[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14177-14179]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 REPUBLICAN OBSTRUCTION AND THE ECONOMY

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, just as the American people are recovering 
from a holiday weekend marked by record gas prices announced this 
morning, averaging $4.11 a gallon--and it is much more than that in 
Nevada; it is $4.25 in Nevada--another report in the news this morning 
suggests oil might reach $200 before the end of the year--$200 a 
barrel. It was only a couple months ago that President Bush seemed 
shocked and confused when a reporter suggested that some analysts were 
predicting that gas would reach $4 a gallon. Now some economists 
consider $6 a gallon a very real possibility.
  While most Americans enjoyed a day off from work on Friday to 
celebrate the Fourth of July, no one gets a day off from paying record 
gas prices, record oil prices, and record grocery prices.
  I spoke an hour ago to Verie Doing, who owns the biggest business in 
Searchlight. Verie and her late husband, Warren Doing, ran what might 
not be much by most standards, but it is for the people in Searchlight. 
She employs 70 or 80 people, and it is the biggest employer in 
Searchlight. She has a bar and casino, a restaurant. She said she is 
feeling the impact of gas prices. Las Vegas is 60 miles away, there is 
no town closer, so in Searchlight you need the tourist trade.
  She is similar to all small business people--they are struggling. 
That is why on Thursday it was announced that Starbucks is closing more 
than 600 stores; Dillard's will likely go out of business; Pep Boys 
will likely go out of business. There are huge cutbacks in many other 
companies. Nine thousand stores will close before the end of the year. 
That, of course, opens places that people are going to have to try to 
rent, probably at reduced rates if they even can rent them. So this is 
a snowballing effect.
  With rare exception, all these problems economically are caused by 
two things: the gas prices and the housing crisis. We have 8,500 new 
home foreclosures every day. Americans are at risk of losing their 
homes. They don't get a day off, of course. As American people endure 
sleepless nights trying to figure out how to make ends meet and provide 
for their families, they deserve to know that Congress is working hard 
to help.
  But what we are seeing is the Republican leaders, both in the House 
and in the Senate, simply refusing to work with Democrats on 
legislation essential to our country in this economic recession. Of 
course, it is more focused on the Senate because, as we know, if you 
are in the majority of the House, you can move things. In the Senate, 
that is not the way it is. We have the ability to filibuster things 
and, as we know, that is what has been going on in recent months.
  My friend, Senator McConnell, said time and time again the way to get 
things done in the Senate is through bipartisanship. There is no 
question about that. The only way you get things done in this body is 
bipartisanship, and that is why I have said if there is a change in the 
number of Senators we have next year, if there are more seats on this 
side of the aisle next year, we still have to work on a bipartisan 
basis.
  I am committed to doing that. I could not agree, as I have indicated, 
more with Senator McConnell that we have to work on a bipartisan basis. 
That is why in the waning days and hours of the last work period I 
brought to the Senate legislation that was bipartisan in the truest 
sense, the emergency supplemental appropriations bill that finally 
gives our troops the care and benefits they have earned with tremendous 
valor; one of the most important things this country has done in 
decades, a GI bill of rights.
  Coincidentally, the Presiding Officer is the man who wrote that. 
There are a lot of people, I am sure, knowing the humility the 
Presiding Officer has that you want to give credit, but the credit 
starts with the Presiding Officer as the first person in line, in my 
mind, and Senator Hagel.
  But it was bipartisan. That is how we got it done. As good and as 
intelligent, as necessary, as the GI bill of rights was, we could never 
have gotten it done without the bipartisan support that Senator Webb of 
Virginia got for that bill.
  We also introduced, right before we left, a housing bill to stem the 
tide of foreclosures and correct flaws in the lending laws to prevent 
foreclosure of future homeowners. In that we did not finish that bill 
before we left, add 10 days, make it a short period of time, that is 
85,000 homes have gone into foreclosure; 8,500 a day. Add one zero to 
that, that is 85,000.
  We had a Medicare doctors fix to prevent payment cuts for doctors and 
improve care for patients. That was so important. I know that the 
attention is focused on the doctors, but it is more than the doctors. 
