[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16131-16171]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               GAS PRICES

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the motto of the Republicans in the Senate 
is: Talk more, produce less. Do you know what we offered them this 
week? We said to the Republicans: Here is the opportunity of a 
lifetime. Do you have a position on speculation? Do you think it is an 
issue? If you do, put your proposal on the floor and we will put our 
proposal on the floor. We will have an equal vote requirement, equal 
debate time. We will go at it and we will let the Senate decide. We are 
not going to write your version of the speculation, you would not write 
ours, but you have every right to do that. The Republican response was: 
No, we are not interested in that. We don't think speculation is a 
problem.
  Well, they ought to meet with the CEOs of the major airlines. They 
ought to spend a minute talking to them about what they feel because 
they are paying the jet fuel costs and they are cutting back on service 
and they are cutting back on employment. That is the reality of what 
they face today. Speculation, manipulation is a major concern. We have 
a responsible approach to it. The Republicans refuse to offer an 
alternative. OK. That is their decision.
  Then we said to them: Why don't you present your energy bill? The 
Republican leader came to the floor with a litany of things the 
Republicans believe in. For over a week we have said to them: Put it in 
a bill offered on the floor. They have said: No, no. We would rather 
come to the floor and complain, rather than come to the floor and 
debate our approach.
  I listened to the Republican leader as he came to the floor, and it 
is very clear to me. They don't want a debate and a vote. They want 
this issue to drag out forever and ever, amen. That is not what the 
American people want. They want us to tackle this thing, offer 
alternatives on the floor, debate them up or down, go forward.
  It troubles me when the Republican leader repeatedly says--
incorrectly--that when it comes to energy, from the Democratic view, we 
want to deal with speculation and, in his words, ``do
nothing else.'' He forgets the whole second part of this--the Energy 
bill we are proposing on the Democratic side and they are going to 
propose on the Republican side. We offered them that. They turned us 
down.
  I might also say there is no idea how many amendments the Republicans 
are going to offer. Two days ago, Senator Kyl and I were on the floor, 
and he said there were 25 amendments. Senator Specter walked up and 
said: I have 2, so make that 27. Then Senator Kyl said: Come to think 
of it, I have one too. We are up to 28. That was 2 days ago. This is 
growing similar to bacteria in a petri dish as the Republicans meet in 
their conference and 


[[Page 16132]]


dream up more amendments. That is good. It shows a 
creative mind at work, and it is a great exercise, but it isn't what 
the American people are asking for.
  If you have a good set of ideas, offer them. You want to bring up 
more nuclear power, Senator Domenici? Put that in your package. You 
want to have more offshore drilling, put it in your package. You want 
to have coal to oil, put it in your package. If you believe in it, 
stand and fight for it. But they will not. They will not fight for it. 
They want to run. Run to the press and explain that they are not being 
given enough time on the floor, if they could have a little more time, 
as days burn off the calendar as they stand and complain. They can't 
come up with a plan, and that is the unfortunate reality.
  Then, they quote T. Boone Pickens. Mr. Pickens, I am sure, is a 
gifted man. I have never met him. I have seen him on TV. He has spent a 
lot of money to make sure we all get to see him. They have misquoted 
him on the floor so often. I have watched that ad he is paying millions 
of dollars for America to see, and I do remember the part of the ad 
where he says: ``We can't drill our way out of this problem.'' Mr. T. 
Boone Pickens said that.
  You don't hear that from the Republican side. Their idea is we can 
drill our way out of this. They forget the reality. Of all the oil in 
the world, if you look at the vast quantity, we have 3 percent of it 
under our control--3 percent. We use 25 percent of the oil. You can't 
drill your way out of it. We know we are going to need exploration and 
production, but we know we need a lot more, including conservation, 
renewables, sustainable energy sources. That is the reality of what we 
face.
  We have made this offer to them time and again. They will not accept 
it. They would rather come to the floor and complain.
  When you go through the list, you see first drilling offshore. 
Democrats support that. There are 34 million acres currently under 
lease to oil companies for drilling they are not using. Why don't they 
start drilling there since they paid for this land?
  Oil shale. That is in our bill. Even though that is 15 years away, we 
want to take a look at oil shale as an opportunity.
  Incentives for batteries, of course we support that. There is no 
debate there.
  Untapped American oil. We think there is untapped American oil in 
Alaska--23 million acres' worth that the oil companies aren't touching. 
They should go in there and take a look, drill for it, bring it 
forward.
  Nuclear energy. I don't understand how Senator McConnell could come 
to the floor and say we could bring gasoline prices down with more 
nuclear energy. Could you picture a car being powered by nuclear 
energy? I can't. If he is talking about plug-in hybrids, he ought to 
clarify the example he is using.
  There are plenty of things we can do. It should have started with a 
good-faith offer which we made to the Republicans and, frankly, they 
should have accepted.
  I yield the floor to the Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. DOMENICI. He can't yield the floor to the Senator. He either uses 
it or it is there made available for the Republicans to use. He can't 
yield to someone.
  Mrs. McCASKILL addressed the Chair.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator can allocate time to 
another Senator based on the time allocated to him.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I have no objection to her speaking. I 
understand that the time is allocated specifically. Who has time?
  Mr. DURBIN. How much time remains?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There is 3 minutes 45 seconds on 
the majority side, 12 minutes on the minority side.
  Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I will speak as in morning business, 
so I am happy to yield now to the Senator from New Mexico. I am happy 
to do that.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I understand there is 3 minutes left for the Senator 
from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. I will use it after the Senator speaks.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Mexico is 
recognized.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I don't know where to begin. So many 
things are being said by the other side. In particular, the Senator 
from Illinois spoke for 10 minutes, and it is impossible for me to 
answer all of the falsities he indicated to the American people in his 
remarks.
  I want to say that yesterday afternoon I got word from the floor of 
the Senate that the American people are not going to be permitted to 
have a vote by the Senate on an amendment that would open the offshore 
lands owned by the American people, because the majority leader has 
seen fit to use a parliamentary process--and I know the people are 
confused and tired of us talking about parliamentary processes around 
here, but the truth is that Senators are also getting fed up with it. 
The majority leader comes along--and we all understand he has the right 
to be recognized--and, when he was recognized, he offered amendments, 
so that yesterday evening, as I sat preparing for today, I was told to 
change your thoughts and your approach because you cannot offer any 
amendments. That is an undeniable fact.
  The majority leader has cloaked this bill in amendments and that is 
called ``filling up the tree.'' I don't know where such an interesting 
concept came from. If it were Christmas time, filling up the tree would 
seem like a nice event. When you are here trying to get the Senate to 
vote on whether a giant asset that belongs to the American people can 
be open for drilling, it is not a very good-sounding series of words.
  ``Filling up the tree'' means that those who want to offer 
amendments, who want to let the Senate determine the future of that 85 
percent of the offshore lands of America, cannot do so. Those Senators, 
on behalf of their people--every Senator represents people and all of 
the people have an interest in the ownership of this land; it is a huge 
piece of land. It is very valuable in terms of crude oil and natural 
gas. Americans should probably have woken up this morning to go to 
breakfast and to read in the paper: United States Senate permits 
drilling in the offshores of continental America so the price of 
gasoline can come down. That is what they should have read in the 
newspapers across the land. There is no question that more than 50 
Senators--Democrats and Republicans--favor opening all of those lands 
to exploration; that is, drilling, and to let the Governors of the 
States participate in that process so the States can share in the 
royalty. That is a very simple proposition. That is the bill and that 
is the issue.
  Now we have been told, for their own reasons, the Democrats have said 
you cannot do that, we have filled the tree. You will come to us and 
prayerfully ask for permission to do anything on this bill. You will 
have to seek our permission. So the Senator from Nevada can stand here 
and say you can do this or that, but the truth is, what he is saying 
is: If I want to let you do it, you can, because the rules of the 
Senate do not permit it.
  So we are unable to get a vote. That doesn't mean we are going to 
quit. We are going to stay here on this floor. If, in fact, the 
majority leader tries to close off debate, he will lose, because we 
believe the biggest issue confronting the American people, bar
none, today is the price of oil. We think the biggest opportunity to 
lower the pressure and bring down gasoline prices at the pump and cause 
us to import less is to open the offshore of the United States to 
drilling, plain and simple.
  The majority started this issue with a bill they put in, which is 
supposed to have something to do with the price of oil. It has to do 
with speculation.
  I send to the desk to be printed the statement of several prominent 
Americans, all of whom say the problem is not speculation; the problem 
is supply and demand. To affect supply and demand, you ought to be 
opening the offshores, which affects supply in a big 



[[Page 16133]]


way. I ask unanimous consent that this be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       ``It's not speculation, it is supply and demand. We don't 
     have excess capacity in the world anymore, and that's what 
     you're seeing in oil prices.''--Warren Buffett, Chairman & 
     CEO, Berkshire Hathaway, 6/25/08
       ``There is little evidence that large investment flows into 
     the futures market are causing an imbalance between supply 
     and demand, and are therefore contributing to high oil 
     prices. . . . Blaming speculation is an easy solution which 
     avoids taking the necessary steps to improve supply-side 
     access and investment or to implement measures to improve 
     energy efficiency.''--International Energy Agency, Medium-
     Term Oil Market Report, July 2008
       ``If financial speculation were pushing all prices above 
     the level consistent with the fundamentals of supply and 
     demand, we would expect inventories of crude oil and 
     petroleum products to increase as supply rose and demand 
     fell. But, in fact, available data on oil inventories shows 
     notable declines over the past year.''--Ben Bernanke, 
     Chairman of the Federal Reserve, 7/15/2008
       ``There is speculation, but speculation, under most 
     circumstances, is a positive thing. It provides liquidity and 
     allows people to hedge their risks. And it provides price 
     discovery. It can help allocate oil availability over time, 
     depending on the pattern of futures prices and so on.''--Ben 
     Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, 7/15/2008
       ``The rise in oil prices can be explained by basic economic 
     factors, such as limited growth in supplies in recent years, 
     a weakening dollar, a global surge in energy demand and a 
     string of production disruptions in countries like 
     Nigeria.''--Daniel Yergin, Chairman, Cambridge Energy 
     Research Associates, 6/25/08
       ``The truth is that increased speculation in oil futures is 
     not a cause of rising oil prices, but rather an effect of 
     those prices, which have skyrocketed due to growth in global 
     demand, geopolitical instability, and constricted supply in 
     several producing countries.''--John Chapman, Researcher at 
     the American Enterprise Institute, 7/16/2008
       ``If Congress is literally going over the CFTC's head and 
     talking about imposing legislation or making the CFTC 
     exercise its emergency powers to limit excess speculation 
     when they don't even know what that means. I don't even know 
     what excess speculation means.''--Michael Haigh, senior 
     commodity analyst at Societe Generale Corporate and 
     Investment Banking and former associate chief economist with 
     the CFTC, 6/30/2008
       ``There's no evidence of speculative influence. Speculators 
     are not contributing to the demand for physical oil as they 
     almost always roll positions prior to delivery.''--Craig 
     Pirrong, professor of finance at the University of Houston, 
     member, CFTC energy markets advisory committee, 6/24/08
       ``On any given day, expectations determine the price; but 
     the spot market also has to clear, and the way this happens 
     is that excess supply must be added to physical stocks. Even 
     with fairly inelastic supply and demand, any large 
     speculative deviation from the ``fundamental'' price should 
     show up in a noticeable increase in inventories.''--Paul 
     Krugman, New York Times columnist, 6/28/08
       ``To date, the PWG has not found valid evidence to suggest 
     that high crude oil prices over the long term are a direct 
     result of speculation or systematic market manipulation by 
     traders. Rather, prices appear to be reflecting tight global 
     supplies and the growing world demand for oil, particularly 
     in emerging economies. As a result, Congress should proceed 
     cautiously before drastically changing the regulation of the 
     energy markets.''--President's Working Group on Financial 
     Markets, Letter to Senator Saxby Chambliss, 7/21/2008
       ``The Task Force's preliminary assessment is that current 
     oil prices and the increase in oil prices between January 
     2003 and June 2008 are largely due to fundamental supply and 
     demand factors. During this same period, activity on the 
     crude oil futures market--as measured by the number of 
     contracts outstanding, trading activity, and the number of 
     traders--has increased significantly. While these increases 
     broadly coincided with the run-up in crude oil prices, the 
     Task Force's preliminary analysis to date does not support 
     the proposition that speculative activity has systematically 
     driven changes in oil prices.''--Interagency Task Force on 
     Commodity Markets, Interim Report on Crude Oil, 7/22/2008

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I have been here for 36 years. I chose 
this year to leave. When an energy bill came forth on the floor and we 
were going to be able to amend it, I thought we were going to be able 
to talk about all of the issues, get together with the Democrats and 
see how many would join us in a major piece of legislation, and I was 
rather excited. I thought the American people might be pleased with us 
again, because we were going to do something good.
  Do you know what. This 9-percent approval rating of the Senate is not 
there for no good cause. We are, today, adding to that negative image 
when the American people try to understand what is going on. We were 
told--and we applauded when we heard it--that this great big piece of 
property we own--everything 3 miles out from the shoreline of America 
is owned by the people. There is oil and gas there. For some reason, we 
closed it down 27 years ago, and every year we put that moratorium on 
again. It is time to open that and say to the world that we don't have 
a total solution, but we have a lot of oil and gas we ought to put into 
the mix and let our companies get to work on, trying to drill and see 
how it will affect the price of oil.
  Some people are saying, well, there are already a lot of oil and gas 
leases on the Outer Continental Shelf; why don't we force those oil 
companies to do better at using it? Let me make that proposition clear. 
Eighty-five percent of the offshore land is tied up in the moratorium 
and 15 percent is being used. That 15 percent that is being used is all 
subject to leases which say that if you don't produce on time, you lose 
the lease. We don't need any further management in that regard. It is 
already managed by a ``use it or lose it'' clause in every lease that 
anyone has on any of the lands that are currently on lease to American 
companies, or a consortia of American companies and others. So that is 
a joke when we talk about the fact that we will get more by rearranging 
that. We need to open the portions that are closed. We need a thorough 
debate on a number of amendments, and our leaders have said there are 
at least five or six of them. We don't need a long period of time, but 
we need an open and free amendment process that we could use. We could 
go to the other side and get some bipartisan things going. I believe 
there are many Democrats who want to join us.
  It serves the wishes of the majority leader to close off debate, 
because even Democrats cannot join in amendments to do anything now, 
because the tree is filled--and it is not with Christmas presents. It 
is filled with amendments so we cannot offer any more amendments. In 
other words, we are dead in the water in trying to offer what Americans 
expected--amendments that will open the offshore to drilling.
  Mr. President, as I understand it, I have how much time, 3 minutes?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Yes.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I think Senators understand that this Senator from New 
Mexico, as part of the last 6 years while serving on the Energy 
Committee, has been party to producing three major energy bills that 
have all been good for the country. They all have ended up being 
bipartisan. They all required a lot of time on the floor. I could not 
come down here and put in an amendment and say it is done. It took some 
time. We wanted to use this time to thoroughly debate the appropriate 
options to opening the offshore for drilling.
  We thought Americans, who are watching the price of crude oil come 
down since the President lifted the Executive closures that existed, 
would like to see the job finished. We thought they would like to see 
it opened totally, taking off all of the congressional hangups, the 
congressional moratorium.
  I think Americans deserve that. They deserve something positive. They 
are very worried. The economy is suffering because of the $700 billion a 
year that goes to foreign countries. It is taken from us for the crude 
oil we buy. While that foreign country grows, America dwindles. We get 
poorer; the world gets richer. I don't know how much longer we can 
stand it. We didn't want to stand it too much longer. We wanted to put 
in our offsets offshore and let them join in this war we are in, 
instead of letting us die by attrition as we send our money overseas.
  It doesn't seem anybody in America should get confused. Democrats can 
make laundry lists of things that happened and put up a sign in the 
Senate saying we are the ones blocking this. How could we be blocking 
this when we 


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are not in control? The majority leader stood up and 
locked this bill up with his amendments, so we cannot offer amendments 
without his approval. We don't intend to do that. That is not the way 
to do business.
  The American people expect us to have debates and up-or-down votes on 
this issue, with every Senator expressing his or her will on what 
happens to this big asset. That is what we want.
  I thank the Chair.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Missouri is 
recognized.
  Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I thank my friend from New Mexico. I 
know his service in this body is one that every American should admire. 
He is a good Senator for his State. He has been a warm and friendly 
senior Senator to this very junior Senator from Missouri. I appreciate 
his friendship very much.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I thank the Senator. I will not use her 
time, I will use mine. It has been a pleasure since I first met the 
Senator. I don't always remember all of the new names, but the Senator 
has the same name as one of my daughters. We have become friends. I 
admire the Senator from Missouri too, and say I do believe she is 
learning to be a Senator very fast. I am proud to be her friend. I 
thank her for her kind words.


                              Audit Report

  Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, yesterday there was an incredibly dark 
cloud that passed over Washington. I think the saddest thing about this 
very dark cloud is the fact that there wasn't an immediate outcry from 
every corner of this building and every office in the Pentagon. One of 
the most frustrating things about Washington is the attention span of 
so many in Washington and the search for the headline that is the most 
sensational. So it is no wonder that news about auditing doesn't bust 
out.
  I come to the floor to try to emphasize the crisis we are facing 
right now in terms of the Pentagon and auditing of taxpayer dollars.
  Let me briefly explain the two agencies involved. One is the Defense 
Contract Audit Agency. What is DCAA? That is part of the problem. 
Nobody knows what it is. Nobody knows what it does. DCAA is the 
auditing agency in the Department of Defense that is responsible for 
auditing the contractors. Think about that for a minute: 3,500 people 
are employed by this Agency, and they are our eyes and ears into 
contractor practices at the Department of Defense. We are talking 
serious money here. We are talking about hundreds and hundreds of 
billions--with a ``b''--of dollars.
  One would think that if we have 3,500 people working full time to 
audit the contractors, we should all feel good about that and, frankly, 
before yesterday, I kind of felt good about it. As I learned about all 
of the auditors of the Department of Defense, I thought: I am glad we 
have an agency with the responsibility to get to the bottom of the 
prices that were charged by contractors, to get to the bottom of the 
money that comes out of our Treasury for contractors--until yesterday.
  The other agency involved is the GAO. I know the initials ``GAO'' are 
thrown around all the time. Let me explain what GAO is. GAO is the 
Government Accountability Office. They are what I would call the papa 
bear of auditors in Government. They are the auditors who look at all 
parts of Government, many times in response to a request by Congress 
but many times in response to a hotline call they have gotten from 
people within Government.
  They start getting hotline calls about the practices at DCAA. This is 
enough to worry an auditing agency, that they are getting hotline calls 
on an auditing agency. This is enough to get their attention. So GAO 
started this audit of the Defense Contract Audit Agency based on 
complaints to their fraud hotline.
  Here is the allegation. Are you ready for this? Here is the 
allegation: that these audits were being changed with no factual basis 
at the direction of supervisors, without evidence to support the 
changes, to help the contractors. This is a wildly sensational claim 
within the world of auditing. This is the kind of claim that, frankly, 
most auditors would probably not take seriously because it is so 
outrageous. But because there had been so many calls to the hotline, 
GAO went to work, over 100 interviews, months and months of work, and 
yesterday they issued their report.
  They looked at 13 different audits named in the complaints and found 
that in every single audit, favorable findings for the contractors had 
no backup in the workpapers. What does that mean? If you are an 
auditor, your job is to find the facts. Everything you put in an audit 
has to be backed up by what are called workpapers. That means that 
anybody at any time could go in and find the factual evidence to 
support every line in the audit. That is part of Government auditing 
standards.
  What else did GAO find? You are not going to believe this. You are 
not going to believe how bad this is. They found that supervisors 
dropped findings and changed opinions without the evidence to support 
it. They found several instances where auditors were threatened if they 
did not change their findings to support what the supervisors wanted 
and if they did not change their findings to favor the contractors. GAO 
found this practice to be so pervasive at two of the three locations, 
they called it ``a pattern of frequent management actions that served 
to intimidate auditors and create an abusive environment.'' These 
auditors were intimidated by supervisors and made to tell them what 
they were telling GAO. So not only were the supervisors on the auditors 
to do findings favorable to the contractors, they got on them when they 
started talking to GAO. They intimidated them into telling them what 
they were telling the investigators, the auditors from GAO. Their 
supervisors made them feel their jobs were threatened.
  At one location, auditors were sometimes given 20 days to finish an 
audit, and if it wasn't enough time to do the audit work, they said: 
Just do it; just do it with what you have.
  Supervisors admitted to not reviewing the workpapers. That doesn't 
sound like a big deal, right? Who reviews workpapers? Let me tell you, 
in the world of auditing, it is a very big deal.
  This is how an audit works. The field auditors gather the papers, the 
factual information, and then it goes through a series of reviews and 
checks. It is ultimate quality control in an audit. It is unheard of 
for an audit to be issued without review up the line. That review is 
how you cull the information that is incorrect and make sure everything 
in that audit is factual and objective.
  Here is a very good example of how serious and systemic the problem 
is. DCAA actually agreed with a contractor, one of the five largest 
contractors in the country, ahead of time what items would be reviewed 
for the audit. It is like giving a kid the answers to the test. There 
is no point in doing an audit if you tell the auditee ahead of time: 
OK, we are going to test you on this.
  Here is the amazing thing. Even with the inside information, the DCAA 
auditors found the process to be inadequate with the contractor. Did 
they issue an
unfavorable opinion? Oh, no, they didn't issue an unfavorable opinion. 
Instead, the auditor was removed by a supervisor. The new auditor was 
threatened with personnel action if the audit was not changed to favor 
the contractor.
  In every single one, all 13 audits that were reviewed, the GAO found 
that Government auditing standards were not followed.
  There is a book in auditing called the Yellow Book. It is the bible 
of auditing. It is the generally accepted Government auditing 
standards, and every Government auditor is required to follow these 
standards. Once again, auditors have a lot of professional pride about 
the objectivity of their work and 


[[Page 16135]]


about the standards they follow. It 
would not be effective if you had auditors who were auditing the 
government in Michigan and auditors who were auditing the government in 
San Francisco and auditors who were auditing the Pentagon all using 
different methodology to do audits. So this standard is, in fact, 
revered within the Government auditing world.
  Here is what is amazing. Thirteen audits were looked at. Did one of 
them not meet standards? No. Did two of them not meet standards? No. 
Every single audit failed Government auditing standards--13 of 13, 100 
percent. This is mind-boggling, that we would have 3,500 people 
watching Defense Department contractors in this country and every audit 
that was looked at was failed by Government auditing standards. Nine of 
the thirteen had audit opinions changed without documentation and 
without workpapers to support the charges. Three had evidence that 
showed the DCAA auditor trying to perform his or her job and his 
independence impaired by his supervisors. Nine of the thirteen audits 
had conclusions that were not supported by the work performed by the 
auditors.
  They got caught. They have gotten caught in what could be the biggest 
auditing scandal in the history of this town. And I am not 
exaggerating. I will guarantee you, as auditors around the country 
learn about this, they are going to have disbelief and raw anger that 
this agency has impugned the integrity of Government auditors 
everywhere by these kinds of irresponsible actions.
  By the way, auditors are very conservative with other auditors. Every 
auditing agency has peer review. By the way, GAO has always passed all 
of its peer review without any problem. But I know when we were getting 
peer reviewed when I was the State auditor in Missouri, it was a very 
nervous time because auditors come into your office from all over the 
country and they pore through your work. They go through your 
workpapers. They check all of your reviews. They, in fact, as an 
objective third party, look and make sure you are doing objective 
professional government auditing work. They are very conservative 
because it is peer to peer, right? It is hard to criticize your peers. 
It is hard to call out another auditor. That is why this is such a big 
deal. It is damning. This audit is damning of DCAA and the job it 
should be doing to protect Government taxpayers from the incredible 
waste and inefficiency in the contracting of the Department of Defense.
  So when you get an audit, another part of the audit is you respond to 
the audit. The auditee gets an opportunity to speak in the audit. It is 
a very good thing because the auditee, if they firmly believe the audit 
is not justified, has an ability to give their side of the story. It 
also allows the opportunity to make sure you are exchanging 
information. So that response in the audit is also a part of Government 
auditing standards.
  Let me tell you, when they got this audit, it was a dark day for 
them, and they had a choice. DCAA had a choice. They could have come 
forward and said: We have a big problem here and we have to clean 
house, and announced they were firing people in all of these offices 
and that supervisors were being fired and that they were going to clean 
up their act. That was one choice they had, to admit they had been 
caught in this scandal and to admit they would make it better. But what 
did they do? What did DCAA do as a result of this incredible audit 
report? They ``disagreed'' with the totality of the audit.
  Here is what is so insulting about them disagreeing with the totality 
of the audit. They have no evidence to back it up. They have nothing to 
refute. The voluminous--this is not a small audit, this is page after 
page of documentation. They dispute the facts about the contractor 
being given prior notice that he would be audited in the above case 
even though there is clear evidence to support this conclusion in the 
DCAA workpapers.
  They said, believe it or not--wait until you hear this:

       They are currently operating at a satisfactory level of 
     compliance with Government auditing standards.

  Satisfactory? Thirteen out of thirteen failing Government standards, 
and that is satisfactory? How dare they. How dare they say that is 
satisfactory. They flatly stated they don't believe any supervisors 
harassed or intimidated staff or willfully removed findings. The 
evidence is there. The fact they are denying the evidence is there 
shows the level of dysfunction in this auditing agency. They don't seem 
to be too concerned about zero percent of these audits meeting 
Government standards.
  The Department of Defense has been on the high-risk list of this 
Government for more than a decade. Scandal after scandal has rolled out 
of the Department of Defense on contracting.
  I took a trip to Iraq on contract oversight, and with an auditor's 
eye, meeting with the people who oversee the contracts in Iraq. And I 
will tell you conservatively--and auditors are very conservative--
conservatively, I think we have burned up more than $150 billion in 
pure contracting abuse.
  We have had hearings where weapon system after weapon system comes in 
100 percent more expensive, 3 or 4 years off time. And all this time we 
have been wasting hundreds and billions of dollars, the fox was in the 
chicken coop. The Defense Contracting Auditing Agency has been indicted 
in the strongest terms by their peers at GAO.
  This situation demands hearings. And if somebody doesn't lose their 
job at DCAA before nightfall, the problem is more serious than anybody 
in this Chamber can possibly imagine. Because they think they can sweat 
it out. They think we are not going to pay attention. They think we are 
going to move on to the next headline, the next campaign stop. They 
think we are so worried about all the other problems that no one is 
going to notice this auditing agency has been disclosed and exposed as 
being fundamentally corrupt in the way they issue audits.
  It calls into question every single audit done by this agency. And if 
we don't take it seriously, if we don't give it our attention, if we 
don't demand that the fox get out of the chicken coop, and we start 
taking care of taxpayer dollars, ultimately it is our national 
security. All of the needs we have for our men and women who fight for 
us, all the needs of our active military, all the technology we need to 
stay secure and safe, all of it is so important to our Nation. Yet what 
we have found out in the last 24 hours is no one is paying attention to 
the way we are spending that money. It makes me sick to my stomach.
  I am angry. And I will tell you, this Senator is not going away on 
this issue. If I have to stand on this floor every day for the next 6 
months, I will do it, to get someone fired at that agency and to get 
them to clean up their act.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Pryor). The Senator from Washington.


                                 Energy

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I come to the floor this morning to talk 
about the fact that the Senate is going to have an opportunity to vote 
on cloture to move us to an important bill that will address the issue 
most of my constituents in the State of Washington, as well as all 
those in the country, are facing, and that is the high price of 
gasoline today--$4.45 is what I paid last weekend when I went home to 
Washington State. This is having an impact on our families, on our 
communities, and on all of our businesses--on everyone.
  It is important that we address this issue. The bill that is being 
offered, which we hope to get past cloture and filibuster from the 
other side, is not a silver bullet, but it is an attempt to get at what 
we believe is a fundamental part of the solution, and that is the 
manipulation of the oil marketers by a few greedy traders, thereby 
increasing the cost you and I pay at the pump. We are not asking for a 
large energy bill, but we are saying it is important that we address 
this issue in a way that will produce relief as quickly as possible in 
some way for our consumers as we head out a week from now for our 
August break.
  I have been listening to this debate, and I have to say I am fairly 
surprised 


[[Page 16136]]


by all of those who come to the floor and say: Wait, wait, 
wait, wait, wait. Unless we get to offer amendment after amendment 
after amendment on drilling more, and drilling more, and drilling more, 
then we are not going to allow the Senate to deal with the issue of 
speculation, which Members on both sides agree is critical that we 
address. I think it is important that we step back for a minute and go 
back in history and talk about energy and this Senate's history over 
the last 8 years and this White House's history over the last 8 years.
  Democrats understand there are short-term solutions for the crisis 
facing us, but we also need long-term solutions because we believe, at 
the end of the day, that we have to decrease our dependence on oil. We 
have to decrease our dependence on oil, otherwise this Senate body, 10 
years from now, will again be debating whether to open up more 
drilling. Meanwhile, we are all supposed to ride our bikes until we 
have more oil out there again, and then the next generation gets to 
debate oil again. We want to break this cycle. We want to get to long-
term energy independence. We want to create new alternatives for 
people. We want that new technology to be invested in so that consumers 
10 years from now, and the next generation of Senators who are here and 
consumers out across the country, don't have to listen to this debate 
again. We can get there, but it is not easy.
  Eight years ago, this country elected two oilmen to the White House. 
No surprise: Every energy debate since then has focused on how we can 
drill more for oil. Here we are today, a week before we leave for the 
August recess, and those on the other side want to take us right back 
to drilling again. Let me remind our colleagues what Senators on this 
side of the aisle have been doing for some time. When we got the 
majority a year and a half ago, we said: Okay, with the majority, we 
want to begin making inroads on focusing on energy independence which, 
by the way, will reduce the cost to everybody as the consumption 
decreases. We looked at CAFE standards. We were successful, not in 
doing it quickly, but at least beginning to make progress on setting 
CAFE standards so our cars will be using less fuel. That is part of 
reducing the price of gas in the long term and our dependence on oil.
  We also looked at an energy tax package. In fact, we brought an 
energy tax package to the floor of the Senate that would create 
incentives for alternative energy. It costs a lot to develop new 
technology for energy. We said it is time for the Government to put its 
backing there and provide tax credits for these companies so they can 
do the research that is necessary to get that alternative technology 
out there. What did the other side do? Filibustered. Blocked it. And 
today, those investors are not out there investing in new technology. 
Democrats said we need to move this bill. It is part of our plan in the 
long run to reduce the price of oil to create those alternatives. We 
were blocked on the other side from doing that.
  A few months ago, Democrats said: It is important to look at how we 
can stop this increasing, spiraling cost as soon as possible. We put 
together an energy package, and one of the key components was focusing 
on the oil companies, who were reporting record profits at the time--
and by the way, still are today--and we tried to repeal some of the oil 
companies' tax breaks they currently get so that those costs would go 
back to consumers and reduce our prices. What happened? We brought the 
bill up, and it was blocked by the other side. Why? Because they wanted 
to focus on drilling more oil.
  We have tried many ways on this side to focus on the larger picture 
of energy and how we can reduce consumption, how we can get to energy 
independence, how we can focus on making sure those high gas prices 
that my constituents and others pay today--and by the way, when this 
administration took office 8 years ago, gas was $1.46 a gallon, but 
because of the energy bills that have been pushed by the other side 
that focus on drilling, it is now $4.45 a gallon in my home State. Yet 
here we are today, as we try to focus on speculation in the markets, 
and what does the other side say? Oh no, we need to drill for more for 
oil. Well, that hasn't worked in the past. We have already, several 
years ago, added an additional--and I see my colleague from Illinois 
here on the floor--I believe it was an additional 8 million acres to be 
leased in this country. We added that. Did it reduce the price of gas 
at the pump?
  Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator, through the Chair, yield for a 
question?
  Mrs. MURRAY. I would be happy to yield to the Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Is it not only true that we have 68 million acres of land 
we have leased to the oil companies, which they are paying us money to 
lease in order to find oil and gas, but they are not doing anything 
with it--some 34 million offshore, on the Outer Continental Shelf and 
some 33 million onshore that they are now leasing?
  The Republican side of the aisle has become a one-trick pony--keep 
drilling, keep drilling, keep drilling. We know if we decided today to 
drill on any acreage here, it would be 8 to 14 years before we would 
see any oil coming from it. So this notion not only flies in the face 
of the 68 million acres they currently have, but it doesn't solve the 
problem.
  As the Senator from Washington said, it makes the problem worse 
because we don't face the realities of what we need to do to have a 
national energy policy.
  Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Illinois is absolutely correct. Every 
time we have come out here to try to broaden the energy debate and to 
bring down the price of gasoline and get to energy independence, we 
have heard from the other side: Oh, no, there is only one answer, and 
that is drill more.
  We have given them that. In fact, yes, the oil companies have 68 
million acres of land today that can be drilled, but they are choosing 
not to. Why? Because if they increase the supply, the price is going to 
drop. So what good does it do for us to give them even more of our 
Federal lands, because their benefit is keeping the price high.
  Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator from Washington will yield for another 
observation, she noted that when we elected President Bush and Vice 
President Cheney we brought two people in from the oil industry, and 
coincidentally, during this two-term administration, profits of the oil 
companies in America have reached historic high levels at the expense 
of our economy and families. The Republicans, the President's party, 
want to end this administration by giving them the biggest farewell 
gift anyone could ever wish for in the oil industry--millions and 
millions more acres so that they can, at their pace and in their time, 
decide to drill on.
  It would seem to me, if you are honest about the oil companies and 
what they have done to this economy, this is the last thing we should 
be doing. We should be holding them accountable for the prices they 
charge, the profits they are reporting, and what they have done to the 
American economy. So I ask the Senator from Washington: The 
alternatives we have talked about over the years--fuel efficiency for 
cars, more efficiency in the appliances we use, the buildings we build, 
all of this is part of the big energy picture, is it not? It isn't just 
about keeping oil companies happy.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Well, I say to the Senator from Illinois, he is 
absolutely correct. In fact, in the past few days, a
headline from Reuters read: ``ConocoPhillips' Earnings Rise With Record 
Oil Prices.''
  The oil companies are making a lot of money, so what is the other 
side's answer to every energy debate we have? Give them more money.
  I say to my colleague from Illinois, I know he goes to the 
President's State of the Union Addresses every January, as I do, and we 
sit in the House Chamber and listen to what the President is presenting 
to us. I wonder if the Senator from Illinois remembers 2\1/2\ years 
ago, the President's third State of the Union, I believe it was--and I 
rose with excitement when I heard the President say this to us:

       Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And 
     here we have a serious problem:


[[Page 16137]]


  Now, this is the President of the United States in his State of the 
Union speech.

