other nation in the world. You are being prevented from 
using coal to liquid. As a matter of fact, in the State of Ohio, Baard 
Energy is planning a coal-to-liquid and biomass facility that will 
produce 53,000 barrels a day of jet and diesel fuel and other 
production from coal and biomass feedstocks.
  Advances in carbon capture sequestration technology would lower the 
greenhouse gas emissions, but again, because of Congressman Waxman, 
your coal-to-liquid industry has slowed the Air Force's plans to run 
their entire fleet on synthetic fuel by 2016.
  We ought to realize this. How did the Germans stay in the war effort 
when they had no oil? They took the coal they had, they converted it to 
oil, and that is how they kept their war machine going. It seems to me 
we ought to at least give recognition to the fact that we should make 
sure that our defense has all of the resources it needs in terms of 
oil.
  I think we have to get real. We say to all these other countries that 
we want them to use their reserves, increase their supply. Frankly, 
they should say: Why don't you do it yourself? Why don't you do it?
  The other thing we have to do is we have to use less. It is long past 
time for our Government to provide the spark to rekindle our Nation's 
creativity and innovation. Following Russia's launch of Sputnik, 
President Kennedy challenged us and said we are going to put a man on 
the Moon in 10 years, and we did it. By golly, if we could put a man on 
the Moon in 10 years, we can figure out how we can become the country 
that uses oil the least in the world. We do need a new Apollo project 
to encourage further advances in ethanol to cut consumption and the 
development of more efficient, hybrid electric and plug-in vehicles. I 
hope my grandchildren will be using plug-in vehicles. They will not be 
using any oil at all in terms of their transportation. If half our 
fleet of 240 million vehicles were converted to electric hybrids, we 
could reduce our oil imports by 4 to 5 million barrels a day.
  Last week I chaired an energy forum and had the opportunity to hear 
from David Vieu, president of A123 Systems, which company is developing 
American-made battery technology. He explained that this technology is 
already commercially viable.
  We are making some headway. We have to make up our minds that we are 
going to get the job done. We have to let the world know. Can you 
imagine what we could do? Let the world know we are going to go after 
every drop we

[[Page S6916]]

have available, in terms of our supply, and we are going to do 
everything we can to reduce our demand. We are going to do everything 
we can to conserve what we have. I believe that will send the fear of 
God through those individuals, and we will see an impact on the cost of 
oil in this country, even though it is going to happen in the future.
  Do you know what is funny. These folks are betting that we will not 
do what we ought to do because they have watched us. They have watched 
us. They have seen that we have not used our resources. They have 
watched us and seen that we have not used the best technology to reduce 
our demand for oil. They have watched us as we have not conserved as we 
should have been doing during the last number of years.
  I think the chickens have come home to roost. High gas prices are 
hurting Americans. The problem we have had in this country is, we 
haven't had an energy policy, but we have not harmonized our 
environment, our energy, our economy, and our national security. I am 
confident we can come together on a bipartisan basis and work something 
out so the American people understand that the Senate and Congress have 
come together on an issue that is of crisis proportion to our fellow 
Americans, and that we care more about them and our country's future 
than we do about bickering with each other.

  I go home all the time, and people just say: the reason your numbers 
are so bad is because we think you guys, men and women, are more 
interested in partisan politics and bickering than you are in getting 
together and getting the job done.
  I have to say, from my perspective, it is very frustrating. I was the 
mayor of Cleveland, an 8-to-1 Democratic city; 21 councilmen and the 
most powerful council president. We worked together. We figured out how 
to move the city of Cleveland ahead for 10 years.
  I became the Governor of Ohio, and Vern Rife was the speaker of the 
house 24 years, the most powerful Democratic speaker we had. After he 
discovered I was Governor after 6 months--it took a while--Vern and I 
sat down and said: You know what. Let's work together and move Ohio 
ahead.
  I think it is time we got together and said: Republicans and 
Democrats, let's move America ahead. Wouldn't it be great for our 
children and grandchildren to one day celebrate the time America put 
aside its differences and came together to reaffirm its independence a 
second time and rekindled the American spirit of self reliance, 
innovation, and creativity to usher in a new era of prosperity?
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Newsweek article by Robert 
Samuelson be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                     [From Newsweek, June 28, 2008]

                      Let's Shoot the Speculators!