Of course, the doctors did not want a 10.6-percent cut. But that had a 
tremendous snowballing effect. Doctors cannot afford to take Medicare 
patients with this cut. They will not take them. I had the opportunity 
to go to dinner with two of my wife's physicians, people who have cared 
for her over the years, during the break. One of them said: I am not 
sure I can take Medicare patients anymore--an internist, great 
reputation.
  Not only does it affect that, many entities base their reimbursement 
on what Medicare pays. So it is a very difficult situation. It was a 
bipartisan piece of legislation.
  We also did, right before we left, a bill cutting taxes for 
innovators and entrepreneurs, for developing clean alternative fuels 
that would help end our addiction to foreign oil. So despite my friend, 
the Republican leader's, words on embracing bipartisanship, the Senate 
Republicans blocked all these strongly bipartisan bills except for the 
supplemental appropriations bill, every one of them, and a few more.

[[Page 14178]]

  The housing bill is supported by a strong bipartisan majority of 
Republicans and Democrats. Cloture was invoked by a vote of 83 to 9, 
and the Dodd-Shelby-Baucus-Grassley substitute amendment was agreed to 
by a vote of 79 to 16. We could have finished that bill last work 
period, but Senate Republican leaders blocked housing.
  Since then, as I have already said, another 85,000 homes have been 
foreclosed upon, or at least the foreclosure proceedings have started. 
The Medicare doctors fix passed the House with a stunning 355-to-59 
vote. Could anything be more bipartisan? Virtually every House Democrat 
and two-thirds of the House Republicans supported it. Two-thirds of the 
House Republicans supported it. How could anything be more bipartisan?
  As we talked about before we left, one of the Republicans who voted 
against it apologized publicly, wrote a letter saying: I made a 
mistake.
  Yet Republican leaders blocked the Medicare fix and chose to protect 
insurance companies and the health care providers at the expense of 
elderly patients and their doctors. Last year these people my friends 
on the other side of the aisle are trying to protect with the Medicare 
Advantage Program, part of the Medicare bill that was passed some time 
ago, made more than $15 billion.
  To take care of this issue that is so important to the American 
people, the so-called doctors fix, I explained how important it is; we 
took a tiny bit of the $15 billion. So we should have done this. We 
should have fixed it. It should not have been blocked. It was a choice 
made to protect the HMOs and the insurance companies at the expense of 
elderly patients and their doctors.
  The alternative energy tax extenders also enjoy strong bipartisan 
support. Yet this legislation has been blocked, this legislation which 
would literally cut taxes. It seems that the Republican definition of 
``bipartisan'' is not what the rest of us understand ``bipartisanship'' 
as meaning. Under their definition, even if a small handful of 
Republicans--remember, I have gone over the number of these bills 
passing overwhelmingly. Even if a small handful of Republicans oppose 
the legislation all of the rest support, the Republican leadership does 
not consider it to be bipartisan.
  I understand the frustration the Republicans feel as a minority 
party. But the stakes are too high for inaction. If they, the 
Republicans in the Senate, seek bipartisanship, as they claim they do, 
my Republican friends should end their pointless, harmful obstruction 
and work with us to pass these bills that all enjoy strong and in many 
cases overwhelming bipartisan support: housing, tax extenders, 
including provisions for alternative energy, the Medicare bill, only to 
name a few.
  Now, this work period is one that we have a lot of work to do, a 
whole lot of work to do. I had the good fortune of speaking with the 
Republican leader today, and I went over with him some of the things we 
need to do this work period. We need to complete a number of issues. We 
need one more to join us on Medicare. It is no big surprise that we are 
going to have a vote on Medicare again on Wednesday so everyone should 
be prepared for that. We can do that. There can be some obstacles 
thrown up. But they cannot stop us from voting Wednesday afternoon. 
There can be an effort made to have a majority vote on this, one matter 
to proceed to it, and another one. But, of course, we wind up needing 
60 votes. And there will be an opportunity Wednesday, probably in the 
late afternoon, to see if we can pick up that one extra vote.