       America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from 
     unstable parts of the world. The best way to break an 
     addiction is through technology.

  These are not my words, but those of the President of the United 
States. Yet every time we have tried to bring a bill to the floor to 
break our addiction to oil, we are stopped because the other side wants 
to drill more oil.
  So I say to my colleague from Illinois, does it feel to him as though 
we are trying to break our addiction to oil here?
  Mr. DURBIN. I would respond to the Senator from Washington, through 
the Chair, and say that I think America understands this. Sure, we are 
going to be drilling oil in America--we need to, for exploration and 
for production--but we know we only have 3 percent of the world's 
supply of oil--3 percent--and we use 25 percent of the oil. So we can't 
drill our way out of this.
  Whether it is T. Boone Pickens or some friend of mine in central 
Illinois, it is obvious: You have to look for other solutions, and 
those solutions mean the oil companies are not going to be the answer 
to every question. Unfortunately, the Republican side of the aisle, 
time and time and time again, all they have to suggest is drill more 
oil and make more money for the oil companies.
  That isn't the answer to America's energy problem. If it were the 
answer, we would have seen, as the Senator said, gasoline prices coming 
down as we made more acreage available for drilling over the last 
several years. It has not happened. They have gone up dramatically.
  Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Illinois is absolutely correct. I have 
listened to this debate, and it is not just the debate today on 
speculation, about whether we should do that. It is whether we should 
bring energy tax credits, whether we should repeal oil company tax 
breaks and whether we can invest in alternative energy. Every time, the 
only answer we get from the other side is, no, we are not going to do 
that. We want to drill more.
  I would say to my colleague that drilling for oil is a false promise 
to the American people that it will bring down their prices 
substantially as we head off to our August break. Even their own 
Presidential candidate has said drilling oil only brings psychological 
benefit. We don't need any mental health care. We need real reductions 
at the pump. Even President Bush's own energy experts say drilling more 
oil will not produce a significant decrease in the price at the pump.
  As I truly believe and I think most people understand in this 
country, until we invest in long-term energy independence, all we are 
going to do is see the oil companies get more profits and our prices go 
up. The bill we are offering today and hope to move to will begin to 
deal with that and that addresses the issue of speculation. I hope we 
move to that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). The time of the majority has 
expired.
  The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the 
extraordinary impact of rising gasoline prices, the extraordinary 
impact it is having on all Americans, and the parliamentary games of 
those on the other side of the aisle.
  The airline industry, truckers, ranchers, families who must travel to 
and from work and school, families going to buy groceries, all of them 
are experiencing dramatic increases in the cost of energy. These 
soaring gasoline prices offer a glimpse at the effect home heating 
costs will have on the American family budget this coming winter.
  Today's energy crisis is focused on prices at the pump. But the 
Nation's energy concerns stretch well beyond the pump. In the coming 
weeks and months, rising energy prices will be seen in the monthly 
bills for home heating, natural gas, electricity, and heating oil. In 
fact, this month, in Washington, DC, right here in this Capitol 
Building, we are operating our own Senate offices under an electric 
brownout advisory. This is recent evidence that our electric grid is 
stressed. When it comes to energy, we need it all.
  We need to develop domestic supplies of oil and gas. We need to 
develop nuclear energy. We need to develop renewable energy, such as 
wind and solar. We need to develop America's most affordable, secure, 
and abundant energy supply, and that is coal. In fact, coal to liquid 
offers great promise in reducing America's reliance on foreign oil 
imports.
  We must also develop concerted policies to promote increased 
efficiencies, to promote increased conservation, and to reduce waste. 
In summary, we must find more and use less.
  On the subject of soaring gasoline prices, I must ask my colleagues: 
When is enough enough? When will this body be willing to address the 
underlying issue of both supply and demand. Many are calling for 
change. Few are offering meaningful solutions. Here are a few examples.
  Some on the other side of the aisle want to tax their way to lower 
oil prices. Increased taxes will result in higher prices and less oil 
and gas production, not more. Taxes will stifle our economic security. 
Taxes will not encourage economic security.
  Many on the other side of the aisle think litigation is the way to 
bring down prices at the pump. The proposals I am cosponsoring choose 
innovation over litigation.
  Some on the other side of the aisle claim we can regulate our way to 
lower prices at the pump. They want to do it by penalizing oil and gas 
leaseholders. This approach shows very little understanding of the 
energy development process. This approach offers no help, no help at 
all with the bureaucratic maze and roadblocks to finding more energy.
  Some propose restrictions on price gouging by gas station owners, but 
those same individuals fail to show any actual evidence of price 
gouging. In fact, the margins for the gas station retailers in this 
country are being squeezed. Rather than increased regulation, I support 
proposals that invest in inspiration, in ingenuity, and in productivity 
gains. I support technology gains that unleash the power of the private 
sector to develop short- and long-term energy solutions.
  Some want to impose heavy-handed Government mandates to nationalize 
the speed limit. Some are suggesting 55 miles an hour. I bring along a 
copy of a newspaper that hardly ever makes it to the streets of 
Wyoming. It is the New York Times, and this is this morning's paper. 
While the people of Wyoming do not read it, reporters from that paper 
actually went to Wyoming and covered Sheridan, WY.
  There are five wonderful colored pictures of Wyoming and there is a 
nice map and it talks about Wyoming. On the front page of today's New 
York Times, it talks about the Kerns family, a wonderful family in the 
Sheridan, WY, area. They were at a town meeting I recently had and they 
were talking about ranching. This summarizes it. When I hear people 
propose a 55-mile-an-hour limit, talk about ranch families such as the 
Kerns--conservative, self-sufficient, and wanting mostly to be left 
alone.
  That is what it is all about in Wyoming--conservative, self-
sufficient, and wanting to be left alone. We do not need Washington 
telling us how to drive and how fast. We can make those decisions for ourselves.
  I have the belief in the ability of Americans to choose for 
themselves. I am confident the people of America, not Washington, will 
make the right decisions. History has proven that American's self-
reliance is an effective tool against rising energy prices.
  American families right now are conserving in record numbers. They 
are carpooling, they are cutting back on the miles they drive, and they 
are purchasing more fuel-efficient vehicles. Statistics show that this 
year the year-over-year gasoline use is down roughly 2 percent. It is 
the steepest drop in demand in the last 17 years. American families are 
responding and they are responding without being told by the 


[[Page 16138]]


Federal Government to inflate their tires. Yes, that is what I heard yesterday 
in an Energy Committee hearing from an official: It is time to inflate 
your tires.
  American families are conserving. They are doing so without far-
reaching Government mandates. American families are demanding and 
purchasing more fuel-efficient cars regardless of any timeline for 
energy efficiency standards Congress may impose.
  In fact, American families have done much more than simply conserve 
on energy in the past several months. Some have dealt with serious job 
losses. Many have struggled with housing deflation. We are all facing 
inflation at the grocery store.
  You say: Is that happening everywhere? Wyoming has been in the news 
today. First, a front-page story in the New York Times and now a large 
story in the Wall Street Journal today; the headline: ``Want to See 
Inflation's Pressures? Try Wyoming, and Its $1.14 Bagels.''
  There is a nice picture of a friend of mine, a bakery owner, Marsha 
Asbury, in Casper, and first it talks about this city. It talks about 
``this wind-raked city on the plains.'' It tells you we are committed 
to renewable sources of energy because we have a lot of wind in 
Wyoming. But they talk about gasoline prices.

       Gasoline prices, too, have risen sharply as they have 
     across the country. But it is the price of--

  Actually it is what Ms. Asbury puts into her bagels that is causing 
her the trouble because it is causing the inflation. It says:

       Most of her ingredients are shipped in from nearby states. 
     The prices have jumped dramatically this past year, as 
     suppliers struggle to recoup the high cost of trucking items 
     to Wyoming.
       Heavy items have increased in price the most. The canned 
     jalapenos and pumpkin that Ms. Asbury uses for her specialty 
     bagels; the canned apples, for strudel; the sugar and flour--
     all are up 35 percent in the past year. Butter and milk are 
     up 25 percent.

  All because of the cost of energy and transportation fuels.
  As it says:

       Still, the rising cost at the pump hits hard, because 
     Wyoming drivers put an awful lot of miles on their pickups 
     and sport utility vehicles as they traverse this sparsely 
     populated state.

  Yes, American families have moved beyond simply conserving. Now many 
are sacrificing. Despite the resilient response of the American people, 
there is still no meaningful action from this Congress to address the 
fundamental supply and demand for foreign oil. The Senate leadership on 
the other side of the aisle will not allow a debate on bills that will 
actually increase American energy supplies. Each of the provisions to 
increase American energy offered by this side would be coupled with 
measures to improve conservation, to promote energy-efficient measures.
  To be very clear, I agree with some of the components of the 
speculation bill before us. In fact, several of these provisions were 
included in legislation I have cosponsored. Yet, as a matter of 
principle, I believe the Senate must act on a set of solutions rather 
than pursue a piecemeal approach. It is not simply the soaring prices, 
but it is America's reliance, America's dependency on foreign imports. 
Congressional leadership is opposed to even debating increasing 
American exploration and production. With more American supply, there 
is a more secure energy future.
  We have seen the same old responses from the other side of the aisle. 
They approach the current energy crisis, such as nearly every other 
policy challenge, with more taxation, with more regulation, and with 
more litigation. Rural States such as Wyoming are especially hit hard 
by soaring prices. Mass transit is not an option. Prices are high and 
the hundreds and hundreds of letters I received on this issue are a 
testament to the real pain. Wyoming does contribute greatly to 
America's energy needs. We are the largest producer of coal in the 
country; the largest producer of uranium; the second largest source of 
onshore natural gas; and we have world-class wind resources.
  The citizens of Wyoming get it. We have been involved in domestic 
energy production and transmission for decades.
  The other side of the aisle simply says no to domestic energy 
exploration; no to American energy. America faces an energy crisis and 
an economic crisis. Continuing to rely on increasing amounts of foreign 
oil leverages our country's future. It is time to focus on an American 
response: American energy efficiencies, American conservation, and, 
yes, American energy exploration. Our country deserves better and our 
children deserve better.
  The massive transfer of wealth that is happening every day, from our 
country to overseas, is putting our children and our grandchildren's 
future at risk.
  When is enough enough? I am asking those opposing American 
development, how much transfer of wealth is enough? How many hundreds 
of billions of American dollars must we send to foreign nations to buy 
their oil? How much of our Nation's great wealth must we transfer 
before it is acceptable to develop American resources? Is it $100 
billion? Is it $200 billion? Is it $300 billion? Apparently not.
  Some on the other side of the aisle do not want to allow American 
energy production through deep sea exploration, through oil shale 
development, through streamlined permitting. Their so-called responses 
leave America more and more reliant on foreign countries to provide for 
America's energy. We can do better and we can do so in an 
environmentally sensitive manner, as we have done for the 118 years we 
have been a State in Wyoming.
  There have been extraordinary technological developments in oil and 
gas exploration and development. Provisions to address excess 
speculation must be coupled with added supply and added conservation. 
We must find more and use less. The rhetoric from the other side is all 
about change. I think those blocking American solutions to foreign 
energy dependence would do well to change their minds, change their 
policy prescriptions, and change their approach on energy policy; 
otherwise, this Congress will only be leaving American families with 
change in their pockets at the end of each month.
  I believe Americans want meaningful solutions, not merely change.
  There is a difference. American energy is the most important issue 
facing the American people today. American families are sacrificing. At 
a minimum, at an absolute minimum, those same families deserve real 
action from this Congress.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota is recognized.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I congratulate my colleague from Wyoming 
for his comments. His State of Wyoming and my State of South Dakota 
share a border. We have a lot of very similar ways of making a living. 
We share a commonality when it comes to the people we represent, their 
values. And he is exactly on point when he talks about the importance 
of energy to a State like Wyoming and a State like South Dakota and its 
impact on the economy and how families in our States are struggling and 
sacrificing with this extraordinary challenge that faces our Nation 
today, and that is the high cost of energy.
  I want to speak to that subject today as well because on Tuesday, 
July 22, the Interagency Task Force on Commodity Markets released its 
Interim Report on Crude Oil. I think it is important and it bears on 
the debate we are having in the Senate today because the primary purpose of the bill 
that is before us, as put forward by the Democratic leadership as a 
solution to energy, is to focus on the very narrow issue of speculation 
in the marketplace.
  Well, the task force is chaired by the Commodity Futures Trading 
Commission and includes staff members from the Departments of 
Agriculture, Energy, and the Treasury, the Board of Governors of the 
Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities and 
Exchange Commission.
  Although its final report is not expected until September, I think 
the interim report provides some valuable insight on the energy markets 
and the record increase that we are seeing in 


[[Page 16139]]


oil prices. The report concludes that record oil prices are caused by
the simple economic laws of supply and demand.
  The report states:

       Current oil prices and the increase in oil prices between 
     January of 2003 and June of 2008 are largely due to 
     fundamental supply and demand factors.

  The report describes that worldwide demand for petroleum has greatly 
increased over recent years due to population growth and rising 
incomes.
  Specifically, the report states:

       World economic activity has expanded to close to 5 percent 
     per year since the year 2004, marking the strongest 
     performance in two decades. Between 2004 and 2007, global oil 
     consumption grew by 3.9 percent, driven largely by rising 
     demand in emerging markets that are both growing rapidly and 
     shifting toward oil-intensive activities.

  It continues to say:

       China, India, and the Middle East are among the fastest 
     growing in the world; together they have accounted for nearly 
     two-thirds of the rise in world oil consumption since 2004.

  The report also states:

       Since 2003, world oil consumption growth has averaged 1.8 
     percent per year, representing an estimated 1 million barrels 
     per day in 2008.

  On the supply side, on the other side of the equation, the report 
also details how the worldwide supply of oil is inadequate. Both non-
OPEC and OPEC supplies are failing to keep pace with increasing demand.
  The report states:

       In the past 3 years, non-OPEC production growth has slowed 
     to levels well below historical averages, and world surplus 
     capacity has fallen below historical norms. Preliminary 
     inventory data also shows that the Organization for Economic 
     Cooperation and Development (OECD) stocks have fallen below 
     1996-2002 levels.

  The report continues:

       World oil consumption growth has simply outpaced non-OPEC 
     production growth every year since 2003. OPEC production is 
     also falling behind.

  The report describes the failure to meet what they call the ``call on 
OPEC,'' which is the difference between global demand for oil and oil 
produced by non-OPEC countries.

       Since 2003, OPEC oil production has grown by only 2.4 
     million barrels per day while the ``call on OPEC'' has 
     increased by 4.4 million barrels per day. As a result, the 
     world oil market balance has tightened significantly.

  Recently, the President's Working Group on Financial Markets 
reinforced the Interagency Task Force's conclusion. This working group 
consists of the Secretary of the Treasury, Board of Governors of the 
Federal Reserve System, U.S. Security and Exchange Commission, and the 
Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
  In a recent letter to congressional leadership, the Working Group on 
Financial Markets stated:

       Prices appear to be reflecting tight global supplies and 
     the growing world demand for oil, particularly in emerging 
     economies.

  The Interagency Task Force and the President's Financial Working 
Group have concluded what several Members of Congress and, I think, 
what the majority of the American people have known for a long time: we 
have a supply and demand problem. The solution to that problem is to 
find more energy, to produce more and to use less.
  Now, with regard to the supply solution, we have lots of solutions 
that are out there. We have talked about the North Slope of Alaska. We 
know there are about 10 billion barrels of oil on the North Slope of 
Alaska. We have had numerous votes since I have been in the Senate, and 
prior to that in my service in the House, on opening the North Slope of 
Alaska to more production. Every time, it gets defeated by the 
opponents.
  In fact, in 1995, it was actually passed by Congress, and it was at 
the time vetoed by President Clinton. If it had not been vetoed back 
then, we would have an additional 1 million barrels of oil in the 
United States each and every single day.
  Ironically, we hear the same arguments against that today that we 
heard back then: that it will take 5 to 10 years to develop it. Well, 
that is exactly the argument that was used in the debate 10 years ago. 
If we had acted then, now, 10 years later, we would have that extra 1 
million barrels of oil a day available to us, which is the equivalent 
of about what we get from Venezuela.
  The Outer Continental Shelf is home to about 18 billion barrels of 
oil, and that, too, is off-limits. Some of the Outer Continental Shelf 
data is almost 30 years old. There are estimates that there are 86 
billion barrels of undiscovered reserves that exist right off our very 
own coasts.
  Oil shale--there are estimates of 2 trillion barrels of oil shale 
that is currently off-limits; 800 billion barrels of that, of the U.S. 
oil shale, could be economically recoverable.
  Now, Saudi Arabia has the world's largest proven reserves of oil in 
the world; that is, 263 billion barrels. The next largest is Iran with 
133 billion barrels, followed by Iraq with 115 billion barrels. Kuwait 
and Venezuela bring up the next, with 100 billion and 77 billion 
barrels, respectively.
  But the point very simply is that Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado may 
have more oil than Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and Venezuela 
combined. Right now, U.S. energy companies are ready to invest billions 
of dollars in developing this domestic research. They are not asking 
for Government funding. They are not asking for Federal financing. They 
are not asking for environmental exemptions or any kind of special 
treatment.
  All they are asking for is for the U.S. Government to govern. They 
simply want consistent regulation that will allow them to move forward 
with their research. Unfortunately, this Congress has said no--no to 
ANWR, no to the Outer Continental Shelf, no to oil shale, no to coal to 
liquid, no to nuclear, no to all of the things that could lessen our 
dependence on foreign sources of energy.
  Meanwhile, I think the American family is asking, why? Why will 
Congress not work to lower gas prices? Why is Congress standing in the 
way of American ingenuity? Why is Congress limiting access to our 
resources while we send, Americans send, $1.6 billion each and every 
single day outside the United States for imported oil to petro 
dictators around the world, where we are propping up and enriching 
people in places such as Iran and Venezuela who have nothing but 
hostile intentions toward our country?
  Well, it is past time for Congress to act on a supply solution. It is 
time for us to deal with this issue of our supply, and it is also 
important that we deal with the issue of demand because, as I mentioned 
earlier, when you are talking about impacting supply and demand, you 
can do one of two things. You can affect supply by increasing domestic 
production or you can affect the demand side by using less energy. I 
think the solution consists of both, but neither are getting a vote in 
the Senate.
  Congress must invest in advanced technology, batteries and hydrogen 
fuel cells. Those are new technologies that we have to support, and we 
need to continue to invest in renewable fuels. There has not been a 
bigger advocate in the Senate than I am of renewable energy. It is 
already reducing domestic demand for traditional petroleum by about 
130,000 gallons per day.
  We also need to address America's fleet of vehicles. Last year, 
Congress raised the vehicle efficiency standards by 40 percent to 35 
miles per gallon for cars and light trucks. I think we can and we must 
do more. We should extend the tax credits for fuel-efficient hybrid 
vehicles.
  I believe Congress should create a new tax credit for next-generation 
electric plug-in hybrid vehicles which can go 20 to 40 miles before 
using an internal combustion engine.
  In addition to tax credits, Congress should require the production of 
flex-fuel vehicles. This week, a tripartisan group of Senators, led by 
Senator Brownback, introduced a bill that would dramatically change our 
transportation sector. Senators Brownback, Lieberman, Salazar, Collins, 
and I have introduced the Open Fuel Standard Act, which essentially 
requires that starting in 2012, 50 percent of new vehicles be flex-fuel 
vehicles that are warranted to operate on gasoline, on ethanol, on 
methanol, or on biodiesel.


[[Page 16140]]


  This requirement increases 10 percent each year until 2015 when 80 
percent of new vehicles would be required to operate on renewable fuel.
  We will never break OPEC's monopoly over our fuel supply without 
enacting bold policies. And the one I just mentioned is an example of 
such a policy. That bill would give consumers a choice at the pump and 
give all consumers the option of purchasing cheaper, homegrown fuel 
such as ethanol and biodiesel when it comes to addressing their energy 
needs.
  But the fact is, as I noted in the study that I cited, we cannot 
solve America's energy problem by simply dealing with a narrow 
solution, a minimalist solution such as that which has been put on the 
floor by the Democratic leadership in the Senate. What they have 
attempted to do is to block the consideration of amendments that would 
address those other issues that I think are so important to this 
debate. There is not anything in this bill that was put forward by the 
Democratic leadership that reduces the dangerous dependence that we 
have on foreign energy. Now 60 percent of our energy is coming from 
outside the United States. There is not one thing in this bill that 
affects that.
  They can talk about lawsuits. They can talk about taxing oil 
companies. You can talk about regulating, further regulating the 
commodities markets. I am all for some of the things that are being 
proposed with regard to speculation and the commodities market. I, 
frankly, think there are things in the bill that are good.
  But the bottom line is, it does nothing. It does nothing to affect 
the fundamental rule of supply and demand, which, as I just noted, is 
what is driving energy prices higher in this country. And if we try to 
do something in the Senate or in Congress to address energy in this 
country and the tremendous economic impact it is having on American 
families and businesses without going at this fundamental basic issue 
of increasing our domestic supply or domestic production and reducing 
our demand, we will not have done anything meaningful for the American 
people to address the issue that is impacting their pocketbooks more 
than anything else today; and that is, the high price of gasoline.
  If you are serious about getting the commodities futures market to 
reflect or to bring down the futures price for energy stocks and all 
this trading that is going on, the way to do that is to send a clear, 
unequivocal signal to the energy markets that America is serious, that 
American ingenuity and hard work and our entrepreneurship in this 
country--that we are serious about increasing the domestic supply of 
energy that we have, about increasing domestic production because the 
market will interpret that.
  The market looks down the road and says: OK, in the future, what is 
the price of oil going to be based upon the current supply of oil and 
the current demand?
  If we are serious about increasing supply and reducing demand, the 
market will reflect that. We will see lower prices per barrel of oil, 
per gallon of gasoline, and some relief for hard-working American 
families and small businesses taking on tremendous water in their 
personal households and in the needs they have to meet for families 
because they are spending all their money, literally, to fill their 
cars with gasoline and to pay for the high cost of energy. It is 
affecting literally every sector of the economy.
  South Dakota, as my colleague from Wyoming spoke to earlier, is a 
vastly rural State and sparsely populated, heavily dependent upon 
transportation. The energy issue impacts in a dramatic way our ability 
to grow our economy and create jobs. I hope the debate today will 
include more than only a narrow issue and will get to the fundamental 
issue of supply and demand, that we can have an open debate in which we 
may offer amendments so this issue will be addressed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I believe our side now has the next half hour. I yield 
myself 20 minutes and 10 minutes to the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. 
Bingaman.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I request the Chair to alert me when I am halfway 
through.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will be notified.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise to speak on two issues, both 
pending before us, both vitally important to the economy. One is 
energy, one is housing.
  We all know the pain Americans experience. We all know the price of 
gasoline. In New York, people are already anticipating, with fear in 
their hearts, the price of home heating oil to heat their homes in 
winter. Everywhere else the costs of energy are driving prices higher, 
creating a middle-class squeeze.
  We had a hearing at the Joint Economic Committee yesterday. Elizabeth 
Warren, a professor at Harvard, outlined that squeeze. The average 
middle-class person is hurting. They have built up a good life for 
themselves. Now they are hurting because, on the one hand, their income 
is not going up--productivity is but income is not--and at the same 
time their costs are going much higher than the rate of inflation. So 
they are caught in a vise--income declining, prices increasing.
  This Friday night, there will be millions of Americans who, after 
dinner, husband and wife, will be sitting around the table talking 
about the things they care about, their children and their futures, 
their health. But probably the No. 1 topic will be, how the heck are we 
going to pay the bills.
  Democrats are here to try and finally, after 7\1/2\ years of being 
dominated on the energy debate by oil, oil companies, oilmen in the 
White House, change the debate. The other side has a simple solution. 
It gets modified every couple of years, but it is basically the same. 
Do what big oil wants. When the price is low, give them subsidies. When 
the price is high, make sure they don't pay much in taxes. All 
throughout, focus our energy economy on oil, because that is what the 
big oil companies want.
  Rex Tillerson, the head of ExxonMobil, came before the Judiciary 
Committee a year and a half ago and said: ExxonMobil does not believe 
in alternative energy. I guess if I were ExxonMobil, I wouldn't either. 
Because as demand goes up and supply stays relatively flat, the price 
goes up and the profits go up. I have been asking, what do the big oil 
companies do with their profits. A huge percentage goes not into new 
exploration. They say they want to explore, but a majority of the 
money, in some cases, and a plurality, in most, goes to buying back 
their stock to raise the share price for themselves and their 
shareholders. This idea that oil companies are eager to explore is 
belied when we look at their financial statements. They are buying back 
their stock. It doesn't create one drop of oil. For the limited number 
of people who have ExxonMobil stock, that is a godsend. For the rest of 
us, it squeezes us even more. Chevron does it. BP does it. They all do 
it, with billions and billions of dollars. I believe last year 
ExxonMobil took $29 billion to buy back their stock.
  I challenge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, if they are 
so eager for exploration, why aren't they putting that $29 billion into 
exploration? But they are not. Again, we have the answer from the other 
side: Big oil today, big oil forever.
  The American people know we are not going to drill our way out of 
this crisis. Even if the oil companies wanted to--and statistics show they 
do not--we don't have enough oil to prevent the price from going up, 
because demand worldwide is dramatically increasing, in China, in 
India, in the Middle East. The number of new cars in China and India in 
a short while will exceed the total number of cars in America, in 10 
years, 15 years. Imagine that, new cars in China and India competing 
with us to buy gasoline. Obviously, the price will go up.
  When our majority leader repeats over and over that we have 3 percent 
of the reserves and 25 percent of the consumption, there is no way to 
reduce prices significantly in the long term 


[[Page 16141]]


other than to get off our 
dependency on oil. So drilling is not the answer. Yes, in certain 
places, it may help. We are not opposed to that. I proudly went to the 
Republican majority, got Democrats to vote for drilling in the gulf. 
But it is not going to solve our problem. It will ameliorate it a tiny 
little bit in certain places, if you drill in the gulf and places near 
refineries.
  The answer is to ween our dependence from foreign oil and tell OPEC 
and Chavez in Venezuela and Iran to take a hike because we don't need 
them anymore. They can't have their hands around our necks any longer--
economically, politically, or geographically.
  The good news is, we can do that. We can do that on both sides of 
supply and demand. That is what we Democrats are attempting to do. We 
are attempting to help get an electric car. Electric cars, no gasoline, 
will ride as smoothly and as well but much more cheaply than our 
present cars. They are not these little golf carts you drive around. 
You can have a big SUV with a battery that goes 250, 300 miles, same as 
a tank of gasoline, and drives with the same speed and the same power 
and the same torque. We are not too many years away from that, if we 
help create the battery. They have the battery. It just has to be mass 
produced. We need some research to get that done in a cheap enough way 
so that the price of cars stays the same while the price of fueling the 
cars goes down.
  Senator Bingaman will be here shortly. He put one of my proposals in 
the Democratic proposal for housing conservation when you build. Forty 
percent of our energy is consumed not driving cars but cooling and 
heating homes, air conditioning and heating. If we were to adapt 
conservation measures, that could dramatically drop. One State has done 
it, California. California's energy consumption is lower than just 
about any other State, even though they are a car culture. Why? Because 
in 1978, under Governor Jerry Brown, whom many regarded as ``Governor 
Moonbeam,'' this was an excellent idea that has proven successful; they 
put conservation in building standards for homes and offices. Now, in 
terms of buildings, their per capita consumption of energy is about 
what Denmark's is. Why don't we do it nationwide?
  Then there is alternative energy. There was an op-ed in the 
Washington Post by an oilman, someone I know named Jim Tisch, who said 
that now it is profitable to do wind power, solar power and other kinds 
of power and take our dependency off oil and gas.
  We can both increase supply and decrease demand, reduce the price, if 
we embark now on a program of change. When we have tried to do this, 
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have said no. Why? The 
big oil companies don't like it. Some of the big utilities don't like 
it. The big special interests don't like it. But they are doing great. 
It is the average middle-class person who needs the help.
  The equation is simple. I will put it in stark terms, but I think it 
has to be put that way: Republicans, big oil, the past; Democrats, 
alternatives, the future. Let me repeat that. Republicans, big oil and 
the past; Democrats, alternatives and the future. Every American knows 
which side we want to be on.
  I am sorry they have decided not to accept Majority Leader Reid's 
generous offer and take their proposal and our proposal and debate 
them. We will do that any day of the week. I am sure Senator Obama is 
eager to debate Senator McCain, who is following in the big oil 
footsteps of George Bush and Dick Cheney.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 10 minutes remaining.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I thank the Chair.
  I am sure he is eager to have that debate. When you ask people in 
polling, should we drill, they say sure. Then when you ask, can we 
drill our way of the problem, they know we can't. We are going to 
continue to push. I hope and pray we don't have to wait for the next 
President to do this. I would like to see it done now, because we have 
waited 7 years. We have had bills on the floor in the past: bills to 
raise mileage standards of cars, stopped by the auto companies; bills 
for alternative fuels, stopped by the oil companies; bills to make sure 
utilities are more efficient, stopped by the utilities. When the price 
was low, no one paid much attention. But now we are all paying the 
awful price. Let us change once and for all. There are short-term 
solutions, whether with the SPR or tamping down speculation. But the 
only long-term, real answer is to reduce our dependence on oil, move to 
alternatives and conserve more, consume more efficiently. I hope my 
colleagues will do that. I hope we will look forward to the future and 
not delay the future any longer and not look back at the past.


