[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14771-14775]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 TOM LANTOS AND HENRY J. HYDE UNITED STATES GLOBAL LEADERSHIP AGAINST 
   HIV/AIDS, TUBERCULOSIS, AND MALARIA REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2008--
                               Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The reported committee amendment is withdrawn.


                           Amendment No. 5075

                (Purpose: In the nature of a substitute)

  The clerk will report the amendment.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid], for Mr. Biden, for 
     himself and Mr. Lugar, proposes an amendment numbered 5075.

  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the substitute is 
agreed to and the bill will be treated as original text for the purpose 
of further amendment.
  The amendment (No. 5075) was agreed to.
  Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 5077

  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending 
amendment be set aside, and I call up amendment No. 5077 for its 
immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no pending amendment.
  The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. DeMint] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 5077.

  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading 
of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

  (Purpose: To reduce to $35,000,000,000 the amount authorized to be 
     appropriated to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in 
             developing countries during the next 5 years)

       On page 130, line 1, strike ``$50,000,000,000'' and insert 
     ``$35,000,000,000''.


                           Amendment No. 5078

  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 5078 and ask for 
its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. DeMint] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 5078.

  Mr. DeMINT. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment 
be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To limit the countries to which Federal financial assistance 
                    may be targeted under this Act)

       At the appropriate place, insert the following:

     SEC. __. FUNDING LIMITATION.

       Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, amounts 
     authorized to be appropriated under this Act may only be 
     targeted

[[Page 14772]]

     toward those countries authorized for funding under the 
     United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and 
     Malaria Act of 2003 (Public Law 108-25).


                Amendment No. 5079 to Amendment No. 5078

  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I send a second-degree amendment to the 
desk and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. DeMint] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 5079 to amendment No. 5078:

       At the end of the amendment, strike the period and add a 
     comma and the following:
     ``and shall not be made available to such countries, or other 
     countries through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis 
     and Malaria, for any organization or program which supports 
     or participates in the management of a program of coercive 
     abortion or involuntary sterilizations.''

  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I rise today to speak against this foreign 
aid bill and in favor of a couple of amendments that will restore some 
integrity to it.
  I wish to make it clear that I believe this legislation aims to do 
something very important. A lot of people are suffering in Africa with 
AIDS, and the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief--or PEPFAR, as 
we call it--is designed to provide treatment and prevention assistance 
to those in need. This is a program I voted for in 2003, and it is 
something I think every American would consider a worthy cause. But the 
simple fact is, we cannot afford every worthy cause around the world. 
Our budget is broken and our Nation is headed toward financial 
collapse. Yet this bill spends $50 billion, which is more than a 300-
percent increase over the original $15 billion authorization. None of 
this money is paid for. Instead, it is all borrowed money. It passes 
the bill on to our children and grandchildren. This is not generosity; 
I am afraid it is thievery.
  So we have conflicting goals. On one hand, we want to help people 
suffering in Africa. On the other hand, we want to balance our budget 
and prevent people from suffering in America. As Ronald Reagan said, 
``America is a great Nation because America is a good Nation.'' 
Americans have always prided themselves on reaching out to people in 
need, and we should do so. However, if we bankrupt our own country, we 
will no longer be able to extend a helping hand to others. That is why 
I am offering an amendment--this first amendment, No. 5077--to reduce 
the spending in this bill from $50 billion to $35 billion. This would 
still provide a more than 100 percent increase over the original 
program while maintaining some integrity to our budget process.
  The Senator from Kentucky, Mr. Bunning, has an amendment that would 
reauthorize the program at current levels with no increase in spending. 
That is something I support because at a time when we need to be 
dramatically reducing the size and scope of government, just keeping 
the program at its current spending levels is generous.
  My amendment would allow for the program to actually grow from $15 
billion to $35 billion. This is still way too much money, in my 
opinion, but it would save American taxpayers $15 billion over the next 
5 years, which is no small amount of money. Besides saving Americans 
money, this amendment would not actually take a thing away from people 
in Africa who benefit from this program.
  The fact is, this foreign aid program cannot spend $50 billion on its 
intended purposes. According to the Congressional Budget Office, PEPFAR 
can only spend $35 billion over the next 5 years to meet the needs of 
those who are suffering. Our aid workers in many African nations have 
said as much, and their statements are backed up by the Congressional 
Budget Office's own estimate of this budget.
  In reality, the money that cannot be spent to directly treat and 
prevent the spread of AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria will be siphoned 
off for other things authorized in this bill, none of which are 
directly related to the prevention or treatment of these three 
diseases. For example, the bill authorizes the expenditure of funds to 
provide legal services, empower women, ensure safe drinking water and 
sanitation, provide treatment for alcohol abuse, and address the 
inheritance rights of women and girls, and study transportation 
patterns, just to name a few. In addition, some of this $35 billion 
would be siphoned off to build an even larger bureaucracy here in the 
United States.
  One U.S. aid worker in Africa said:

       We spend 4 months writing our Country Operation Plan only 
     to send it to Washington and have it rewritten without our 
     input.

  Four months of effort for no reason certainly sounds like a waste of 
effort, and it diminishes our success.
  Unfortunately, as we have all seen around here, the bigger the pot of 
money gets, the more waste and fraud we have, and accountability 
completely disappears. If we really care about those suffering from 
AIDS, we need to ensure that as many dollars as possible reach the 
people who are truly in need. The measure of America's greatness is not 
found in the amount of money we provide but in the effectiveness of our 
efforts.
  I encourage my colleagues to support my amendment. It saves $15 
billion without taking anything away from people who are hurting in 
Africa. Most importantly, it restores some honesty and integrity to 
this bill.
  Another problem with this bill is that it expands the scope of this 
program to new countries that were not part of the original program. 
The bill explicitly adds central Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin 
America to the list of PEPFAR's focused countries. The bill also 
contains vague language expanding the program to other nations.
  This is yet another example of the dishonesty of Congress. We say 
this bill is about addressing AIDS in Africa, but really it is about 
foreign aid all over the globe. The original program focused on 
countries that had widespread, generalized epidemics, but this bill 
allows the program to expand to a number of new countries that have 
problems only in limited areas. We can fix this problem with the bill 
by limiting the list of focused countries to those included in the 
original 2003 authorization.
  That is what my amendment does, amendment No. 5078, and this is what 
it says:

       Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, funds 
     authorized under this Act shall be targeted only toward those 
     countries authorized for funding under the United States 
     Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 
     2003.

  So we keep the program focused on its original intent.
  Last week, the majority leader pointed out that the purpose of this 
bill is to specifically help people in Africa. According to the 
Washington Times, he told reporters:

       While we're fiddling around here on this in Washington, 
     people are dying. This is big-time stuff, this is very 
     important to one whole continent.

  I agree with him, but the bill he has brought up spreads money to 
more than three continents beyond Africa. If we are going to spend this 
kind of money, we need to be honest about what we are spending it on. 
This bill is supposed to be about the treatment of AIDS, tuberculosis, 
and malaria in Africa. The cost of this program will only continue to 
increase dramatically if we continue to allow funds to go to other 
countries.
  I have also offered a second-degree amendment to prevent American 
taxpayers from having to support forced abortions around the world. My 
amendment simply says that none of the funds in this bill may be 
awarded to any organization or program which supports or participates 
in the management of a program of coerced abortion or involuntary 
sterilization.
  In addition to the things I described before that fall outside the 
stated purpose of the bill, the provision of funds to organizations 
that perform and/or support coercive abortion in China is perhaps the 
worst. This not only kills innocent unborn children, it violates the 
human rights of women in China.
  This bill authorizes $2 billion to the United Nations Global Fund in 
2009 and designates such funds in the following 4 years. This means 
that over the 5-year

[[Page 14773]]

life of the bill, the United States will likely provide at least $10 
billion to the United Nations Global Fund.
  Restrictions against funding forced abortions are in the current 
PEPFAR bill, but they do not apply to the Global Fund. We know that the 
Global Fund has provided at least two large grants in 2004 and 2006 to 
the various agencies within the Chinese Government, including the 
National Population and Family Planning Commission, which runs China's 
one-child-per-family program. In fact, we have here--and I wish to 
submit them for the record--the grants themselves which explicitly 
state that they were made to the various agencies within the Chinese 
Government, including the National Population and Family Planning 
Commission. I have the number, which I would like to have printed in 
the Record. One of these grants spent almost $59 million in 2004 and 
the second was over $11 million in 2006.
  It is quite clear that my concerns about how funds can be used in the 
Global Fund are real and serious. It is very obvious that unless we 
pass this amendment to clearly prohibit funds, they can and likely will 
be used by the Chinese agency that carries out coercive abortions.
  Instead of working to ensure that the United Nations Global Fund does 
not provide grants to Chinese Government agencies that force women to 
have abortions, the sponsors of the bill doubled the U.S. contributions 
to the Global Fund to $2 billion.
  The Bush administration has fought to prohibit funding to 
organizations that perform or support coercive abortions. In testimony 
before Congress on February 17, 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza 
Rice said:

       We have been outspoken with the Chinese about this terrible 
     practice, and of course, as Secretary of State, I will 
     enforce Kemp-Kasten to make certain that we are not funding 
     anything that remotely as related to these policies.

  I just do not believe that either the administration or any Member of 
the Congress could ever argue that we should not do everything we can 
to ensure that American taxpayers' money does not go to the Chinese 
National Population and Family Planning Commission.
  Now, many of my colleagues may not believe this because it is so 
outrageous, but it is true. Many outside groups supporting this bill 
don't want anyone to know about it because they don't believe we should 
do anything that restricts abortions--even those performed against the 
will of the mother. Even some people who oppose spending money on 
coercive abortions have been convinced to look the other way because 
they want this bill to pass. We cannot turn a blind eye to this problem 
with the bill.
  My amendment is germane, it is allowable under the unanimous consent 
agreement, and I encourage all of my colleagues to support it. We need 
to make absolutely certain that American families are not giving their 
hard-earned tax dollars to organizations that force women in China and 
around the world to have abortions.
  I encourage my colleagues to support these amendments.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee is recognized.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I saw the majority leader. I wonder if 
he needs time to speak or wrap up. I will be glad to forego if he wants 
to do that. I will speak for 10 or 15 minutes as in morning business, 
but I will be glad to wait for the majority leader to see if he wishes 
to speak.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for 10 minutes.


                             JOHN WHITEHEAD

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, sometimes American lives are lived so 
eloquently that nothing needs to be written about them. Sometimes even 
eloquent lives can be eloquently written about. Such was the case over 
the Fourth of July weekend. When I had a little extra time, I came 
across Peggy Noonan's article in the Wall Street Journal on July 5 
about John Whitehead of New York.
  John Whitehead was on Normandy Beach. He chaired Goldman Sachs. He 
was President Reagan's Deputy Secretary of State. He headed the 
International Rescue Commission. He has been in the middle of New 
York's efforts after 9/11. As Peggy Noonan wrote, he is a model public 
citizen.
  For the eloquence of his life and the eloquence of her article, I ask 
unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                           A Day at the Beach

                           (By Peggy Noonan)