  We are going to pass FISA, a bill I oppose because of its unique 
provision. But a bipartisan majority of Senators will likely support 
that. We must also address gas prices. I have talked to the Republican 
leader about hopefully we can work something out on a bipartisan basis. 
I am certainly going to try.
  One of the areas that it appears there is some agreement on is 
speculation, and maybe we can do something in that regard together, 
because there have been public statements made by the Republican 
colleagues that speculation is a problem. Maybe we can do something 
with the other aspects of that. I am happy to try to work something 
out.
  We have to do PEPFAR. I hope we can do that by unanimous consent. I 
hope we do not have to go through all of the procedures. I mean there 
are literally a handful of Republicans holding that up. They have held 
it up for a long time. We have tried to move it on a number of 
occasions. There have been objections to it. So this work period we 
have to move forward on it.
  I have talked about the energy tax extenders, the Consumer Product 
Safety conference report. That is going to come to us. That is almost 
completed. We are going to have to have a run at LIHEAP to see what we 
can do for that; the media shield law. Some of these may not go very 
far because there may be Republican objection, there may be bipartisan 
objection to some of these on proceeding to them. We will have to see.
  There is also a package, I have talked to the Republican leader, a 
big package of bills we are putting together that has been held up by 
one Senator. We are going to put those together. They are already put 
together. We are going to move forward on those.
  We also, I think, have to do the DOD authorization and appropriations 
bill. This is not a list of Democratic priorities or pet issues, it is 
not a platform for the Obama campaign or any of the Senate races around 
the country. These are critical priorities of the American people, 
every one of them.
  The next several weeks can be easy or they can be difficult. If my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle are willing, we can pass this 
legislation swiftly and with overwhelming support from Democrats and 
Republicans. But if we look to the last 18 months, past as prologue, 
then there be likely some heel dragging. If we finish these pieces of 
legislation in the first 4 weeks we are here, then I have no problem 
taking that first week in August off. If these issues are more than we 
can bear, talk to me. I think I have been pretty reasonable in setting 
these out. But I have gone over these with the Republican leader, and I 
am happy to sit down and talk to him if he thinks that some of them are 
a bridge too far. But this, in my opinion, is what we need to do so 
that the Senate is respectful of the wishes of the American people.
  A couple of other things. I do not think it is good for us that we 
try to accomplish nothing. I remind my Republican colleagues, and 
perhaps I do not need to do this, that the root of continued 
obstructionism is not without cost. Most importantly, it comes at a 
cost to the American people who are facing Medicare cuts, increasing 
home foreclosure, ever increasing gas prices, because Republicans 
refused to work with us last work period.
  But continued obstruction is, I believe, in my opinion, coming at a 
cost to our Republican colleagues themselves as well. The American 
people see with clear eyes that our country's economic crisis continues 
to grow worse. The Republicans have dragged their heels. It is not 
coincidental that we have had editorials all over the country--I am not 
going point to those--indicating that the Republicans have to work more 
to get things done.
  But there is good reason to show that Americans favor a Democratic 
control of Congress by the widest margin in the history of polling. 
Never, never has there been a wide margin between Democrats and 
Republicans as to who the American people feel will do a better job 
taking care of our country. So maybe after a week back home among 
family, friends, constituents, my Republican colleagues are ready to 
walk away from the small handful of their colleagues who insist upon 
inaction. Maybe enough voters back home explained to my friends on the 
other side of the aisle exactly how urgently they need help.
  If so, I say to my Republican colleagues, I am here, we are here to 
work with you. It is not too late to be the 60th vote on Medicare and 
join us on housing, alternative fuels. I hope the July 4 recess will be 
remembered as a turning point for this Congress, and we can now move 
forward with the same urgency the American people feel to

[[Page 14179]]

find common ground and change our country as it desperately needs 
changing.
  The turning point can begin now. The Republicans can allow us to move 
forward and debate legislation to lower gas prices, invest in clean, 
renewable, alternative energy. I am not going to go over a list of 
unanimous-consent requests; I have done that in the past. I simply want 
to say, let's not have these objections to these pieces of legislation. 
Let's try to work together.
