[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17590-17591]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            SENATE SCHEDULE

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I certainly appreciate the comments of my 
friend from Oklahoma. There are some positive things that have resulted 
after a number of very difficult years. I certainly appreciate the 
leadership which he has given on the budget.
  I wanted to talk a moment about Senate business. Of course, I suppose 
we all have ideas about what we could do. We will be here for another 
month. Obviously, we can't do everything that is out there before us. 
Clearly, there were a lot of items we couldn't complete partly as a 
result of the fact that, frankly, we have not done as much over the 
last year as we should have and could have done. Some of that, of 
course, has been because of the Presidential election which is still 
looming before us. That has caused arguments on a lot of things which 
are more political than need to be. It is not unusual for the Congress 
to be political, of course. But I think to the extent it has been, it 
is more than usual. I hope we can move forward.
  I was encouraged about what our leadership said yesterday as we try 
to move forward and try to actually cooperate on some things. 
Unfortunately, before the day is over I think we are back into the same 
old routine of trying to put the blame on everyone, and so on. The fact 
is we have work to do. We have an opportunity to do it. As I said, we 
will not all agree on what they ought to be, but it seems to me the 
real challenge before us is to set some priorities. We have a certain 
amount of time. We can do a certain number of things. Admittedly, we 
will have different ideas about what those priorities ought to be. I 
wanted to share that.
  It seems to me it is important to do the things in a timely manner 
which have an impact on the economy--things Senator Nickles also talked 
about. One is appropriations. Appropriations were intended to be done 
in July and August at the end of the fiscal year--at the end of 
September. We are a little late on those. The Appropriations Committee 
has been dealing with them for a long time. It seems to me that we 
ought to be prepared to move forward within the budget. It is one of 
the most important things.
  I happen to believe energy is one of the most important things we 
have to deal with, to have an energy policy which gives us some idea as 
to the direction we are going to take when we deal with the obvious 
difficulties of energy. The cost of energy, the import percentages we 
have to expect from overseas, with all of the unrest in the Middle East 
where some of it comes from--those are the kinds of things we need to 
deal with. We have talked about it now for about 3 years. We have a 
policy. A policy has been on the floor. Unfortunately, as it moved to 
the floor the last time it was filibustered and we lacked the votes to 
get it passed. We need to pass it. In my view, that would have a great 
impact on the highway bill.

[[Page 17591]]

  Again, we have had a highway bill for some time. We had a 6-year 
bill. It expired a year ago. Now we are proceeding monthly. We need to 
get a longer term highway bill in place.
  As I traveled around my State of Wyoming last month, I probably heard 
as much about that as anything, how important the transportation system 
is to all of us. Coupled with that, of course, is the number of jobs 
developed by having the opportunity to move forward.
  I commend the chairman and his staff for working during the recess. 
We had differences on what the spending level ought to be, which should 
not have been that difficult because this spending is the result of 
transportation. That is what those taxes are for; to expend those on 
highway and related transportation is what it is all for. I understand 
we are reaching some agreements on what that ought to be. We have had 
differences with the Senate and the House and the White House. But we 
need to move forward.
  Certainly, our State of Wyoming is particularly dependent on 
transportation because the miles per capita are very large. We have 
lots of miles--not only used in Wyoming but used by others with a 
relatively small population. It is very important to us. The economic 
impact, of course, is very important. For every $1 billion spent, 
47,000 jobs are created--and created quickly.
  One of the problems, of course, is much of the highway construction 
is done by contracting. If the highway departments within the States do 
not know what their funds are going to be, it is impossible for them to 
go ahead and do contracting in the future. It is also very seasonable. 
Most of the work in the West and the mountain States has to be done in 
the good weather periods. We need to do something with that.
  The Energy bill, as I mentioned, is a total bill. It is not just one 
or two little things. It has to do with research and the alternative 
resources of energy in the future. Whether it is wind or conversion of 
coal to diesel or to hydrogen, it deals with alternative energy as well 
as renewable. It deals with efficiency and conservation and the use of 
energy. We can make great strides in that area. It also has to do with 
the encouragement--giving incentives to domestic production, which, of 
course, is very important.
  We need to make some changes. We need to utilize coal more, for 
example, because it is our largest resource of fossil fuel. It can be 
converted into other fuels--diesel, hydrogen, or whatever. We need to 
use coal to generate electricity rather than gas because gas is so 
flexible and it can be used for other things. Coal can be used 
economically in a clean way as well.
  There is nothing more important than to have an idea. This was one of 
the first things that was done at the White House, and we have done it 
here. I have been on that committee. Yet we have not been able to get 
it done. Now it is at the desk. All we need to do is bring it up and 
move forward.
  There are a lot of other things that are very important. We will have 
to decide whether we want to get things done or whether we want to 
continue to argue. There is nothing wrong with having different ideas, 
voting on them, and reaching a conclusion. We have great challenges 
ahead and only a short time in which to complete them. I certainly urge 
Members to put their energies into those priorities and complete them.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. ENZI. How much time remains for our side?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There is 8 minutes 45 seconds.

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