       It was May 1944, and 22-year-old John Whitehead of 
     Montclair, N.J., an ensign on the USS Thomas Jefferson, was 
     placed in charge of five of the landing craft for the 
     invasion of Europe. Each would ferry 25 soldiers from the TJ, 
     as they called it, onto the shore of France. John's landing 
     site was to be a 50-yard stretch of shoreline dubbed Dog Red 
     Beach. It fell near the middle of the sector called Omaha 
     Beach which in turn fell in the middle of the entire assault.
       The TJ sailed to Portsmouth Harbor, which was jam-packed 
     with ships. On June 1 the Army troops arrived, coming up the 
     gangway one by one. ``They were very quiet,'' John said this 
     week. Word came on June 4 that they'd leave that night, but 
     they were ordered back in a storm. The next morning June 5, 
     the rain was still coming down, but the seas were calmer. 
     Around 8 that night, they cast off to cross the channel. The 
     skies were dark, rain lashed the deck, and the TJ rolled in 
     the sea. At midnight they dropped anchor nine miles off the 
     French coast. They ate a big breakfast of eggs and bacon. At 
     2 a.m. the crew began lowering the Higgins boats--``a kind of 
     floating boxcar, rectangular, with high walls''--over the 
     side by crane. The soldiers had to climb down big nets to get 
     aboard. ``They had practiced, but as Eisenhower always said, 
     `In wartime, plans are only good until the moment you try to 
     execute them.' ''
       The Higgins boats pitched in the choppy water. The 
     soldiers, loaded down ``like mountaineers'' with rifles, 
     flamethrowers, radio equipment, artillery parts, tarps, food, 
     water, ``70 pounds in all''--had trouble getting from the 
     nets to the boats. ``I saw a poor soul slip from the net into 
     the water. He sank like a stone. He just disappeared in the 
     depths of the sea. There was nothing we could do.'' So they 
     boarded the boats on the deck and hoisted them into the sea.
       It took John's five little boats four hours to cover the 
     nine miles to the beach. ``They were the worst hours of our 
     lives. It was pitch black, cold, and the rain was coming down 
     in sheets, drenching us. The boats were being tossed in the 
     waves, making all of us violently sick. We'd all been given 
     the big breakfast. Hardly anyone could hold it down. Packed 
     in like that, with the boat's high walls. a cry went up: `For 
     Christ's sake, do it in your helmet!' ''
       ``Around 4 a.m. the dawn broke and a pale light spread 
     across the sea, and now we could see that we were in the 
     middle of an armada--every kind of boat, destroyers, probably 
     the greatest array of sea power ever gathered.''
       Now they heard the sound, the deep boom of the shells from 
     the battleships farther out at sea, shelling the beach to 
     clear a path. Above, barely visible through clouds, they saw 
     the transport planes pushing through to drop paratroopers 
     from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. ``Those were 
     brave men.''
       At 5 a.m. they were close enough to shore to see 
     landmarks--a spit of land, a slight rise of a bluff. In front 
     of them they saw some faster, sleeker British boats trying 
     desperately to stay afloat in the choppy water. As the 
     Americans watched, three of the boats flipped over and sank, 
     drowning all the men. A British navigator went by in a 
     different kind of boat. ``He was standing up and he called 
     out to my friend in a very jaunty British accent, `I say, 
     fellows, which way is it to Pointe du Hoc?' That was one of 
     the landmarks, and the toughest beach of all. My friend 
     yelled out that it was up to our right. `Very good!' he cried 
     out, and then went on by with a little wave of his hand.''
       Closer to shore, a furious din--``It was like a Fourth of 
     July celebration multiplied by a thousand.'' By 6 a.m. they 
     were 800 yards from shore. All five boats of the squadron had 
     stayed together. The light had brightened enough that John 
     could see his wristwatch. ``At 6:20 I waved them in with a 
     hard chop of my arm: Go!''
       They faced a barrier, made a sharp left, ran parallel to 
     the shore looking for an opening, got one, turned again 
     toward the beach. They hit it, were in a foot or two of 
     water. The impact jarred loose the landing ramps to release 
     the soldiers as planned. But on John's boat, it didn't work. 
     He scrambled to the bow, got a hammer, pounded the stuck 
     bolt. The ramp crashed down and the soldiers lunged forth. 
     Some were hit with shrapnel as they struggled through to the 
     beach. Others made it to land only to be hit as they crossed 
     it. The stuck ramp probably saved John's life. After he'd 
     rushed forward to grab the hammer, he turned and saw the 
     coxswain he'd been standing next to had been hit and killed 
     by an incoming shell.
       The troops of Omaha Beach took terrible fire. Half the 
     soldiers from John's five boats

[[Page 14774]]

     were killed or wounded. ``It was a horrible sight. But I had 
     to concentrate on doing my job.'' To make room for the next 
     wave of landings, they raised the ramp, backed out, turned 
     around and sped back to the TJ. ``I remember, waving hello to 
     the soldiers in the in-coming boats, as if we were all on 
     launches for a pleasure cruise. I remember thinking how odd 
     that such, gestures of civility would persist amid such 
     horror.''
       Back at the TJ, he was told to take a second breakfast in 
     the wardroom--white tablecloths, steward's mates asking if 
     he'd like more. He thought it unreal: ``from Dog Red Beach to 
     the Ritz.'' He heard in the background the quiet boom of the 
     liberation of Europe. Then back to a Higgins boat for another 
     run at the beach. This time the ramp lowered, and he got off. 
     Dog Red Beach was secure. The bodies of the dead and wounded 
     had been carried up onto a rise below a bluff. He felt 
     thankful he had survived. ``Then I took a few breaths and 
     felt elated, proud to have played a part in maybe the biggest 
     battle in history.''
       John went on to landings in Marseilles, Iwo Jima and 
     Okinawa. After he came home, he went on to chair Goldman 
     Sachs, work in Ronald Reagan's State Department, and head 
     great organizations such as the International Rescue 
     Committee. He is, in that beautiful old phrase, a public 
     citizen.
       But if you asked him today his greatest moment, he'd say 
     that day on the beach, when he was alive and grateful for it. 
     ``At that moment, dead tired, soaked to the skin, I would not 
     have wanted to be anywhere else in the world.''
       It is silly to think one generation is ``better'' than 
     another. No one born in 1920 is, by virtue of that fact, 
     better than someone born in 1960. But it is true that each 
     era has a certain mood, certain assumptions--in John's era, 
     sacrifice--and each generation distinguishes itself in time, 
     or doesn't. John's did. He himself did. And what better day 
     than today to say: Thanks, John.