  We frankly have had--and I spoke to a Republican Senator today, 
saying: We need more opportunity to offer amendments. I said to my 
friend, a Republican Senator: You know, we are in the throes of a 
Presidential election. We have at the most about 9 weeks of legislative 
time before that election.
  On opportunities that we had to legislate, where we brought to the 
floor pieces of legislation that were open to amendment, here is what 
we got: The 18-cent tax holiday was an effort of John McCain to do a 
campaign issue. Senator Obama said it was a political gimmick and it 
didn't go anywhere. Also on the GI bill of rights, as my friend the 
Presiding Officer will acknowledge, we had an open piece of 
legislation. What do they want to offer on that? Something to change 
the GI bill of rights because Senator McCain said it was too generous. 
On housing, we want to legislate on housing. And when other issues come 
up, that is what we want to legislate on.
  We are not going to have this as an opportunity to do a Presidential 
election here in the Senate. We have elections all over the country, 
and we have enough to do.
  I would hope my friends will respond to the deafening calls from 
their constituents to take action. Instead of working with us on 
legislation to lower gas prices, they propose that we lease more land 
to oil companies. We participated in that. I led the effort over here, 
with a number of other Senators, to get Senators to go along with 
drilling in the gulf. We did that. We did that. But it is interesting, 
we have been told by those companies that any new offshore drilling, if 
they decide that is what they want to do, will take at least 2 years 
before they can get a piece of equipment to drill offshore. They don't 
have any. So we are not blind to the American people looking to every 
opportunity they can. We are not knee-jerk opposed to drilling, but we 
do acknowledge that our great country, with the wonderful natural 
resources Lewis and Clark and others discovered--we have less than 3 
percent of the oil in the entire world, and that counts ANWR and all 
the offshore--less than 3 percent. We use more than 25 percent of all 
the oil that is used in the world. We use 21 million barrels a day 7 
days a week. We are open to any reasonable approach that will lower gas 
prices, but let's also not forget that the oil industry already leases 
68 million acres in America that they aren't using.
  The State of Nevada is the seventh largest State in the Union. The 68 
million acres is about the size as the State of Nevada. That is a lot 
of area to drill on. If you go from the southern tip of the State of 
Nevada to the northern tip of the State of Nevada, that is at least 750 
miles. It is wide. At the top, it is about 400 miles wide. That is a 
lot of area to drill. That is how much land and offshore they have to 
drill on right now.
  So even if the Republican proposal were enacted, it would take years 
and even decades to conduct exploration to begin drilling. Even then, 
the plan wouldn't lower gas prices. But we are willing to take a look 
at any proposal like that. As I indicated, we helped get offshore 
drilling in the gulf.
  So instead of proposing legislation that would just add more to the 
68 million unused acres, I think we should try something that might be 
a little better than that. We are willing to do whatever is reasonable. 
We have done so in the past. As I indicated, in 2006, we helped pass a 
bipartisan plan for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
  Republicans can work with us to end speculation on the oil markets 
that contributes tangibly to higher prices at the pump. I talked here a 
few minutes ago about how there appears to be bipartisan support for 
doing something about speculation. I will come to my Republican 
colleagues before the end of the week with a proposal on which I hope 
we can pick up Republican support. Is the plan I am going to come up 
with perfect? Of course not. But we have been doing a lot of work. I 
have a number of meetings, some of which are in the evening this week. 
If my Republican colleagues want to add something to this speculation 
thing to make it better, we will work with them.
  The main thing, though, is that we have to work to make America, a 
country that contains less than 3 percent of the world's supply of oil, 
energy independent by investing in renewables, clean renewables. These 
steps would lower gas prices in the short term and it would create 
jobs, hundreds of thousands of jobs, clean jobs, high-paying jobs.
  I hope that this next work period, we can work together and 
accomplish a lot for America. I have tried to outline here for my 
colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, what is in store for us 
this next work period.
  I look forward to leaving here for the conventions, during the time 
we are gone, which will bring us a new President. Hopefully, we will 
walk out of here with our shoulders back and our heads held high that 
we have been able to accomplish something this work period.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader.

                          ____________________