[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16171-16196]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  WARM IN WINTER AND COOL IN SUMMER ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued

  Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, all of us recognize there are very 
strong differences of opinion in Congress about how to resolve the 
major energy crisis facing working families throughout our country. I 
have my views on this issue, and other Members have different points of 
view, and that is the way it is.
  I am happy to report, however, that there is an increasing unanimity 
of understanding around one very important fact regarding this energy 
crisis; that is, if we do not dramatically increase funding for the 
highly successful Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, usually 
known as LIHEAP, senior citizens on fixed incomes, the disabled, and 
working families with children are in serious danger of either freezing 
to death this coming winter or perhaps dying of heat stroke this summer 
because they are unable to pay their home energy bills. We cannot allow 
that to happen.
  I am happy to announce, in a tripartisan effort, that more and more 
Senators understand that reality and are prepared to work together to 
protect our citizens. S. 3186, the Warm in Winter and Cool in Summer 
Act, the LIHEAP legislation that I recently introduced, now has 53 
cosponsors--53 cosponsors--38 Democrats, 13 Republicans, and 2 
Independents. I thank all of those cosponsors for their support. I am 
absolutely confident that as soon as this bill gets on the Senate 
floor, not only do we have the 50 votes, I am quite confident we are 
going to have 60 votes and perhaps more.
  I also thank majority leader Harry Reid for filing a cloture motion 
last night on the motion to proceed to this very important legislation. 
Senator Reid understands, as I think most of us do, that it is 
absolutely essential for the health and well-being of millions of our 
citizens that this bill be passed, and passed as soon as possible. My 
hope is that after passage in the Senate, we can get it over to the 
House before the August break and see it pass in that body as well. 
That may be overly optimistic, but that is what I would like to see.

[[Page 16172]]

  Let me say a few words about why this bill needs to be passed.
  At a time when home energy bills are soaring, this legislation would 
nearly double the funding for LIHEAP in fiscal year 2008, taking it 
from a little more than $2.5 billion to $5.1 billion--a total increase 
of $2.53 billion. This is, in fact, what Congress has authorized for 
LIHEAP.
  Let me say a few words about why we need to significantly increase 
funding for LIHEAP.
  In 2007, 5.8 million Americans--primarily senior citizens, working 
families with kids, and people with disabilities--utilized this 
program. These are the most vulnerable people in our country. 
Unfortunately, these 5.8 million Americans are only 16 percent--16 
percent--of the people who are eligible for the program. The vast 
majority of the people who are eligible cannot get into the program 
because we lack the funds to help them. Madam President, 94 percent of 
the participants in the LIHEAP program were elderly, disabled, or had a 
child in the family under 18.
  From fiscal year 2003 to fiscal year 2008, the cost of the average 
heating oil bill has increased by over 93 percent--almost doubled. The 
estimated increase in an average natural gas bill during that same 
period has gone up by about 50 percent. Unfortunately, LIHEAP funding 
has lagged far behind these outrageously high increases in energy 
costs. In fact, we are spending 23 percent less on LIHEAP today than we 
did 2 years ago, and after adjusting for inflation, we spent more on 
LIHEAP 20 years ago than we are spending right now.
  Let's be very clear. What we are talking about now is a life-and-
death situation. Many people do not understand this, but more people 
have died in our country from the extreme heat and extreme cold since 
1998 than all natural disasters in this country combined, including 
floods, fires, hurricanes, and tornadoes.
  According to the Centers for Disease Control, over 1,000 Americans 
from across the country died from hypothermia in their own homes just 
between 1999 and 2002. Those are the latest figures we have available. 
In other words, they froze to death because they could not afford to 
adequately heat their homes. How many of these deaths were preventable? 
All of them were, according to the CDC. We will probably not know for 
several years how many Americans died last winter because they could 
not afford to heat their homes, but clearly one death is too many.
  I understand this country is struggling with an emergency situation 
in terms of flooding in the Midwest and wildfires in California, but 
there is another emergency which must be dealt with now while we also 
deal with those emergencies.
  At a time when the costs of home heating fuels and electricity are 
soaring and when the economy is in decline, millions of Americans are 
finding it harder and harder to stay warm in the winter or stay cool in 
the summer.
  In my State of Vermont and throughout New England and the Northeast, 
people are extremely worried that they will not have enough money to 
afford the price of heating oil next winter. A newspaper in my State, 
the Stowe Reporter, recently editorialized that the lack of affordable 
heating oil could turn into New England's version of Hurricane Katrina 
next winter. We cannot allow that to happen.
  I want all of my colleagues to understand that the home energy crisis 
that is being faced throughout the northern part of our country is 
something that is very imminent and is something that people are very 
concerned about. But this program, LIHEAP, is not just a program for 
cold-weather States; it is also a program for hot-weather States so 
that the elderly, the sick, and the frail in hot-weather States can 
afford to pay soaring electric bills to provide the air-conditioning 
they need. In other words, this program is not just a life-and-death 
program for the northern tier of our country; it is vitally important 
for the South and Southwest and for people who are struggling to pay 
for the skyrocketing price of electricity which has tripled in some 
parts of the country. What we are concerned about there is that if you 
are 90 years of age and you are sick and you cannot afford skyrocketing 
electric bills and your electricity gets turned off, you are in serious 
trouble.
  According to the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association, a 
recordbreaking 15.6 million American families, or nearly 15 percent of 
all households, are at least 30 days overdue in paying their utility 
bills. This is a crisis situation and a situation in which LIHEAP can 
be of significant help.
  To demonstrate how important LIHEAP is right now for Southern States 
dealing with a major heat wave, let me give you a few examples of what 
I am referring to. This is hard to believe, but it is true. Over the 
past decade, the last 10 years, more than 400 people have died of heat 
exposure in the State of Arizona, including 31 in July of 2005 alone. 
All of these deaths could have been prevented if the people affected 
had air-conditioning. Without increased support from the Federal 
Government, Arizona will be out of LIHEAP funding before the end of 
this month.
  Let me quote from a letter I received on July 15--last week--from 
Phil Gordon, the mayor of Phoenix, AZ. This is what he writes:

       I am writing to express my support for the Warm in Winter 
     and Cool in Summer Act. Currently Arizona can only provide 
     assistance to 6 percent--

  Six percent--

     of eligible LIHEAP households. . . . To make matters worse, 
     Phoenix continues to experience extreme heat. In the past 
     month alone, we have had 15 days with temperatures at or 
     above 110 degrees. This extreme heat is especially hard on 
     the very young, the elderly and disabled who are on fixed 
     incomes and can no longer afford to cool their homes. . . . 
     Arizona Public Service--

  That is the electric company there--

     reported that there was a 36% increase in the number of 
     households having difficulty in paying utility bills and an 
     increase of 11,000 families being disconnected compared to a 
     year ago.

  Imagine not having electricity, and day after day the temperature is 
110 degrees. And imagine if you are 90 years of age. Imagine if you are 
sick.

       Rising energy and housing costs are placing enormous 
     strains on low-income households across Arizona.