                                 energy

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the majority leader, Senator Reid, has 
spoken about an energy roadmap. He talked about it on Friday. He talked 
about it again today. I am glad he is talking about it. I want to make 
a suggestion to him, which I hope he can accept. I am sure that in his 
home State, Nevada, as well as in my home State, Tennessee, the first 
thing out of anybody's mouth has to do with gasoline prices.
  I try to read on the floor of the Senate regularly letters that have 
been e-mailed to me from Tennesseans whose lives are changed by the $4 
and $4.25 gasoline. What Senator Reid said in his remarks was that he 
has an energy roadmap. I say, with great respect, that I am afraid his 
roadmap is only half a roadmap because he is willing to use less energy 
but not willing--as far as I can tell--to find more energy.
  In 1961, President Kennedy said: Let's go to the Moon in 10 years. 
But if the astronauts had a roadmap that took them only halfway there, 
they would be floating in space. That is where I am afraid we would be 
as a country if we only do half our job as we address $4 gasoline.
  The problem that we have is a very simple one, even though a 
difficult one. It has to do with economics 101, the law of supply and 
demand. We have low supplies and more demand because around the world, 
the Chinese, the Indians, and others are growing wealthier and using 
more oil, from which gasoline is made.
  Mr. President, the only real solution to the $4, $4.25 gasoline 
prices is to find more and use less--find more, as well as use less.
  Now, the majority leader's suggestions that he mentioned--and I don't 
think they are part of the bill yet--include some very promising ideas. 
Curb speculation. We on the Republican side have introduced legislation 
that would put 100 more cops on the beat to curb speculation. Say that 
oil produced in America should be used here. That is what is happening 
today.
  Increase our focus on renewable energy; renewable energy is 
important. It is only 3 percent of the total amount of electricity that 
we use in the United States today. We have a long way to go before 
solar, wind, and other energy of that kind can be a major part of what 
we need to do. Most of that is devoted to electricity. Of course, that 
is important. On the Republican side, we have supported that.
  But what we have done on our side is introduce legislation that would 
do both: find more and use less. We don't do that with the hope that we 
will have a Republican bill because we don't want to see a Democratic 
bill either. We want an American bill. We believe our legislation 
deserves--and will earn--Democratic support. In fact, Democratic 
Senators have voted for some of the provisions in our legislation 
before.
  In terms of finding more oil, we propose allowing deep sea 
exploration--give a State the option to drill for oil, if the State 
wishes to do that, and then take 37 percent of that money and put it 
into the State treasury for universities, beach nourishment, lowering 
taxes, or whatever. Put 12\1/2\ percent into the Land and Water 
Conservation Fund and half to the Federal Treasury. We could unlock, 
conservatively, 1 million barrels of oil a day if we were to allow deep 
sea exploration.
  Today the President has taken off the Presidential moratorium on deep 
sea exploration. So it is up to us in the Congress to say: Will we or 
will we not find more oil by exploring in the deep seas off our coast?
  Two, we have suggested in our legislation that we take the moratorium 
off oil shale development in four Western States. That could produce, 
over time, 2 million barrels a day. Just those two ideas--drilling 
offshore and oil shale--would increase by one-third the American 
production of oil, almost all of which we use here. So that is the 
supply part.
  We are also interested in using less. The most promising way to do 
that, I believe--and 44 of us have agreed, and I will bet many do on 
the other side--has to do with plug-in electric cars and trucks. When I 
first started talking about that, people thought I had been out in the 
sun too long. In fact, Nissan, General Motors, Toyota, and Ford are all 
going to be selling us cars that we can plug in at night--hybrid cars. 
Three quarters of us drive less than 40 miles a day, and I am one of 
those. I can drive back and forth to the Senate using very little 
gasoline, if any. We could electrify half of our fleet of cars and 
trucks in the United States. That would take time, but it would be a 
clear direction toward using less oil.
  With just those provisions I have talked about--finding more and 
using less--we could cut our oil imports in half. That would reduce 
your gas prices.
  If you are driving a plug-in electric vehicle, by the way, there is 
plenty of electricity. At night, while we are asleep, most utilities 
have plenty of cheap electricity they would sell us. You plug your car 
or truck in at night for just about the same amount of charge that your 
water heater would use, and you could fill up with 60 cents of 
electricity instead of $100 worth of gasoline.
  Just these three ideas--deep sea exploration, oil shale, and plug-in 
vehicles--would cut oil imports in half. We are ready to do that.
  We would like for the majority leader to bring to the floor of the 
Senate an energy bill that is directed toward reducing the price of 
gasoline. Let each Democratic Senator put up their best idea, and let 
the Republicans put up our best ideas. Let's have a debate and votes, 
and they would probably take 60 votes.
  We cannot get everything done before we leave in August, or even 
before October, but we can begin. From the day the United States of 
America--the third largest producer of oil and the user of a quarter of 
all of the oil in the world--finds more and uses less, the future 
expected price of oil will go down, and today's price of oil will 
stabilize and begin to go down.
  I say to my friend, the majority leader, as one Senator, I welcome 
his interest and attention to energy, and specifically to gasoline 
prices. We Republicans have offered--44 of us--a slimmed-down bill, a 
modest bill. We don't say drill everywhere offshore. We don't say drill 
in Alaska in this piece of legislation. We say give States the option, 
and lift the moratorium on oil shale. Make electric plug-in cars and 
trucks commonplace and cut our oil imports in half over time. That is 
the way to reduce gasoline prices.
  We hope if we are able in this Senate to act like a Senate and spend 
a week or two on this legislation and consider a number of amendments, 
we can come up with a result and we can go home to