                        (By Robert J. Samuelson)

       Tired of high gasoline prices and rising food costs? Well, 
     here's a solution. Let's shoot the ``speculators.'' A chorus 
     of politicians, including John McCain, Barack Obama and Sen. 
     Joe Lieberman, blames these financial slimeballs for piling 
     into commodities markets and pushing prices to artificial and 
     unconscionable levels. Gosh, if only it were that simple. 
     Speculator-bashing is another exercise in scapegoating and 
     grandstanding. Leading politicians either don't understand 
     what's happening or don't want to acknowledge their 
     complicity.
       Granted, raw-material prices have exploded across the 
     board. Look at the table below. It shows price increases for 
     eight major commodities from 2002 to 2007. Oil rose 177 
     percent, corn 70 percent and copper 360 percent. But that's 
     just the point. Did ``speculators'' really cause all these 
     increases? If so, why did some prices go up more than others? 
     And what about steel? It rose 117 percent--and continued 
     increasing in 2008--even though it's not traded on 
     commodities futures markets.
       A better explanation is basic supply and demand. Despite 
     the U.S. slowdown, the world economy has boomed. Since 2002, 
     annual growth has averaged 4.6 percent, the highest sustained 
     rate since the 1960s, says economist Michael Mussa of the 
     Peterson Institute. By their nature, raw materials (food, 
     energy, minerals) sustain the broader economy. They're not 
     just frills. When unexpectedly high demand strains existing 
     production capacity, prices rise sharply as buyers scramble 
     for scarce supplies. That's what happened.
       ``We've had a demand shock,'' says analyst Joel Crane of 
     Deutsche Bank. ``No one foresaw that China would grow at a 10 
     percent annual rate for over a decade. Commodity producers 
     just didn't invest enough.'' In industry after industry, 
     global buying has bumped up against production limits. In 
     1999, surplus world oil capacity totaled 5 million barrels a 
     day (mbd) on global consumption of 76mbd, reckons the U.S. 
     Energy Information Administration. Now the surplus is about 
     2mbd--and much of that in high-sulfur oil not wanted by 
     refiners--on consumption of 86mbd.
       Or take nonferrous metals, such as copper and aluminum. 
     ``You had a long period of underinvestment in these 
     industries,'' says economist John Mothersole of Global 
     Insight. For some metals, the collapse of the Soviet Union 
     threw added production--previously destined for tanks, planes 
     and ships--onto world markets. Prices plunged as surpluses 
     grew. But ``the accelerating growth in India and China 
     eliminated the overhang,'' Mothersole says. By some 
     estimates, China now accounts for 60 percent to 80 percent of 
     the annual increases in world demand for many metals.
       Commodity-price increases vary, because markets vary. Rice 
     isn't zinc. No surprise. But ``speculators'' played little 
     role in the price run-ups. Who are these offensive souls? 
     Well, they often don't fit the stereotype of sleazy high 
     rollers: many manage pension funds or university and 
     foundation endowments. Their modest investments in 
     commodities aim to improve returns.
       These extra funds might drive up prices if they were 
     invested in stocks or real estate. But commodity investing is 
     different. Investors generally don't buy the physical goods, 
     whether oil or corn. Instead, they trade ``futures 
     contracts,'' which are bets on future prices in, say, six 
     months. For every trader betting on higher prices, another is 
     betting on lower. These trades are matched. In the stock 
     market, all investors (buyers and sellers) can profit in a 
     rising market and all can lose in a falling market. In 
     futures markets, one trader's gain is another's loss.
       Futures contracts enable commercial consumers and producers 
     of commodities to hedge. Airlines can lock in fuel prices by 
     buying oil futures; farmers can lock in a selling price for 
     their grain by selling grain futures. What makes the futures 
     markets work is the large number of purely financial 
     players--``speculators'' just in it for the money--who often 
     take the other side of hedgers' trades. But all the frantic 
     trading doesn't directly affect the physical supplies of raw 
     materials. In theory, high futures prices might reduce 
     physical supplies if they inspired hoarding. Commercial 
     inventories would rise. The evidence today contradicts that; 
     inventories are generally low. World wheat stocks, compared 
     with consumption, are near historic lows.
       Recently the giant mining company Rio Tinto disclosed an 
     average 85 percent price increase in iron ore for its Chinese 
     customers. That was stunning proof that physical supply and 
     demand--not financial shenanigans--are setting prices: iron 
     ore isn't traded on futures markets. The crucial question is 
     whether these price increases are a semi permanent feature of 
     the global economy or just a passing phase as demand abates 
     and new investments increase supply. Prices for a few 
     commodities (lead, nickel, zinc) have receded. Could oil be 
     next? Barron's, the financial newspaper, thinks so.
       Politicians now promise tighter regulation of futures 
     markets, but futures markets are not the main problem. 
     Physical scarcities are. Government subsidies and preferences 
     for corn-based ethanol have increased food prices by 
     diverting more grain into biofuels. A third of the U.S. corn 
     crop could go to ethanol this year. Restrictions on offshore 
     oil exploration and in Alaska have reduced global oil 
     production and put upward pressures on prices. If politicians 
     wish to point fingers of blame for today's situation, they 
     should start with themselves.

  Mr. VOINOVICH. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Lautenberg, and Mr. Menendez 
pertaining to the introduction of S.J. Res. 44 are printed in today's 
Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.

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