                                Housing

  The other bill that is before us now and upon which we will vote 
shortly is the housing bill. I urge my colleagues to support it. Unlike 
the energy issue, I think we do have broad bipartisan support. I was 
delighted to hear yesterday that the President changed his view and 
will now support the bill Chairman Dodd and Congressman Frank have put 
together. I am very glad of that. It is a good bill. I have had some 
significant input into it, for which I thank both of them.
  Housing is at the nub of the recession. Housing prices go down and 
people don't have the money to do other things. That hurts. Homes are 
foreclosed upon and neighborhoods suffer. Even if you keep your home 
and even if your housing price is flat, mortgage rates go up. Since so 
many people have adjustable rate mortgages, that hurts us as well. But 
housing has been the bull's-eye of the economic crisis. For too long, 
Washington has twiddled its thumbs, despite the efforts of those on our 
side who want to do something and who have smart, rational, and 
targeted plans. But now finally, because the crisis is screaming at us, 
the President has agreed to support our legislation, and many on the 
other side, hopefully, will vote for it, as they did last week.
  The housing bill has many important components. It has a plan that 
will set a floor for some home prices. It is not a panacea, but it will 
help reduce the decline in home prices in many places, which is 
desperately needed, and reduce the rate of foreclosure for several 
hundred thousand homes, which is also desperately needed. I would have 
liked to have seen that part of the bill be stronger. I would have 
liked to have seen the bankruptcy provisions put in there which would 
have been a club and made them work a little better. They are not 
there, but this is still good.
  We also have in the proposal CDBG money. We held a hearing of the 
Joint Economic Committee where, from the community in Slavik Village, 
people testified how empty and vacant homes were killing their 
neighborhood. I don't know what entity Slavik Village is in, what town, 
whether it is Cleveland or somewhere else, but no local community has 
the ability to deal with all these foreclosed homes. The only entity 
that can is the Federal Government.
  The CDBG money, which, thank God, now the President has dropped his 
opposition to, will buy up those homes and prevent the market from 
getting worse and communities from deteriorating. Because when you have 
an abandoned house and some vandals come in and pull out the plumbing 
and electricity, and then it becomes a haven for drug dealers and 
criminals, it ruins the whole neighborhood. The person living down the 
street, who has paid his or her mortgage and does not even have a 
mortgage anymore, suffers as well.
  So this CDBG money, as well as the whole program we are putting 
together, is not simply aimed at those
who cannot pay their mortgages. It is actually aimed at the millions of 
homeowners who are hurt because even though they pay their mortgages, 
and even though they may have finished paying their entire mortgage, 
their home prices decline because there are foreclosures in the 
community.
  Then there is the part about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I think this 
is necessary. It is unfortunate we are at this stage but necessary. 
Fannie and Freddie are at the center of our housing market, and the 
housing market is at the center of our declining economy. If you are 
simply going to say: Well, let 


[[Page 16142]]


Fannie and Freddie fail, let's learn the 
moral hazard, you are hurting tens of millions of innocent people along 
the way as you teach that lesson. That is why I do not think we should 
do it.
  Do we need tougher regulation for Fannie and Freddie? Yes. And in the 
bill is a much strengthened regulator. I supported that from the get-
go. But to allow Fannie and Freddie to deteriorate, and deteriorate as 
dramatically as they might have without a possible Government backstop, 
would do far more damage than the Government backstop itself. The odds 
are, we will never have to use it. And when you add to that the odds 
that we will use it but it will not cost all that much, they are 
overwhelming. But the alternative, the risk of looking into the abyss 
and letting the economy roll down--because if Fannie and Freddie were 
to go under, Lord knows what would happen in this economy--is not worth 
it.
  I have spoken at length to Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke, 
both appointees of the President, and they believe this is desperately 
needed. I was surprised so few of our House colleagues voted for this 
proposal. Ideologs do not usually solve problems. They have a narrow 
way of looking at things. So if you say Government is always the 
answer, you are going to mess things up. But just as equally, if you 
say Government is never the answer, you will mess things up as badly. 
We have a whole lot of people, at least in the House, who said: Don't 
get the Government involved at all. Let people suffer. That is for 
their overall good.
  It reminds me of the old days when the Adam Smith theory said: Well, 
let anyone sell any medicine they want, and if it is a bad medicine, 
and you die from it, your family will learn from it and you won't buy 
it again. It is an awfully harsh view of the world, and not a view most 
Americans agree with.
  In a somewhat less serious but serious note, this is the same thing 
with housing. If you let the housing market go in the tank, so much 
suffering will occur that the risk is not worth it. So this is a good 
package. Is it what we would have done? No. Is it what Mr. Paulson 
would have done on his own? No. But it is a fair and workable 
compromise, and unlike the Energy bill, it is a place where we can all 
come together and do something for the good of the economy.
  I also do want to mention there is more money for mortgage 
counselors. The Senator from Washington, you, I say to the Presiding 
Officer, the Senator from Pennsylvania, and I have been working hard to 
get more mortgage counselors in the bill, and there is $180 million 
more for that, as well as $10 billion in mortgage revenue bond 
authority, which will help States and localities to develop refinancing 
programs--very important in my State. It is something the Presiding 
Officer has supported, and I am glad it is in the bill.
  In conclusion, Mr. President, on energy, let's look forward to the 
future. Let's hope some of our colleagues will join us and not cling to 
the answer: oil today, more oil tomorrow. We do not have it, given the 
increase in demand.
  On housing, let us move this bill forward quickly. Both are vital to 
the future prosperity of our country, and both ought to become law 
without further delay.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.


                                 Energy

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I believe I have 10 minutes reserved to 
speak in relation to energy legislation.
  The first point I want to make is that the legislation the majority 
leader, Senator Reid, brought to the Senate floor addresses one of the 
three aspects of the problem we face with high gas prices. I think all 
of us recognize there are three main factors that are resulting in high 
gas prices.
  One is the problem with the functioning of our oil and gas markets, 
and specifically the problem of speculation and excessive investment in 
these commodities. That is something Senator Reid has proposed to deal 
with in the legislation he brought to the floor, and we are going to 
have a cloture vote on that legislation, I believe, tomorrow. I hope 
Senators will vote for cloture.
  I also hope we can add to it some amendments. There is one amendment 
I am filing today at noon, along with Senator Reid and other Democratic 
Senators, that tries to address the other two factors that we know and 
all recognize impact the price of gas; that is, the supply: the supply 
of oil and, of course, a reduction in demand; how do we reduce the need 
to buy so much gasoline? This amendment talks about supply and demand, 
primarily.
  Let me briefly summarize what this amendment will try to do.
  First, it promotes diligent development of existing leases. As we 
have had many debates here on the Senate floor, I think most people are 
aware there is a lot of the Federal land that is currently leased. The 
question is, how do we get more of it in a producing state? How do we 
encourage the companies that have those leases to move ahead more 
quickly?
  What we do is we authorize the Secretary to take several steps to 
encourage more diligent development. We authorize the Secretary to 
shorten lease terms where appropriate to increase rental fees in later 
years where appropriate, and generally to do a better job than we fear 
has been done in connection with encouraging rapid development of these 
leases.
  Second, we are suggesting that areas that have not been leased but 
that could be leased should be looked at and, where possible, leasing 
should occur.
  Let me put up a chart in the Chamber that makes the point. I know 
there has been a lot of talk about how the current moratoria on 
drilling in this country is locking up 80-some-odd percent of all of 
our opportunity for drilling. Those are not the facts, as I understand 
them.
  As I understand it, there is 33 percent of the Outer Continental 
Shelf that is subject to a moratorium that therefore, by law, is not 
available for leasing.
  There is 67 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf that is available 
for leasing. What we are saying is, in that area where we have not yet 
leased--we have leased some of that, but there are other parts of it, 
substantial parts that have not been leased--let's do several things to 
try to do more leasing.
  First, we suggest that the Secretary go ahead and reoffer portions of 
this 181 lease sale area. The first lease sale in the 181 area occurred 
in March. There were about 300,000 acres that were not bid on by 
companies. We think those should be offered again sometime in the near 
future. That is one of the provisions in this legislation.
  We call for a doubling of the number of lease sales in the Gulf of 
Mexico. Two-thirds of the Gulf of Mexico is not subject to moratoria, 
and we think in the areas that are not subject to moratoria we ought to 
have more frequent lease sales.
  Third, in areas offshore Alaska, we think, again, that the Secretary 
ought to look and see if additional leasing can occur.
  Let me put up another chart in the Chamber.
  The current schedule for leasing carries us through 2012. This is the 
schedule of the Department of the Interior. They have 16 additional 
lease sales scheduled from now until the end of 2012, some of those 
offshore Alaska, some of those in the Gulf of Mexico. What we are 
saying is, let's look and see if there are other lease sales that we 
could have in the Outer Continental Shelf between now and 2012 to 
accelerate this.
  We also propose there be an annual lease sale in the National 
Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. That is not in the Outer Continental Shelf. That is 
onshore. But there is a very substantial area there, and a very 
substantial resource, as best we can determine.
  On the Roan Plateau leasing in Colorado, again we are proposing that 
55,000 acres in that area be leased. This is estimated to contain 9 
trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
  We are also proposing that Renewable Energy Pilot Project Offices be 
established to help facilitate use of public lands for renewable energy 
resources. I am talking about wind 


[[Page 16143]]


farms, I am talking about solar, 
concentrating solar powerplants that are beginning to be built in the 
Southwest.
  Then, on the demand reduction side, we also have a series of 
proposals in this amendment that I think are meritorious.
  One is a provision that has been passed through the Senate several 
times calling for an interagency task force in the administration to 
develop an action plan to save 2.5 million barrels of oil by 2016, to 
save 7 million barrels of oil by 2026, and 10 million barrels of oil by 
2030--per day in each case.
  We are proposing to expand the effort at the Federal, State, and 
local levels to promote telework and telecommuting.
  We are proposing to increase support for public transit--transport 
systems. Many of those systems, because of the high price of fuel, have 
cut back rather than being able to expand their capacity.
  We are proposing a fuel economy indicator device be required on all 
vehicles that are sold in the country beginning in 2012. We believe 
that would help to focus people's minds on the fact they are using 
substantial amounts of fuel and encourage smart driving habits to 
reduce fuel consumption.
  We have a proposal for an Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing 
Incentive Program. This would provide help to the automobile 
manufacturing companies, but also to component companies, including 
those that are making batteries so they can get on with the 
construction of the plants needed and the modernization of the plants 
needed in that regard.
  As far as advanced batteries are concerned, we believe we should have 
an interagency task force that develops a roadmap for advanced battery 
development.
  We have a proposal with regard to tire efficiency labeling, since we 
are told by experts that tire efficiency labeling is one of the areas 
that would improve vehicle fuel efficiency.
  We have a proposal to require more energy efficient building codes 
throughout the country. Again, we believe that would be a step in the 
right direction.
  And, of course, we also have some provisions that the administration 
has asked for with regard to the management of our own royalty on 
Federal leases. They have recommended that we repeal the mandatory Deep 
Water and Deep Gas Royalty Relief Act for Outer Continental Shelf 
leases in the Gulf of Mexico. We are suggesting that should be done as 
part of this amendment, and various other royalty management reforms 
that have also been recommended by the administration.
  To sum up, what we are trying to do in the amendment is, we are 
trying to add to the bill responsible provisions that would help us 
address the other two factors, in addition to speculation and in 
addition to problems with additional investment in commodity markets 
that we think are impacting the price of gas. Taken together--the 
proposal Senator Reid has made that is going to be voted on tomorrow 
and these provisions related to supply and related to demand 
reduction--taken together, we believe we would be taking a positive 
step on behalf of the American people to begin to moderate the price of 
gas at the pump.
  I hope the amendment receives strong support. I hope we have the 
opportunity to offer it.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have a summary of the 
amendment I have been talking about printed in the Record following my 
statement.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

     Section-by-Section Summary of the Democratic Amendment to the 
                            Speculation Bill

       Amends S. 3268 to add at the end of the bill the following:


                  Title II--Oil Supply and Management

     Subtitle A--Diligent Development of Federal Oil and Gas 
         Leases
       Sec. 201.--Diligent Development of Federal Oil and Gas 
     Leases.--Clarifies the requirement of existing law that all 
     federal oil and gas leases require the lease holder to 
     diligently develop in order to ensure timely production. 
     Requires the Secretary to issue regulations that set forth 
     the requirements and benchmarks for oil and gas development 
     that will ensure diligent development and production from the 
     lease during the initial lease term (to the maximum extent 
     practicable). Lessees are required to submit a diligent 
     development plan to the Secretary.
       Sec. 202.--Diligent Development in the National Petroleum 
     Reserve-Alaska.--Provides that leases shall be for a primary 
     term of not less than 8 and not more than 10 years with a 5-
     year extension if drilling is taking place and so long 
     thereafter as production is occurring. The Secretary must 
     seek to maximize the timely production of oil and gas in 
     setting the lease term for new leases. Repeals the provisions 
     of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that allowed lessees to 
     renew their leases for up to 30 years. Sets the royalty rate 
     at not less than $3.00 per acre and requires the Secretary to 
     increase the royalty by not less than $1.00 per acre per year 
     for new leases.
       Sec. 203.--Length of Lease Terms.--Provides that new 
     federal onshore oil and gas leases issued pursuant to the 
     Mineral Leasing Act shall be for a primary term of not less 
     than 5 years and not more than 10 years. The Secretary must 
     seek to maximize the timely production of oil and gas in 
     setting the lease term.
       Sec. 204.--Rentals.--Sets rentals for nonproducing Federal 
     onshore oil and gas leases issued after the date of enactment 
     at $1.50 per acre and requires the Secretary to increase the 
     rental by not less than $1.00 per acre per year. Requires the 
     Secretary to set rentals for OCS leases at a rate determined 
     by the Secretary to maximize the timely production of oil and 
     gas and to increase the rents annually. The rents may be set 
     at a rate that takes into account differences in development 
     conditions.
     Subtitle B--Acceleration of Leasing of Offshore Areas Not 
         Subject to Moratoria
       Sec. 211. Offshore Oil and Gas Leasing in Portion of the 
     181 Area Authorized to be Leased Under the Gulf of Mexico 
     Energy Security Act.--Provides that the Secretary should 
     offer for lease within 1 year after the date of enactment 
     that portion of the 181 Area offered for lease in March 2008 
     pursuant to the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act but not 
     leased.
       Sec. 212. Acceleration of Lease Sales in Western and 
     Central Gulf of Mexico.--Provides that the Secretary conduct 
     an OCS lease sale every 6 months in the Western and Central 
     Gulf of Mexico. Allows the Secretary to conduct sales less 
     frequently if the Secretary determines it is not practicable 
     to conduct the lease sale every 6 months and provides a 
     report to Congress describing the reasons for holding the 
     sales less frequently and certifying that holding the sales 
     less frequently will not adversely affect production.
       Sec. 213. Lease Sales for Areas Offshore Alaska.--Not later 
     than 1 year after the date of enactment, the Secretary shall 
     conduct a survey of oil and gas industry interest in oil and 
     gas leasing and development in planning areas offshore Alaska 
     that are not included in the 5-Year Plan for 2007-2012. In 
     any such planning area where there is a high level of 
     interest, the Secretary shall evaluate the oil and gas 
     potential of the area, the environmental and natural values 
     of the area, and the importance of the area for subsistence 
     use. The Secretary shall provide a report to Congress within 
     2 years after the date of enactment containing the results of 
     the survey and the evaluation. If the Secretary concludes 
     that leasing should be pursued further in the planning area, 
     the report shall describe the additional steps required by 
     law and the timeframe for conducting a lease sale. The 
     Secretary shall consult with the Governor of Alaska and 
     provide an opportunity for public comment in preparing the 
     report. The section does not modify any environmental or 
     other law applicable to leasing and development on the OCS.
     Subtitle C--Acceleration of Leasing and Development in the 
         National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
       Sec. 221. Acceleration of Lease Sales for National 
     Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.--Provides that the Secretary 
     accelerate environmentally responsible competitive leasing in 
     the NPR-A to the maximum extent practicable, and conduct at 
     least 1 lease sale each year. The Secretary shall comply with 
     all applicable environmental laws.
     Subtitle D--Strategic Petroleum Reserve
       Sec. 231. Definitions.
       Sec. 232. Modernization of the Strategic Petroleum 
     Reserve.--Directs the Secretary to exchange 70 million 
     barrels of light crude oil held in the SPR for 70 million 
     barrels of heavy crude oil. The sale of light crude is to be completed 
     within 180 days of enactment. The purchase of heavy oil is to 
     begin more than 365 days after enactment, but within 5 years 
     of enactment. The net proceeds generated by the exchange are 
     to be dispersed to the Secretary of Health and Human Services 
     to carry out the low-income home energy assistance program 
     established under the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Act 
     of 1981.
       Sec. 233. Deferrals.--Encourages the Secretary to use his 
     existing authority to grant any request to defer a scheduled 
     delivery of petroleum to the SPR, if the deferral will result 
     in a reduced cost for the oil acquisition, or increase the 
     volume of oil delivered to the SPR.
     
     
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     Subtitle E--Resource Estimates
       Sec. 241. Resource Estimates.--Requires Secretary of the 
     Interior to collect and annually report to Congress 
     information regarding resource estimates and federal acreage 
     under oil and gas lease and available for leasing.
     Subtitle F--Sense of Senate on Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline
       Sec. 251. Sense of Senate on Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline.--
     Encourages all parties to work together to allow the Alaska 
     Natural Gas Pipeline to move forward and to negotiate a 
     project labor agreement.
     Subtitle G--Roan Plateau Oil and Gas Leasing
       Sec. 261. Short title.
       Sec. 262. Findings and purpose.--Calls for the balanced 
     development of energy resources on the Roan Plateau in a 
     manner that minimizes environmental impact while increasing 
     leasing revenues.
       Sec. 263. Definitions.
       Sec. 264. Special Protection Areas.--Designates certain 
     special protection areas and requires the Secretary of the 
     Interior to manage them in a manner that prevents irreparable 
     damage.
       Sec. 265. Phased Mineral Leasing.--Authorizes the Secretary 
     to issue mineral leases, except for the exploration or 
     development of oil shale, within the Roan Plateau Planning 
     Area. Provides for phased development of the Planning Area by 
     prohibiting the Secretary from issuing mineral leases within 
     more than one phased development area at a time.
       Sec. 266. Selection of Subsequent Leasing Areas.--Provides 
     for the selection of subsequent phased development areas once 
     at least 90 percent of the recoverable natural gas has been 
     recovered from previously selected areas and 99 percent of 
     the ground disturbed in each previously selected area has 
     been reclaimed.
       Sec. 267. Federal Unitization Agreements.--Requires each 
     lessee within the Planning Area to enter into a unitization 
     agreement.
       Sec. 268. Record of Decision.--Preserves the June 2007 and 
     March 2008 records of decision.
       Sec. 269. Conforming Amendments.--Makes leasing of Oil 
     Shale Reserves 1 and 3 discretionary rather than mandatory 
     and provides that leasing receipts will be deposited in the 
     Treasury for use in accordance with the Mineral Leasing Act.
     Subtitle H--Export of Refined Petroleum Products
       Sec. 271. Export of Refined Petroleum Products.--Requires 
     the President to report to Congress if net petroleum product 
     exports to any country outside of North America exceed 1 
     percent of the total United States consumption of refined 
     products for more than 7 days.


                    Title III--Oil Demand Reduction

     Subtitle A--Oil Savings
       Sec. 301. Findings.--Finds that dependence on foreign oil 
     is one of the gravest threats to the national security and 
     economy, and that the United States needs to wean itself from 
     its addiction to oil.
       Sec. 302. Policy on Reducing Oil Dependence.--Establishes 
     the policy to reduce our dependence on oil.
       Sec. 303. Oil Savings Plan.--Establishes an interagency 
     task force to publish an action plan to reduce oil 
     consumption by--2.5 million barrels per day during 2016; 7 
     million barrels per day during 2026; and 10 million barrels 
     per day during 2030.
     Subtitle B--Telework
       Part I--Sec. 306. Incentive Programs for Reducing Petroleum 
     Consumption.--Requires each federal agency to promote 
     incentive programs to encourage federal employees and 
     contractors to reduce petroleum usage through telecommuting, 
     public transit, carpooling, and bicycling. Directs the 
     Secretary of Energy to make grants to state and local 
     governments to pay half the cost of carrying out state and 
     local incentive programs to reduce petroleum usage. 
     Authorizes the Secretary to pay the entire cost of local 
     government incentive programs serving rural areas.
       Part II--Telework Enhancement.--Requires the head of each 
     executive federal agency to establish a telework policy and 
     to provide an interactive telework training program for 
     eligible employees. Requires the Office of Personnel 
     Management to submit an annual report on telework programs. 
     Extends the authority for travel expenses test programs.
     Subtitle C--Public Transportation
       Sec. 331. Energy Efficient Transit Grant Program.--Directs 
     the Secretary of Transportation to establish a program for 
     making grants to public transportation agencies to assist in 
     reducing energy consumption or greenhouse gas emissions of 
     their public transportation systems.
       Sec. 332. Transit-Oriented Development Corridors Grant 
     Program.--Directs the Secretary of Transportation to 
     establish a program for making grants to public 
     transportation agencies, metropolitan planning organizations, 
     and other State or local government authorities to support 
     planning and design of Transit-Oriented Development 
     Corridors.
       Sec. 333. Enhanced Transit Options.--Authorizes the 
     Secretary of Transportation to make transit enhancement 
     grants to public transit agencies to expedite construction of 
     new transit projects, address maintenance backlogs, purchase 
     rolling stock or buses, and continue or expand service to 
     accommodate increased ridership.
       Subtitle D--Sec. 336. Fuel Consumption Indicator Devices.--
     Requires the Secretary of Transportation to require, by model 
     year 2012, that cars and light trucks be equipped with 
     onboard electronic devices that provide real-time and 
     cumulative fuel economy data and signals drivers when 
     inadequate tire pressure may be affecting fuel economy.
       Subtitle E--Sec. 341. Vehicle-to-Grid Demonstration 
     Program.--Directs the Secretary of Energy to carry out a 
     demonstration program on integrating plug-in hybrids into the 
     electricity grid.
       Subtitle F--Sec. 346. Advanced Technology Vehicles 
     Manufacturing Incentive Program.--Amends section 136 of the 
     Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 by directing the 
     Secretary of the Treasury to transfer to the Secretary of 
     Energy, without further appropriation, $200 million for each 
     fiscal year from fiscal year 2009 through 2013 to pay for the 
     cost of loans to automobile manufacturers and component 
     suppliers for reequipping, expanding, or establishing 
     manufacturing facilities in the United States to produce 
     advanced technology vehicles and components.
     Subtitle G--Advanced Batteries
       Sec. 351. Definition of Advanced Battery.
       Sec. 352. Advanced Battery Research and Development.--
     Directs the Secretary of Energy to expand and accelerate 
     research and development efforts for advanced batteries and 
     doubles the authorization levels in the energy 
     competitiveness storage programs established under section 
     641 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.
       Sec. 353. Advanced Battery Manufacturing and Technology 
     Roadmap.--Directs the Director of the Office of Science and 
     Technology Policy (in coordination with the Secretaries of 
     Energy, Defense, and Commerce and the heads of other 
     appropriate federal agencies) to develop a multiyear roadmap 
     to develop advanced battery technologies and sustain domestic 
     advanced battery manufacturing capabilities and supply chain.
       Sec. 354. Sense of the Senate on Purchase of Plug-in 
     Electric Drive Vehicles.--Expresses the Sense of the Senate 
     that the Federal Government should increase the purchase of 
     plug-in electric drive vehicles.
       Subtitle H--Sec. 361. National Energy Efficient Driver 
     Education Program.--Directs the Secretary of Transportation 
     to develop and promote educational materials on optimizing 
     fuel economy through driving and maintenance practices.
       Subtitle I--Sec. 366. Oil and Gas Reserves Reporting 
     Requirements.--Expresses the sense of the Senate that the 
     Securities and Exchange Commission should accelerate the 
     rulemaking process on oil and gas reserves reporting.
       Subtitle J--Sec. 371. Tire Efficiency Consumer 
     Information.--Accelerates from December 19, 2009 to March 19, 
     2009, the deadline for the Secretary of Transportation to 
     publish rules establishing a consumer information program on 
     the effect of tires on automobile fuel efficiency, safety, 
     and durability.
       Subtitle K--Sec. 376. Petroleum Use Reduction Technology 
     Deployment.--Authorizes $50 million for each of 5 years for 
     grants to local Clean Cities participants to promote the 
     adoption and use of reduction technologies and practices.
       Subtitle L--Sec. 381. Energy Efficient Building Codes.--
     Directs the Secretary of Energy to update national model 
     building energy codes and standards at least every 3 years to 
     achieve overall energy savings for commercial and residential 
     buildings of at least 30 percent by 2015 and 50 percent by 
     2022.
       Subtitle M--Sec. 386. Renewable Energy Pilot Project 
     Offices.--Directs the Secretary of the Interior to designate 
     one Bureau of Land Management field office in Arizona, 
     California, New Mexico, Nevada, and Montana to serve as a 
     Renewable Energy Pilot Project Office.


                       Title IV--Royalty Reforms

     Subtitle A--Royalty Relief Repeal.
       Sec. 401. Repeals mandatory deep water and deep gas royalty 
     relief for Outer Continental Shelf leases in the Gulf of 
     Mexico.
     Subtitle B--Royalty Reforms.
       Sec. 411. Definitions. Makes conforming amendments to 
     definitions contained in FOGRMA.
       Sec. 412. Liability for Royalty Payments. Makes both 
     lessees and their payor/designees liable for royalty 
     payments, amending existing provisions that have made it 
     difficult for the Secretary to collect royalties from all 
     responsible parties.
       Sec. 413. Interest. Eliminates the requirement that the 
     Federal government pay interest on royalty over-payments 
     submitted by industry.
       Sec. 414. Obligation Period. Amends existing law to start 
     the seven-year statute of limitations at the time any 
     adjustment to royalty payments is made by responsible parties 
     rather than when the payor submits its initial royalty 
     report.
     
     
[[Page 16145]]     
     
       Sec. 415. Tolling Agreements and Subpoenas. Makes changes 
     related to FOGRMA's existing tolling and subpoena provisions, 
     to conform with section 412.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky is recognized.
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, I wish to speak on the bill.
  We are in an energy crisis. Don't let a 10 percent drop in oil prices 
fool you. We are in for a long battle with energy costs and America 
will need to step up if we want to keep driving our cars, flying our 
jets, and fueling our economy.
  But this bill before us today isn't about lowering prices. it is 
about finding someone to blame so Americans don't blame the Democrats 
for failing to act in Congress.
  Democrats need a scapegoat because under their watch America has 
become more addicted to oil than ever and gas prices have more than 
doubled. They don't want to solve your problems. They don't want to 
face the environmental lobbyists who don't care how much Americans pay 
for energy as long as it doesn't come from oil and coal. They want to 
find someone to blame. They have blamed oil companies, Republicans, the 
Middle East, and the military. Today it is energy speculators.
  I say the time for scapegoats and politics is over. Americans don't 
want excuses or even someone to blame--Americans want solutions.
  They want to be able to afford to drive their truck to work every 
day. They don't want to worry about turning on the air conditioner or 
how much it is going to cost to heat their homes this winter.
  Back home in my State of Kentucky I have seen how much these prices 
are hurting families. I know many people who moved farther out into the 
suburbs to get a bigger yard and more for their real estate investment. 
Now those same people are stuck using $4.50 gasoline for their workday 
commute. Another community in eastern Kentucky is fighting to keep 
local bus service running to their senior center.
  Many older Americans rely on bus and shuttle services to get out of 
their homes and are being cut off from their community services because 
of high prices. There are even places that have gone to a four-day 
school week to cut back on the cost of busing students.
  These people want solutions for energy prices, not more politics.
  The best way to address high prices is to get more fuel on the 
market. America has domestic energy resources that we only need to open 
up.
  I have supported bills and amendments that would expand offshore 
drilling, start coal-to-liquid fuel production, encourage alternative 
sources of jet fuel, expand cellulosic biomass fuels, and many other 
issues. Facing these issues is what Congress should be working on.
  For example, I think one part of our solution should be more offshore 
drilling. More domestic oil means less we have to buy from the Middle 
East, lower transportation costs, a more stable supply, and therefore 
lower prices. So why have the Democrats in Congress stopped us from 
acting on this one issue?
  If it is because of the environment, I say we will make sure any new 
drilling is the cleanest and safest in the world. If it is because we 
are not sure what to do with the Federal revenue, I am ready to discuss 
it and develop a compromise. What is the problem with letting 
individual States choose whether or not to drill offshore? Even if it 
takes a decade to get to full production, we have to start somewhere.
  Congress should at least have the debate and vote on the issue. But 
every time we try to address even one energy production issue, we are 
stopped in our tracks and blocked from offering amendments.
  I am tired of watching this Democrat-led Congress do nothing. The 
energy crisis has gone on long enough. We can talk all day about who to 
blame and make up excuses, but that won't bring down energy prices.
  Instead, we find ourselves discussing another bill that tries to 
blame someone rather than address the problems of domestic production 
and supply.
  The other side is selling you a bill of goods when they say this 
legislation would impact energy prices. I hear they have a great deal 
for you on a bridge in Brooklyn too.
  This bill will undermine legitimate hedging activities and threatens 
the liquidity of the commodities marketplace. Futures markets make it 
possible to buy and sell things at a specific price and date in the 
future. These markets allow participants to offset risk of price 
changes to those willing to take risks.
  This legislation would also make us citizens subject to foreign rules 
and regulations related to energy trading. Understanding U.S. laws will 
not be enough, as energy traders will be required to consult with 
foreign boards of trade and will be subject to the regulations made by 
foreign governments.
  This bill would also encourage traders to use foreign markets that do 
not have as many regulations and take American jobs and business 
activity with them. But my principal concern with this bill is that it 
asks a Federal regulator, the CFTC, to wade into the marketplace and 
make a determination of what is and what is not legitimate trading 
activity.
  Let me explain how this works. How many Americans stock up on an item 
when they see a good sale at the grocery store? I know I do. Or maybe 
some people wait to buy in bulk with buy one get one free coupons.
  While we don't resell our groceries to someone else, this simple act 
of timing our purchases or varying how much and when we buy is similar 
to what traders do in the commodities markets.
  Now imagine the Government used this same legislation to regulate 
grocery shopping that has been proposed for the energy markets. It 
would mean the Government would keep track of all your purchases and 
determine whether you were a legitimate or non legitimate grocery 
shopper. Do you want the government penalizing you if they feel you are 
overbuying a certain product?
  Buy too many hot dogs in 1 month and the Government could impose 
limits on your purchases or keep you out of grocery stores altogether.
  While this legislation isn't going to regulate grocery stores, this 
bill is the beginning of more government regulations that will limit 
your options. Maybe next Congress will regulate the precious metals 
market and determine that buying gold jewelry is a non legitimate 
purchase, penalizing Americans who want to buy jewelry. Or will the 
government say that collecting shotguns is a non legitimate purchase 
that increases the cost of shotguns, allowing it to limit sales to gun 
collectors?
  Allowing the Government to over regulate any market is a recipe for 
disaster that puts Americans' freedom at risk.
  In America, we are proud of our open markets and lack of government 
interference. We need the already established rules to stop illegal 
activities such as price manipulation and cornering markets, but we do 
not need new regulations that prohibit normal market activities, such 
as buying and selling commodities as an investment or as a price hedge.
  I will support efforts to make the markets as transparent as 
possible. Information allows traders to most efficiently allocate 
resources and make sure prices actually reflect supply and demand. But 
I find it unreasonable to on the one hand say the market needs to be 
more transparent so it can work efficiently, and then on the other 
mandate new requirements and regulations that will clog the market and 
prevent it from working normally.
  The bottom line is that this legislation will not bring down energy 
prices.
  However, there is something Congress and America can do about 
prices--we can produce more of own energy. I strongly believe that 
America should use every resource it has to produce energy. Our 
dependence on Middle Eastern oil is worse than simply paying too much 
at the pump; it is a threat to national security. Every gallon of fuel 
we make from biomass, domestic oil and gas, and coal is a gallon of 
fuel we don't have to buy from the Middle East. It is just that simple.
  We need a Manhattan Project for energy in America.
  