  So writes Mayor Phil Gordon of Phoenix, AZ.
  Madam President, it is not just Arizona. Due to a lack of LIHEAP 
funding, the State of Texas only provides air-conditioning assistance 
to about 4 percent of those who qualify.
  Let me quote from a letter I received on July 15 from Shawnee Bayer 
from the Community Action Committee in Victoria, TX. She writes:

       The temperatures in our area have been 100 to 110 degrees 
     for 16 consecutive days. I fear it is going to be very tragic 
     at the current pace we are going with so little LIHEAP 
     funding available. . . . There are so many who need our 
     assistance, like the elderly lady in her 80's who recently 
     almost died due to kidney failure; now she doesn't want to 
     use her air conditioner because she is afraid she won't be 
     able to pay the bill. . . .

  That should not be taking place here in the United States of America. 
This is in Victoria, TX.
  I received an e-mail from DeAndra Baker from the Community Action 
Agency in Giddings, TX, who writes:

       We have a gentleman who is 78 years old and on a fixed 
     income of $770.00 a month. . . . Due to the extremely high 
     temperatures he is unable to afford to keep his home cool. 
     His doctor provided a statement that he must have his air 
     conditioner turned on at a minimum of 80 degrees to avoid 
     congestive heart failure and he is not even able to afford 
     that much. Sadly, he will not continue to run his A/C or fans 
     and will be at serious risk unless LIHEAP funding is 
     increased soon.

  That is what is going on in the State of Texas.
  Without additional support from the Federal Government, the State of 
Georgia will not be able to offer any LIHEAP assistance whatsoever to 
its residents this summer. Currently, Georgia has a waiting list of 
28,000 people hoping to receive some relief from the hot weather this 
summer.
  Let me quote from a letter I received from the executive director of 
the Community Action Agency in Gainesville, GA, Janice Riley. She 
writes:


[[Page 16173]]

       One family that came in after we ran out of LIHEAP funds 
     was the Jones family. . . . Mr. Jones, came to our office 
     requesting assistance with his electric bill. He has a wife 
     and five children. . . . They got behind with all their bills 
     when he was injured on the job six months ago. . . . Their 
     daughter is paralyzed from the neck down from a fall she had 
     at six months of age. I wish we could help them. Another 
     participant that did not receive LIHEAP funds and is now 
     facing disconnection or homelessness is Ms. O'Brien, a 33 
     year old, single parent with 5 children between the ages of 
     7-16, and a newborn grandchild which she has taken in. . . . 
     Her power was turned off last week because she was unable to 
     pay it. . . . Her need for assistance is based on the high 
     costs of living, not from her lack of work ethic and heroic 
     efforts to maintain her household.

  In addition, unless this legislation is signed into law soon, the 
State of Kentucky will not be able to keep any of its residents cool 
this summer through the LIHEAP program.
  According to the executive director of the Community Action Agency in 
Kentucky, Kip Bowmar:

       February of 2008 marked the first time in the program's 
     history that all 120 Counties in Kentucky ran out of LIHEAP 
     funds forcing us to close our doors as fuel prices were 
     soaring and people needed help.
  In Florida, Hilda Frazier, the State director of the LIHEAP program, 
has estimated they will serve 26,000 fewer households this year because 
of the reduction of available LIHEAP funding and the rising cost of 
energy.
  Moving on to California, Joan Graham, the deputy director of the 
Community Action Agency in Sacramento, CA, recently wrote that:

       Every day we are turning away at least 50 families who 
     qualify for LIHEAP because we lack resources. Energy bills 
     have increased 30 percent over last year, yet our funding has 
     not increased. In 2006, there were 29 heat-related deaths in 
     Sacramento County. One senior who passed away due to extreme 
     heat was afraid to turn on his air-conditioner because he 
     knew he would be unable to pay the electric bill. We know 
     there are more like him out there at present.

  Why is LIHEAP so important in the South in the summertime? From 1999 
to 2003, over 3,400 deaths in this country were due to excessive heat. 
All of these deaths were preventable, and air-conditioning is the best 
way to prevent those deaths, according to CDC.
  I relate the problems associated with high heat and lack of LIHEAP 
funding not because that is necessarily an issue in my State. In our 
State of Vermont, in the northern tier of this country, the fear 
obviously is that when winter comes and weather becomes 20 below zero, 
we are going to have many families who are going to go cold. Some may 
freeze, some may be forced to vacate their homes and move in with other 
relatives and friends. That is what our fear is. Again, this is not 
just a fear of northern States, this is a concern that impacts every 
State in this country, whether you are in the North or whether you are 
in the South. It is imperative that we move on this issue and it is 
imperative that we move as quickly as possible.
  So once again, I am delighted that in the midst of all of the 
differences of opinion we are hearing on energy policy in general, 
there has been a coming together around the issue of LIHEAP. We now 
have 52 cosponsors, including 13 Republicans. When this bill comes to 
the floor--and it will come to the floor soon; we are going to pass 
it--I am quite confident we are going to get at least 60 votes, if we 
need that, and maybe a lot more than that. My hope is that we move it 
on to the House to get it passed there as soon as possible and we get 
this desperately needed funding out into the States. This is an issue 
we are making some progress on and I look forward to the support of all 
of my colleagues.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized.
  Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I wish to pick up on what the Senator 
from Vermont is saying because I feel very strongly that we do need to 
move forward with additional funding for LIHEAP, the Low-Income Energy 
Assistance Program. In fact, I have offered an amendment to this--or I 
have filed it. I haven't offered it, because no amendments have been 
allowed by the majority party, but I have filed an amendment to the 
Energy bill, which is the logical place that we should put the LIHEAP 
language, which would do three things. It would double the amount of 
funding for low-income energy assistance, increasing it by $2.5 
billion, which is the essence of the bill of the Senator from Vermont, 
which is exactly what we need to take care of the increased prices for 
energy according to the Energy Office in New Hampshire.
  Secondly, it would add $25 million to the weatherization program. I 
think weatherization makes a lot of sense because it takes homes which 
lose a lot of their energy through lack of adequate windows or adequate 
insulation and helps those homes, especially low-income individuals. 
Further, it does something else which is important. LIHEAP is directed 
to low-income people, but middle-income families today, with the cost 
of energy doubling and tripling, have a serious problem. Folks who are 
working for a living but are still on a fairly tight budget or a fixed 
income are going to get hit hard this winter when their energy bills 
double and triple. So this bill sets up a tax credit dealing with the 
first $1,000 for an individual who is purchasing energy at fairly 
moderate income levels, so it doesn't benefit high-income individuals, 
and allows people, to the extent they buy oil to heat their home, to 
take that tax credit to assist them in the effort of reducing the cost 
of that oil.
  All of this is paid for. My bill is entirely paid for. I think that 
is also a critical element because what we are talking about here is 
buying a consumable product for today--oil to heat your home--and then, 
unfortunately, if you don't pay for it, you are passing the bill for 
that oil on to our children and our grandchildren by adding to the debt 
of the United States, and that is not fair. Our children and our 
grandchildren are going to have their own tough time heating their 
homes; they don't need to have the debt that is included in paying for 
that program.
  So my bill is entirely paid for by eliminating a tax--what I consider 
to be an inappropriate tax break for basically large, integrated oil 
companies known as section 199. This tax break was not directed at 
those companies originally when it was passed--and it should be--but it 
is being taken advantage of, and it is certainly not needed when oil is 
selling at $120 or $130 a barrel, and the incentives to produce oil are 
significant enough by the cost of the marketplace.
  I feel very strongly--and I think this is an important point to 
make--that we need to have a comprehensive approach relative to people 
who are going to be impacted this winter, and it needs to be a paid-for 
approach, and that is why I made this suggestion.
  I also feel strongly that if the majority leader calls up the bill 
which he filed, which is the bill from Senator Sanders, in an attempt 
basically to take down the Energy bill so that we are not going to 
debate it any longer, that is not the right approach. Because the real 
way you get to the issue of energy and the cost of energy for low-
income people in New Hampshire this winter--or for moderate income 
people in New Hampshire this winter--is to reduce the overall cost of 
energy, to bring the price of energy down. How do you do that? You 
produce more and you consume less.
  We on our side of the aisle have a series of ideas as to how you 
should produce more. Use the oil that is in the Outer Continental 
Shelf, drill in the Outer Continental Shelf. Use shale oil. We have 2 
trillion barrels of shale oil sitting there--more reserves than in all 
of Saudi Arabia and many of the Middle Eastern countries combined. Use 
those resources. Bring them on the market. Take away the impediments 
which we as a Congress--the Democratic Congress specifically--have put 
in the way of using Outer Continental Shelf oil.
  There is language which has passed this Congress which was put in by 
the Democratic Congress that says you can't drill in the Outer 
Continental Shelf. There is language which says you can't use oil shale 
from Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah--this huge reserve