[[Page 14775]]

our constituents in August and say: Yes, we got a result. And when we 
come back in September, if we can do more, we will. When we come back 
in January, if we can do more, we will.
  Everybody in Tennessee is saying to me: Senator Alexander, why don't 
you get together and work something out? I would like to do that, Mr. 
President. I didn't come here to play politics, talk trash, or stick my 
fingers in the eyes of the other side.
  In my first speech on, for example, U.S. history, the majority 
leader, who was then the whip, was on the Senate floor, and he stood up 
and cosponsored my bill. Senator Kennedy got 20 cosponsors for it. It 
is now law today. Surely, if we can do that with U.S. history summer 
academies, we can do it with gasoline prices when it is the No. 1 
issue.
  Last Tuesday we had a bipartisan breakfast that was attended by 14 
Senators. We heard from Senators Conrad, Chambliss, Domenici, and 
Bingaman. We talked about what we could agree on that had to do with 
both finding more and using less.
  We cannot repeal the law of supply and demand. We know that mostly on 
the Republican side we talk about supply. Over on the Democratic side, 
they talk about demand. We have to put it together if we want to bring 
gasoline prices down. That is what we should be doing. I think that 
opportunity exists today.
  In that closed room last Tuesday--and there is another bipartisan 
breakfast in the morning--I heard some Senators say things such as:

       If we cannot deal with this across party lines, we don't 
     deserve to be here.

  I think that is right, and most Americans feel that way.
  The majority leader has many issues that have to be dealt with in the 
next 2 or 3 weeks. I hope he can find a way to bring his best ideas to 
the floor and allow us to do the same. Let's bring up the debates and 
let's talk and let's vote and come to a result, and let's begin to 
lower gasoline prices. From the day the United States of America says 
to the world that we are going to find more American oil and we are 
going to use less oil, the expected price of oil and gas will begin to 
go down, and so will today's price of gas and oil go down.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, 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. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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