  
[[Page 16146]] 

  
  The greatest minds we have should be working on ways to produce 
alternative fuel, capture and use carbon emissions, produce clean 
electricity, and improve oil and gas production.
  We should agree to take politics out of clean energy and ensure that 
government programs are technology and feedstock neutral. Too often I 
see tax incentives and programs that pick and choose what technology or 
process America should use.
  To support all these alternative technologies, we need to change the 
way government spends money.
  I think we should pick performance-based goals--like zero emission 
alternatives to oil--and let the marketplace decide the most efficient 
way to achieve it. If you can produce an environmentally sound 
transportation fuel, we should not care whether it comes from coal or 
switch grass.
  If you can produce a megawatt of clean energy, we should not care if 
it comes from waste heat on a paper mill or from underground 
geothermal. By opening up our options, we will get more for the 
Government dollar and America will see results faster. 
  I believe the most important alternative fuel technology is coal-to-
liquids. We are sitting on a huge coal reserve that we can turn into 
diesel for our trucks and aviation fuel for our planes. And our 
military can no longer rely on imported oil from the Middle East. The 
Air Force has tested this fuel, and it burns cooler and cleaner than 
conventional fuel. It has less pollution as well. And I know that with 
the right government incentives and carbon capture technology, we can 
make coal-to-liquid fuel with less greenhouse gases than oil-based 
fuels.
  Kentucky coal can help bring down the price of oil, provide a secure 
fuel for our military, reduce pollution, and create jobs.
  While new domestic production will go a long way to bring down 
prices, we should also think about conservation efforts. There are the 
simple things like turning off lights we don't use and more important 
measures like the increased fuel economy standards Congress passed. But 
there are other ways to reduce fuel use using technology. For example, 
we have a company in Kentucky that produces retrofit kits to reduce 
diesel fuel use while trucks are idling.
  The answer to America's energy problems is more domestic production, 
clean technologies, and conservation. We have the resources and know-
how to make clean energy, but for the last few decades our government 
regulations have held us back. We should not find more ways to over 
regulate our markets--we should vote now to open up domestic production 
and pursue promising alternative fuel technologies that will actually 
bring down the prices of oil and gas at the pump for the American 
people.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. McCaskill). The Senator from Florida is 
recognized.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. Madam President, no issue at the present time is 
hitting Americans any harder than the high price of gasoline at the 
pump. American families are hurting.
  For a variety of reasons, we are paying more for a gallon of gas and 
more to heat and cool our homes than ever before. There are a number of 
factors contributing to rising energy costs, such as a weak dollar and 
an incredible surge in demand from the developing world.
  It is not entirely clear what the magnitude of the role is that 
speculators might be playing in this situation. For certain, 
speculation is not the major contributing factor for $4-a-gallon gas. 
Even so, we have a responsibility to ensure that speculators aren't 
doing something illegal or profiting at taxpayers' expense.
  That is why I have joined 43 of my colleagues in introducing the Gas 
Price Reduction Act, which will put more cops on the beat at the CFTC 
to ensure there is no foul play occurring between those participating 
in the oil futures market and those investing in the oil market itself. 
This regulatory body needs more help so they can be more effective at 
their job and give the American people the kind of assurance and 
transparency they should have about the work of this trading 
environment.
  This act also commissions a study to better examine and understand 
the influence these speculators have on the cost of oil.
  We have heard much lately concerning speculators and what they may or 
may not be doing to influence the price of gas.
  On July 21, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Fed Chairman Ben 
Bernanke, SEC Chairman Chris Cox, and the Chairman of the CFTC stated 
in a signed letter:

       To date, the President's Working Group has not found valid 
     evidence to suggest that high crude prices over the long term 
     are a direct result of the speculation or systemic 
     manipulation by traders.

  That is a pretty strong statement coming from the people we trust in 
overseeing major parts of our economy--the Secretary of the Treasury, 
Chairman of the Fed, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange 
Commission, and Chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.
  While I believe speculators are an area of concern, the bigger 
problem stems from simple economics and the law of supply and demand. 
Our efforts should be focused on getting right to the heart of the 
matter by working to increase our Nation's energy supplies and reducing 
our demand. It is not enough to do one or just the other; we must do 
both. According to the International Energy Agency, global demand is 86 
million barrels of oil per day and global supply is about 85.5 million 
barrels per day.
  While Congress's record in increasing energy supplies has been scant 
as of late, we have made progress in recent years.
  In 2006, I helped negotiate, with Senator Nelson, the opening of 8.3 
million acres in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. This area is estimated to 
contain 5.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 1.25 billion barrels 
of oil, and it is currently open and available for exploration. This 
area was denied until 2006. It is now open and available for 
exploration.
  The Gas Price Reduction Act honors the compromise that was reached in 
2006, protecting Florida's gulf coast, while empowering other States to 
explore for oil and gas if it is supported by the Governors and State 
legislature.
  I believe increasing our Nation's domestic energy supply is perhaps 
the most critical component to lowering gas prices, and to overlook it 
would be grossly unwise. In addition to increasing our Nation's 
domestic supplies, I also believe we should have access to affordable 
alternatives.
  Currently, Americans are paying a premium on Brazilian ethanol 
because we have a 50-cent-a-gallon tariff on Brazilian ethanol. If we 
mean what we say about offering cleaner, renewable alternatives to 
gasoline, I propose we eliminate this tariff. I plan to introduce an 
amendment that does just that.
  The amendment I am proposing would repeal the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff 
on foreign ethanol that was extended for 2 years--December 31, 2010--
under the recently passed 2008 farm bill.
  The 2008 farm bill also extended the blenders credit for ethanol 
producers for 45 cents a gallon, which creates a trade barrier of 9 
cents per gallon. Ethanol producers can also receive a small blenders 
tax credit of 10 cents a gallon if they produce less than 60 million 
gallons of ethanol per year.
  My amendment helps to stop these protectionist policies and offers 
alternatives to hard-working Americans who are paying too much for gas.
  On the other side of the equation, more must be done to reduce demand 
and promote conservation.
  This Congress took a significant step by mandating CAFE energy 
standards in the Energy bill we passed in 2007, which was the largest 
increase in fuel economy standards in nearly 30 years. According to the 
Department of Transportation, these new fuel standards will save over 
55 billion gallons of fuel and save American motorists more than $100 
billion over time.
  But that is not enough. These standards will go a long way in helping 
to increase fuel economy, but more must be done to foster the market 
for efficient energy alternatives and other breakthrough technologies.
  
  
[[Page 16147]]

  
  One of the more promising technologies in this area is advanced 
batteries for plug-in hybrids. The Gas Price Reduction Act contains 
$500 million in research and development for advancements in plug-in 
technology and $250 million in direct loans for manufacturers who 
retool factories to produce plug-in batteries. It will help to make 
batteries in many of the current hybrids more affordable and longer 
lasting.
  In the long term, I envision a market where renewable fuels are 
viable and available and drivers will have affordable alternatives to 
fossil fuels such as gasoline. My State of Florida has been a leader in 
helping to make this vision a reality. The State recently created the 
Florida Energy Systems Consortium, which brings together researchers 
and resources from State universities to develop renewable energies.
  The University of Central Florida--a member of the consortium--
recently announced it is receiving $8.75 million in grants to focus on 
how technology can make new and existing construction projects more 
energy efficient. In addition, with the help of $20 million from the 
State of Florida, the University of Florida is currently building the 
State's first biorefinery, which could produce clean cellulosic ethanol 
to power our cars.
  As we continue to discuss the ongoing energy crisis, I urge my 
colleagues to consider the consequences of failing to offer viable 
solutions to the American people as they grow increasingly worried over 
dwindling energy supplies in America. Now is not the time for the 
politics of energy. It is not the time for us to look for one-
upsmanship in the political game. It is time for us to act on a problem 
that is hurting American families throughout the State of Florida and 
throughout the United States.
  We need to address this problem. We need to put us on a track of 
finding more and using less--a track that, where possible, is 
environmentally safe, where we can produce more domestic energy, while 
at the same time turning loose the energies of this Nation, the 
technology, to look for future opportunities for different blends of 
fuels, different types of automobiles, and other ways we can improve 
the efficiency of our fleet so that we can increase the opportunity for 
the American people to live in a world that is cleaner and in which 
they can afford to drive their kids to school and go to work. When we 
have alternative fuels available, they may not have to be totally 
dependent upon fossil fuels or imported oil.
  I believe this is imperative, and it is an issue of national security 
proportions. We cannot continue to transfer our wealth overseas. We are 
transferring, year after year, $750 billion to countries that are not 
particularly our friends. Some of them, in fact, would be considered 
hostile to us. Nonetheless, we purchase oil from them because of our 
necessity; our need is too great.
  The fact is, we know there is plenty of political opportunity on both 
sides of the aisle on this issue. The American people are focused on 
this, and the American people are saying: Please do something about 
this. Hear our cry for help.
  I say that this is the time for bipartisan cooperation, for us to 
come together, Republicans and Democrats, put partisan interests aside, 
put American interests first, and look for ways to cooperate, work 
together, and do what is doable, do what can be done.
  On five occasions, I have voted to open ANWR to oil exploration. 
Whether that is acceptable or not, let's come together and decide. I 
would be prepared to support that once again. If that is a deal-
breaker, let's not go there. Let's look for those common-ground areas 
where we can agree and move forward with a comprehensive energy plan.
  Let's not say we have done our job by simply looking at speculation 
as a scapegoat. We can deal with that and add transparency to it, but 
that is not an answer in and of itself.
  We have to have a comprehensive approach that tackles the issue of 
supply, that tackles the issue of demand, where we have more oil 
available, where the supply is increased from domestic production, 
American production on America's lands and shores, and where we can 
also reduce our consumption, utilize less. That will make America a 
safer place. Then we can go home for this August break and face our 
citizens and let them know we did a job they sent us here to do; not to 
play politics but to get the job done for the American people.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I was in the House of Representatives for 
14 years and have been in the Senate for a year and a half, as has the 
Presiding Officer. During that time, all of us have noticed when there 
is a spike in oil prices, as there has been obviously intermittently 
for decades in this country, we can always ascribe a spike in oil 
prices to one of several factors: either a major fire in a refinery or 
there might have been an outage on a pipeline somewhere in our country. 
It might have come from something such as Hurricane Katrina, some major 
natural disaster in our country that caused a disruption of oil 
supplies, or it may have come from an international incident where 
there would be, again, a disruption in oil getting to our country, some 
major international incident. So it has either been a refinery fire, 
pipeline outage, a Katrina-type disaster or some interruption in 
foreign oil supplies coming to this country.
  That is what it used to be. The huge increase in oil prices, the fact 
that since George Bush and Dick Cheney came to the White House, two 
oilmen in the White House, oil has gone from $30 a barrel to quadruple 
that number, that gasoline prices have gone from roughly, I believe, no 
more than a couple dollars a gallon--less than that back then--to about 
double that now, that has been for different reasons. It is pretty 
clear, because there has not been a major outage of a pipeline, a 
refinery fire or a disruption because of a natural disaster or because 
of a foreign international incident, that something else has happened. 
That is why Senator Reid's legislation is on the floor today because we 
know part of the reason for prices doing what they have done is 
certainly there has been more demand from China and India, but that 
does not account for the doubling and tripling of prices when, in fact, 
so much of this is about the issues of gaming the system by the oil 
industry, whether it is price fixing in some sort of way that the 
Justice Department should go after or mostly what this bill is about, 
speculation.
  It is clear that kind of hanky-panky has gone on in the oil market. 
You don't have to look very far to figure that out, that it is not just 
a question of supply and demand.
  The other factor compounding this--even though I hear my friends on 
the Republican side of the aisle talk about we need to do more 
drilling, and I am fine with that. But the fact is there are 68 million 
acres out there--2\1/2\ times the size of my State, the State of Ohio, 
2\1/2\ times the number of acres of the State of Ohio--there are 68 
million acres on which the oil companies have leases. Yet they are not 
drilling in most of those 68 million acres. If they are committed to 
producing more oil to bring prices down, they would begin drilling in 
far more of those acres than they talk about drilling in.
  So why should we, again, in this institution, the Senate, and as I 
saw for years in the House, buckle to the oil industry? Why should big 
oil always have its way here? Why should Wall Street always have its 
way here? That is why Senator Reid's bill on speculation is so 
important, empowering the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, 
empowering the Justice Department to go after the oil industry on price 
gouging.
  It is clear we need a more aggressive Federal Government, a more 
aggressive administration. Again, we have had


[[Page 16148]]


two oilmen in the White 
House. Look what happened in these 8 years to oil prices.
  I beseech my colleagues to support Senator Reid's speculation bill, 
and I beseech the President to be more aggressive with his Justice 
Department to go after the oil companies that are price gouging and to 
empower the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to go after Wall 
Street on some of this speculation. It is pretty clear that is the 
biggest reason for these price increases, and it is important the 
Federal Government get behind efforts to do all we can to rein in the 
cost of oil for truckers, for motorists, people who are getting 
squeezed and hurt so badly by these increasing oil prices.
  I yield the floor. 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. DODD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


               Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008

  Mr. DODD. Madam President, I rise this afternoon to share with my 
colleagues the good news: that we are about to pass, I believe, after 
many weeks and months, numerous votes on countless amendments on the 
floor of this body, as well as efforts in the other Chamber, the 
Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.
  I am going to share some thoughts on where this is and what is 
included in this bill that passed the House yesterday and is pending as 
one of the matters that will be considered in the next 24 to 48 hours 
by this Chamber.
  My first expression of gratitude goes to the majority leader, his 
staff, and others, along with the minority leader's staff, particularly 
those on the floor who have been very patient.
  In the case of the majority leader, he has been far more patient but 
tremendously supportive of this effort. This has taken a long time and 
has gone through a lot of different processes over the last number of 
months to get to the point where we are today: on the brink of passing 
the most sweeping housing legislation in more than a generation, that 
will particularly focus on trying to keep people in their homes.
  There are literally thousands every day who face the prospect of 
foreclosure. This legislation will not protect everyone, but it will 
make a difference in the case of thousands, as well as many of the 
provisions which I will address in a minute or so. But I begin by 
expressing my gratitude to those who made it possible for us to get to 
this point.
  Again, the majority leader and his staff played a critical role. 
Senator Shelby of Alabama, former chairman of the Banking Committee, 
today the ranking Republican of that committee--we would never have 
been able to succeed at what we achieved without him and his staff and 
the work he has done on the committee. We were able to mark up this 
bill several weeks ago and bring it to the floor of the Senate on a 
vote of 19 to 2, and that was because of the work of Senator Shelby and 
others, along with, of course, the wonderful staff I have as part of 
the Democratic majority of that committee and as chairman of the 
committee. They worked well together. They spent countless hours. Last 
weekend alone, they were up until 2 o'clock, 3:30 in the morning trying 
to iron out details with ourselves and with the leaders in the House of 
Representatives. There are a lot of people who can claim credit for 
helping us get to this point. I wish to recognize them and I will 
continuously over the coming days as we move beyond this legislation.
  But it is very important to know that people who never get a chance 
to speak in this Chamber but who put in the countless hours, the staff 
who work on these bills, work in our respective offices, work for the 
committees, do tremendous work on behalf of the American people. I, for 
one, am very grateful to all who made such a difference in bringing us 
to the point of stepping up and doing something about this economic 
crisis, which at its heart, of course, is the housing crisis, and 
behind all that is the foreclosure crisis.
  I wish to share some views on what the bill does and why this moment 
is important beyond the specifics of this bill.
  In my view, we should have and could have acted months ago on this 
legislation. Regrettably, there are still one or two Senators who are 
doing everything and anything they can to block this bipartisan 
legislation from going forward, delaying the kind of relief American 
homeowners, and so many others, desperately need to get our economy 
moving in the right direction.
  Yesterday, the President of the United States agreed to sign this 
legislation. That was a reversal. Only a few days earlier they 
announced they would veto the bill. But yesterday they made the 
announcement they are going to accept this legislation and they are 
going to sign it into law.
  Let me say how grateful I am to the President of the United States. 
We are of different political parties. We have different views on many 
issues. But I thank him. It takes a big person to recognize a mistake, 
in this case announcing a veto and then changing your mind and saying, 
in fact, this legislation deserves passage. I appreciate President 
Bush's willingness to come to that point of view and to make that 
announcement and to virtually, I hope, guarantee the adoption of this 
legislation and to begin working to make a difference in people's 
lives.
  As many of my colleagues know, we are in the midst of the most 
serious economic crisis to face our Nation in many years. Certainly, 
the American people live it every day. They don't need to read the 
data; they live the data, whether they are losing their jobs, losing 
their homes, watching the value of their stocks, their pensions, their 
401(k)s. All are worth less today than they were even a few weeks ago. 
So the American people do not need a tutorial on whether things are 
tough out there. They are living it and their families are and they 
want to know whether their Government is doing anything about it to 
make a difference.
  Income is stagnant, and for many people it is falling at precisely 
the time Americans are experiencing increasing costs in their daily 
lives. The source of wealth creation in this country has been damaged 
badly. Housing, which is a source of great wealth creation for many 
people, is losing value. Stocks, we know, have lost value. Bonds are 
losing value. These are the items upon which many Americans, through 
mutual funds and other vehicles, are able to increase their wealth, 
increase their security, prepare for their retirement, assist their 
children to achieve a higher education and to lead decent lives with a 
degree of happiness and hope that Americans ought to expect, living in 
this great country of ours. But all these items have been badly damaged 
over the last number of weeks and compound that loss of wealth creation 
with the fact that gasoline prices are going up, food costs are going 
up, health care costs are going up, and the cost of an education is 
going up. At the very time the source of wealth creation is going down, 
the cost of living is rising.
  Unemployment numbers are also worrisome. In the month of May, we saw 
a one-half of 1 percent increase in unemployment. That is the largest 
single monthly increase in unemployment in 22 years in our Nation.
  The root cause of all this--again, you don't need to know all this 
because you have been feeling it--the root cause of all this is the 
virtual collapse of the housing market that, in my view, did not have 
to happen. This did not have
to occur. This is not a natural disaster. It is not a hurricane or a 
cyclone or a snowstorm. This is a problem that was created because the 
people responsible for being the cops over these institutions were not 
doing their job. As a result, we are in the mess we are in today.
  I do not want to oversimplify it, but virtually that is what 
happened. The collapse was caused by what the Secretary of the Treasury 
has described as ``bad lending practices'' that were at best ignored 
and, in crucial respects, knowingly tolerated, if not encouraged, 


[[Page 16149]]


by Government officials over the last number of years. As a result, every 
single day in this country, Madam President, 8,000 to 9,000 of our 
fellow countrymen are entering into foreclosure. Home prices nationwide 
have dropped by the largest and most precipitous amounts since the 
Great Depression back in the 1930s. Tens of millions of Americans have 
watched their retirement savings, their pension funds, and the value of 
their homes fall by alarming amounts.
  Madam President, I want to remind my colleagues that this legislation 
has proven time and time again to enjoy strong bipartisan support. 
Again, without the work of my partner in all of this, Senator Shelby, 
we wouldn't have arrived at that remarkable result. But my colleagues 
who have been with us on all of this, those who have added their ideas 
to this legislation, who have brought thoughtful proposals and added 
comments as well as specific ideas, deserve a great deal of credit for 
this as well.
  Shortly before we left for our July recess, this piece of legislation 
passed this Chamber by a vote of 79 to 16. Yesterday, in the House, the 
bill received a bipartisan vote of 272 to 152. It is time to take up 
this bill one last time and send it to the President for his signature.
  Let me review for my colleagues, if I may, exactly what it is we are 
working so hard to achieve. The bill we are about to adopt, and that we 
have worked on for weeks and months, has a number of key elements, all 
of which have been supported by the strong bipartisan votes in this 
body. First, we have the HOPE for Homeowners Act, which we are told 
will help somewhere between 400,000 to in excess of 500,000 Americans 
keep their homes and avoid going into foreclosure.
  My hope, Madam President, is that number will actually be larger than 
that. That is a low estimate but certainly an important one. These 
families were simply seeking the American dream of home ownership. 
Sadly, in case after case after case, they were led astray. They were 
steered into mortgages they couldn't afford, and the people who steered 
them into those mortgages knew it because they were going to make their 
money quickly, and then they were going to sell the mortgage, move on, 
and never be accountable. In my view, these people should be going to 
prison for what they did.
  I know people say that is a harsh conclusion, but to knowingly lure 
someone into a financial arrangement you know they could never afford, 
and to know full well they would end up defaulting on or falling 
behind, to me, that behavior is reprehensible and people ought to be 
held accountable. I am speaking of those who knowingly engaged in a 
practice that caused so much harm in our country. These are cases where 
often the mortgage brokers and loan officers pretended to be trusted 
financial advisers but were exactly the opposite. They had no intention 
and were doing nothing when it came to advising and providing help to 
these borrowers at all.
  In fact, we now know, according to the Wall Street Journal, over 60 
percent of the people who were talked into subprime loans actually 
could have qualified for a conventional mortgage at far lower cost to 
them than what a subprime mortgage cost. Sixty percent of these people 
were lured into that category by people who knew they had an 
opportunity to qualify for something that would have cost them far less 
than they ended up paying.
  Anyway, this part of our HOPE for Homeowners Act is a voluntary 
program that will help save these homes by forcing the lenders who 
chose to participate to take some losses. These are not bailouts. The 
borrowers will have to pledge at least 50 percent of all new equity and 
future appreciation in order to get the benefit of a new reduced 
mortgage at a fixed rate that they can afford to pay. So the lender 
takes a haircut. They are not going to get what they thought they were 
going to get, but they are not going to get zero; and the borrower gets 
to stay in his or her home. They are going to end up paying that 
insurance and also contributing a part of the equity that will increase 
over the years to compensate for this program.
  There are many protections built into this program. Only homeowners 
will qualify; no speculators, only homeowners. No investors or 
speculators will be allowed to participate. Borrowers will have to show 
they cannot afford their current mortgages, and all loans will be 
underwritten at a level the borrower can afford to pay. New loans will 
be at 30-year fixed rate mortgages.
  All of this is done at no cost to the taxpayer. In fact, over the 
next 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office tells us that the 
program will actually raise some $250 million for the Treasury of the 
United States. This provision, combined with the government-sponsored 
enterprises--Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the home loan banks--regulatory 
reform of this bill, passed the Banking Committee 19 to 2, as I 
mentioned earlier.
  Now, let me put to rest, if I can, an issue that has been raised. I 
have just described what this will do for that borrower who is with 
that very distressed mortgage. I can hear someone out there listening 
to these remarks and saying: Well, Senator, I live next door, and I 
have a mortgage I would like to get reduced as well. Now, I am not at 
risk of losing my home because I have my job and, frankly, I got a 
mortgage at a time when my broker and my banker worked out an 
arrangement that I could afford to pay. But why is that neighbor of 
mine getting this deal and I am not? Is that fair?
  That is a good question. Let me say to you, as a borrower, first of 
all, I want to keep that borrower, if I can, in a home. If you are in a 
similar problem, we want to do what we can to help you. But you don't 
want that neighbor of yours to go into foreclosure. If your neighbor 
goes into foreclosure, then the value of your home that day begins to 
decline dramatically. The last thing any neighbors want on a block is 
foreclosed properties. So for every 8,000 or 9,000 people who go into 
foreclosure today, as they will, there are 16,000 people who live next 
door to that foreclosed property. And when the value of properties go 
down in a neighborhood, crime rates go up, and it just spirals further 
and further down.
  So I hear what you are saying. But if you think carefully about how 
this actually helps you as well, by keeping that homeowner in that 
house, keeping up the value of your property, then everyone benefits. 
So to those out there who wonder why everyone is not going to get a new 
mortgage at a rate they can afford, the value of this program is to try 
to put a tourniquet, if you will, on the hemorrhaging that is going on. 
There are 1.5 million people who have lost their homes in the last 
year. It is predicted by some--Credit Suisse being one--that one out of 
every eight homes, if we don't act, will end up in foreclosure in the 
next 5 years. Obviously, that is an intolerable situation in our 
country.
  So this legislation is designed to provide hope not only for the 
homeowners but hope for the neighborhoods and communities being so 
adversely affected by this present problem. We desperately need this 
legislation. And as I have said repeatedly, every day we wait, some 
8,000 to 9,000 foreclosures are filed. In fact, the delays we have 
suffered over the last number of days have caused an awful lot of 
people whom we might have been able to help to find themselves without 
a home.
  Remember, these aren't just numbers. I have been citing numbers to 
you--a million and a half, 8,000 to 9,000, and how this program would 
work. But for every one of these numbers there is a family. Just 
imagine tonight that you had to go home and tell your husband or your wife or your children: 
We are no longer going to live here. We can't afford to stay here. This 
has been our home, but we have to find some other place to live. I 
don't know of anyone who would like to come home carrying that message 
because someone lured them into a mortgage knowing full well they could 
never afford to pay the fully indexed price.
  These numbers don't speak about the human tragedy and the cost beyond 
the financial implications. So the importance of this legislation goes 
to the 


[[Page 16150]]
XXXXXXXXXX

heart of who we are as a people, that sense of optimism and 
confidence. That fulfillment of a dream--of owning a home and raising a 
family, living in a quiet, safe neighborhood--for many people is no 
longer going to be there because these foreclosures are occurring at 
such a rapid rate around our country.
  In late June of this year, Census reported that the home ownership 
rate, after reaching an all-time high in 2005, has fallen to a little 
over 67 percent, the sharpest annual decline in 20 years. According to 
the New York Times, minorities, who are disproportionately likely to 
get subprime loans, are suffering especially badly. That is why this 
legislation is widely supported by community and civil rights groups, 
financial institutions, and others. They see a generation of wealth 
being lost as a result of this foreclosure crisis.
  The Senate expressed its strong bipartisan support of the HOPE for 
Homeowners Act when it defeated an amendment that was offered to strip 
out this program entirely. To the credit of my colleagues, Democrats 
and Republicans, we voted 69 to 21 to keep this program a part of this 
bill.
  I want to make people understand something. There is no miracle here. 
I am not suggesting to you that this is going to work perfectly. It is 
our best judgment that this voluntary program could make a difference, 
and my hope is it will.
  The second part of the bill, Madam President, includes the FHA 
Modernization Act. This passed early in April of this year as part of 
the Foreclosure Prevention Act by a vote of 84 to 12. The provisions in 
the current bill are identical to that legislation that I authored 
earlier this year, with the exception that the loan limits have been 
increased in high-cost areas to a maximum of $625,000.
  As the administration has repeatedly said, the modernization of the 
Federal Housing Administration will put it in a better position to keep 
future borrowers away from abusive subprime loans.
  Thirdly, this legislation creates a strong, effective, world-class 
regulator for the housing government-sponsored enterprises--Fannie Mae, 
Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks. These entities have kept 
the housing and conforming mortgage markets going while other capital 
markets have literally frozen. We need to make sure these crucial 
market players are appropriately capitalized, well regulated, and 
properly supervised so the American people can continue to depend on 
them to ensure that affordable mortgages will always be available. 
Recent losses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac speak to the urgency of 
this need, and the legislation before us accomplishes that goal.
  In addition to the government-sponsored enterprise portion of this 
bill, we have created a new permanent affordable housing fund that will 
help finance the construction and preservation of affordable homes and 
apartments across this Nation. Again, the need for this is growing, 
especially as the foreclosure crisis is pushing more and more families 
into rental housing. Again, the Senate spoke forcefully in support of 
this program when an amendment was offered by a Senator in this body to 
strike that entire program. My colleagues, again Democrats and 
Republicans, voted 77 to 11 to keep this permanent affordable housing 
program.
  The bill also includes $3.9 billion for community development block 
grant funds to help communities across the Nation revitalize 
neighborhoods that have been devastated by foreclosures. This provision 
has strong support from the Nation's mayors, community groups, 
religious organizations, housing groups, and civil rights organizations 
as well. Unfortunately, we can't stop every foreclosure, but these 
funds will help our communities deal with the fallout of this terrible 
problem and help stabilize and renew our hardest hit communities.
  There are important sections of the legislation that help our 
Nation's veterans find and keep housing and provide them with housing 
counseling. We increase housing counseling money in this bill so we can 
help people avoid the scourge and trauma of losing their homes to 
foreclosure.
  There are a number of important tax provisions, and I want to commend 
my friend and colleague from Montana, Max Baucus, and Senator Grassley 
of Iowa. The Finance Committee did a terrific job with this bill. They 
got rid of some onerous, and I think wrong, tax provisions that had 
been adopted earlier and included some wonderful provisions to help 
first-time home buyers, as well as to provide some assistance in the 
area of encouraging additional investments in our housing areas.
  So I want to commend Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley and members of the 
Finance Committee for the additions they have added to this bill that 
are going to make a significant difference.
  Finally, the legislation includes important standby authority, which 
was requested by the Secretary of the Treasury, Hank Paulson. He worked 
all weekend, two weekends ago, with various other people to do what 
they could to figure out how not to lose the major investments in our 
government-sponsored enterprises, and he came up with this idea of 
standby authority. Now, it is unprecedented the authority he is asking 
for, but Hank Paulson impresses me as someone who has thought about 
this. He has spent a lifetime in the private sector and knows and 
understands these issues pretty well. And I know for a fact that he 
reached out to a lot of other people in the country as well, not of his 
own political persuasion but people he respects, and listened to them 
as they crafted this standby authority.
  My colleagues have raised some very good questions about it. We had a 
long, almost 5-hour hearing on the Banking Committee last week where 
Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, and 
Christopher Cox of the SEC, sat there for 4\1/2\ hours and answered 
questions from 22 members of the Banking Committee about this proposal. 
And there are legitimate issues about it.
  I see my friend from New Mexico here, the former chairman of the 
Budget Committee, and we asked questions that he would have asked in 
that committee, and I think we answered them as well as we could.
  But I think Hank Paulson has it about right. This authority is going 
to be critical if we are going to encourage people to stay involved in 
this critically important area of liquidity to the housing market. So I 
know my colleagues are concerned about this 18-month proposal, and that 
is how long it will last, but we will watch it carefully. Any authority 
that he would seek would be subject, of course, to the debt ceiling 
limit, which the Congress can impose at any point to slow this down. 
But the idea that the authority is there will give us, I think, the 
needed security that many global investors--and I want to point out 
they are global investors these institutions need in order to stabilize 
them at a critical time when there are significant jitters about 
whether these institutions can survive.
  So, Madam President, this provision is one that was added by the 
Secretary of the Treasury, added by the administration, but Senator 
Shelby and I believed it was worthy of inclusion in this bill, and that 
is why we included it.
  In short, this is a good, balanced bill. In many ways it is almost 
landmark legislation. It has taken a long time to get here and 
unfortunately it took some bad news for us to build the support this 
bill needed. But we are where we are.