[[Page 16174]]

of energy. That language should be removed so that those sources of oil 
can be used.
  Once you show the world we are willing to bring on line as a nation 
additional production from our resources, that will reduce the price of 
energy, because these prices which we are seeing today are speculative 
prices based on what they expect to occur in the future, and they 
expect demand to go up, but supply to stay stable--to not go up. Well, 
if we prove we are willing to bring more supply on line, and we are 
willing to use other sources such as nuclear power to reduce our 
reliance on oil, that will cause these prices to come down. That is the 
most significant thing we can do. If we could bring the price of a 
barrel of oil down to $100, even, that would dramatically take pressure 
off of people buying home heating oil this winter in New Hampshire.
  So this bill we are debating right now, this energy bill, has to be 
completed before we move on to Senator Sanders' bill. In the debate of 
this bill, we should take up the LIHEAP amendment which will be 
offered, I suspect, from our side of the aisle--probably by Senator 
Sununu or myself. At the same time, we should take up these other ideas 
of expanding the use of our reserves as a nation on the Outer 
Continental Shelf, in the shale oil reserves, using nuclear power.
  We should be expanding these reserves. Why? Because that will cause 
the price of oil to come down. In addition, the secondary benefit of 
this, of course, is that we won't be buying energy from people who 
don't like us. We won't be buying as much energy from Venezuela if we 
are producing American oil. We won't be buying energy from Iran if we 
are producing more American oil.
  So clearly this is what we should do. We should produce more and we 
should consume less. At the same time, we should be promoting--and 
there will be an amendment from our side of the aisle on this bill--
promoting the use of electric cars and development of electric 
batteries, promoting more conservation ideas, promoting more renewable 
ideas. These are initiatives which need to be pursued. More 
importantly, they need to be discussed and a genuine bill needs to come 
out of this Congress. A bill such as the majority leader has 
presented--or the Democratic side has presented--which deals only with 
one small sliver of the problem, which is the potential for 
speculation, does nothing to increase supply and it does nothing to 
increase conservation, the two things we need to do in order to get the 
price of oil down.
  The simple fact is this bill should be available and open to 
amendment. In an attempt by the majority leader to basically sidetrack 
this bill, to throw it in the ditch, so we can't go forward with 
amendments which deal with addressing drilling on the Outer Continental 
Shelf, which deal with bringing on more shale oil, which deal with 
nuclear power, which deal with more conservation--I am not going to 
vote for something that tries to accomplish that. I am going to vote to 
try to make sure we come out of this debate with a comprehensive 
policy, something that drives this country toward creating more supply 
that is American-created while at the same time using less.
  Madam President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 8 minutes and there is 22 
minutes left.
  Mr. GREGG. I believe I have 10 minutes. If the Chair would advise me 
when I have completed 10 minutes, I would appreciate it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. I will do that.


                                Housing

  Mr. GREGG. On another topic, we are going to take up tomorrow 
hopefully the housing bill. This is an extraordinarily important piece 
of legislation. It is a big leap for those of us who are fiscal 
conservatives to say the Government should step into this arena as 
aggressively as this bill suggests we do but, unfortunately, it is a 
necessary step. It accomplishes two things which are absolutely 
critical in the present context of our economy.
  Today there are a lot of people losing their homes through 
foreclosure as a result of taking part in what was known as the 
subprime lending process and having their ARMs reset, their mortgage 
rates reset. This bill sets up a process where people who live in their 
primary residence who have the wherewithal, the ability, to pay a 
reasonable mortgage can restructure that mortgage so they can afford it 
and so they don't lose their home, and so there isn't a foreclosure. 
That is very important. It is important not only to those individuals, 
but it is important to the marketplace to start some activity in the 
marketplace in the area of mortgage lending and home sales.
  Secondly, and equally important, this bill addresses the fundamental 
strength of our financial institutions. We have some financial 
institutions in this country which are a bit unstable--unstable. We 
need to make sure they are stable. Why? Because these institutions, 
such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, are essentially at the center of 
the strength, whether we like it or not, of our banking industry. We 
need to set up a process so the marketplace knows these institutions, 
specifically Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, are going to survive and are 
going to be stable and are going to be able to have the capital and the 
wherewithal to continue to lend and to continue to have the market, to 
turn over mortgages so you can have liquidity in the lending markets. 
This is critical.
  Some will argue it may be expensive. My argument is if we don't take 
this step, we know it will be expensive. We know from the FDIC----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 10 minutes.
  Mr. GREGG. Insurance that we will incur--as a result of bank failures 
that we will be paying a massive price. So although I don't like the 
idea from a concept as a matter of practice, this is something we are 
simply going to have to do in order to assure the fiscal solvency and 
resilience of our credit markets.
  Madam President, I appreciate the courtesy of the Chair and I yield 
the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank Senator Gregg for his insights 
on housing and other matters. With regard to the potential LIHEAP 
legislation, I respect the fact that he desires it to be paid for and 
for it not to be one more addition to the public debt. However, as a 
Senator who has believed for the last 12 years I have been here that 
this Nation needed to produce more oil and gas at home, I have been 
frustrated so often by my colleagues--frequently from the Northeast, I 
have to say--who have opposed oil production offshore, have opposed oil 
production in Alaska, have opposed coal to liquid, have opposed shale 
oil production and other avenues of production. The junior Senator from 
Vermont, my colleague on the Energy Committee, declared that we needed 
more geothermal, we needed more wind and solar, we needed renewable 
energy forms, which I certainly support in every way possible.
  Yet it is odd to me that those very same persons now walk blithely 
into the Senate and want the taxpayers of America to subsidize the 
Northeast so they can buy more dirty fuel oil to heat their homes 
with--the people who objected to the production of oil and gas year 
after year. I have to say that. I know people in the Northeast are 
hurting. People all over the country are hurting. The little county 
where I grew up in Alabama, according to the New York Times and a 
national survey, found that they spend a larger percentage of their 
income on gasoline than any other county in America because incomes are 
low in the rural areas and they have to drive a long distance to work. 
Those were the primary factors cited. That makes sense to me. Are we 
going to subsidize people in Wilcox County? Who gets subsidized?
  What we need, without any doubt, colleagues, is an energy policy that 
will bring down these prices. We need an energy policy that makes 
sense--not subsidizing the dirtiest oil of all, burning heating oil in 
individual homes. We ought to be thinking about things that could 
actually work, such as cleaner natural gas, making those