[[Page 16151]]

  This bill is going to make a difference almost immediately. In fact, 
we are seeing a difference already in the markets around the country--
and around the world, for that matter. This bill has very broad 
support, including from the Conference of Mayors, the League of Cities, 
the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America, the Leadership Conference 
on Civil Rights, the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, the 
Consumer Federation of America, the National Association of 
Homebuilders, NAACP, ACORN, the Financial Services Roundtable, and 
numerous other business, consumer, and civil rights organizations. In 
fact, I ask unanimous consent that a long list of these organizations 
be printed in the Record for my colleagues.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       American Financial Services Association; National Governors 
     Association; U.S. Conference of Mayors; Mayors Newsom (San 
     Fran), Menino (Boston), Daley (Chicago); National Assoc of 
     Counties; National Assoc of Local Housing Finance Agencies; 
     National Assoc for County Community and Economic Development; 
     National Community Development Association; National Council 
     of State Housing Agencies; Manufactured Housing Institute; 
     National Housing Trust Fund; Mortgage Insurance Companies of 
     America and National Assoc of Mortgage Brokers.
       National Association of Realtors; AARP; FM Policy Focus; 
     NAACP; Mortgage Bankers Association; Conference of State Bank 
     Supervisors; ACORN; Homeownership Preservation Foundation; 
     Mission of Peace National Corp; Mon Valley Initiative; 
     National Council of La Raza; National NeighborWorks 
     Association and Council of State Community Development 
     Agencies.
  Mr. DODD. Madam President, I point this out because, as my colleagues 
will tell you, oftentimes we have one group of people for something and 
not another. But when you get the Financial Services Roundtable, the 
NAACP, the Consumer Federation of America, the League of Cities--you 
get some idea of what we have been able to put together, Senator Shelby 
and I have, with this bill.
  Is this a bill Richard Shelby would write on his own? No. Is this one 
I would write on my own? Absolutely not. We do not do business like 
that here. There are 100 of us here, and we try to work together to 
fashion ideas that make sense, and that is what we have done with this 
critically important legislation.
  I thank Senator Shelby. I thank my colleagues, my Democratic 
colleagues on the Banking Committee--Jack Reed, Chuck Schumer, Tim 
Johnson, a long list of people who made a significant contribution to 
this bill. I thank my Republican colleagues on the committee as well; 8 
out of 10 of my Republican colleagues on that committee have supported 
this effort and stayed with us through this long, arduous process, a 
process that did not have to last this long and should not have to last 
this long over the next several days. We could pass this bill in the 
next hour and send it to the President for his signature this 
afternoon. That is the kind of news I think the world is waiting for, 
both at home and around the globe--that the American Congress, 
Democrats and Republicans, contrary to the opinion people have of us, 
can actually sit down and work together and produce something for the 
American people.
  That is what we have done with this bill. I thank my colleagues for 
it and I urge the adoption of this legislation when the moment occurs.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that during 
the 30-minute block of time for our side 5 minutes be allocated to me, 
12\1/2\ to Senator Vitter, and 12\1/2\ to Senator Enzi.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, let me first ask that I be permitted 
to use 1 minute upfront that is not allocated to my 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I say to my good friend before he leaves the floor how 
good it is to see you in action again. I think you probably feel you 
are back being a Senator. Remember the days when we, together, passed 
that one piece of legislation where we overrode the veto of President 
Clinton, when you were the chairman of the Democratic Party and we had 
a bill going here? It was the right bill; class action. Do you remember 
that one? It started us moving where that whole process was cleaned up. 
I regret to say, with the lawyers we were fighting with in our 
committees, one of them ended up in jail, I noticed recently. That was 
the fate he had. I saw that coming as he was conducting his law 
practice in the days we were investigating class action litigation.
  I wanted to say what a pleasure it was then. I know from what you are 
saying that you have had a lot of opportunity to debate, share ideas, 
work with other Senators, and I think that is what makes the Senate 
great. I compliment you for it.
  Mr. DODD. I thank the Senator very much.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, it is obvious I just finished telling 
the good Senator how we work together to make good laws when we have 
important issues. I also want to say, in the year 2005 we passed an 
Energy Policy Act. The Senate took 19 rollcall votes on amendments and 
agreed to 57 of them. Last year on the Energy Independence and Security 
Act we took 16 rollcall votes on amendments and agreed to 49.
  We can look back further, if you would like to, to the successful 
legislation on the Clean Air Act of 1990. I was here. I was working on 
it. The Senate acted upon 131 amendments and took well over 3 weeks 
here on the floor of the Senate.
  Let me say to my fellow Senators, that is not what is happening 
today. Today an issue just as important, as I view it, as important as 
any of the legislation I talked about--any legislation that my good 
friend from Connecticut talked about here on the floor, any legislation 
that we have considered in the field of energy--is before us today 
during a critical time, a time more critical than at any other time we 
were considering energy legislation that I have alluded to, and a 
couple of other times that are similar.
  What did we do then? We had time for important legislation and we 
must have time for this, for the one who is saying: What are you going 
to do to the offshore inventories of American oil and gas that are 
locked up that we cannot use and have not used for 20 to 27 years and 
now they are there, ready to help the American people? The price of 
gasoline must come down and that is one way to do it. We have to open 
the reserves that belong to the people.
  It is interesting the distinguished Senator from Connecticut could 
talk about working together and how that has taken place in this 
important housing bill. It is important that we understand how we did 
the previous Energy bills. But here today, let it be known that bill 
which the American people have been wanting us to vote on, wanting us 
to do something about--that is to open up these reserves that belong to 
the people and see how much that might affect the price of gasoline--we 
cannot get a vote unless we do what the majority leader wants us to do. 
One person, the majority leader, decides whether we can have an 
amendment, what it will say, what it will be about.
  It is completely different than the way we have discussed here for 
the last 5 minutes, the way legislation takes place here in the Senate. 
Remember what has happened in this bill. You can throw away all the 
words and look at where are we today.
  There is a bill pending that the Democratic leader brought to the 
floor on the subject matter of whether there is speculation going on 
that affects the price of crude oil in a bad way, with bad conduct on 
the part of those who are participating. He brought a bill down to cure 
that. We have been told that is a small part of the problem. But the 
big part of the problem is supply and demand. We, the Republicans--
joined by some Democrats, I am sure, if we ever had a chance to do it--
are addressing the issue of supply and demand. That is the big issue. 
That is the issue that might indeed make some Americans smile instead 
of being so

[[Page 16152]]

worried about their future because of the price of gasoline and what it 
is doing to them and to the American economy. We must have the right to 
freely amend that bill until we come to a consensus. That is how we get 
things done. But, remember, plain and simple, no matter what is said, 
we cannot do that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Mr. DOMENICI. That is because the majority leader has precluded us 
procedurally from doing anything other than what he wants, what he will 
let us do. We cannot act the way the Senate should act on important 
issues.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. Madam President, I too rise to talk about the single most 
important issue, bar none, facing American families--gasoline prices, 
energy. Again let me restate the obvious. This is the single most 
important issue facing all Louisiana families I represent, facing 
American families across the country. In that context, for families who 
struggle every week, particularly when they go to the gas station to 
fill up, particularly as they try to take family vacations in the 
summers or they struggle with their basic needs of commuting to work--
those folks in ag, or transportation, doubly hit with diesel costs--we 
need to act, not talk but act in a meaningful way on this issue.
  Let me first congratulate the majority leader. He has finally allowed 
a bill on the floor which at least touches on this issue. He has a bill 
before the Senate right now, the issue on the floor, that deals with 
speculation in energy, particularly oil and gas. That is an issue we 
should address head on and I applaud that.
  But there is a big problem with how he has gone about running the 
Senate in this instance; that is, he has not allowed any meaningful 
amendment to that bill so that we can have an open debate and open 
amendment process about gasoline and energy.
  Again, I am happy to look at the speculation issue and act on the 
speculation issue. I support provisions that do that. But I do not know 
a single American who thinks that is nearly enough, that it addresses 
the bulk of the issue, that we should not move on to other crucial 
issues revolving around supply and demand.
  Like virtually every Member of this body, I have introduced 
significant amendments that go to the heart of the matter, that impact 
supply and demand, that try to make us use less, bring down demand, 
conserve more, have greater fuel efficiency standards, new technology. 
But that would also have us find more right here at home. We have those 
resources here. Yet because of the ground rules laid down by the 
distinguished majority leader, we are not being allowed to call up any 
of those amendments, have that open debate, consider my ideas or the 
ideas of the 99 other Senators on both sides of the aisle. I urge the 
majority leader to abandon that approach and to get back to the best 
traditions of the Senate--open debate and an open amendment process. 
Specifically, in that vein:
  I ask unanimous consent that the Senate consider S. 3268 in the 
following manner: that the bill be subject to energy-related amendments 
only and that amendments be considered in an alternating manner between 
the two sides of the aisle. I further ask unanimous consent that the 
bill remaining be the pending business to the exclusion of all other 
business other than privileged matters or items agreed to jointly by 
the two leaders.
  I ask unanimous consent that the first seven amendments to be offered 
on the Republican side of the aisle by either the Republican leader or 
his designee be the following: an Outer Continental Shelf amendment, 
including a conservation provision; an oil shale amendment, including a 
conservation provision; an Alaska energy production amendment, 
including a conservation provision; the Gas Price Reduction Act, which 
has 44 cosponsors, myself included; a clean nuclear energy amendment; a 
coal-to-liquid fuel amendment, including a conservation provision; and 
a LIHEAP amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. In my capacity as Senator, I object.
  Mr. VITTER. Madam President, I am obviously not surprised, but I 
continue to be disappointed. Gasoline prices--energy--are the single 
greatest challenge facing every Louisiana family. I know they are the 
greatest challenge facing Missouri families and families all across 
this country. Yet we are not acting on what most concerns folks about 
our collective future, our economic future, the future for our 
families. We must act.
  The American people have a lot of sound common sense and they know 
there is no single answer, there is no silver bullet, there is not one 
thing that does everything, there is not one thing that can stabilize 
and immediately lower gasoline prices.
  They know we need to do a number of things. Most of the American 
people, like me, are perfectly willing to look at speculation and act 
on that issue. I support provisions to do that. But the American people 
also want to look at supply and demand. They want to decrease demand 
through conservation, through greater efficiency, through new 
technology, but they also want to increase supply, including finding 
more energy right here at home.
  That includes a lot of oil and gas resources we have right here at 
home that we need for the short term and medium term. We need to do a 
number of these different things.
  As I mentioned, I have introduced seven specific amendments. My 
amendments do a number of different things, both on the demand side and 
on the supply side, because we need to act on both sides of the 
equation. But, again, the ground rules the majority leader has 
established shut all that out so far. I certainly hope he reconsiders 
and changes those ground rules.
  Those ground rules are offensive, quite frankly, to the traditions of 
the Senate. I came from the House. When I did, I heard the Senate was 
fundamentally different from the House; that the Senate was about open 
debate and open amendments and not controlled with limited debate and 
limited amendments such as the House.
  Well, I found out the Senate, under this leadership, is different 
from the House. In the House we had a handful of amendments on every 
bill. In the Senate, we are even denied that. That is not the tradition 
of the Senate, and it is not how we have acted in the Senate on energy 
legislation in the recent past.
  The last two times we considered energy legislation were in 2007 and 
in 2O05. In 2007, when the price at the pump, by the way, was about $3 
a gallon, we spent 3 whole weeks on the bill, on the issue on the floor 
of the Senate, 3 weeks, nothing but that.
  We had rollcall votes on 16 amendments. We had 22 rollcall votes 
total. We adopted a total of 49 amendments because several of those 
amendments were accepted without a vote. There were a total of 331 
amendments proposed. That is when gas was $3 a gallon.
  A little further back, 2005, we also considered energy. By the way, 
at that time, gas was $2.26 a gallon. We spent 2 whole weeks on the 
Senate floor, 2 entire weeks focused on nothing other than that, even 
though the price was almost $2 per gallon less than it is now.
  We had 19 rollcall votes on amendments; 23 total rollcall votes on 
the bill. We adopted 57 amendments and 235 were proposed. That is 
serious legislating on a serious issue.
  Yet has energy gotten less serious since then or more? Well, you can 
track that with the price at the pump. It has gone from $2.26 during 
that first debate, to $3.06 during the second debate, to $4, at least, 
now. The issue is more important than ever and merits our attention 
more than ever and merits a serious response more than ever.
  That means real time on the floor and--more than time obviously--the 
ability to have an open amendment process and to consider serious, 
substantive legislative proposals.
  Again, I have seven amendments offered. They attack both the demand 
side, to lower demand, and also the supply side, to increase supply, 
including in the short and medium term.
  We need to attack both sides of the equation. We need to do both 
those

[[Page 16153]]

things. But, fundamentally, we need to act. The American people are 
sick and tired of our never acting on issues that are important to 
their lives, never taking up what hits them in the pocketbook, what 
their families are concerned about, what threatens their future.


                   Unanimous-Consent Request S. 3248

  So we need to act. So in that vein, I again urge us to act. I ask 
unanimous consent that the Senate consider S. 3248, in the following 
manner: that the bill be subject to energy-related amendments only; 
that amendments be considered in an alternating fair manner between the 
two sides of the aisle.
  I ask further unanimous consent that the bill remain the pending 
business, to the exclusion of all other business other than privileged 
matters or items agreed to jointly by the two leaders.
  I ask further unanimous consent that the first seven amendments to be 
offered on the Republican side of the aisle by either the Republican 
leader or his designee be the following:
  An Outer Continental Shelf amendment, including a conservation 
provision; an oil shale amendment, including a conservation provision; 
an Alaska energy production amendment, including a conservation 
provision; the Gas Price Reduction Act, which has 44 cosponsors, 
including myself; a clean nuclear energy amendment; a coal-to-liquid 
fuel amendment, including a conservation provision; and a LIHEAP 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. In my capacity as a Senator, I object.
  The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. VITTER. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 30 seconds.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. VITTER. Again, I am very disappointed--not surprised, very 
disappointed. The American people want action. The American people 
deserve action on what is the single greatest threat and issue in their 
lives right now.
  I urge all of us to come together, not as Democrats or Republicans 
but as Americans, to act.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I am disappointed to be here and to have 
to give this speech today. I am disappointed because I am, once again, 
on the Senate floor discussing the fact that the majority leader has 
decided to use the Senate parliamentary tactic to stop members from 
offering amendments and to close off debate.
  We are going to spend until tomorrow morning or whatever time 
tomorrow we decide to have another vote on another cloture motion doing 
nothing. While we can raise issues, we cannot get any votes on any 
issues. This is all valuable time that we could be voting on issues for 
the American people, issues that would actually solve some of the gas 
price problems I hear about all over Wyoming and all over the country. 
It is the No. 1 concern in this country right now.
  The majority leader has a rain delay that has put a halt to this 
match, but this game will get played. We will debate alternative 
energy, finding more oil on American soil, deep sea exploration, 
nuclear energy, oil shale. You cannot stop us forever because the 
American people have told us the most important issue on their mind is 
the issue of energy.
  The majority leader has told the world's most deliberative body we 
cannot have a real debate about this issue. But the American people are 
telling him something else. Hopefully, soon he will listen. It is no 
wonder Congress has an approval rating that is less than 10 percent.
  Rather than working on the issues that are important to our 
constituents, we continue to play ``gotcha'' politics. It is not 
getting us anywhere. It is certainly not improving our Nation's energy 
situation. This brand of nonlegislating that the majority continues to 
peddle is not making a gallon of gas cheaper.
  When will the leaders let us put real proposals on the table? This 
body will take some and this body will leave some, but we should be 
taking action. What we have now is not action, it is acting, acting in 
the dramatic sense. We evidently think that if we can place blame on 
speculators and get a vote on that and be done, we can check that box 
off and say that we took care of energy for America. Americans are 
smarter than that.
  The majority leader is preventing a vote on an amendment that would 
increase production on the Outer Continental Shelf. We cannot vote on 
an amendment that will allow for more production of diesel fuel from 
our Nation's most abundant energy source, coal. We cannot vote on 
extending the wind production tax credit. We cannot vote on extending 
tax credits for solar energy.
  The majority leader has said we need to get an agreement on 
amendments. Our side has agreed we need to work on energy amendments 
because this is an energy debate. We have been willing to put aside all 
the other kinds of amendments. But, no, that is not enough. We want to 
be able to read each of them and decide whether they are meritorious 
before they are put on the table.
  I am not sure why that is the case. It does not match up with our 
historical energy debates or, for that matter, any of our debates.
  The Senate considered the Energy Independence and Security Act last 
year. At that time, gas was $3.06 a gallon. I talked a little bit about 
that bill because I called it the anti-energy bill and said there was 
not anything in that that was going to bring down the price of gas. 
Obviously, I was right. The price is up another dollar from that. But 
even on that one, there were 331 amendments that were filed. Of those, 
49 amendments were agreed to, and 16 amendments received rollcall 
votes.
  The Senate considered the Energy Policy Act of 2005, that is the 
previous bill to the anti-energy bill. Gas was $2.26 a gallon then. 
There were 235 amendments that were filed and, of those, 57 amendments 
were agreed to and 19 amendments received rollcall votes.
  The crisis is even greater now. So there ought to be amendments being 
debated, considered. We should not have the parliamentary tactic that 
keeps us from doing amendments.
  Anytime a bill comes in here, and it is a take-it-or-leave-it 
proposition, this body leaves it. So if you want to get something done, 
want to be able to check off the box, we need to be able to do some 
amendments.
  Now, not only were both those bills fully amendable but both received 
significant floor consideration. We spent 15 days on the floor on one 
of them and 10 days on the other. Why? Because they are serious issues 
that deserve serious debate. We wanted to make sure ideas from both 
sides were considered.
  As I recall, both sides lost some. But that is how it works. I have 
an amendment that relates to State mineral royalties. That amendment 
would encourage States to allow for energy production on their land by 
giving them their fair share of mineral royalties. We are not going to 
get to consider that. There are a number of other amendments that I 
would support relating to energy development on the Outer Continental 
Shelf in the States that want energy production and only those States 
that want it.
  I would support an amendment to improve our Nation's energy situation 
by accelerating the development of coal-to-liquid fuels. That could be 
coal to diesel and coal to jet fuel. Those are the most expensive fuels 
in the United States right now. Those are the ones that have some great 
potential for decreased costs using our most abundant energy source.
  We have more Btu's in coal--in fact, we have more Btu's in the clean 
coal in northeastern Wyoming than Saudi Arabia has in oil. It is an old 
technique from World War II, from converting that to, say, diesel, and 
also to convert it to jet fuel. Our military needs jet fuel. It can be 
done from coal.
  Unfortunately, the majority leader has stopped me from doing so by 
using parliamentarian tactics to cut off the debate. He has also 
stopped me from voting against a number of bad ideas I am sure we would 
see. I will not have a chance to vote against lowering the

[[Page 16154]]

speed limit to 55 miles an hour. Why is that a bad idea? It actually 
led to higher traffic fatalities.
  When we were talking about eliminating the 55-mile-speed limit, the 
argument was, if we do that, the number of fatalities in the United 
States would go up. Well, we raised the speed limit. We went back to 
where it was before.
  Do you know what. Traffic fatalities went down. In Wyoming, the 
reason they went down is we eliminated a lot of those single-car 
accidents from driving the huge distances across our State at very slow 
speeds.
  My dad traveled on the road. He said: At 55 miles an hour, you could 
watch a flower come up, grow, bloom, and wither before you got by it. 
So he started reading while he drove. But it kept him awake. So he did 
not have one of those single-car accidents where you roll your car.
  Now, believe it or not, I agree with the majority party on some steps 
we could make to help this country be more energy independent. Wind tax 
credits are one example. By restricting Senators' participation, 
stopping them from representing those who put them in office is not 
going to get us any further than an empty gas tank, and that is what 
this bill in its current form is.
  The bill before us blames speculators for our energy situation. It 
might be worth taking a moment to discuss exactly what speculators do. 
We have turned that into a cuss word. Oil speculation is two people or 
companies or organizations guessing what the price will be in the 
months to come. One of those entities thinks the price will be higher 
in the months to come, and so they buy the commodity now. Another 
entity thinks the price will be lower, so they sell the commodity now. 
The one who is right will make money; the one who is wrong will not. 
You can't have this kind of a transaction without two people who 
believe the exact opposite. Both are speculators. Both think they can 
make money based on their knowledge of the world and the gas supply at 
the current time.
  What kind of entities do this? An airline might think the price of 
oil will be higher in the months to come, and, to stabilize their fuel 
costs, they will purchase oil futures for the next couple of months. If 
the prices go up, they will have stabilized their fuel costs and saved 
money. If they go down, of course, it will cost them what they bid it 
at, and they will lose money compared to what they could have gotten it 
for. But in order for them to have that market, there has to be 
somebody willing to bet against them, willing to say: Yes, I think the 
price is going to go down, and I am going to make that differential. 
Those are speculators. Without the speculator part of the deal, the 
airline doesn't have a deal. The airline cannot lock in a price for 
what they are willing to pay to make sure they will know in the future 
what their costs are going to be. That is speculation.
  The market is a place where you anticipate what the cost will be in 
the months to come so that you can have certainty for what you are 
going to pay. Sometimes you guess right and you are paying below market 
value. Sometimes your guess is wrong, and you end up paying more than 
market value. What is commonly ignored in the debate about oil 
speculators is that for every dollar made, a dollar is lost by someone 
who would be called a speculator but without whom the market doesn't 
work.
  Oil is not the only commodity that is traded. We speculate on the 
price of wheat, pork bellies, gold and silver, cattle--a number of 
other things. Speculation allows producers and consumers of these 
products the opportunity to manage the risk they have on buying and 
selling products that don't have a set price. This helps prevent wild 
fluctuations of price each and every day. That keeps major market 
failures from happening.
  Earlier this week, I spoke about how the majority leader's energy 
speculation bill could have significant unintended consequences for 
institutional investors accessing commodities, futures, and capital 
markets. Today, America's largest pension funds wrote to me stating 
their concern.
  The American Benefits Council wrote:

       The Council is very concerned that the serious implications 
     of S. 3268 on retirement plan participants have not been 
     sufficiently evaluated. We are concerned that legislation 
     relating to energy policy could unintentionally harm the 
     long-term security of American workers and families.

  I ask unanimous consent to have the letter printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                    American Benefits Council,

                                                    July 24, 2008.
     Re: Adverse Retirement Plan Implications of Energy 
         Speculation Legislation (S. 3268)

     Hon. Edward M. Kennedy,
     Chairman, Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, 
         U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
     Hon. Michael B. Enzi,
     Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Health, Education, 
         Labor and Pensions, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
     Hon. Max Baucus,
     Chairman, Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
     Hon. Charles E. Grassley,
     Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairmen Kennedy and Baucus and Ranking Members Enzi 
     and Grassley: I am writing today on behalf of the American 
     Benefits Council to express concerns about the implications 
     of S. 3268, the Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act of 
     2008, on employer-sponsored retirement plans and the tens of 
     millions of American workers and retirees who rely on these 
     plans for their retirement security. The American Benefits 
     Council (the ``Council'') is a public policy organization 
     representing principally Fortune 500 companies and other 
     organizations that assist employers of all sizes in providing 
     benefits to employees. Collectively, the Council's members 
     either sponsor directly or provide services to retirement and 
     health plans that cover more than 100 million Americans.
       The Council is very concerned that the serious implications 
     of S. 3268 on retirement plans and retirement plan 
     participants have not been sufficiently evaluated. We are 
     concerned that legislation relating to energy policy could 
     unintentionally harm the long-term financial security of 
     American workers and families.
       Employer-sponsored retirement plans are long-term investors 
     that invest in a wide range of asset classes in order to 
     diversify plan investments and minimize the risk of large 
     losses, both of which are central to employers' fiduciary 
     obligations to act prudently and solely in the interest of 
     plan participants. As you know, fiduciaries are subject to 
     extremely demanding legal obligations under the Employee 
     Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) but have flexibility 
     to select the investments that will allow them to carry out 
     their mission of providing retirement benefits to employees. 
     Commodities are one of the broad range of asset classes upon 
     which fiduciaries rely. Specifically, commodities serve as a 
     modest but important element of the investments held by 
     employer-sponsored defined benefit pensions because commodity 
     returns are uncorrelated with stocks and bonds and because 
     they provide an important hedge against inflation. For the 
     same reasons, commodities are used in many of the diversified 
     ``single fund'' solutions (lifecycle funds, target retirement 
     date funds) that have been developed to simplify investing 
     for the tens of millions of Americans participating in 
     defined contribution plans such as 401(k)s. These single fund 
     solutions, which policymakers have encouraged through 
     legislation and regulation, make investing easier while 
     giving workers access to professionally managed, diversified 
     portfolios.
       The restrictions imposed on commodities investing under S. 
     3268 would greatly restrict the ability of employer-sponsored 
     defined benefit and defined contribution plans to use this 
     important asset class. The result will be less ability to 
     diversify investments, manage investment volatility and be a 
     buffer against inflation. Unfortunately, it is the employees 
     and retirees who depend on employer retirement plans for 
     their income in retirement who will ultimately suffer. We 
     hope, with this in mind, that the implications for retirement 
     plans and plan participants will be examined more fully 
     before S. 3268 is considered further.
       We sincerely appreciate your consideration of our views on 
     this important matter. Please let us know if we can provide 
     additional information or address any questions you may have.
           Sincerely,
                                                   James A. Klein,
                                                        President.

  Mr. ENZI. I also ask unanimous consent to have an article on 
statistics on the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

[[Page 16155]]



             [From the Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2008]

                     The Insanity of Drive-55 Laws

                           (By Stephen Moore)

       It didn't seem possible that politicians could think up a 
     sillier energy proposal than Barack Obama's windfall profits 
     tax on oil companies, but Republican Sen. John Warner of 
     Virginia has done just that.
       Earlier this month, Mr. Warner suggested a return to the 
     federal 55-mile-per-hour speed limit on America's highways, 
     as a way to save on national gasoline consumption. ``I drive 
     over 55 miles an hour, . . . sometimes 65,'' he said on the 
     Senate floor. ``But I am willing to give up whatever 
     advantage to me to drive at those speeds with the fervent 
     hope that modest sacrifice on my part will help those people 
     across this land . . . dealing with this financial crisis.''
       Meanwhile, environmental groups across the country are also 
     pushing a lower national speed limit to reduce greenhouse gas 
     emissions. The notion here is that if people simply lift the 
     pedal off the metal on the highways, they will help avert an 
     environmental apocalypse.
       Mr. Warner may be willing to drive slower to save gas. The 
     vast majority of Americans surely are not. The original 55 
     mph speed-limit law, enacted in October 1974 after the OPEC 
     oil embargo as a way to save energy, was probably the most 
     despised and universally disobeyed law in America since 
     Prohibition. In wide-open western states, driving at 70 mph 
     or even 80 mph on miles upon miles of straight, flat, 
     uncongested freeways is regarded as a God-given right. In the 
     1970s and '80s, the federal speed limit was a daily reminder 
     of the intrusiveness of nanny-state regulation.
       States were bullied into complying. If they didn't, they 
     risked losing federal highway money--which came from the gas 
     taxes paid in part by their own residents. The law--``double 
     nickel,'' as it was called--was so hated in Montana that the 
     state legislature passed a law capping speeding tickets at 
     $5. In Wyoming, the highway patrol told speeders to hold on 
     to the tickets they issued because they were good for the 
     whole day.
       In 1995, the newly ascendant Republican Congress repealed 
     the 55 mph limit. Most states acted quickly to allow speeds 
     of up to 65 mph or even 75 mph on their interstates, and for 
     good reason. As an energy saving policy, the double nickel 
     was a bust. The National Motorists Association reports that 
     about 95% of American drivers regularly exceeded the federal 
     speed limit. Does it make sense to resurrect a law that 19 
     out of every 20 Americans disobeyed?
       In the first few years when the law was strictly enforced, 
     according to the Congressional Research Service, gasoline 
     consumption was reduced by about 167,000 barrels a day. But 
     over time the law was increasingly ignored, and average 
     speeds on the highway fell by only a few miles per hour. The 
     National Research Council estimated in 1984 that Americans 
     spent one billion additional hours a year in their cars 
     because of the speed limit law.
       Mr. Warner repeats the myth that a lower federal speed 
     limit will increase traffic safety. Back in 1995, Naderite 
     groups argued that repealing the 55 mph limit would lead to 
     ``6,400 more deaths and millions more injuries'' each year. 
     In reality, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 
     data reveal that in the decade after speed limits went up 
     (1995-2005), traffic fatalities fell by 17%, injuries by 33%, 
     and crashes by 38%. That's especially significant because in 
     1995 far fewer drivers were gabbing on their cell phones or 
     text messaging while driving.
       In a study for the Cato Institute in 1999, I compared the 
     fatality rates in states that raised their speed limits to 70 
     mph or more (mostly in the South or West) with those that 
     didn't (mostly in the Northeast). There was little difference 
     in safety. Of the 31 states that raised their speed limits to 
     70 mph or more, only two (the Dakotas) experienced a slight 
     increase in highway deaths. The evidence is overwhelming that 
     traffic safety is based less on how fast the traffic is going 
     than on the variability in speeds that people are driving. 
     The granny who drives 20 mph below the pace of traffic on the 
     freeway is often as much a safety menace as the 20-year-old 
     hot rodder.
       Retail gasoline stores report that Americans have already 
     reduced their gas purchases by about 5% this year--presumably 
     by driving less and buying more fuel-efficient cars. At $4.59 
     a gallon, motorists don't need to be lectured by politicians 
     on the financial savings from cutting back. Those who want to 
     stretch their dollars can drive 55 mph on their own (though 
     they are well advised to stay in the right lane).
       But many liberal and green do-gooders want the double 
     nickel precisely because they want to force everyone to share 
     in the sacrifice required. As an egalitarian friend once told 
     me, he loves traffic jams because they are the ultimate form 
     of democracy.
       To the left, fairness means we all suffer equally together. 
     In light of this alleged moral imperative, it doesn't matter 
     if a lower speed limit means Americans would spend two 
     billion extra hours on the road, or that, according to the 
     Labor Department, assuming a $15 per hour average wage means 
     the speed limit could cost the economy between $20 billion 
     and $30 billion a year in lost output.
       Calls for a 55 mph speed limit--and for that matter most 
     other government energy conservation plans, such as urging 
     people to ride a bus or a bicycle rather than driving a car--
     reflect a mindset that oil and gasoline are more valuable 
     than human time.
       But America is not running out of energy. We have 
     potentially hundreds of years of oil and natural gas and coal 
     supplies in America alone, if Congress would only let us 
     drill for it. What is in short supply--the only truly finite 
     resource, as the late economist Julian Simon taught us--is 
     the time each of us spends on this earth. And most of us 
     don't want to spend it sitting longer than we have to in 
     traffic.

  Mr. ENZI. I also have heard from other pension fund and institutional 
investor representatives that the provisions in the majority leader's 
bill have not been sufficiently vetted. Rather than pass a flawed bill 
on energy speculation, we should wait until we read the Commodity 
Futures Trading Commission's and the Interagency Task Force on 
Commodity Markets' report due out later this year. This issue is too 
important for us to act without all of the facts.
  Few serious economists believe that this bill will do anything 
substantial to decrease energy prices. Warren Buffett, the Nation's 
wealthiest Democrat, doesn't think that it will make a difference. 
Neither does oilman T. Boone Pickens. Even the Federal Reserve 
Chairman, Ben Bernanke, believes that this bill will have little impact 
on the price of gasoline. And yet we are still prohibited from offering 
amendments. We are still prohibited from voting on amendments that will 
have a real impact on the price of gasoline.
  It is unfortunate that the debate is turning out this way, because I 
agree that there should be more transparency in the market. That is why 
I am the cosponsor of a bill that allows for more oversight by the 
Commodities Futures Trading Commission. But in addition to that, the 
bill does something more. The Gas Price Reduction Act includes a 
provision to open up coastal waters in States where they want energy 
production. It ends the ban on the development of promising oil shale 
in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. At the same time it encourages 
increases in supply, it promotes the development of better technology 
so that we use less energy.
  We should have the opportunity to vote on these proposals. We should 
have the opportunity to have a real debate on energy. Instead, we are 
going wrap up this debate and begin playing the blame game. It is 
disappointing that the Senate is working this way, and I hope we can 
stop playing politics and have a real debate in the near future. This 
issue is too important for the Senate to ignore.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, I rise today to call on the Senate to pass 
commonsense legislation to lower gas prices. This week, possibly even 
today, the Senate will vote on legislation that would create more 
oversight on the financial markets that are helping to drive up the 
cost of oil. I hope my colleagues will join me in voting to pass it. It 
is the first step toward energy independence but certainly not the 
last.
  In my State of Montana, folks are hurting. The average price of a 
gallon of gas is about $4.20. Diesel now costs on average $4.67 a 
gallon in the Big Sky State. My constituents need and deserve effective 
action from their national leaders to provide them with relief from 
this energy crisis.
  Across Montana, desperate times are producing desperate measures. 
Driving to go to work or between cities is not a choice; it is a 
necessity. Snow is on the ground for a good part of the year. You need 
wheels to get around. Folks are paying with credit cards at the pump or 
getting second or third jobs to get by. They are canceling vacations, 
driving less, and buying smaller cars. But that is not enough.
  The Senate must provide relief at the pump, and there is no silver 
bullet. It is going to take a few commonsense ideas and a lot of hard 
work to diversify our portfolio. I support a three-pronged plan: Crack 
down on energy speculators manipulating the marketplace for a quick 
buck; produce more fuel by drilling for oil where it makes

[[Page 16156]]

sense and invest in renewable energy for the long term; also, encourage 
energy conservation--that is the low-hanging fruit--for long-term 
energy sustainability.
  The Senate will soon vote on a commonsense plan to crack down on oil 
market speculators and hedgers who break the rules. We have seen these 
guys before with Enron and the housing bust, folks on Wall Street who 
manipulate the market and give themselves raises while gas prices are 
choking regular folks. It is time to put a stop to this unfair 
manipulation.
  Let me be clear about two points. First, not all speculation is bad. 
Well- regulated speculation can help markets set a fair price for a 
commodity. Unfortunately, under this administration, speculation and 
hedging have gotten way out of hand, driving up the price of oil to 
record heights and squeezing the American consumer as never before. 
When the price of oil skyrocketed this summer, it was not because of a 
sudden increase in demand, nor because OPEC suddenly decided to pump 
less. It was because of trading on Wall Street by folks who never 
intended to own a barrel of oil.
  We owe to it every family struggling to meet rising gas bills, every 
farmer filling up his tractor, every trucker buying fuel to move 
product to make sure this trading is fair and on the level. Folks in 
Montana don't have a problem with anyone making a buck, but we do 
believe in the American dream. We will not put up with folks who game 
the system.
  I call on my Senate colleagues, Democrats and Republicans alike, to 
join together and pass the Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act. This 
bill will strengthen the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to crack 
down on Wall Street speculators in the oil market. More watchdogs, more 
transparency will stop people from gaming the system and artificially 
and unnecessarily driving up prices at the pump. We need this bill.
  When it comes to getting control of high gas prices, this is only the 
beginning. Beyond speculation, we need to drill for oil in places that 
make sense right here in America, and production of renewable fuels 
must go hand in hand with drilling for more oil.
  One of the places it makes sense to drill for oil is in the Bakken 
Formation in eastern Montana and North Dakota. The Bakken field is a 
place we will hear about again and again. New technology is allowing 
smaller producers to extract more oil. There is more than 4 billion 
barrels of oil in the Bakken field. It is hard work, but these are good 
jobs, and the salaries are good too. And they are right here at home. 
All you need is a strong back, a cattle stand, a good work ethic, and a 
clean record, and you can find jobs that start for as much as $25 an 
hour.
  The Bakken field isn't the only place where drilling makes sense. 
Last week, the Interior Department finally opened 2 million acres in 
the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve, and it is about time. It is all 
part of the puzzle to free America from the grip of foreign oil and 
lower the price of gas at the pump.
  However, anybody who tells you we can drill our way out of this 
problem is not shooting straight. Congress has been debating whether to 
extend tax credits for wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources, 
and we ought to stop extending the production tax credit on an annual 
basis. A long-term extension of these tax credits will really make a 
difference.
  Over the long haul, we know we cannot simply drill our way out of 
this problem. We must invest in conservation and sustainable energy 
such as biofuels. It is all part of the puzzle to free America from the 
grip of foreign oil and lower prices of gas at the pump.
  Earlier this summer, Congress passed the farm bill over the 
President's veto. That bill included hundreds of millions of dollars 
for advanced biofuels. The farm bill also contained a provision I was 
able to offer to encourage the production of camelina. Camelina is a 
crop that can be grown in Montana and other places and can be processed 
into biodiesel to run tractors, combines, farm equipment, and diesel 
engines. The byproduct of camelina makes a nutritious feed for 
livestock. Camelina truly is a win-win solution for renewable energy. 
We need to encourage more of these commonsense answers to our energy 
crisis.
  Finally, conservation must play a significant role in solving our 
Nation's energy crisis. If we are ever going to free America from the 
grip of foreign oil, we must find real ways for consumers to use less 
fuel.
  Last year, Congress increased auto fuel-efficiency standards for the 
first time in a generation. But it took 20 years of fighting, and 
eventually a Democratic Congress got it passed. Those new standards 
will save about 1.1 million barrels of oil a day by 2020, or about as 
much as produced by the State of Texas.
  One hundred years ago, the Model T got 25 miles per gallon. Now a car 
gets 28 miles per gallon. Since that time, we have split the atom, sent 
a man to the Moon, developed computers, and mapped out the human 
genome. Yet we get the same fuel efficiency? Come on. That is not 
right. Conservation is the easiest and cheapest thing we can do to keep 
energy costs down.
  Part of the energy tax package will help homeowners and businesses 
make those savings themselves. A partisan majority of the Senate 
supports this bill, but a small minority keeps us from getting it done.
  The State of Montana recently announced an initiative to help 
citizens increase insulation in preparation for next winter's high 
heating bills.
  These are all steps in the right direction, but we have more work to 
do to reduce energy consumption. The United States is the single 
largest consumer of energy in the world. We cannot continue on this 
unsustainable path. To do so would forfeit our national security to 
countries such as Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia. That 
would be a tragic legacy to leave to our children. We need a 
comprehensive approach to bring down the price of gas and address this 
energy crisis in the long term. We need to crack down on speculation 
and greedy hedging to manipulate the oil markets. We need to increase 
production of fossil fuels where it makes sense and develop renewables 
for the long haul, and we need innovative solutions to reduce our 
overall energy consumption.
  Some people think the economic pressure on the middle class is all in 
their heads. We know better. Folks in Montana know this energy crisis 
is real and it is bad. The Senate must act now to pass constructive 
legislation to bring down the price of energy at the pump. It all 
starts with passage of the Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, as the Senate debates a bill 
that will stop out-of-control speculation in the energy commodity 
markets, I would like to make a brief statement on this legislation and 
why it is essential that we act on it.
  For weeks now, the Senate has heard testimony from experts, even oil 
executives, who attribute the shocking increase in oil prices to the 
influence of oil speculators.
  Here are a few examples:

       The [oil] fundamentals are no problem. They are the same as 
     they were when oil was selling for $60 a barrel, which is in 
     itself quite a unique phenomenon.