[[Page 16175]]

pipelines available throughout the country, instead of blocking every 
attempt to expand a pipeline. Or maybe we could expand nuclear power in 
the Northeast and other places in the country so more of our homes 
could be converted to clean electricity, produced by nuclear power, 
which produces not one drop of global warming gases or atmospheric 
pollution.
  I have to say I am disappointed that the majority leader has decided 
he did not have time--I believe those were his words--to deal with 
energy. Therefore, he filled the tree, using a parliamentary procedure 
that means we would go home a week earlier than we expected to go home 
and not stay in session next week and talk about energy and the things 
the American people care about. They care about energy and the economy. 
The economy is adversely affected by high energy costs. That is what we 
need to be doing right now.
  I think this idea, that the majority leader can fill the tree and 
control the amendments so we are not able to enter into a debate about 
how to confront the energy crisis this Nation is experiencing, is a 
very extraordinary departure from our classical history.
  In 2005 and 2006, we had an energy debate and passed an important 
energy bill. The Republicans had the majority at that time. I believe 
there were 15 days of debate, 20 or 30 amendments were offered, and 
many more were accepted without a full vote.
  Then, last year, the Democratic majority allowed an energy debate 
that improved our CAFE standards, and it passed overwhelmingly. I voted 
for that. I think it was 10 full days of debate and many votes were 
cast on amendments. At this time, quite a number of amendments were 
accepted.
  Why would we not do that now when we are facing an even more severe 
crisis? That is my question. So I note to my colleagues that energy 
prices are having a very real impact on the lives of our constituents.
  According to AAA, the average price of regular unleaded gasoline was 
$4.03 this morning. As a result, the typical American family, with two 
cars, is paying approximately--we have calculated this out, according 
to average miles driven--paying $1,260 more this year for the same 
number of gallons of gasoline they were purchasing last year. That 
amounts to a $105-per-month increase in expenditures for each family. 
Remember, people have paid taxes, they have had Social Security 
withheld, they have paid their insurance, their house payment, and all 
their basic expenses. You only have a certain amount of money. The 
American people are unhappy because they are paying an extra $105 per 
month for the same amount of gasoline they were purchasing before. When 
they realize that a big reason for that is because of a systematic 
action by Congress to block production of clean American energy, I 
think they are going to be unhappy with us. In fact, they are already 
unhappy with us. The popularity of Congress is at an alltime low. I 
think, on this energy question, we deserve the criticism. I have to say 
I have promoted more production for years. I have warned against this 
problem.
  As a result of our policies, we are now importing over 60 percent of 
our fuel. That amounts to $500 billion to $700 billion in American 
wealth which has been transferred out of this country to foreign 
nations. They are using it like Venezuela is right now, with Chavez in 
Russia closing a $2 billion arms deal. He is basically doing that with 
our money, with the high price of oil. He is off shopping to buy 
weapons and--hopefully, he will not--possibly use them to destabilize 
South America, since he sees himself as following in the steps of Fidel 
Castro, his hero. That is not a good thing.
  I have offered legislation that would open an area in the Gulf of 
Mexico on Alabama's side of the Alabama-Florida line, called the 
stovepipe, that has large amounts of oil and gas in it. It is in 
shallower water, so the wells can be drilled in a fashion that they can 
sit on the bottom. With the deep drilling we are doing today, you have 
to have a ship. The waters are so deep, they cannot anchor the ship. It 
has to sit in place by GPS and have propellers all around it to hold it 
steady, so it doesn't move, and the drilling can go on. This would be 
much cheaper and much quicker to bring onboard.
  I have offered legislation that would require the Department of 
Energy to examine the subsidies and incentives we have created and to 
see which ones are working. This legislation would also have the 
Department of Energy work on a recommendation of how to utilize our 
subsidies, incentives, and prohibitions in a way that effectively 
maximizes our energy capacity in this country, making us less dependent 
upon foreign oil.
  I believe strongly we need more efficiency. We need to use less 
energy. We need to have a breakthrough. I believe we will. In my home 
State, I believe we are going to see, within the next few months, a 
breakthrough on the conversion of cellulose to biodiesel or ethanol, 
and that could be a big help to us. It will certainly be more 
productive than that ethanol we are getting from corn today.
  I see my colleague, the distinguished Senator from Arizona. I wish to 
say more, but I will conclude by saying that I believe we need to act. 
Our soldiers in Iraq work 7 days a week, 12- to 15-hour days. Their 
lives are at risk. The majority leader said we don't have time, that we 
need to recess a week earlier than we projected, and we cannot possibly 
spend more time during August--we need to be home on recess--dealing 
with the No. 1 issue facing the American people in this country.
  I believe that is the wrong policy. I think we need to say so. I 
believe there are large numbers of Democratic Members of this Congress 
who will support more production that is safe and carefully done, that 
will help us deal with the crisis we are facing, but we cannot make 
progress, unless we are able to vote and debate. That is being denied 
at this time.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
  Mr. KYL. Madam President, I associate myself with the remarks of my 
colleague from Alabama a moment ago. I will speak to the reliance of 
the United States on other countries around the world for too much of 
our petroleum and natural gas supplies and what that does to the United 
States to make us dependent, to cost us more money, to reduce our 
flexibility and actions around the world, and also the point that every 
time they want to rattle their sabers to create instability in the 
world, what that does to the markets is to reflect that instability in 
higher prices. So these very countries that we would like not to make 
so much money off their oil supplies, if they want to make more, all 
they have to do is create a little trouble in the world, and it raises 
the price because the markets go higher for a while. I will talk about 
that in a moment.
  I have reflected on a comment a friend of mine made some time ago. I 
don't mean disrespect to my friends on the other side. But he said: You 
know, Democrats have three approaches to every problem: Taxation, 
litigation, and regulation.
  Sometimes we like to laugh about that because it is, unfortunately, 
too true. But I thought how does this apply to energy. Sure enough, it 
does. They, of course, tried taxation and failed, trying to raise taxes 
on oil companies, under the notion it would never be reflected in 
consumer prices we pay. But that is exactly what would happen. They 
tried litigation against OPEC. There is no way you can sue the OPEC 
countries. We ought to produce more of what we have, not tell them they 
have to produce more. They are pretty strained, in terms of where they 
are in production right now, in any event, and we are not, as the King 
of Saudi Arabia reminded President Bush not too long ago.
  Then, the third thing has to do with regulation. It is the bill that 
is pending before us right now. This is the Democratic approach: Let's 
regulate the people who buy and sell the contracts for oil and natural 
gas and the like. Of course, we already have regulators--it is called 
the CFTC--and today we have some news that demonstrates that this body 
is doing its job and can do its job.

[[Page 16176]]

To the extent that there is illegal manipulation in the market, the 
CFTC can stop it. They announced that, after a year of investigation, 
they had stopped a company that was allegedly illegally manipulating 
the market, and they are going to take legal action against them. The 
Department of Justice may be looking at it from a criminal aspect, as 
well.
  Both Democrats and Republicans have agreed that one of the things we 
need to do is ensure that the CFTC has all the money it needs and the 
personnel it needs to continue to do the job we have given it to do, to 
make sure people are not abusing the process. That is the good part of 
regulation. The bad part would be to begin defining--as the Democratic 
legislation does--who good traders are and who bad traders are and not 
let the bad traders trade--something that was debunked yesterday in an 
interagency study concluded by the CFTC, which concluded that 
speculation wasn't the problem; that the reason for the price increases 
at the pump is the law of supply and demand--not enough supply for the 
demand that exists out there.
  Today, another diversion was created. I wish to reiterate this. It 
involves a friend of mine, my colleague, John McCain. He was grossly 
misquoted this morning by Senator Reid and others, who have tried to 
suggest he is not for offshore drilling. I think everybody knows John 
McCain supports more offshore drilling. As a matter of fact, on this 
chart, I will quote one of many things I could refer to from his Web 
site. I have a great deal of information in which he makes it clear he 
is for more offshore production.
  Among other things, in June, he said this:

       Opponents of domestic production cling to their position, 
     even as the price of foreign oil has doubled, and doubled 
     again . . . every year, we are sending hundreds of billions 
     of dollars out of the country for oil imports, much of it 
     from OPEC, while trillions of dollars of oil reserves in 
     America go unused.

  He has also said the current Federal moratorium on drilling on the 
Outer Continental Shelf stands in the way of energy exploration and 
production. John McCain believes it is time for the Federal Government 
to lift these restrictions and put our own reserves to use, and on and 
on.
  He obviously supports offshore production. So why did some of my 
colleagues take a quotation of his, leave part of it out, and try to 
create the impression that he did not support it and he did not think 
it would do any good? He was responding to a question earlier about 
whether more of this offshore production would produce immediate 
results. All he did was to tell the truth. Here is what he said:

       I don't see an immediate relief, but I do see that 
     exploitation of existing reserves, that may exist, and that--
     in view of many experts--that do exist off our coasts, is 
     also a way that we need to provide relief, even though it may 
     take some years. The fact that we are exploiting those 
     reserves would have a psychological impact that I think is 
     beneficial.

  I totally agree with him. My colleagues read this to suggest that he 
believes offshore production would have no benefit except a 
psychological benefit. As we can see, that is not what he said. But his 
point is also valid--``is also a way we need to provide relief,'' it 
will provide a psychological boost to the markets just as, in fact, 
President Bush's lifting of the moratorium a week or so ago on some 
offshore drilling caused prices to drop. Many analysts believe the drop 
of about $25 per barrel was much because of the President's 
announcement and the fact that Congress was taking up this subject with 
the idea that perhaps we would actually get something done.
  What the speculators are doing is simply placing a bet into the 
future that there is either going to be enough oil to meet demand or 
there is not. If there is not, then they are betting the price will go 
up.
  What Senator McCain is saying is the mere fact we would pass 
legislation saying we are going to produce more oil offshore would 
immediately have the impact on the markets to bring the prices down 
because they would know in the future we would have enough supply to 
meet our demands. John McCain was exactly correct on this, and I think 
it serves no purpose to misquote him and suggest otherwise.
  I also note that in the House of Representatives today, legislation 
was defeated, as it was last week, by the Democratic majority there 
that is very similar to, if not identical to, legislation that was 
introduced by Democrats in the Senate.
  For example, last week the House of Representatives defeated a 
provision that says where leases have been let to oil producers, if 
they do not drill on those leases after a period of time, then the 
leases come back to the Federal Government.
  As you probably know, that is already the law. The bottom line is you 
get primarily 10-year leases. Some are shorter. You cannot obviously 
immediately go out and drill on every one of several hundred thousand 
acres, but what you do is try to figure out where it is most likely you 
are going to get oil and you start drilling there first and keep going 
until you drill in all the areas where you think there is potential. It 
is obviously not going to be on every acre. Whatever you haven't done 
in 10 years goes back to the Government. That bill failed because it is 
already law.
  Today another bill failed that is to drain the Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve. This is our national security reserve of oil, in case of an 
emergency, for our military primarily. We need reserve so the tanks can 
drive, planes can fly, and the ships can sail. You don't want to reduce 
that to affect very briefly the price of gas in the country. They would 
reduce it by 10 percent. What would that do in terms of the oil supply 
in the country? It would reduce the oil supply by 3\1/2\ days--3\1/2\ 
days. If it drove the prices down at all, which I doubt would happen, 
it would be very temporary because everybody would know it is not a 
permanent solution. So it is no wonder that failed in the House. Again, 
to the extent that is part of the Democratic bill, it is obviously not 
a solution to the problem.
  I mentioned I would talk briefly about what Senator Sessions was 
talking about, and that is the unintended consequences of not producing 
our own energy, even though we have it in our country, and relying on 
other countries to do it instead.
  More than 60 percent of every dollar spent at the pump--I filled up 
my tank last week, and it cost me over $70, and my tank wasn't even 
empty when I filled it. More than 60 cents out of every dollar I paid 
went to a foreign country. We could keep that money in the United 
States if we produced our own energy.
  I conclude by saying we can do ourselves a whole lot of good to take 
advantage of the resources that exist right here in the United States 
of America, reduce the cost of gasoline at the pump, and ensure our 
future energy security.
  I hope during the course of the next several days we will have an 
opportunity to do that as we debate this important legislation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I came to the floor yesterday to talk 
about how our Nation must move forward on a new energy future and 
explain how even if we drilled off all our coastlines it would still 
meet only 1 percent of our future oil needs. Instead we should be 
moving toward a renewable energy future and new energy technologies 
that could actually reduce our dependence on foreign oil by over half.
  But today I come to the floor to talk about the proper policing of 
oil markets because we are in a crisis that is literally bankrupting 
families and businesses and even threatening entire industries.
  Now, I don't often agree with President George Bush, but I have to 
say in his latest economic analysis, I actually agree with him, because 
I think it explains part of the reason why we are in a crisis today.
  That is right, the President said that ``Wall Street got drunk.'' 
That is right, the President acknowledged that something was wrong with 
Wall Street and that ``Wall Street got drunk.''

[[Page 16177]]

  Now, I don't know if the President meant to say that publically, but 
it got captured on the Internet. I don't know if he plans to keep 
saying that or all the intentions he has about trying to sober up Wall 
Street. But I know elaborating on the President's point, White House 
press secretary Dana Perino explained:

       Well, you know, I actually haven't spoken to him about 
     this, but I imagine what he meant, as I have heard him 
     describe it before in both public and private, was that Wall 
     Street let themselves get carried away and that they did not 
     understand the risks that the newfangled financial 
     instruments would pose to markets.