  That was from Jeroen van der Veer, Chief Executive Officer, Royal 
Dutch Shell, Washington Post Apr. 11, 2008.

       $100 oil isn't justified by the physical demand in the 
     market. It has to be speculation on the futures market that 
     is fueling this.

  That was from Clarence Cazalot Jr., Chief Executive Officer, Marathon 
Oil, October 2007.

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

  That is from Stephen Simon, Exxon Mobil Senior Vice President, Senate 
Judiciary Committee April 1, 2008.
  What has happened in our markets? Clearly, we are not suffering from 
a supply and demand problem. Something else is happening.
  In 2000, about 37 percent of the oil futures market was comprised of 
speculators who include investment companies and investment banks as 
well as

[[Page 16157]]

institutional investors, like pension funds. Eight years ago, 63 
percent of the oil futures market was represented by companies that 
were hedging the price of oil because they need oil to function, for 
example, the airlines.
  How has the market changed in the past 8 years? Seventy-one percent 
of the oil futures market is in the hands of speculators who rarely 
take control of the oil they are bidding on, and only 29 percent 
represent companies that use it for the purpose that most of us would 
agree it should be intended.
  So we know speculation is growing when it comes to oil, and we know 
the transactions have gone up 600 percent in the last 8 or 10 years.
  What allowed this to happen? The infamous ``Enron Loophole,'' which 
was slipped into must-pass legislation in late December of 2000.
  This loophole allowed energy futures to be traded without Federal 
oversight. Various investigations of the Enron collapse have pointed to 
this loophole as crucial to Enron's manipulation of the California 
energy market which provoked an energy crisis in the State in 2000 and 
2001.
  Last month, with passage of the farm bill, the Congress finally 
succeeded in bringing a measure of oversight and transparency to this 
market, requiring the Commodities Future Trading Commission, CFTC, to 
review all contracts to determine which ones should be regulated as 
though traded on a major public exchange.
  While this was a step in the right direction, and the result of much 
thoughtful discussion and debate, the farm bill provision can be 
improved upon and strengthened. That is why I introduced a bill to shut 
down the unregulated oil futures markets created by the now-infamous 
``Enron loophole.'' It also removes energy from the list of exempt 
commodities; requires energy to be traded on a regulated market; and 
creates a new definition of what constitutes an energy commodity.
  Senator Reid has introduced a leadership bill that reins in 
speculation by imposing position limits ensure that legitimate 
speculation doesn't get out of hand. It is a more complicated approach 
that leaves the door open for unregulated trading, but if it is done 
right, the approach taken by Senator Reid can get us where we need to 
be. And I am interested in working with Senator Reid to ensure that his 
bill gets at the problem.
  I believe that some small but significant changes can significantly 
improve the bill. If our approach to dealing with excessive speculation 
is to impose speculation limits, then we must ensure that those limits 
actually operate as limits, not as loopholes.
  U.S. speculators should not be able to circumvent speculation limits 
by trading on foreign exchanges, by setting up a subsidiary that would 
not be subject to the limits, or by trading both on and off regulated 
exchanges without aggregating the number of contracts so they count 
against the overall speculation limit set by the CFTC.
  If we pass a bill that allows speculators to evade these limits, the 
bill's promise will remain unfulfilled, and we will have the worst of 
all worlds--a bill that purports to tamp down on speculation but fails 
to do so, and a bill that lets those who would dismiss the effect of 
excessive speculation on the price of oil say ``I told you so.''
  My friends on the other side of the aisle, the editorial page of the 
Wall Street Journal and Wall Street financiers, call the effort to shut 
down excessive speculation misguided and say that the spiking price of 
the barrel of oil is just the market telling us that demand exceeds 
supply.
  But ask yourself whether this makes sense. When the Saudis agreed to 
increase production, there was no drop in the price of oil. But the 
price of oil keeps spiraling, and while there is no evidence of 
dramatically increased demand, there is plenty of evidence that 
speculative money is pouring into the energy futures market.
  The airlines, which hedge against increases in the price of jet fuel 
by participating in the energy futures market, are suffering. They are 
the legitimate hedgers who actually use the futures, and they are 
calling on us to take action against excessive speculation.
  Meantime, the oil companies loudly will be claiming they need to 
drill in new areas off the coasts of Florida and California. They have 
a well financed campaign that says: Drill here; drill now; pay less. 
This is cruelly misleading and deceitful. Drilling everything we have 
in the waters below our coasts will do nothing to lower the price of 
gas.
  If we open all our shores and give away billions in tourism, fishing, 
and all the economies of all the coastal States to boost oil 
production, the first drop of oil wouldn't be seen until the year 2017, 
and oil production would peak in the year 2030.
  What could we get in the year 2030? We would get 200,000 barrels a 
day.
  To put that number another way, as expressed by my colleague, Senator 
Menendez yesterday, ``the amount of gas we could get from offshore 
drilling is equivalent to a few tablespoons per car per day.''
  It is simply wrong to think that opening offshore drilling will lower 
gas prices.
  Yet the public relations machine of big oil continues to churn out 
falsehoods. They insist they are trying to find new oil that might help 
bring down gas prices, but the money they spend on exploration is 
nothing compared with what they spend on stock buybacks and dividends.
  This is good news for shareholders but offers no help to drivers to 
offset the high cost of fuel.
  Yesterday the Associated Press reported the 5 biggest international 
oil companies plowed about 55 percent of the cash they made from their 
businesses into stock buybacks and dividends last year, up from 30 
percent in 2000 and just 1 percent in 1993, according to Rice 
University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.
  The percentage they spend to find new deposits of fossil fuels has 
remained flat for years, in the mid-single digits.
  In the first 3 months of this year, ExxonMobil Corp., the world's 
biggest publicly traded oil company, shelled out $8.8 billion on stock 
buybacks alone, compared with $5.5 billion on exploration and other 
capital projects.
  ConocoPhillips has already told investors that its stock buybacks for 
April to June of this year will come to about $2.5 billion, 9 times 
what it spent on exploration.
  This leads me to the conclusion of one oil expert who said, ``If 
you're not spending your money finding and developing new oil, then 
there's no new oil.''
  Senator Reid has introduced a leadership bill that will rein in 
speculation. Over and over, the Congress has heard testimony that the 
question of supply and demand is not what is causing oil to be up at 
$130 a barrel, as I referred to earlier, statements by oil company 
executives that the price of a barrel of oil would be much less, given 
the normal vagaries of the market of supply and demand, even though 
there is a lot of demand out there in the world market. But as Senator 
Reid pointed out, in the underlying bill that is before the Senate, it 
is the speculators, unregulated after the law was changed to deregulate 
the markets, where there are no controls on how much oil they can buy 
on futures contracts or whether they have to use that oil, who continue 
to speculate and drive up the price. That is what this underlying bill 
is trying to address. They should not be able to circumvent speculation 
limits by trading, for example, on foreign exchanges if those oil 
contracts are for America.
  I see my colleague from Pennsylvania is here, and I want him to have 
the time to which he is entitled.
  What is confronting us is an effort to get us off focusing on the 
problem with this mindless statement that is out there, put out by the 
oil companies--look at who is sponsoring the advertisements on TV and 
in the newspapers; it is the only companies--and it is that statement: 
Drill here, drill now, pay less.
  Now, if we are going to solve this problem, we have to do a bunch of 
things. But just drilling is not going to solve it because if you do 
just that, it

[[Page 16158]]

is going to be years and years before the fruits of that effort come 
in. In fact, it has been said over and over, there are 68 million acres 
under lease that have not been drilled. There are plenty more acres out 
in the Gulf of Mexico, without getting close to Florida, without 
getting over the line into the military mission area, where the largest 
testing and training area of the U.S. military in the world is, off the 
coast of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. There is plenty. So we ought to 
drill.
  But at the same time, let's go after what is causing these prices to 
go through the roof. Speculation is a big part of it. If you want to 
get down to it, let's strengthen the U.S. dollar against the world's 
other currencies, by getting our fiscal house in order and starting to 
balance the Federal budget. That would help a lot too.
  So it is an extremely complicated issue that a simple slogan is not 
going to solve. That is what this debate is trying to bring into focus. 
The American people can see through the simplified slogans of ``drill 
here, drill now.'' We need to get to a real solution.
  Mr. President, I see my colleague from Pennsylvania is in the 
Chamber, and I wish to yield the floor so we can hear from him.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Florida for making 
the important points he made on the question of energy and how 
difficult this challenge is for the country and that the sloganeering 
will not do it. He made a very compelling argument about that, which we 
need to hear in the Senate.
  I wish to talk today for a few moments about the Low-Income Home 
Energy Assistance Program, known by the acronym LIHEAP--L-I-H-E-A-P.
  For those who follow the Senate and watch or listen, you know we use 
a lot of acronyms. I know they can get a little tiresome. But this 
particular acronym stands for a program that works. There is no debate 
about that. There is no question about whether this program works. It 
has worked for years. It has support in both parties--not enough 
support, I don't think, on the other side of the aisle. I will get to 
that in a moment.
  But when we talk about that acronym LIHEAP, the Low-Income Home 
Energy Assistance Program, we are talking about a program which this 
winter can literally mean--and will literally mean--life or death for 
some Americans. There is no drama and overstatement in that whatsoever 
because unless we do the right thing on LIHEAP this year, people are 
going to freeze to death. It is as simple as that.
  I commend a lot of my colleagues: Senator Sanders has been a stalwart 
on this issue, who has spoken on the floor and been a leading advocate; 
Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, and so many other colleagues from 
the Northeast-Midwest coalition who have fought for increased energy 
assistance funding every year.
  I am proud to be a cosponsor of the bill. It has a very simple title 
but very important: Warm in Winter and Cool in Summer Act. That is what 
the act is. The bill meets a critical and fundamental need by providing 
an additional $2.53 billion in Low-Income Home Energy Assistance 
Program assistance for this fiscal year.
  It raises the funding to the fully authorized level of $5.1 billion. 
For Pennsylvania, that means that if this bill is passed, our State 
will get an additional--an additional--$210 million. If there is ever a 
time the people of our State will need it, it will be this winter. 
Similar to a lot of States in the Northeast, we have long winters. We 
have a lot of vulnerable people: the second highest population over the 
age of 65, a very large rural population that will be adversely 
impacted if we do not get help and extra money for LIHEAP.
  We have in our State home energy assistance grants that help 
vulnerable people, the needy. Almost 33.5 percent of the grants help 
older citizens. Almost 30 percent of the grants help disabled 
Pennsylvanians. And 18.5 percent of the grants help young children.
  These are people who need the help the most. They are vulnerable in 
the cold months that are just around the corner for all of America and 
for Pennsylvania. These are the people who made up the 1,000 who died 
of hypothermia in their homes between 1999 and 2002--1,000 people dying 
of hypothermia in just about 3 to 4 years. All of those deaths--every 
one of them--was preventable. LIHEAP is the cornerstone to providing 
assistance that keeps people healthy and safe.
  LIHEAP is widely recognized as effective and successful, which is why 
the bill we are considering, and that I am a cosponsor of, is 
cosponsored by 49 Senators in total from both sides of the aisle. We 
still have some problems, which we will talk about later.
  The bill is necessary because LIHEAP has been chronically 
underfunded--historically, at a rate of less than half the amount 
authorized.
  For people out there who watch our discussions, we know it is easy to 
authorize. It is harder to make sure you appropriate what you 
authorize. This is one of those examples where the authorization looked 
real good, but the appropriation does not meet the authorization part 
of our legislation.
  So the need has never been greater. We have all talked a lot about 
the struggle of working families who are forced to choose between the 
need for heat and the need to eat. But the situation has gotten much 
worse. This is not news to people who are living through this and 
struggling in the nightmare of foreclosure, the difficulty with 
watching wages flatten out, even as you are working harder, and your 
food prices are going up, your gasoline prices are going up, college 
tuition is going up, health care payments are going up. I could add 
more to that. Families are being forced to choose between heating and 
air-conditioning, food, medicine, gasoline, and mortgage payments--all 
those difficult choices that our families are making.
  Today, 15.6 million American families are at least 30 days behind on 
paying their utility bills. In Pennsylvania, terminations of home 
utility services are up over 51 percent.
  According to a USA Today article, one of our energy companies in 
Pennsylvania has disconnected 168 percent more--168 percent more--homes 
than at this time last year.
  So we have a major challenge in our State. The good news is that in 
Pennsylvania we have had over 400,000 families--households, I should 
say, in Pennsylvania--that have received assistance from LIHEAP this 
year. But that is less than half of the 800,000 that are eligible. 
There are 800,000 households in our State that are eligible. So we are 
happy LIHEAP has done such a good job of helping 400,000 households, 
but we have a doubling of that to 800,000 that are, in fact, eligible.
  For those receiving assistance in Pennsylvania, the average grant was 
$239, and it covered much less than a quarter of their need. So when 
people hear these big numbers, they will say: Oh, my goodness, the 
Federal Government wants to increase the Low-Income Home Energy 
Assistance Program by $2.5 billion. That sounds like a lot of money, 
doesn't it? Spread that out person by person. When it comes down to 
Pennsylvania, we are talking about assistance, at last count--this 
number is a few years old, but it is not much higher than this--of 
$239. So if we increase it by several billion nationally, that means 
individual Pennsylvanians will get some help, but they are not going to 
be getting hundreds and hundreds of dollars more. They are going to be 
getting more than that $239 or $250 or $260 in help. So it is not a lot 
when it comes to that person. But it means a lot to that individual 
person and their family.
  Here is the scenario: In the dark of night, in the cold of winter, I 
do not want to have a Pennsylvanian or an American in their home 
freezing to death because a couple people in Washington did not think 
that $2.53 billion was the right way to spend money--when we have an 
administration which sent a budget here for 2009 which had $51 billion 
in tax cuts for people making over $1 million and up. So for anyone 
listening, if you are a millionaire, a multimillionaire or a 
billionaire or beyond that, this administration sent

[[Page 16159]]

us a budget this year that gave that tiny sliver of America a $51 
billion tax break.
  Don't tell me we cannot afford a little bit of an increase for low-
income home energy assistance, especially when older citizens are faced 
with the--``squeeze'' does not even begin to describe it--vice grip on 
their head, the nightmare of trying to pay for gasoline and food and 
oil in their tank, literally, to heat their homes. So we can afford 
this. Ten times over we can afford it.
  I wish to conclude. When we have the situation of an older citizen or 
a young child who is living in a home that is not heated, or living 
without adequate nutrition, that child, as well as that older citizen, 
is harmed. The rate of growth and development are jeopardized. A child 
is sicker, they miss more school, and they do not do as well in class. 
A large percentage of LIHEAP energy assistance goes to not only older 
citizens but those with a disability. This is important because someone 
who is frail is more likely to be impacted by exposure if they are 
unable to pay to heat or cool their home.
  So I hope we pass this legislation before we leave in August. Why 
should we wait? No one needs to have a crystal ball to know that in the 
cold months ahead of us, a lot of vulnerable people are going to be put 
at risk. So this is our chance to do something--not just to talk about 
it but to do something--that will provide immediate assistance to the 
most vulnerable in our society.
  So I ask my colleagues to support the Warm in Winter and Cool in 
Summer Act, which will help our families.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence 
of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, might I inquire of the Chair: It is my 
understanding now that the Republicans will have 30 minutes; is that 
correct?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. INHOFE. All right. Mr. President, I am going to go ahead and take 
the first 15 minutes. Then, it is my understanding that the Senator 
from Georgia, Mr. Chambliss, wants 5 minutes, and Senator Craig wants 
10 minutes after that. I would like to lock that in with a UC.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                                 Energy

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I would like to draw the Senate's 
attention to an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal and 
particularly the first sentence. It says:

       Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and other liberal leaders on 
     Capitol Hill are gripped by cold-sweat terror. If they permit 
     a vote on offshore drilling, they know they will lose. . . .

  The editorial goes on to point out what the Democrats' plan of action 
is for this problem: to cut off debate. We have been in session this 
week. We have held one vote. We are considering a bill relating to 
energy, but the Democrats are not allowing us to offer any amendments 
to find new sources of energy, when the editorial points out that at 
least 65 percent of America's recoverable oil and 40 percent of 
America's natural gas is under moratorium.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the end of my remarks 
the editorial be printed in its entirety in the Record.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. INHOFE. What they are talking about are those areas where we have 
huge supplies that we can access, except we cannot do it because there 
are moratoria, such as exists right now in terms of the Rocky Mountain 
oil shale, with 2 trillion barrels; the Outer Continental Shelf, for 
which 85 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf is under an order that 
the Democrats have on there, so we are not able to explore, to produce, 
to drill in those areas. You hear the argument quite often that there 
are 68 million acres that could be explored right now and they are not 
doing it. They are not doing it for one reason, and that is because 
there is no oil there.
  Throughout this week I have heard a number of my Democratic 
colleagues come to the floor and express their support for increased 
drilling. Apparently, this has all been some kind of misunderstanding. 
I have taken their consistent votes against increasing domestic 
production as being against new drilling. If we all agreed that new 
domestic production is part of what we need to do, then let's get on 
with some votes and get them underway.
  My Web site is epw.senate.gov. EPW stands for Environment and Public 
Works. What I have done is gone back and gotten all of the votes we 
have had that would cause us--allow us to expand our supply in America 
in areas such as this. Right now on party lines they have been killed--
killed by the Democratic Party. This is a problem. Somehow, the 
Democrats are trying to convince the American people that supply and 
demand is not alive and well in America. It is interesting that the 
other day in the newspaper, it was either an op-ed piece or it might 
have been on the editorial page of the Washington Post, they said even 
Congress is not going to be able to repeal the law of supply and 
demand.
  The American people understand the need for new domestic production. 
Recent polling has shown 67 percent of the American people now support 
offshore drilling with only 18 percent opposed. Sixty-four percent 
believe that if offshore drilling is allowed, gas prices will go down. 
Well, that is a natural conclusion you can come to.
  Another poll found that 81 percent of Americans support greater use 
of domestic energy sources. Both papers in my home State of Oklahoma 
have weighed in on this issue with recent editorials. The Tulsa World 
and the Oklahoman have weighed in, pointing to how new production can 
be done in an environmental manner. The Tulsa World wrote:

       President George W. Bush made the correct decision when he 
     lifted the White House's 18-year ban on offshore drilling . . 
     . No one wants the environment damaged. This work could be 
     done safely. It could be done over the long term only if 
     Congress had the good sense to act.

  The Oklahoman wrote--this is in Oklahoma City:

       Democrats reacted to President Bush's lifting of an 
     executive ban on offshore drilling by vowing to keep in place 
     congressional prohibitions dating to the 1980s. The debate 
     over energy policy just keeps getting better and better. For 
     years the Democratic Party has blocked efforts to 
     significantly increase production of America's sources of 
     offshore oil and natural gas, citing potential dangers to 
     beaches in California and Florida and dismissing any new oil 
     finds as too far in the future to help U.S. energy needs. 
     Both arguments have less persuasive steam with the current 
     oil prices. Certainly, if drilling offshore had gotten 
     underway a decade ago or more--instead of being stymied--
     Americans know it would be online now and helping to absorb 
     some of the current price increase.

  This is the interesting thing about it. We know what is happening in 
Prudhoe Bay. We know what the reserves are in ANWR. We know we have a 
pipeline. If we had a pipeline filled and if the President--at that 
time Bill Clinton--had not vetoed the bill that would have allowed us 
to go into ANWR.
  New domestic production should happen and can be done in an 
environmentally appropriate way. No country on Earth has exploration 
technology as advanced and environmentally sound as ours. I have to say 
also that we are the only country--I can't think of another country, 
and I hope if someone has the name of a country that would be an 
exception--there is not another country in the world that doesn't 
exploit their own resources. Certainly, these resources alone are 
enough to make us totally independent of any foreign importation of oil 
and the prices would come down.
  I have highlighted some of the amounts of domestic reserves 
previously, but I think it is important to continue to point to the 
amount of reserves in the United States. There they are, right there, 
and we have actually enumerated them for the purposes of the Record.

[[Page 16160]]

  The potential energy development from the Rocky Mountain oil shale is 
truly massive with reports estimating up to 2 trillion barrels, but 
once again, Democrats are blocking development. The Consolidated 
Appropriations Act last year established a 1-year moratorium on the 
necessary funding to complete the final regulations for commercial 
leasing of oil shale.
  Look at the size of this. We are talking about not 10 billion barrels 
we would find in ANWR, not 14 billion barrels as we see on the Outer 
Continental Shelf, but 2 trillion barrels. Without congressional 
action, a 1-year delay could end up lasting much longer and, like the 
Outer Continental Shelf appropriations moratorium, continue year after 
year.
  The RAND Corporation estimates that as many as 1.1 trillion barrels 
are recoverable and at prices as low as $35 to $48 a barrel within the 
first 12 years of commercial scale production. At current rates of 
consumption, 1.1 trillion barrels equals more than 145 years of 
domestic supply. This number would nearly double assuming the 
Department of Energy's estimate of nearly 2 trillion potentially 
recoverable barrels. Finally, development is ongoing in the Canadian 
oil sands where proven reserves are about 179 billion barrels. We need 
to continue to do that. Right now, they are in jeopardy. Congressman 
Waxman has put on a prohibition in the Department of Defense using oil 
from those oil sands. If anyone were tempted to try to expand that so 
that no one else in the country could use it, that would be 
devastating. So that effort could be underway as we speak.
  In an effort to hide their true record of blocking access to 
America's own resources, the Democrats are engaged in a campaign of 
shifting blame, claiming there are 68 million acres in America where 
oil and gas companies have the right to drill but are not drilling. 
Some 44 percent of the leases that have been issued are already 
producing oil and gas, and energy companies are in the process of 
exploring the remaining leases to determine the energy potential of 
those lands. Unfortunately, when you get out there and you explore and 
you try to determine how much potential production is there, there are 
some places in the United States and anywhere in the world where there 
simply isn't any oil. This is the problem they have. We need to open 
the other 85 percent that currently we are unable to access to allow us 
to go after it. Again, we are talking about some 14 billion barrels 
that are out there.
  We are presently considering a bill to impose new rules on 
speculating, claiming that speculators have been driving the price of 
oil to record highs. Even if speculators are having a negative effect 
on the price of fuels, I am concerned that the wrong congressional 
action could actually exacerbate the problem. Rhetoric on the impact of 
speculators simply lays the groundwork to once again implement price 
controls. Looking back to the 1970s, we now know that price controls 
lead to shortages, rationing, and long lines at gas stations. Over the 
last few days, the name of Boone Pickens has been invoked many times. 
When asked what he thought about the speculation, he recently said 
that:

       Speculation doesn't have anything to do with it. You have 
     85 million barrels of oil available in the world and the 
     demand is at 86.4. I don't think that guy over in China 
     paying $140 for oil is blaming Wall Street speculators for 
     what is happening to him. Everybody tries to place the blame. 
     And the blame is our own lack of leadership over the last 40 
     years on energy.

  Now, I have a list of quotes I am going to actually, if there is a 
little bit of time--I don't have time to read them, but a list of 
quotes from people who are the knowledgeable people in this country 
such as Walter Williams, the economist for George Mason University:

       Congressional attacks on speculation do not alter the oil 
     market's fundamental demand and supply conditions. What would 
     lower the long-term price of oil is for Congress to permit 
     exploration for the estimated billions upon billions of 
     barrels.

  The International Energy Agency says that:

       Blaming speculation is an easy solution which avoids taking 
     the necessary steps to improve supply-side access and 
     investment.

  So I ask unanimous consent that this list of economists be listed, 
along with their statements concerning speculation, at the conclusion 
of my remarks.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 2.)
  Mr. INHOFE. Republicans have consistently tried to do something about 
the high prices. One of the things that people don't think about is if 
we had all of the production, all of the crude oil, we would still have 
to refine it to use it. We have a real refinery crisis in this country. 
Right now we are looking at a situation where we would not be able to 
refine it with the refining capability we have.
  I introduced 3 years ago the Gas Price Act which is something that 
would work very well. It actually took these closed military 
installations that were BRAC closed--Base Realignment and Closing 
Commission-closed installations--and allowed the surrounding 
communities to apply for EDA grants so they would be able to attract 
refineries. This would be a good idea because for one thing, those 
closed bases, you would not have to actually have a cleanup to 
playground standards, so the Federal Government has saved a lot of 
money by doing this. I don't think there is any justification in the 
world for people to oppose such an effort.
  I have also introduced my Drive America On Natural Gas Act. This is 
something that is very significant, because this is something that is 
part of T. Boone Pickens' ideas. Let's keep in mind Boone Pickens said 
we need to drill everywhere. We have to drill and we have to keep on 
drilling, but we also need to explore all kinds of renewables. His idea 
is to release some of the natural gas so we can use it for compressed 
natural gas. The price today in my State of Oklahoma for compressed 
natural gas is 90 cents a gallon. Ninety cents a gallon. In some places 
it is as high as $2. Nonetheless, it does show that it is out there.
  There are certain obstacles to being able to do what needs to be done 
in allowing the conversions. One is we have to effect the regulations 
of the EPA and the other one is we have to give the same benefit to 
natural gas as we do to other renewables. If we were able to do that, 
it would open it up very rapidly. In fact, yesterday, the Republican 
leader offered a unanimous consent request that seven Republican energy 
amendments be considered in order for consideration in this 
legislation, and this was one of those.
  I don't want to take up more time right now because I want to yield 5 
minutes to the Senator from Georgia, but I will only say this: You can 
stand on the floor and say over and over and over to the American 
people that supply and demand doesn't work; you can say that Democrats 
are not opposed to increasing the supply. Yet if you go to the Web site 
I suggested--epw.senate.gov--we have looked at every vote that has 
taken place since the middle 1990s, and in every case, every time we 
tried to increase the supply of petroleum products for America, whether 
it is drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf, ANWR, Rocky Mountain oil 
shales, or preserving Canadian oil sands, the Democrats, to the very 
last one, have voted against it.
  We have to increase supply. We have to keep saying it. People 
understand it. Even some people with basic educations know that supply 
and demand is alive and well in America. It is just that we have too 
much demand and not enough supply. We have to open it.
  I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

             [From the Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2008]

                       Democrats Against Drilling

       Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other liberal leaders on 
     Capitol Hill are gripped by cold-sweat terror. If they permit 
     a vote on offshore drilling, they know they will lose when 
     Blue Dogs and oil-patch Democrats defect to the GOP position 
     of increasing domestic energy production. So the last 
     failsafe is to shut down Congress.
       Majority Leader Reid has decided that deliberation is too 
     taxing for ``the world's greatest deliberative body.'' This 
     week he cut off serious energy amendments to his 
     antispeculation bill. Then Senate Appropriations baron Robert 
     Byrd abruptly canceled a

[[Page 16161]]

     bill markup planned for today where Republicans intended to 
     press the issue. Mr. Byrd's counterpart in the House, David 
     Obey, is enforcing a similar lockdown. Speaker Pelosi says 
     she won't allow even a debate before Congress's August recess 
     begins in eight days.
       She and Mr. Reid are cornered by substance. The upward 
     pressure on oil prices is caused by rising world-wide 
     consumption and limited growth in supplies. Yet at least 65% 
     of America's undiscovered, recoverable oil, and 40% of its 
     natural gas, is hostage to the Congressional drilling 
     moratorium.
       The Democratic leadership is trying to smother any 
     awareness of their responsibility for high prices. They are 
     also trying to quash a revolt among Democrats who realize 
     that the country is still dependent on fossil fuels, no 
     matter how loudly quasimystical environmentalists like Al 
     Gore claim otherwise.