  That is what she said.
  I don't know why the Bush administration and the regulatory team that 
they put in place wasn't doing something about this situation. We do 
know the administration supported deregulation of the financial 
markets.
  And to me, the issue is that while Wall Street was getting drunk, 
it's really America and the American middle class that is feeling the 
hangover.
  Today the Federal Reserve is struggling to contain what is almost one 
of the most severe credit crises since the Great Depression, and 
American families and businesses are paying dearly for the poor 
decisions and inactions of this administration.
  During the past decade, the financial economy seems to have repeated 
some of the excesses our country has gone through before. So I wonder 
when we are going to learn the lessons of history and make sure that we 
in Congress do our job and that regulatory agencies do theirs.
  In many ways, today's situation is a repeat of the 1920s when too 
much borrowing to underwrite too many speculative bets using too much 
of other people's money set up an the entire economy up for a crash.
  Well, in 1999, Congress repealed key parts of the Glass-Steagall Act 
of 1933. It allowed banks to operate any kind of financial businesses 
they desired. And it set up a situation where they had multiple 
conflicts of interest. And several economists and analysts have cited 
the repeal of this Act as contributing to the 2007 subprime mortgage 
crisis. In fact, Robert Kuttner, cofounder and co-editor of the 
American Prospect magazine wrote in September 2007:

       Hedge funds, private equity companies, and the subprime 
     mortgage industries have two big things in common. First, 
     each represents financial middlemen unproductively extracting 
     wealth from the real economy. Second, each exploits loopholes 
     in what remains a financial regulation.

  Then, in 2000 we also deregulated a new and volatile financial 
derivative that is at the heart of today's housing credit crisis--
credit default swaps. As White House press secretary Dana Perino would 
describe it, these newfangled financial instruments that posed a risk 
to the market actually grew into a $62 trillion industry.
  And Warren Buffett has called these credit-swaps financial weapons of 
mass destruction. So the proliferation of these newfangled financial 
instruments has resulted in huge profits and losses without any 
physical goods changing hands.
  So now, I come to the floor asking my colleagues when are we going to 
learn the lessons of the past? When are we going to realize that the 
the 1929 stock market crash has the same root cause as the recent 
housing bubble? Both were financed by dangerously, highly leveraged 
borrowing, and after the crash many banks failed causing a ripple 
effect that devastated our Nation's economy. Well, after the 1929 
crash, Congress stepped up and changed the banking laws to eliminate 
some of the abuses that had led to the crash.
  That is right, only after the crisis did Congress act. What I want to 
know is whether we are going to learn that vital lesson and legislate 
consumer protections in advance, or only after a bubble bursts.
  The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s when 747 savings 
and loan associations went under provides a similar lesson. Like 
before, much of the mess can be traced back to deregulation of the 
savings and loans which gave them many of the capabilities of banks, 
but failed to bring them under the same regulations as banks. Congress 
eliminated regulations designed to prevent lending excesses and 
minimize failures.
  Deregulation allowed lending in a distant loan markets on the promise 
of higher returns, and it also allowed associations to participate in 
speculative construction activities with builders and developers who 
had little or no financial stake in the projects.
  The ultimate cost of this crisis is estimated to have totaled around 
$160 billion, with U.S. taxpayers bailing out the institutions to the 
tune of $125 billion. This, of course, added to our deficit of the 
early 1990s.
  So I ask my colleagues: When are we going to learn this lesson?
  As George Soros wrote in his book documenting the credit crisis:

       At the end of World War II, the financial industry--banks, 
     brokers, other financial institutions--played a very 
     different role in the economy than they do today. Banks and 
     markets were strictly regulated . . .

  Unfortunately, today's banking and credit crisis teaches us we have 
failed again to learn the hard lessons. We have failed to see that 
oversight and transparency are always critical, and when Congress makes 
reforms, they cannot disregard these important fundamentals.
  The only encouraging news I have seen lately is that Treasury 
Secretary Paulson is now working to increase regulation over investment 
banks, hedge funds, and other financial institutions.
  I could go on and on for my colleagues on my own personal experience 
with the western energy crisis that happened in electricity in 2000 and 
2001. We saw that during the electricity deregulation experience which 
started in the mid 1990s, people argued that electricity was just 
another commodity. But it is really a very vital element to our 
economy. Many experts cautioned that electricity was too vital a part 
of our economy and way of life to let these markets go without the 
transparency and oversight that is essential.
  We all know the rest of the story. We saw that deregulation set the 
table for some of Enron's spectacular manipulation schemes of 2000 and 
2001 among other bad actors, which all told caused more than $35 
billion in economic loss and over 589,000 jobs were lost because of 
this crisis.
  Again, only after the crisis was over, Congress stepped in and gave 
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and now the FTC more 
regulatory authority on energy markets. But again, Congress is doing 
its job after the fact.
  So I ask my colleagues: When are we going to learn? When are we going 
to quit deregulating these critical markets without much thought to the 
transparency and oversight that is critical for markets to operate and 
function correctly? When are we going to learn that when we give Wall 
Street an inch, as the President says, Wall Street gets drunk?
  We are here today. We are here today to talk about the oil futures 
market and hopefully enact some meaningful legislation. But the real 
reason we are here is that we deregulated the energy futures market in 
2000, which helped spark today's price bubble that is driving our 
markets to no longer be based on supply-and-demand fundamentals. In one 
fell swoop, this deregulation did a number of things that enabled 
today's perfect storm to brew.
  We let newfangled financial instruments--called credit default 
swaps--go unregulated and made it too easy to use bad debt to finance 
home mortgages. We also let newfangled crude oil trading--called energy 
swaps--go unregulated and essentially allow Wall Street to trade 
without any transparency. And we allowed electronic trading of energy 
commodities to emerge as a new form of trading. In a nutshell, we let 
Wall Street rewrite the rule book for all the traditional exchanges, 
like as NYMEX and the Chicago Merc, which were previously subject to 
considerable CFTC oversight.
  The consequences of allowing these energy speculators to move into 
this market, as my colleagues on the floor have said, in spades, shows 
it is similar to a casino game, instead of playing in the legitimate 
trading market. And the consequences are the American people

[[Page 16178]]

paying hand over fist for our lack of regulatory oversight.
  Why are we talking about the futures market? Because it should be a 
key price discovery method to establish the true price based on supply 
and demand. As the Government Accountability Office has said:

       The prices for energy commodities in the futures and in the 
     spot or physical markets are closely linked because they are 
     influenced by the same market fundamentals in the long run.

  That is right, the prices for the energy commodities in the futures 
and in the spot or physical markets are closely linked because they are 
influenced by the same market fundamentals in the long run. So why is 
that so important? Well, it is important because the facts are clear: 
Speculation, and excessive speculation, have driven up oil prices over 
100 percent in a year, and energy market experts are telling us the 
price should be more like $60 a barrel.
  So people are questioning why the futures market is so high, driving 
the price people pay at the pump today. Well, as Ed Wallace, with the 
Dallas Star Telegram, said:

       Record high prices without record low oil inventories, 
     analysts saying that so much money flows into the oil 
     commodities that it gives the impression of shortages, when 
     in fact no shortage exists.

  So that is to say that when you have record-high prices without the 
record-low inventories, and I note we haven't had a supply disruption, 
so much money flows into the oil commodities it gives the impression of 
a shortage when, in fact, a shortage doesn't actually exist.
  Now, I learned this phenomenon the hard way because that's how Enron 
manipulated the electricity markets coming up with various names for 
these various schemes--Darth Vader, Get Shorty--where Enron created the 
perception in the futures market that there was somehow not enough 
supply and then went in the physical market and signed people up for 
contracts at exorbitant rates. Thank God, through the hard work of 
people in my office, a little utility in Washington state actually 
recovered a tape of a trader talking to one of the individuals from 
Enron doing a contract and actually saying on the phone: No, this isn't 
true about the future price, but go ahead and tell your buyer it is so 
they will sign this contract.
  So now we are seeing the same thing happening again. To quote again 
from the Dallas Star Telegram, in an article called ``ICE ICE BABY'':

       Investors know that if they invest huge amounts in the 
     commodities futures, they can create a shortage on paper, 
     driving prices up just like an actual shortage.

  That is right, investors know they can invest huge amounts in 
commodities futures and they can create a shortage on paper and drive 
up the price just like an actual shortage. So, yes, we are concerned.
  In fact, that article goes on further, speaking about the 
Intercontinental Exchange, better known as ICE--that this ICE platform 
has been a big problem because we have allowed it to operate in the 
dark without the same regulator oversight as other exchanges. Ed 
Wallace is also quoted in that article as saying:

       What kept traders from cornering the market in the past 
     where the government's anti-manipulation rules.

  He is talking about what kept bad actors in check in the past, but 
once we deregulated in 2000, they didn't have the same tools in place 
to keep the manipulation from happening. So we are here today, on the 
floor now, talking about whether we are going to move ahead on a 
speculation bill to deal with this problem.
  Compounding this problem is that we have a CFTC and an administration 
that is watching out more for Wall Street than for Main Street. It is 
up to us to make sure we are going to pass legislation that puts 
transparency and tough rules in place to make sure the markets work for 
consumers and that both the future price and physical price of oil 
today are truly based on supply and demand.
  Americans may be surprised to learn that our oil futures markets were 
further deregulated--besides this 2000 Act. I am talking about a CFTC 
decision made by staff behind closed doors who decided to take no 
action against a London-based trading exchange that actually trades 
U.S. oil products. As my colleague from Maryland likes to call it, the 
London loophole. It is like driving on a U.S. highway but only applying 
the same speed limits as the German Autobahn.
  It is abundantly clear to me that the CFTC is doing everything it can 
to continue to operate this way without thinking about its job, which 
is to protect the American consumers from oil price manipulation. So 
that's why I am making no secret of the fact that I am holding up the 
renomination of CFTC commissioners. And I am holding up new 
appointments to the CFTC until Congress gets to the bottom of this and 
we can get Commissioners who are going to enforce the law on the books.
  Hardworking Americans are counting on us and are suffering in this 
crisis. Congress is their last resort as an oversight agency to make 
sure there are functioning markets and not the manipulation of supply 
based on the fact that we have created dark markets without proper 
oversight. But don't just listen to me on this subject about the CFTC. 
Listen to what other people have said about our CFTC, our Commodity 
Futures Trading Commission. Others have been critical as well. In fact, 
William Engdahl, who is an expert and an author on oil markets, wrote 
in May of this year:

       The CFTC seems to have deliberately walked away from their 
     mandated oversight responsibilities in the world's most 
     important traded commodity--oil.

  So there is one expert who doesn't think the CFTC is doing its job. 
Another expert, Steven Briese, who is a futures market analyst and 
author of the ``Commitments of Traders Bible,'' which is a futures 
market trade publication, wrote in May of this year as well:

       Congress has provided the CFTC the power to control this 
     unlimited speculation--the law is very specific about 
     establishing position limits. The problem is they have 
     abdicated this role.

  He is talking about the ``behind the closed door'' situation where 
the CFTC said: We are not going to enforce the laws we have on the 
books.
  We have heard from other people, Mark Cooper, of the Consumer 
Federation of America, recently testifying before Congress, because the 
Consumer Federation of America focuses on protecting consumers. He had 
something to say about the CFTC's poor performance. In fact, he said 
the CFTC's poor performance is ``the regulatory equivalent to FEMA's 
response to Hurricane Katrina.''
  What he is basically saying is they dropped the ball, at least at the 
beginning of this crisis, and have not responded.
  So there are other people who have said things, like the trucking 
industry. They have a big stake in making sure the markets function 
properly. They say: ``There's oversight that's lacking or not taking 
place--so the private market is taking advantage of that.''
  So, Madam President, I am not the only person. I know The Washington 
Post has also talked about this. They said, in an article: ``The CFTC 
has exempted these firms from rules that limit speculative buying, a 
prerogative traditionally reserved for airlines and trucking companies 
that needed to lock in future fuel costs.''
  So it is clear the CFTC has abdicated its authority and 
responsibility. It has abdicated its authority and responsibility, and 
we have been trying to clean this up and to push forward on important 
efforts in this regard.
  Madam President, I would like at this time to reference for the 
record a document prepared by Professor Michael Greenberger that 
responds to information from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on 
Investigations. I know the SPI staff analysis of Professor 
Greenberger's recent testimony before Congress on this topic has been 
discussed on the floor, and I would like to make my colleagues aware of 
his rebuttal to that PSI staff report.
  Now, I am sure many of my colleagues probably didn't realize I was 
going to come and talk so much about

[[Page 16179]]

the history of Congress deregulating markets, the crises that have 
ensued--billions of dollars paid by taxpayers--and Congress finally 
coming in and doing its job and making sure oversight agencies are 
performing their proper role and responsibility. But I thought it was 
important context so that we do not repeat the same mistakes.
  Some of my colleagues today talked about the CFTC's recent 
investigation that uncovered oil market manipulation, which underscores 
the point. The CFTC could only take action against traders that are 
using exchanges regulated under their purview. What we need to ask is: 
what are we going to do about the dark markets, the markets that 
operate within the United States with U.S.-traded products that have 
been given an exemption and loophole in oil futures that we are not 
regulating and are probably also causing the problem? We want to know 
what they are doing about that.
  So what is the American consumer saying about this? I know my 
colleagues have been saying a lot about Americans and what their 
preferences are. But it is clear to me that the American public wants 
us to act. In fact, 80 percent of the American public believes that oil 
commodities speculation and manipulation of the oil markets are taking 
place. That is right. They want Congress to act. Eighty percent of 
Americans polled said they believe oil commodities speculators are 
manipulating the price of oil. So Americans are very concerned.
  Two-thirds of Americans believe we should pass legislation that 
creates new regulations governing all oil speculators. They want us to 
put back in place the rules we had before we threw them out in 2000. So 
two-thirds of Americans polled believe we should pass legislation that 
creates the necessary regulations, and that is what we need to be doing 
today.
  I wish to make sure I am clear to my colleagues. We have done a great 
service by having an open debate on these issues. And just this week, 
experts said the Senate action is one of the reasons prices have fallen 
$20 below where they were, because we have had this discussion what a 
more regulated marketplace should look like. But I want to make sure my 
colleagues are clear that we need to pass legislation that really will 
crack down on excessive speculation. We cannot have a study bill, we 
cannot punt this to the future. We have to pass a bill that really 
addresses all areas of potential for excessive speculation. We need a 
bill that has aggregate speculation limits across all exchanges. It has 
to be transparent, and it has to be enforced on all markets.
  We cannot have a bill on the Senate floor that has all the right 
words in it but none of the important words in the proper places. That 
is what I am going to continue to fight for. I am going to continue to 
fight to make sure we put real teeth back into the law, to make sure 
the American consumer is protected from the manipulation of oil markets 
in the future.
  We can give the CFTC the tools it needs, and we must insist that it 
use them, but we will have to do our job here and pass this important 
legislation. Wall Street may be drunk, but it is America that is 
suffering the hangover, and we must help them recover. We need a new, 
tough law on the books, and it is imperative that we learn from the 
past mistakes of Congress in their attempt to lighten the load on some 
of these financial institutions with tools, only to find it wreaking 
havoc with housing oil speculation bubbles that is causing our country 
great distress. I hope we get this right in the next couple of days, 
and I am going to continue to fight until we do.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. (Mr. Whitehouse). The Senator from Iowa is 
recognized.