                               Exhibit 2

         Dems Cite Speculation Stats That Don't Match the Facts

       Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV): ``Academics, economists say that 
     the costs of oil is 20% to 50% speculation.'' (Sen. Harry 
     Reid, Remarks on the Senate Floor, 07/22/08

``Academics and Economists'' Actually Say ``It's Not Speculation, It Is 
                          Supply and Demand''

       Warren Buffett: ``It's not speculation, it is supply and 
     demand. . . . We don't have excess capacity in the world 
     anymore, and that's what you're seeing in oil prices.'' 
     (Warren Buffett, Chairman & CEO, Berkshire Hathaway, 6/25/08)
       Walter Lukken, Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading 
     Commission: ``We haven't evidence that speculators are 
     broadly driving these prices.'' (``Hitting Rock: Dems 
     Oblivious on Oil,'' Union Leader, 7/13/08)
       Chairman Ben Bernanke: ``If financial speculation were 
     pushing all prices above the level consistent with the 
     fundamentals of supply and demand, we would expect 
     inventories of crude oil and petroleum products to increase 
     as supply rose and demand fell. But, in fact, available data 
     on oil inventories shows notable declines over the past 
     year.'' (Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, 7/15/
     2008)
       Craig Pirrong, Member of the CFTC Energy Markets Advisory 
     Committee: ``There's no evidence of speculative influence. 
     Speculators are not contributing to the demand for physical 
     oil as they almost always roll positions prior to delivery.'' 
     (Craig Pirrong, Professor of Finance at the University Of 
     Houston, Member, CFTC Energy Markets Advisory Committee, 6/
     24/08)
       Walter Williams, Economist George Mason University: 
     ``Congressional attacks on speculation do not alter the oil 
     market's fundamental demand and supply conditions. What would 
     lower the long-term price of oil is for Congress to permit 
     exploration for the estimated billions upon billions of 
     barrels of oil domestically available, not to mention the 
     estimated trillion-plus barrels of shale oil in Wyoming, 
     Colorado and Utah.'' (Williams, Walter E. ``Scapegoating 
     Speculators.'' The Washington Times 9 July 2008.) http://
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/10/scapegoating-
speculators/
 Paul Krugman, New York Times Columnist: ``On any given day, 
     expectations determine the price; but the spot market also 
     has to clear, and the way this happens is that excess supply 
     must be added to physical stocks. Even with fairly inelastic 
     supply and demand, any large speculative deviation from the 
     ``fundamental'' price should show up in a noticeable increase 
     in inventories.'' (Paul Krugman, New York Times columnist, 6/
     28/08)
       International Energy Agency: ``There is little evidence 
     that large investment flows into the futures market are 
     causing an imbalance between supply and demand, and are 
     therefore contributing to high oil prices . . . Blaming 
     speculation is an easy solution which avoids taking the 
     necessary steps to improve supply-side access and investment 
     or to implement measures to improve energy efficiency.'' 
     (International Energy Agency, Medium-Term Oil Market Report, 
     July 2008)
       Daniel Yergin, Chairman of Cambridge Energy Research 
     Associates: ``When an issue is this hot, it would be so much 
     easier if there was a single reason to blame . . . But 
     calling it speculation is way too simplistic.'' (Daniel 
     Yergin, Chairman, Cambridge Energy Research Associates)
       John Chapman, American Enterprise Institute: ``The truth is 
     that increased speculation in oil futures is not a cause of 
     rising oil prices, but rather an effect of those prices, 
     which have skyrocketed due to growth in global demand, 
     geopolitical instability, and constricted supply in several 
     producing countries. (John Chapman, Researcher at the 
     American Enterprise Institute, 7/16/08)

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Georgia is 
recognized.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Oklahoma for 
yielding me part of his time. He certainly makes a very convincing 
case.
  I rise to discuss the actions taken today by the Commodity Futures 
Trading Commission to combat manipulation in the futures market 
specifically relating to energy activity. At 11 o'clock this morning, 
the Acting Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission at a 
news conference announced that it was bringing an action against a 
hedge fund for manipulating and attempting to manipulate the crude oil, 
heating oil, and gasoline markets.
  This proves that the CFTC is policing the market for suspicious 
activity. They are not sitting back and allowing traders to run wild, 
as some in Congress have suggested.
  While this particular case is specific to manipulation, it only makes 
sense that the surveillance efforts used to identify this activity are 
also providing much needed additional data to the Commissioners for 
ongoing monitoring efforts to detect excessive speculation--the subject 
of much debate on the Senate floor. Unfortunately, some have even 
confused these two terms. I want to clarify this. Manipulation is 
illegal, while speculation is a normal occurrence in all of our futures 
markets. That said, the Commission has recognized that more information 
is necessary to ensure that speculation has not become excessive. I 
happen to agree with them. We do need more information in order to make 
an accurate assessment of the situation.
  There have been many assertions made in the Senate not based on 
factual information. It is never a good idea to propose a solution for 
market conditions without carefully analyzing all of the facts. An 
uninformed solution, no matter how well-intentioned it is, can easily 
result in unintended counterproductive outcomes.
  Many in this body have accused CFTC of timidly utilizing their 
regulatory enforcement authorities or only utilizing these authorities 
after extreme prompting from Congress. To the contrary, this particular 
civil enforcement action that was filed today in the U.S. District 
Court for the Southern District of New York was uncovered as part of an 
investigation initiated by the CFTC for offenses that took place in 
March 2007--long before some began blaming CFTC for the $4 gasoline.
  Working proactively with the New York Mercantile Exchange, or NYMEX, 
the CFTC was able to uncover wrongdoing and ensure that violators of 
the Commodity Exchange Act are identified and brought to justice.
  This particular case took place over an 11-day period. The New York 
Mercantile Exchange--as they have the authority to do and the 
information to carry out that authority--saw exactly what was happening 
in the early part of what was happening, and they followed it and 
immediately shut this hedge fund operator down. So this 11-day period 
in March 2007 occurred over a year ago. The ongoing investigation has 
taken a year to get it to where it is ready for prosecution.
  Fortunately, the CFTC has been able to fulfill its regulatory 
oversight responsibilities in spite of being horribly underfunded. 
Today's announcement affirms the dedication and hard work exhibited by 
the CFTC.
  Furthermore, we should not continue to hold up the confirmation of 
those--both Democrat and Republican--whom the President has nominated 
to carry out this very important regulatory task. The American people 
would be much better served with a fully seated Commission, a Senate-
confirmed Chairman, and more regulatory oversight staff than by the 
baseless allegations made by some. If we are truly interested in a 
fully functioning regulatory body, let's provide the agency with these 
tools rather than wrongly condemning them for lack of enforcement.
  I will close by simply saying that during the process of the passage 
of the recent farm bill, which passed overwhelmingly in this body, we 
took action relative to market regulation by closing the so-called 
Enron loophole, which allowed for some sales on the market to take 
place without the ability on the part of the regulators to get all of 
the information relative to those particular trades. In addition to 
allowing the market regulators to get the information, we also 
increased the penalty for a manipulation--just like the

[[Page 16162]]

CFTC has filed this suit on today--from $100,000 per incident to $1 
million per incident.
  So we are in the process of giving the CFTC the tools it needs. We 
need to continue down that road. Let's don't destroy the markets. Here 
we are seeing a good example of how the tools in the hands of the 
regulators are being used in the appropriate way. When someone tries to 
take advantage of a system, the CFTC, as well as NYMEX, CME--all of the 
boards of trade--has the ability to stop this type of manipulation and 
prosecute wrongdoing.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Idaho is 
recognized.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, for the last 36 hours now, we in the Senate 
have been attempting to move forward on substantive policy that would 
produce more oil and bring it into our systems to offset and, 
hopefully, lower the price our consumers are paying at the pump. But 
nothing has happened. It is interesting, the majority leader says we 
don't have time to do it, and yet we have been here 36 hours doing 
nothing but talking when amendments could have been offered that might 
have been substantive as it relates to taking down the Federal 
moratorium that exists over many of these properties where we know 
there are known oil reserves.
  I find it fascinating that this morning in the Wall Street Journal, 
an editorial speaks about Speaker Pelosi of the House and Harry Reid, 
our majority leader, and other liberal leaders on Capitol Hill being 
``gripped by cold-sweat terror. If they permit a vote on offshore 
drilling, they know they will lose when Blue Dogs [Democrats that are 
more conservative over in the House] and oil-patch Democrats defect to 
the [Republican] position of increasing domestic energy production.''
  What would be wrong with that? It would be an admission on the part 
of Democratic leaders that their position of the last 20 years to deny 
increased production, all in the name of environment and conservation, 
hasn't worked. They simply cannot let that dirty little secret out. 
Except there is one real problem: The American people are beginning to 
figure out that it didn't work. Why have we gone from 30 percent 
dependency in 1980 to 70 percent dependency today on someone other than 
a U.S. producer, something other than a U.S. reserve? The reason is 
because we quit producing.
  The debate today, while it is embodied in S. 3268, called a 
speculation bill, is really about production. Republicans have simply 
said: Allow us to amend that. Allow us to bring to the floor amendments 
that would, by potential of opportunity, produce increased production.
  I wish to talk about one of those amendments that deal with offshore 
drilling.
  Several years ago, I introduced a term that is now being used by 
many, called the ``no zone.'' By that, I simply meant that of these 
areas around the coast, shown on this map here of the United States, 
where we have geographical authority--meaning our territorial water--in 
which we are denied the right to go and explore because of a political 
decision, because of policy made out of politics, not substance, we 
believe that within those areas there are literally billions of barrels 
of oil. We don't know that for sure. We only know that, based on old 
geological surveys, there is a great potential. We do know that where 
we were allowed to drill down in the gulf, that is where a majority of 
our current oil supplies are coming from, even in the deep water. But 
on the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington, and off the coast 
of Florida, the Carolinas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia, it 
is: No, heck no. The politics won't let us go there. So we would like 
to offer a few of those amendments. We would like to change the 
character of the ``no zone.''
  Let me tell you about an amendment I would offer if I were given the 
chance to come to the floor on this bill and offer an amendment for 
full debate. We think it is a constructive amendment. It is an 
amendment we would call the Domestic Offshore Energy Security Act of 
2008. It would take all of this yellow area on the map and allow it to 
go out to bid for the purpose of production.
  Just a year and a half ago, the Congress--when gas was at $2-plus a 
gallon--decided we would let this little piece go into exploration and 
development. It was called lease sale 181. We debated it for weeks, 
negotiated for weeks. Finally, we brought all of us together to agree. 
Well, we believe there is a substantial amount of product out there. We 
don't know for sure, but the leases are going forward. It is believed 
that there are 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas and maybe between 185 
million and 200 million barrels of oil. The advantage of this sale is 
that it is very close to all of the known refineries and the 
infrastructure that can bring it to the market very quickly.
  My amendment would bring this whole area into play, where there 
literally could be billions of barrels of oil and multitrillions of 
cubic feet of gas. But the answer is no. The Democrat leader says: No, 
can't do that, won't do that; politically, we are not going to go 
there. The American consumer is asking: Why? In fact, I am told that 
the polls in Florida, by a majority, are saying: Drill it. Do it right, 
do it responsibly, do it cleanly, but drill it. We want the royalties 
that would come to the State of Florida that would pay for our 
education, but more importantly, we want to bring down the price of gas 
because it is really breaking the family budget.
  What happened when the President announced a few weeks ago he would 
lift an Executive order on a moratorium, when the market began to show 
that this year the American consumer was consuming less than last year 
because of prices? Oil prices began to fall, from the high of $140 a 
barrel down to, today, about $122 or $123 a barrel--nearly a $20 drop 
per barrel--on the reality that the marketplace was working, demand was 
going down.
  If you keep allowing demand to slide but you work on bringing up 
production, you bring the price down. You save the American family's 
budget. But here on the floor of the Senate, it is: Oh, no, we can't go 
there. The leader of the majority party will not admit that his 
policy--their policy over the last 20 years of denying production has 
now brought this crisis on. That is exactly what the editorial of the 
Wall Street Journal basically said.
  Why not let the debate go forward? Why not allow amendments to be 
offered by anyone, for that matter? Why not allow those debates to go 
forward?
  There is another interesting article from this morning. I ask 
unanimous consent to have the Wall Street Journal editorial and this 
U.S. Geological Survey Report printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                       Democrats Against Drilling

       Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other liberal leaders on 
     Capitol Hill are gripped by cold-sweat terror. If they permit 
     a vote on offshore drilling, they know they will lose when 
     Blue Dogs and oil-patch Democrats defect to the GOP position 
     of increasing domestic energy production. So the last 
     failsafe is to shut down Congress.
       Majority Leader Reid has decided that deliberation is too 
     taxing for ``the world's greatest deliberative body.'' This 
     week he cut off serious energy amendments to his anti-
     speculation bill. Then Senate Appropriations baron Robert 
     Byrd abruptly canceled a bill markup planned for today where 
     Republicans intended to press the issue. Mr. Byrd's 
     counterpart in the House, David Obey, is enforcing a similar 
     lockdown. Speaker Pelosi says she won't allow even a debate 
     before Congress's August recess begins in eight days.
       She and Mr. Reid are cornered by substance. The upward 
     pressure on oil prices is caused by rising world-wide 
     consumption and limited growth in supplies. Yet at least 65% 
     of America's undiscovered, recoverable oil, and 40% of its 
     natural gas, is hostage to the Congressional drilling 
     moratorium.
       The Democratic leadership is trying to smother any 
     awareness of their responsibility for high prices. They are 
     also trying to quash a revolt among Democrats who realize 
     that the country is still dependent on fossil fuels, no 
     matter how loudly quasi-mystical environmentalists like Al 
     Gore claim otherwise.
                                  ____


90 Billion Barrels of Oil and 1,670 Trillion Cubic Feet of Natural Gas 
                         Assessed in the Arctic

       The area north of the Arctic Circle has an estimated 90 
     billion barrels of undiscovered,

[[Page 16163]]

     technically recoverable oil, 1,670 trillion cubic feet of 
     technically recoverable natural gas, and 44 billion barrels 
     of technically recoverable natural gas liquids in 25 
     geologically defined areas thought to have potential for 
     petroleum.
       The U.S. Geological Survey assessment released today is the 
     first publicly available petroleum resource estimate of the 
     entire area north of the Arctic Circle.
       These resources account for about 22 percent of the 
     undiscovered, technically recoverable resources in the world. 
     The Arctic accounts for about 13 percent of the undiscovered 
     oil, 30 percent of the undiscovered natural gas, and 20 
     percent of the undiscovered natural gas liquids in the world. 
     About 84 percent of the estimated resources are expected to 
     occur offshore.
       ``Before we can make decisions about our future use of oil 
     and gas and related decisions about protecting endangered 
     species, native communities and the health of our planet, we 
     need to know what's out there,'' said USGS Director Mark 
     Myers. ``With this assessment, we're providing the same 
     information to everyone in the world so that the global 
     community can make those difficult decisions.''
       Of the estimated totals, more than half of the undiscovered 
     oil resources are estimated to occur in just three geologic 
     provinces--Arctic Alaska, the Amerasia Basin, and the East 
     Greenland Rift Basins. On an oil-equivalency basis, 
     undiscovered natural gas is estimated to be three times more 
     abundant than oil in the Arctic. More than 70 percent of the 
     undiscovered natural gas is estimated to occur in three 
     provinces--the West Siberian Basin, the East Barents Basins, 
     and Arctic Alaska.
       The USGS Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal is part of a 
     project to assess the global petroleum basins using 
     standardized and consistent methodology and protocol. This 
     approach allows for an area's petroleum potential to be 
     compared to other petroleum basins in the world. The USGS 
     worked with a number of international organizations to 
     conduct the geologic analyses of these Artic provinces.
       Technically recoverable resources are those producible 
     using currently available technology and industry practices. 
     For the purposes of this study, the USGS did not consider 
     economic factors such as the effects of permanent sea ice or 
     oceanic water depth in its assessment of undiscovered oil and 
     gas resources. The USGS is the only provider of publicly 
     available estimates of undiscovered, technically recoverable 
     oil and gas resources.
       Exploration for petroleum has already resulted in the 
     discovery of more than 400 oil and gas fields north of the 
     Arctic Circle. These fields account for approximately 40 
     billion barrels of oil, more than 1,100 trillion cubic feet 
     of gas, and 8.5 billion barrels of natural gas liquids. 
     Nevertheless, the Arctic, especially offshore, is essentially 
     unexplored with respect to petroleum.

  Mr. CRAIG. Here is the headline: ``90 Billion Barrels of Oil and 
1,670 Trillion Cubic Feet of Natural Gas Accessed in the Arctic.'' That 
is called ANWR, folks, and other areas in the Arctic. Once again, it is 
politically off limits. The oil is there, but the law says you cannot 
go there.
  It is really quite that simple. Who are lawmakers? We are. We are the 
policymakers. Why aren't we on the floor today debating the amendments? 
Why aren't we offering those amendments in a responsible fashion? Why 
don't we deal with what the American public needs at this moment; that 
is, to see their Congress being responsive to their greatest problem, 
the single greatest problem at this time, which is the price of oil and 
the price of gas at the pump. It will create greater problems if we 
don't deal with it quickly. It is permeating the economy and shoving up 
the price of nearly everything we touch. Energy is the underlying force 
of this economy. If energy prices continue to go higher, the economy 
itself is weakened. Why isn't the Congress and the leadership of the 
Senate moving forward? Why are we stalled out and wringing our hands 
and saying there is no time? There is no time to fix the American 
family's budget. There is only time to divert our attention to terms 
like ``speculation.''
  Let me tell you, here is the bill. Here is S. 1368. There is not one 
drop of oil in it. See that. Not one drop of oil is in this 
legislation. But in the amendment I would offer, there could be 
millions, if not billions, of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic 
feet of gas. That is the reality of what we are talking about.
  Why, why, why, Mr. Leader, are you denying the Senate, the greatest 
deliberative body in the world, the right to offer these amendments and 
vote on them? We are stalled out because of the leadership. We are 
stalled out and told we cannot go there. I don't think the American 
public in any way understands the politics of this one.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. CRAIG. Politics is quite simple: If you for 20 years were wrong 
and the market now shows it, how can you admit you were wrong? That is 
the issue at hand.
  Mr. Leader, it is time you admitted it and we got on with the 
business of becoming once again a great and productive nation.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska). The Senator from 
North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have listened for the past 20 minutes or 
so to the narrative on the floor of the Senate. My colleague from Idaho 
and I have introduced legislation last year dealing with expanding 
production in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and in Cuban waters. We do not 
disagree on the issue of whether we should expand production in this 
region. In fact, we agree on that issue. But I have heard several of my 
colleagues come to the floor to create false choices this afternoon, 
and I want to talk about those false choices.
  We are witnessing a time when it is very hard for people to figure 
out how to scrape enough money together to put $70 worth of gas in 
their tank when it is near ``e'' on the gauge. It is fascinating and 
very disappointing to me how it's possible to fill your farm tank in 
order to harvest your crop, how an airliner is going to be able to 
afford fuel, or how is a family going to be able to afford enough money 
to put gas in their tank to go to work. These decisions are being made 
at a time when we face oil prices bouncing between $120 and $140 a 
barrel and gasoline at $4, $4.50 a gallon. When that ought to invoke 
and spark cooperation on the floor of the Senate, there is none.
  My colleagues come to the floor of the Senate and say: Let's open up 
the entire Outer Continental Shelf. The Energy Information 
Administration carried out an assessment that shows what production 
would look like without lifting the moratorium and with lifting the 
moratorium. What it shows is that we get some extra production in the 
year 2020. I understand talking about next week, next decade. What is 
the impact going to be to families, to truckers, to farmers, to 
airlines, and others if someone comes out here and says: You know what, 
we have a real serious problem right now, but here is a solution for 
2020.
  Sign me up for the solution in the long term, although I might have a 
different approach to it. I hope by 2020 we are not quite as addicted 
to oil, particularly foreign oil from the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, Iraqis, 
or Venezuelans. Maybe we can shed the some of that addiction in 10 
years. Maybe that ought to be our strategy. Maybe we ought to do game 
changing. The way to do away with our addiction is not to do more of 
the same so that we are still addicted. That makes precious little 
sense to me.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask the Senator from North Dakota to 
yield.
  Mr. DORGAN. I will be happy to yield.
  Mr. DURBIN. I wish to ask him a question because he has been a leader 
in the Senate on the question of speculation. I want to say that many 
of our Republican colleagues have come to the floor over the last 
several days saying virtually speculation is not the problem, not 
speculation. I know the Senator from North Dakota has ample evidence 
and many experts behind his position. He and I have joined with the 
leadership in coming up with an approach which will try to dampen the 
fires of speculation which may be driving up oil prices and creating 
volatility not reflected in the market.
  I want to make sure the Senator from North Dakota is aware of what 
happened today with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. They have 
charged an oil trading firm with manipulating oil prices, the first 
complaint to be announced since regulators began a new investigation 
into wrongdoing.

[[Page 16164]]

  The CFTC accused Optiver Holding, two of its subsidiaries, and three 
employees with manipulation and attempted manipulation of crude oil, 
heating oil, and gasoline futures of the New York Mercantile Exchange, 
which is a regulated exchange, I might add.

       ``Optiver traders amassed large trading positions, then 
     conducted trades in such a way to bully and hammer the 
     markets,'' CFTC Acting Chairman Walter Lukken said at a press 
     conference. ``These charges go to the heart of the CFTC's 
     core mission of detecting and rooting out illegal 
     manipulation of the markets.''

  I say to the Senator from North Dakota that his leadership on this 
issue and coming to the floor repeatedly to tell us about the 
possibility this was occurring I think has sparked this commission to 
come to life, at least today in terms of making these charges.
  I am going to leave this story with the Senator because I want him to 
be able to put it in the Record every time our Republican colleagues 
come to the floor and say speculation is not an issue. It is enough of 
an issue that there was a civil action filed today against a company 
for hammering and bullying the market.
  I know this is not in the nature of a question, but I wish to ask the 
Senator if he feels this action by the CFTC is an indication of what he 
has been saying over the last several months.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it appears a Federal agency has arisen 
from the dead. Good for the CFTC. I have been talking a long while 
about the CFTC being dead from the neck up. This is, after all, the 
regulatory agency that is supposed to wear the striped shirts, blow the 
whistle, and call the fouls.
  This apparently is manipulation of the market. We are talking about 
manipulation. Good for them, if they have risen from the dead, if they 
are taking action against someone manipulating the marketplace.
  The acting CFTC Chairman, whom the Senator from Illinois described, 
spent the last seven months saying there is no problem with the 
marketplace, it is working fine. The doubling of the price of oil and 
gas in the past 12 to 14 months has been because of supply and demand, 
he says. About a month ago, the acting Chairman had an epiphany. He 
must have had a good night's sleep, woke up from his dream saying: OK, 
I have been saying supply and demand justifies the doubling in price, 
but, in fact, we have been doing an investigation for seven months.
  So which is it? Here is what it is. In the year 2000, 37 percent of 
the trades in the oil futures market were speculation trades, having 
nothing to do with hedging a physical product between consumers and 
producers; 37 percent of the trades by speculators. Today 71 percent of 
the trades are by speculators. They don't have any interest in buying 
oil, taking delivery of oil, carrying a 5-gallon can of oil, or putting 
a quart of oil in their car. They don't have the foggiest interest in 
oil. They have interest in buying and selling contracts and making big 
profits. They have taken over this marketplace and broken the market.
  The proposition on the floor of the Senate is to try to wring out 
this excessive, relentless speculation in this market. My colleagues 
come to the floor of the Senate, and they have developed another 
narrative of more drilling because they don't want to tackle this issue 
of speculation. I said before, 47 Members of the Senate in the minority 
have all indicated, in one form or another, that speculation is a 
problem. If you believe that, help us get this bill to the President. 
Yet, they come to the floor of the Senate and say we need more 
drilling.
  As I described in the year 2020, we will have more to bring on more 
supply. I don't disagree with that point. Let's talk about it; offer 
some amendments. In fact, the majority leader has offered to the 
minority to bring your amendment to the floor. We will have a vote on 
it.
  But what about next month? What about 6 months from now? How about 
let's do some things that are game changing in this country? How about 
the next decade? Between now and then, let's work to change the game.
  I said two days ago that, in the 1960s, John F. Kennedy did not say: 
I would like to have us try to go to the Moon. I think we should think 
about going to the Moon. I think we should make an effort to go to the 
Moon. He didn't say that. He said by the end of the decade, we are 
going to put a man on the Moon, and we did just that.
  The plan of all of those who have come to the floor of the Senate 
diminishing this legislation, degrading this legislation, saying we 
shouldn't deal with speculation and getting this market right. We 
shouldn't spend time on that. Let's instead focus on drilling. If that 
is the only thing they focus on, then that is what I call a yesterday 
forever strategy. If you want to wake up 10 years from now and keep the 
same position, good for you. I don't.
  I think what we ought to do is this: Let's at least address something 
that has broken the marketplace and has doubled the price of oil and 
gas in the last year, something that experts have come to the Congress 
to testify about and some have said up to 40 percent of the current 
price of oil is not and cannot be justified by the fundamentals of 
supply and demand. It is because speculators have taken over this 
marketplace.
  Don't take it from me. Take it from the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell. 
Here is what he said in April:

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

  If that is the case, what is the problem? The problem is, as I 
described in the chart, this market has been taken over by the 
speculators.
  My colleague comes and says: NYMEX and ICE, describes all that is 
going on, what an aggressive regulator we have. You know what, this 
regulator has been sending out no action letters. Isn't that a 
wonderful thing to perfectly describe a regulatory agency that wants to 
take no action for anything? It said: Let me be willfully blind and not 
see what is happening. By the way, because of these no action letters, 
I can't see what is happening in the over-the-counter market, the 
intercontinental exchange, and all of the unregulated trades because I 
have decided I don't want to see it. Then let me go to the Congress and 
testify, and with a straight face--I am sure suppressing a grin--at 
least with a straight face say, I don't see anything that represents 
anything other than supply and demand.
  My question to them was: I understand you don't see that. Is it the 
case you see very little because you have chosen, through no action 
letters and other limitations, to decide you don't want to see it all?
  We brought a bill to the floor of the Senate that says we have a lot 
of problems. First and foremost, let's set this market straight, 
putting pressure downward and preserving the oil futures market for 
that which was intended in 1936. It was for the hedging of a physical 
product between consumers and producers. That is what it was for. It 
has now been taken over by the carnival of greed. Speculators control 
these markets, have driven up the price despite the fact there has been 
no change in the fundamentals.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle say drill. I have had a 
bill in for a year and a half to say drill more in the eastern Gulf of 
Mexico and allow U.S. companies to produce in Cuban waters. I am also 
one of the four Senators who opened up lease 181 in the Gulf of Mexico 
for drilling. I support that. I am fine with drilling. But if drilling 
is your only answer, boy, that, in my judgment, is a pretty pathetic 
future. Here is what Boone Pickens says. Boone Pickens and I have 
disagreed on a lot of things, but he came to Congress this week:

       I've been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency 
     we can't drill our way out of. But if we can create a new 
     renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to 
     foreign oil.

  Think of this. What if between now and 2020, if we start now we can 
actually have a new barrel of oil by 2020, and you say to somebody down 
the block: Cheer up, things are going to be better in 12 years--that is 
one position to take, I guess.
  What if the other position is as Mr. Pickens suggests? What if we did 
this:

[[Page 16165]]

We are going to produce oil. We want to be less dependent, however, on 
the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Venezuela, and so on, because if we didn't get 
their oil for some reason, we would be flat on our back as an economy. 
This makes our country vulnerable. We have to be less dependent on 
them. We are going to use oil we produce.
  How about if we decide to do something dramatically different? How 
about in the wind belt from Texas to North Dakota where we produce a 
massive quantity of wind and have the capability of taking the energy 
from the wind and producing electricity? And how about in the Sun Belt 
where we move dramatically to solar energy and create a superhighway of 
transmission lines to be able to move that energy all around this 
country? How about if we do that for a decade and then say: You know 
what, all that natural gas we are using for coal-fired generating 
plants, we can displace a fair amount of that with wind and solar and a 
superhighway of transmission lines, and we can dramatically change 
America's energy future.
  We need more conservation and energy efficiency and dramatic 
increases in renewables. There are so many exciting things we can do to 
change America's future. Yet, my colleagues come to the floor of the 
Senate for a different pursue. They plant their flag, and say: We want 
our future to be the same as our past, and every 10 or 15 years, they 
will be content to come here and say: Yes, we have an urgent problem 
and what we ought to do is more of the same. That is not a future that 
makes much sense to us.
  Again, coming back to this issue, we are saying with this legislation 
on the floor of the Senate requires that we do first things first. We 
should do a lot of things, we agree with that. Senator Bingaman is 
introducing a bill I fully support as a cosponsor. It deals with a 
whole range of other issues with which we have to deal. First things 
first. At least let's address this issue of excess speculation that has 
broken the commodity futures market for oil.
  To my colleagues who say, you know what, this is all about drilling, 
I say to them: Come to the floor of the Senate and tell me what has 
happened in the last year, what has happened in supply and demand that 
justifies a doubling of the price of oil. They will not come and cannot 
come because they don't have an answer to that.
  I can give them a partial answer. If anything would have been 
expected to happen to the price of oil and gas, it should have gone 
down because we have driven nearly 6 billion fewer miles in America 
than we did in the previous 6 months. So we are using less energy and 
less gasoline. So one would expect, if you are using less, you would 
put some downward pressure on prices. But that is not the case. Prices 
go up like a Roman candle, double in a year.
  The only conceivable reason given us is by the experts who don't have 
a vested interest in this issue of the oil futures markets, and they 
say that the market is now broken. Fidel Gheit has been an Oppenheimer 
analyst for 30, 35 years--the top energy analyst for Oppenheimer--and 
he says: Look, this is like a casino, open 24/7, like a highway with no 
speed limit, he said, and no cops, and everybody is going 120 miles an 
hour.
  Is that really what we are willing to allow an oil futures market to 
be, if it drives up the cost of oil and gas, doubles it in a year, and 
imposes this kind of burden and financial penalty on every American 
family and every American business; imposes this kind of burden on some 
of our major industries, such as airlines and trucking companies and 
farmers and others? That is a back breaker. Are we really willing to 
stand on the floor of the Senate and say: Yeah, that is OK. It is OK. 
Let's do something that will increase the production of a barrel of oil 
in 2020.
  That seems to me to be a false choice that we are being offered. I 
think it was Will Rogers who once said:

       It is not what he knows that bothers me, it's what he says 
     he knows for sure that just ain't so.

  I think about that as I hear this debate on the floor of the Senate; 
all this assertiveness about one answer. Do something now so we have 
more oil in 2020. What about tomorrow, next week, or next month? What 
do you want to do about that? What about a market that is broken; do 
you ever care about fixing it? What about the fact that investment 
banks and hedge funds have marched right directly into the oil futures 
market?
  The Wall Street Journal writes about investment banks that are 
actually purchasing oil storage so they can purchase oil and keep it 
off the market. Pension funds--CalPERS and others--are moving money 
into the oil futures market as if it is just another share of stock. 
That is just pure speculation. That massive quantity of money flooding 
into this market has dramatically changed the market.
  Now, I have had a lot of people come and see me about these issues 
because some are very upset with what we are trying to do. They like 
the speculation in the marketplace because a lot of people made a lot 
of money by speculating in this marketplace. I think this marketplace 
needs to exist. You have to have a market that represents a place for 
legitimate hedging of a physical product. But when the market is 
broken, you also have to have a regulator with the strength, the 
capability, and the willingness to stand up and do what is necessary to 
fix it.
  The current regulator at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has 
not done that, has not demonstrated a willingness to do that, and it 
seems to me Congress must. Our legislation does a couple of things. It 
says to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission: You determine who is 
trading out there and distinguish between them. Those who are engaged 
in legitimate hedging of a physical product between consumers and 
producers, that is fine. That is what the market was created for. All 
others are pure speculators, and we establish strong position limits on 
those speculators to try to shut down that speculation, that excess 
speculation in the marketplace. Relatively simple. But it does cause a 
firestorm of protest by those who are making a lot of money having 
broken this marketplace.
  I suppose there is room--I shouldn't say I suppose. There is room for 
disagreement. I respect those who disagree. But it seems to me that 
this country will pay a very high price if we don't understand the need 
to cooperate. There is no Republican or Democrat label on the fuel 
gauge on a car. There is just ``full'' and ``empty.'' And all too often 
these days it is empty because of what has happened to prices. I think 
the American people expect and demand we do something that addresses 
these issues.
  The first step--the first step and most important step, in my 
judgment--is to set this market straight and to distinguish between 
excess speculation and legitimate hedging and establish position limits 
in order to put downward pressure on gas and oil prices. We are told by 
some very distinguished people who have testified before our committees 
that we could see as much as a 40-percent decrease in the price of oil 
and gas just by wringing the oil speculators out of the futures market.
  If we did that, it would be a good thing, a good thing for our 
country. Then, yes, we have much yet to do. I don't disagree at all 
with that, and some of it is drilling. But as I said before, if our 
future is just to continue down that road, without understanding the 
need for a game-changing, moon-shot plan to make us less dependent on 
the Saudis, less dependent on foreign oil, this country will have 
missed an enormous opportunity and put its future in jeopardy.
  I remain hopeful. It is now Thursday, and we have been largely at 
parade rest most of the week. The minority has required us, in effect, 
to spend 30 hours postcloture--30 hours postcloture--doing nothing, 
which makes precious little sense. I think the country senses some 
emergency here, but some of my colleagues in Congress sense no such 
emergency. So we spend 30 hours largely doing nothing, and then we will 
come to a cloture vote to shut off debate to see if we can perhaps get 
to a vote to end this relentless speculation.
  My hope is we will have sufficient votes to do that.
  Mr. President, how much time have I consumed?

[[Page 16166]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 21 minutes.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I believe a couple of my colleagues are 
coming, so I will reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
for Senator Durbin a story that he described on the floor titled 
``Traders Manipulated Oil Prices.''
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                  Traders Manipulated Oil Prices--U.S.

                         (By Steve Hargreaves)

       New York (CNNMoney.com)--The government charged an oil 
     trading firm Thursday with manipulating oil prices in the 
     first complaint to be announced since the regulators began a 
     new investigation into wrongdoings in the energy markets.
       The Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused Optiver 
     Holding, two of its subsidiaries and three employees with 
     manipulation and attempted manipulation of crude oil, heating 
     oil and gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
       ``Optiver traders amassed large trading positions, then 
     conducted trades in such a way to bully and hammer the 
     markets,'' CFTC Acting Chairman Walt Lukken said at a press 
     conference. ``These charges go to the heart of the CFTC's 
     core mission of detecting and rooting out illegal 
     manipulation of the markets.''
       In May, under the backdrop of record oil prices and calls 
     from legislators to crack down on speculative oil trading and 
     market manipulation, the CFTC announced a wide-ranging probe 
     into oil price manipulation. The agency says it has dozens of 
     investigations ongoing.
       The complaint filed Thursday names Bastiaan van Kempen, 
     chief executive; Christopher Dowson, a head trader; and 
     Randal Meijer, head of trading at an Optiver subsidiary.
       The CFTC said the firm attempted to ``bang the close'' by 
     amassing large positions just before markets closed--forcing 
     prices up--then selling them quickly to drive prices down and 
     pocketing the difference.
       The alleged manipulation was attempted 19 times on 11 days 
     in March 2007, the agency said. In at least five of those 19 
     times, traders succeeded in driving prices higher twice and 
     lower three times, according to the CFTC.
       Calls to Optiver seeking comment were not answered, and an 
     email was not immediately returned.
       CFTC stressed that the price changes were small and the 
     manipulation was isolated, and that the investigation has 
     nothing to do with the recent heat the agency has taken on 
     Capitol Hill over rising oil prices.


                        Traders in the spotlight

       CFTC has repeatedly said that speculators are not to blame 
     for rising oil prices, and any cases of price manipulation--
     such as the one brought Thursday--have only a small, if any, 
     effect on oil prices.
       The CFTC is the government's main regulator of commodity 
     markets. Its officials have been hauled before Congress and 
     asked repeatedly whether manipulation or excessive 
     speculation is playing a role in record oil prices.
       Repeatedly, CFTC experts have said they have found no 
     evidence that speculators--investors who do not ultimately 
     use crude oil--are to blame for the rising prices. They say 
     trading information shows no correlation between investment 
     activity and price swings.
       Others, such as the International Energy Agency, have also 
     said speculators are not to blame. They've pointed to other 
     non-traded commodities that have risen in price even faster 
     than oil, and to the fact that there is no evidence of a 
     bubble, such as excess oil sitting around in storage.
       Still, the correlation of a four-fold increase of 
     investment money into oil futures and a four-fold increase in 
     oil prices since 2004 has not gone unnoticed. Many lawmakers, 
     consumer rights advocates and even some oil industry analysts 
     say speculation is at least partly to blame.
       Against that backdrop, the CFTC has been ordered to 
     investigate the matter more thoroughly and dozens of 
     investigations are underway. The agency may soon be given a 
     bigger staff and wider powers under bills being debated in 
     Congress.
       Over the years, the CFTC has found isolated incidents of 
     price manipulation--when an oil producer controls products to 
     influence prices--or other cases of wrongdoing. Since 2002, 
     the agency has charged 66 defendants with energy market 
     violations.
       In a recent case, BP settled a suit that alleged the 
     company tried to corner the propane market to inflate prices 
     in 2003 and 2004. BP agreed to pay a $303 million settlement.
       But overall, most experts say the incidents are so 
     scattered, and the energy market so large, that it's unlikely 
     a single trader or group of traders can have substantial sway 
     over prices.
       Correction: An earlier version of the story said 
     indictments have been brought against the company and some of 
     its employees. The charges are civil, not criminal.

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and 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. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   U.S. Troops Dying of Electrocution

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I believe the majority leader is coming 
over, but I would like to speak until he arrives, at which point I will 
continue later.
  Mr. President, we had a hearing yesterday before the Senate 
Appropriations Committee that I had requested. That followed a hearing 
that I had conducted on the Democratic policy committee, the 17th 
hearing I have conducted and chaired, looking into the issue of 
contractor irregularities and waste, fraud, and abuse involving 
contractors with respect to the war in Iraq.
  I want to talk just for a moment about what is happening with respect 
to these contractors.
  We are shoveling money out the door. Three-quarters of $1 trillion 
has been spent, and much of it ends up in the pockets of contractors, 
and much of the work by contractors not only fleeces the American 
taxpayer, but it represents, I think, the greatest waste, fraud, and 
abuse in the history of this country. I think it is also the case that 
it endangers the lives of American soldiers.
  So what I would like to do for a moment is to describe the hearing 
that I held recently and show a photograph of Cheryl Harris and her 
son, SSG Ryan Maseth.
  Ryan Maseth was an Army Ranger and a Green Beret. He was killed in 
Iraq. He wasn't killed by an insurgent or killed by enemy fire. He was 
killed because he was electrocuted while he was taking a shower at the 
Army base. He was electrocuted while taking a shower.
  It turns out the contractor that wired that particular area didn't 
know how to wire and didn't properly attach ground wires. So when this 
Army Ranger reached up and touched a pipe, he was electrocuted and 
died.
  The Army initially told Cheryl they thought perhaps her son had taken 
an electrical appliance into the shower and, therefore, was 
electrocuted. Not true. It is not true. Halliburton--or Kellogg, Brown 
& Root, its former subsidiary--had been given the contract for wiring 
these facilities at Army bases and were hiring, among others, third-
country nationals who had very little electrical experience. Two people 
who were electricians and working there in Iraq and Afghanistan for 
Kellogg, Brown & Root came and testified and said the work done by KBR 
was the most shoddy, unbelievably sloppy work.
  Thirteen people have been electrocuted in Iraq as a result of these 
kinds of things. So I don't understand the recent order by the Defense 
Contract Management Agency, and announced by General Petraeus, that the 
Pentagon is going to have the same contractor that caused some of these 
problems--the contractor that has in a number of instances failed to 
fix faulty wiring--do a comprehensive review of these problems 
throughout U.S. military installations in Iraq. It makes precious 
little sense to me that would be the case.
  This is Larraine McGee. Her son was killed as well. Larraine McGee's 
son was killed while power washing a humvee. He was killed not by an 
enemy combatant but power washing a humvee vehicle. Again, improper 
wiring and grounding meant this soldier was electrocuted.
  How do these things go unfixed? What kind of work is done by 
contractors, and who cares about all this? We had testimony from Debbie 
Crawford, who was an electrician who worked for the contractor in Iraq. 
She described work by people who were not qualified. She described KBR 
supervisors who said: Well, this is not the United States. There is no 
OSHA here.

[[Page 16167]]

  Mr. Jeffrey Bliss, an electrician for KBR, said there was pervasive 
carelessness and disregard for quality electrical work at Kellogg, 
Brown & Root.
  Again, I say to you that we are told, with the news of all of these 
problems, with 13 people, 11 of them soldiers, being electrocuted in 
Iraq because of shoddy wiring by contractors, the Pentagon has asked 
the same contractor to go out and review the work. It is nearly 
unbelievable to me.
  Mr. President, there are so many problems in Iraq contracting that I 
am going to try to come tomorrow and talk about the 17 hearings I have 
held and how much money the American taxpayers have been charged for 
such shoddy work. It is not just fleecing the American taxpayers, it is 
also injuring American soldiers when we have contractors not doing the 
job for which they were contracted to do.
  Again, this is a photograph of Larraine McGee, who is Sergeant 
Everett's mother, and Sergeant Everett, as I indicated, was 
electrocuted as a result of improper grounding. Ms. McGee learned from 
a newspaper that 10 other soldiers were electrocuted in Iraq due to 
faulty electrical grounding and faulty wiring. So she came to Congress 
pleading for help, pleading that somebody do something. She said:

       Anger has now taken over my grief. I plead with you to do 
     something to bring an end to this unnecessary cause of death 
     to our soldiers. They should not have to worry about stepping 
     into a shower or using a power washer in the safety of an 
     established base.

  As I indicated, the Pentagon ordered there be a comprehensive 
inspection of electrical installations at the Army bases in Iraq, but 
it hired the same company to do the inspections, the same company who 
had hired two electricians who came to this Congress to say the 
electrical work was unbelievably shoddy and done, in some cases, by 
people who didn't have the foggiest idea what they were doing.
  I sent a letter to General Petraeus last Friday, signed by Senators 
Casey, Cantwell, Klobuchar, and Whitehouse, urging him to replace KBR 
in these inspections. The inspections should be done by objective, 
qualified electricians. KBR has shown itself to be incapable of fixing 
electrical hazards that had been known for years. It is an insult to 
the memory of these soldiers that KBR has now been assigned to conduct 
the inspections.
  There is more to this story. I will, tomorrow, visit about a wider 
range of these issues.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.
  (The remarks of Mr. Stevens pertaining to the introduction of S. 3333 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). The Senator from Tennessee is 
recognized.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into 
a colloquy with my Republican colleagues for the remaining 30 minutes 
of our time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, if you have been watching television 
lately, you have seen Boone Pickens. In the Democratic caucus, you have 
seen Boone Pickens. In the Republican caucus, you have seen Boone 
Pickens. Boone Pickens has said a lot of things, but the thing he says 
that I think most of us agree with here is that we are in the midst of 
the greatest transfer of wealth in our country's history as we pay for 
foreign oil and that we do not need talk, we need action.
  In these next few minutes, what we hope to do on the Republican side 
of the aisle is make absolutely clear what we are trying to achieve 
over the weekend and during this week.
  What we see is that $4 gasoline prices are the single biggest problem 
facing our country. What we know is that what the people of this 
country want us to do is to take up this issue, give it our best ideas, 
vote on it, and come up with a substantial result that increases the 
supply of new energy and reduces the demand for energy, which is the 
way you change the price of energy. That should be simple enough to do, 
but the fact is that the Democratic leader has had us all tied up in 
parliamentary knots since last Friday. We could have been doing this 
every single day since last Friday.
  Just to give an idea of what we have in mind, we have a real solution 
in mind: conservation; deep-sea exploration; removing the moratorium on 
oil shale so that, in an environmentally safe way, we can proceed with 
that; Alaskan energy production; clean nuclear power; military coal-to-
liquid transportation fuels; home heating oil assistance. That is just 
the beginning of the kind of debate we ought to be having. We could 
have been having it since Friday.
  I see my friend from Georgia in the Chamber. He has been a leader in 
nuclear power. I ask the Senator from Georgia, isn't clean nuclear 
power essential to any supply of new American energy?
  Mr. ISAKSON. I thank the Senator from Tennessee. It absolutely is 
essential. The Senator and I share a common border between the States 
of Georgia and Tennessee, and along that border, Tennessee Valley 
operates. They are a big producer of efficient, inexpensive, reliable 
electric energy produced by nuclear power.
  In the United States of America today, 19 percent of our electricity 
is generated by nuclear, 81 percent by coal, gas, and a sliver by 
hydro. That 19 percent that is nuclear does two things: No. 1, it is 
reliable, and No. 2, it emits zero carbon. Carbon reduction is in the 
best interests of our climate. It is also in the best interests 
geopolitically of the United States of America, by reducing our 
dependence on foreign imported oil.
  I have offered an amendment to this bill, which has been filed, which 
is a new nuclear title, which reenergizes the nuclear energy business 
in the United States, which has basically been dormant since the mid-
1970s while other countries around the world have embraced nuclear 
energy as the solution to their fossil fuel problem in terms of energy 
production and electric production. Look at the nation of France. 
Eighty-seven percent of their electricity is generated by nuclear. They 
have developed a reprocessing MOX facility that reduces their waste by 
90 percent. So they have almost eliminated the waste problem, and they 
almost have total reliability on nuclear energy.
  There is no silver bullet in this challenge of reducing gas prices 
and reducing our dependence on foreign oil, but there are a lot of 
bullets we have in our arsenal if we are only willing to put them in 
the chamber. Nuclear is one of them.
  One of the great things Senator Alexander advocated so much is the 
plug-in car that we know is coming. You can plug it in at night, 
recharge it, and the next day drive it and use it. At night, we are 
generating a lot of electric power that goes to waste because everybody 
is asleep and activity is slow. If you plug your car in at night, you 
are making good, efficient use of the electricity you are generating 
and wasting, and you are reducing totally, because you use electricity, 
dependence on oil.
  I say to the distinguished Senator from Tennessee, nuclear energy is 
a piece of the puzzle--and this is a puzzle. I happen to know the 
answer to the puzzle. It is all the resources the United States has at 
its disposal to reduce its importing of foreign oil, increase our 
conservation, and incentivize production of the energy we know we have 
within our own capacity and within our own boundaries. I thank the 
Senator for recognizing nuclear.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Georgia for his leadership on 
nuclear power. If we care about global warming in any respect, there is 
no way to deal with that in a generation without nuclear power, which 
is free of carbon, free of mercury, free of nitrogen, and free of 
sulfur. It is the best way we have to move ahead with that, and we 
should, in this debate, be thinking of ways to make it possible for 
this country to be building five or six new nuclear plants a year, 
producing more American energy.
  The Senator from Georgia spoke about a plug-in electric car. I know 
when I first started speaking of that,

[[Page 16168]]

some of my friends in Tennessee thought I had been out in the Sun too 
long. But I found out the Senator from Utah was way ahead of me. In 
fact, an important part of the Republican proposal--and I know on the 
Democratic side there are many who agree with this--is to make it 
commonplace in America for us to reduce the amount of oil we use by 
using electric cars and trucks that plug in.
  As I move to the Senator from Utah, I hasten to add--I sat here last 
night listening to the Democratic leader characterize the Republican 
proposal as only drilling. I know the Democratic leader has a lot of 
responsibilities, and he may not have had time to read our proposal 
carefully. An important part of our proposal is to make it commonplace 
for Americans to drive plug-in cars and trucks, thereby reducing the 
amount of oil we use. That is the demand side of the equation. The 
difference between us and the Democratic leader is we understand that 
the law of supply and demand has both supply and demand.
  I wonder if the Senator from Utah does not believe that plug-in 
electric cars and trucks are an important way to reduce our use of oil?
  Mr. HATCH. I thank my colleague and thank him for his leadership in 
this matter.
  Back to the nuclear thing, I drove a hydrogen vehicle not too long 
ago. If we had these nuclear powerplants, we would have enough 
hydrogen. We could do it. The problem is we only have 9 million tons 
and we need 150 million tons just to start it.
  But having raised the hybrid and plug-in hybrid issue, let me say 
Americans are looking to Congress to address our current energy crisis, 
and we should be pursuing every reasonable option to reducing our 
addiction to foreign oil.
  The distinguished Senator from Tennessee may be aware that I was the 
sponsor of the CLEAR Act, which was signed into law as part of the 
Energy Policy Act of 2005 and as part of the transportation bill which 
passed the same year.
  The CLEAR Act has been providing tax credits to consumers who 
purchase alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles, including 
battery electric and hybrid cars. It has also been providing incentives 
for new alternative fuel stations and for the use of alternative fuels 
in vehicles.
  Our transportation sector is 97 percent dependent on oil. I am all 
for oil. We certainly need more of it, but we also must find ways to 
diversify our transportation fuels.
  I have heard some argue we must promote solar, wind, and geothermal 
as an answer to high gas prices. Well, obviously, cars and trucks don't 
run on electricity. It is going to take us a little while to get there.
  But what if we changed that?
  Why not use plug-ins to apply hydroelectric, solar, wind, geothermal, 
and nuclear to our transportation sector? Talk about adding diversity 
to our transportation fuels.
  Immediately after the CLEAR Act was signed into law, I began working 
on legislation to promote plug-in hybrid vehicles. It was a bipartisan 
effort, and I received strong and early assistance from Senators Maria 
Cantwell and Barack Obama, of all persons. We introduced S. 1617, the 
FREEDOM Act, which would provide four strong tax incentives promoting 
plug-in hybrid vehicle purchases, and also the U.S. manufacture of 
these vehicles and their technologies.
  I am pleased that the plug-in hybrid idea has remained bipartisan. I 
know that portions of the FREEDOM Act have been included in both the 
Republican and Democrat energy extenders bills.
  I believe we will see the day when the electric grid becomes a 
significant new alternative transportation fuel. We should keep in mind 
that our electric grid is a domestic resource. You won't see our 
President flying to the Middle East begging the Saudis to send us more 
electrons. We can do it right here.
  Electrons are not only domestic, but they are much cheaper and much 
cleaner than gasoline.
  Best of all, the United States is well positioned to be the world 
leader in the development of plug-in hybrid vehicles. We have already 
seen the California-based Tesla Motors plug-in electric vehicle. Raser 
Technologies based in Utah, has developed a very powerful and efficient 
AC induction motor, and A123 Systems, based in Massachusetts, has 
developed a very advanced lithium ion battery that has been configured 
specifically for electric-drive vehicles.
  Also, General Motors will soon offer a plug-in hybrid Saturn vehicle, 
and that will be followed by the plug-in hybrid Volt. The Volt will be 
one of the most exciting vehicle innovations of our lifetimes. It will 
allow the average commuter to drive to work and back without using one 
drop of oil. Our friends on the other side will be delighted. The 
problem is we cannot do it right now. We have to have something to 
power our trucks, planes, trains, and cars. The volt will run entirely 
on electricity for up to 40 miles. For longer trips that exceed the 
range of the battery, the vehicle will switch into a very efficient 
hybrid vehicle. The U.S. is truly on the cutting-edge of technology in 
developing commercial, electron powered vehicles.
  Mr. President, I am aware that my good friend Senator Alexander has 
also shown a great deal of leadership in promoting plug-in hybrids. And 
I would ask him if it isn't true that our Nation is in position to lead 
the world on the potential of shifting some of our transportation needs 
over to the electric grid? Perhaps we are not quite willing to lead it 
because it takes time to get that accomplished?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Utah for his leadership. 
Before I answer his question, I wish to emphasize our point here. What 
we are hoping to do is to show that, on the Republican side--and we 
believe there are many Democrats who feel this way too--we believe the 
solution to high gasoline prices is finding more American energy and 
using less. We are willing to do both. The Democratic leader is not 
willing to find more, for some reason.
  But on Senator Hatch's point, the most promising opportunity I 
believe for using less oil in the near term is the plug-in hybrid car 
and truck by a confluence of two things: One is all the car companies 
you talked about who are about to produce the car. I can add to that 
Nissan, at the dedication of its new North American headquarters in 
Nashville this week, announced it intends to market a plug-in pure 
electric vehicle that will go 100 miles with a charge in 2010 for 
fleets and for individuals in 2012.
  One may say: Well, where are you going to get all this electricity? 
We have plenty of electricity at night. In our region in Tennessee, the 
Tennessee Valley Authority has the equivalent of seven or eight nuclear 
powerplants of unused electricity at night, which could be used for 
plug-in cars and trucks.
  So I think there will be a great many people in Tennessee and in Utah 
and across this country who very quickly will be plugging in at night 
in a wall socket and filling up, so to speak, for a dollar or two, 
instead of filing up for $80 at the gasoline pump.
  Mr. HATCH. Can I mention to my colleague this little company, Raser 
Technologies in Utah, now has developed an electric motor, not very 
large, that has more thrust, more--I do not know what to call it, but 
more actual energy than the gas combustion engines.
  They are about to put one of those motors on a pickup truck that will 
get, according to them, around 120 miles per gallon of gas. We can get 
there, but it is going to take us a number of years to get there.
  In the immediate future, we have to find more oil so we quit sending 
$700 billion or more every year--and that is going to go up every 
year--overseas that does not do us very much good. Because that is all 
gone once it is gone. We should keep that money here so we can do all 
the things we need to do for the American people.
  I cannot, for the life of me, understand why the other side will not 
get together with us and help us to put all these elements together and 
recognize

[[Page 16169]]

it is going to take oil to get us over the next few years to where 
these wonderful things can explode. They are doable. We can do them 
now, except we cannot manufacture them fast enough or get the 
manufacturing lines up in a short period of time.
  But if we can, it will be amazing. I remember when I got into the 
hybrid car business in the CLEAR Act. We found that hybrid cars could 
be driven on HOV-2 lanes during the rush hour. Automatically, they sold 
out. We knew just on that one little incentive, so we put incentives in 
to develop hybrid cars in the CLEAR Act, we have them in the Freedom 
Act as well, plus incentives for all kinds of other things. Frankly, 
they have worked amazingly well. But in the interim time, we are going 
to have to have oil. I hope we can find more and use less through these 
other mechanisms.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I see the majority leader, who I think has some 
remarks to make. We would be glad to suspend the colloquy if he would 
like to do that now.


         Capitol Police Officers John Gibson and Jacob Chestnut

  Mr. REID. Madam President, some may know that when I attended George 
Washington Law School many years ago, I worked full time on the swing--
or night shift--as a Capitol police officer.
  My service as a Capitol policeman was not one where I did anything 
courageous or notable.
  But even then, before the heightened awareness to threat we have 
today, we police officers knew if the call came to sacrifice to protect 
this U.S. Capitol, our jobs meant answering the call.
  Ten years ago, two officers did just that.
  Special Agent John Gibson and Officer Jacob Chestnut were stationed 
near the east entrance on the House side, mere steps from where we 
stand.
  When a gunman attempted to bypass metal detectors, Officer Chestnut 
answered the call of duty and blocked his path.
  The gunman shot Officer Chestnut point blank.
  Hearing shots, Special Agent Gibson also answered the call of duty.
  He warned nearby staffers to seek cover and confronted the attacker. 
They exchanged fire.
  Despite valiant efforts to keep both heroes alive, including efforts 
by my predecessor, Senator Frist, Special Agent Gibson and Officer 
Chestnut died from their wounds.
  I knew Agent Gibson. During a congressional retreat to Virginia, he 
came to care for my wife when she became ill during the night. I 
remember how he ran to her side. I will never forget how kind and 
gentle he was with her.
  I knew Officer Chestnut only by face and in shared greetings whenever 
we passed each other.
  But I do know he was a veteran of the Vietnam war, had given 18 years 
of service to the Capitol Police, and heartbreakingly, was just months 
away from a hard-earned retirement.
  We are honored to have Agent Gibson's wife Lyn and their children, 
Kristen, Jack, and Danny; Officer Chestnut's wife Wen-Ling and their 
children, Will and Karen; and their many cherished friends and family.
  We hope that it has been some comfort to you--the ones they loved 
most--to know that in the 10 years since that terrible day, some 
measure of you burden has come to rest upon all of our shoulders.
  So today we plant a tree in the name and memory of John Gibson and 
Jacob Chestnut.
  The tree is small now, but every day it will grow taller, stronger, 
and broader. Its roots will grasp ever deeper for the American soil 
that lies below, the American soil that both men defended so 
heroically.
  As this tree takes root and grows and flourishes, it will remind us 
always of these two brave men.
  And though it will shed its leaves in the fall, it will always bloom 
when spring arrives again.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I thank the majority leader for his 
comments. The Republican Leader would want me to say, he speaks for all 
of us in expressing the respect for the families of the two fallen men 
and our appreciation to the service of all the Capitol police officers 
today. We will have an opportunity, within a few minutes, to honor the 
fallen men.
  Mr. Hatch was saying, the Senator from Utah, we have impressive ways 
to use less oil. But we also have important ways to find more oil. One 
of those ways would be to use technology to turn coal into aviation 
fuel; a proven technology which is available, which in the past has had 
some challenges, but there are some new techniques. One of the Senators 
who is a leading advocate of coal-to-liquid technology understands it 
well, the Senator from Wyoming. I ask the Senator from Wyoming: Would 
it not be important for our national security to at least take steps 
toward turning coal into liquid aviation fuel?
  Mr. BARRASSO. Most certainly it would be very important to turn that 
coal into liquid fuel for aviation. If you take a look at this 
morning's Politico, an issue of the Pentagon, the Department of Defense 
is the Nation's biggest oil consumer, burning 395,000 barrels per day, 
about as much as the country of Greece.
  The Air Force's thirsty planes burn more than half the fuel supplied 
for the entire U.S. military. It did receive $1.5 billion in new relief 
from Congress for fuel and still has $400 million left to go.
  When you look at that and say: What else could we do to help lower 
that cost, not just for the consumer who fills their tank at home but 
also for your military, it is converting coal to liquid. The technology 
is there. People ask: Is there enough coal and how would you do it?
  There is an incredibly abundant supply of coal in this Nation. To me, 
coal is the most available, affordable, reliable, and secure source of 
energy we have in this Nation. Wyoming is the No. 1 coal producer in 
the United States. There is enough coal in Wyoming alone to help our 
Nation for centuries, for hundreds of years. Coal is there and the 
technology is there.
  Right now under the law, the military is not allowed to make a 
contract long term to put that coal into liquid. But the technology is 
there. We have an exciting company in Wyoming, near Medicine Bow, 
building a plant to do this, to convert the coal to liquid. But it is 
not only Wyoming
  As the Presiding Officer knows, and the Senator from Tennessee knows, 
there is coal all around the United States--coal in West Virginia, coal 
in Kentucky, coal in Pennsylvania, coal in Illinois, coal in Wyoming, 
coal in Montana. Everyplace we need energy we have coal.
  Some folks are saying: What about the carbon dioxide? But the 
technology is there to get the carbon dioxide, to sequester it, and 
actually to use it for more oil development.
  You take an old burned-out oil well where there is not a lot of oil 
coming out. There is a way to inject the carbon dioxide and get out 
more oil. So it is not only good because you can use the coal for the 
liquids, you can also use this carbon dioxide to get even more oil. By 
that, you are certainly finding more, with something we have here.
  To me, this is so much about becoming, as a nation, energy self-
sufficient. The only way we can do that is to rely on American sources 
of energy. We are sending hundreds of millions of dollars overseas to 
people who are not our friends--hundreds of billions of dollars.
  This is America's treasure going overseas. Why? Because we are not 
energy self-sufficient. But with all the coal resources we have all 
across this country, and the technology, we can today start converting 
the coal to liquids to be used for aviation, to be used for our 
military. The No. 1 user is our military in terms of the largest user 
of our energy.
  It seems to me, to the Senator from Tennessee, that when we have this 
discussion--and I hear Senator Isakson talking about nuclear, finding 
more energy that way, I hear Senator Hatch talking about the cars and 
using less energy that way--this is one more way in this whole 
portfolio of different ways to use energy as we find more and use less.

[[Page 16170]]

  Because the American people are going to continue to use all the 
energy, we need all the sources of energy. That is the way we can keep 
down the price at the pump for people all across our country.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Wyoming for his leadership. 
As he speaks, it reminds me of how much I wish, instead of our being in 
a parliamentary position where all we can do is talk, the Democratic 
leader would put us in a parliamentary position where we can act. I 
mean, we are prepared to act. We have offered an amendment that has a 
series of suggestions about how to find more American energy and use 
less.
  We may not be right in every case. But I believe the American people 
expect us, expect us to take up these issues and debate them and use 
them, whether it is plug-in electric cars, to use less oil, or, for 
example, I see the Senator from Alaska is here, whether it is using 
more of Alaskan energy.
  Every time we talk about more American energy, we must think about 
Alaska because so much energy is there. I wonder if the Senator would 
not agree, that there is not one way, but a whole series of ways we 
might change the law to improve our country's security, improve our 
supply of oil and gas by using Alaskan energy?
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I am pleased to respond to the 
question from the senior Senator from Tennessee.
  Alaska is blessed in its abundance of resources, whether it be oil or 
natural gas, coal, to the timber, to the fisheries, we are absolutely 
blessed. When it comes to those fossilized fuels, the abundance is 
extraordinary.
  Oftentimes people think we are making up the numbers because they are 
as substantial as they are. We have the potential in the State of 
Alaska right now, between our onshore assets and our known offshore 
reserves, when it comes to oil, of an additional 65 billion barrels of 
oil coming from the State of Alaska.
  There is 390 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from the onshore 
reserves and, from what we know, from the offshore. Yesterday there 
were new numbers released from the USGS on the potential for oil and 
gas in the Arctic region. This was a survey of the entire Arctic, not 
only Alaska's resources. Of those resources, they indicated, in terms 
of oil, it is about 90 billion barrels coming out of the Arctic. Of 
that 90, a full third would be in the area in the waters off of the 
State of Alaska, so about 30 billion barrels of oil in terms of 
resource there. What we are talking about, in terms of the potential 
for Alaska to contribute in a meaningful manner with increased 
production, is nothing short of dramatic. When we talk about ANWR 
specifically--and there has been great debate about whether we should 
open ANWR--keep in mind, we are not allowed to explore.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. If I may let the Senator know, we have about 3 minutes 
remaining and I need 1 of those to make a unanimous consent request.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. I could go on all day talking about Alaska's 
resources. What I wish to leave Members with is the knowledge that as a 
mean estimate, we are looking at 10.6 billion barrels of oil out of 
ANWR. This is not insignificant. We have been providing about close to 
20 percent of the Nation's oil for the past 30 years from Prudhoe Bay. 
We would like the opportunity to continue. We know we have the 
resource. We have the opportunity. We have the technology, the smarts, 
the know-how to make it happen and do it right while protecting the 
environment.
  I thank the Senator for his questions and recognizing that Alaska has 
a great deal to offer us as a nation when it comes to energy 
independence.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, our hope today is to show the Senate 
that we are ready for full debate on finding more American energy and 
using less. That is what we should be doing. We have our proposals and 
would welcome debate and amendment on others.
  I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate consider the pending 
energy speculation measure in the following manner: that the bill be 
subject to energy-related amendments only; provided further, that the 
amendments be considered in an alternating manner between the two sides 
of the aisle; I further ask consent that the bill remain the pending 
business to the exclusion of all other business, other than privileged 
matters or items that are agreed to jointly by the two leaders; I 
further ask consent that the first seven amendments to be offered on 
this side of the aisle by the Republican leader or his designee be the 
following: Outer Continental Shelf exploration plus conservation; oil 
shale plus conservation; Alaska energy production plus conservation; 
the Gas Price Reduction Act, which includes plug-in electric cars and 
trucks; clean nuclear energy; coal-to-liquid fuel plus conservation; 
and an amendment involving LIHEAP.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. LEVIN. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, is there time remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no remaining time.
  The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, yesterday the minority leader suggested 
an analysis of the staff of my Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations 
ran counter to the legislation which has been offered by the majority 
leader, the Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act. In particular, the 
minority leader cited a statement in the staff analysis that ``there is 
no credible evidence that simply amending the [Commodity Exchange Act] 
to regulate energy commodities as if they were agricultural commodities 
will lead to lower energy prices.''
  The minority leader was in error. The energy speculation act offered 
by the majority leader does not ``regulate energy commodities as if 
they were agricultural commodities.'' The proposal to do that was 
offered by a law professor at the University of Maryland but is not 
contained in the majority leader's bill. Rather, the energy speculation 
act, which the majority leader did introduce and which is before us, 
contains a number of other broader measures aimed at controlling and 
limiting excessive speculation in the energy markets.
  First, the energy speculation act would close the London loophole so 
that traders in the United States would no longer be able to avoid 
limits on speculation that apply to trading on U.S. exchanges by 
routing their trades on to foreign exchanges through a U.S.-located 
trading terminal or computer. The energy speculation act would also 
close what is often called the ``swaps loophole'' so that traders in 
the United States would not be able to avoid oversight and Commodity 
Futures Trading Commission authority by trading in over-the-counter 
markets because it would require the CFTC to be provided with the 
information about large trades, and it authorizes the CFTC, if 
appropriate, to order traders to reduce their holdings in the over-the-
counter market in order to prevent excessive speculation or price 
manipulation.
  The bill would also give the CFTC more resources to oversee the 
energy markets in that it would require the CFTC to obtain and publish 
better data on speculative trading in the futures markets.
  Finally, the findings and recommendations of the subcommittee staff 
reports on energy prices give strong support to the core premise of the 
energy speculation act, that speculation has played a significant role 
in high energy prices.
  In June 2006, the PSI issued a report, ``The Role of Market 
Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices: A Need to Put a Cop on the 
Beat,'' finding that the traditional forces of supply and demand didn't 
account for sustained price increases and price volatility in the oil 
and gasoline markets. The report concluded that in 2006, a growing 
number of trades of contracts for future delivery of oil occurred 
without regulatory oversight and found that market speculation had 
contributed to rising oil and gasoline prices, perhaps accounting for 
$20 out of a then-priced

[[Page 16171]]

$70 barrel of oil, in other words; speculation contributed from 25 
percent to 30 percent of the prices.
  So the work and reports of the Permanent Subcommittee on 
Investigations provides solid support for the legislation offered by 
the majority leader. The subcommittee's work demonstrates the 
significant role played by speculation in high energy prices and the 
need to adopt measures to control that speculation.

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