                             Fiscal Policy

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, in a little over 3 months, Americans 
will make a very important choice on the future direction of the 
country. We will go to the polls, we will select a new President. 
Americans will also vote on roughly one-third of the Senate and all the 
Members of the House of Representatives.
  According to public opinion polls, economic issues will be among the 
most important matters voters will consider when they go to the voting 
booth in November.
  Everybody knows that the Federal Government affects economic issues, 
and we do it through Federal fiscal policy. How we deal with Federal 
fiscal policy can be viewed as two sides of a ledger: On one side is 
tax policy, and on the other side is spending policy. The choices about 
how we as a nation want to balance each side of the ledger will have 
very important consequences and implications on our economic future.
  Most economists agree that high taxes dampen economic growth. Too 
much spending, just like too much taxation, can also dampen economic 
growth. As elected representatives of the American people, we have an 
obligation, as the Constitution directs us, to spend those tax dollars 
for the common defense and also for the general welfare of the Nation. 
We all have a stake in a growing economy, and we will all suffer from a 
shrinking economy.
  As ranking Republican on the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, I 
believe it is my obligation to explain the choices and the consequences 
of those fiscal policy choices; therefore, I wish to focus on tax 
policy as it relates to the choices Americans will face this fall.
  In all of the discussion about vague notions of change and vague 
notions of hope, there are some substantive issues Americans will be 
facing in the fall. The big question will be how much is the Federal 
Government going to take out of the American taxpayers' pocketbooks. We 
will need to evaluate before the election what we are being told on the 
campaign trail--not just what we are told, compare it with what is 
likely to occur starting at high noon, January 20, 2009.
  I think from history we have some pretty good indicators that tell us 
what will happen based upon the choices of the American people in the 
next election. To do that, we must look at our current tax burden. Then 
we need to take a look at what Senators McCain and Obama are telling us 
about how they will change the tax burden. Finally, we have to consider 
the ability of each candidate to deliver on promises. Each taxpayer is 
going to have to make choices, choices about what these candidates will 
do on tax issues once they get into that position of power. Every 
American taxpayer and every American family budget will be impacted by 
the new President and the agenda of the Congress. Elections have 
consequences.
  Today, I wish to consider future tax policy and do it in the context 
of the Congressional Record over the last 3 decades.
  First, I want to compare the actions of Congress on tax hikes and tax 
cuts in relation to each party's hold on the White House and do it from 
the congressional as well as the White House basis. As a baseline, I 
will show a scorecard of tax hikes and tax cuts for each 4-year 
Presidential term since 1981.
  I have a chart here. The chart shows three things. They start, as I 
said, with the year 1981. As you will note, the years are divided into 
Presidential terms, so we start with President Reagan's first term and 
work our way through to the present, which is the last year of 
President George W. Bush's second term. You see the bottom lines across 
there, the ones that have red and blue, and the years there for the 
Presidential terms.
  Right above the line for the Presidential terms, we have a thick 
line. It is a three-part line. The line shows relative power of 
Democrats and Republicans. The top third of the line, if red, shows 
Republicans holding the White House. The middle third of the line shows 
who held the Senate majority for a certain period. If red, then 
Republicans held the Senate; if blue, the Democrats held the Senate. 
Then the bottom line, that is in regard to the House majority. Like the 
other two lines, if red, it means the Republicans held the majority; if 
blue, it means Democrats were in charge of the other body.

[[Page 16180]]

  If you move up the chart, there is a running total of how much on a 
yearly average that particular Congress and President agreed to raise 
or reduce taxes. The lines going up or down are in regard to the tax 
raises or tax decreases. This data is not mine; it was drawn from the 
Treasury Office of Tax Analysis report that was released--the most 
recent one in 2006. The amounts are derived from the nonpartisan Joint 
Committee on Taxation revenue estimates of each of the enacted bills 
Congress passed during that 26-year period of time.
  Let's take a further look at the chart so you get some specifics.
  President Reagan made tax relief a cornerstone of his successful 1980 
campaign. His election helped Republicans attain a narrow majority for 
the first time in over a generation. The House, of course, remained in 
Democratic hands.
  In 1981, President Reagan proposed and Congress agreed to a large tax 
cut. So you have it. The first green line goes there. On average, if 
fully implemented, it meant that you would have a tax cut of almost 
$111 billion per year. Over time, the Democratic House pushed for and 
President Reagan reluctantly agreed to some smaller tax increases, and 
they are the second line where the tax increases come down toward the 
zero line there.
  For the 1984 campaign, President Reagan made revenue-neutral tax 
reform a central part of his campaign for reelection. Republicans held 
a majority in the Senate for that election, and President Reagan had 
built a case for reform. Republicans in the Senate and Democrats in the 
House agreed, and the chart reveals tax reform for 1986 of a small 
amount, as you can see there, but still tax reform. It is significant, 
I would say.
  But in 1986, Republicans lost control of the Senate. I happen to 
remember that because I was on the Finance Committee for my first 6 
years in the Senate. We didn't have enough Republican seats after that, 
I didn't have enough seniority, and so I lost my seat on the Finance 
Committee.
  Congressional Democrats insisted on and obtained, after their success 
in that election, a tax increase in 1987. You can see that tax increase 
there for 1987.
  In 1988, as you recall, President Bush's father, George H.W. Bush 
campaigned, in 1988, and included a pledge not to raise taxes. 
President George H.W. Bush won that election, but congressional 
Democrats solidified their majorities, and, as a part of a deficit-
reduction package, President George H.W. Bush forgot about his campaign 
promise and agreed to a tax increase. And here it is. You can see the 
big tax increase--in 1989-1990, it was. Shortly after that tax increase 
went into effect--there are consequences of policy made here in 
Congress--the American economy went into recession that year.
  Then you get to the 1992 campaign. Bill Clinton, in response to the 
recession, campaigned on a middle-income tax cut and tax increases on 
higher income taxpayers. President Clinton was elected, and Congress 
Democrats retained a very comfortable majority in the House and Senate, 
as you can see by the blue lines there, during those years.
  In 1993, less than a year later, on the force of the Democratic votes 
alone, the largest tax increase of modern era was enacted. There you 
can see it very definitely, a big tax increase at that period of time. 
You will note it is at the highest point on the tax increase part of 
the chart.
  Republicans claimed majorities in the House and Senate in the 1994 
election.
  President Clinton agreed to a revenue-neutral small business tax 
relief package in 1996. During that campaign, President Clinton 
campaigned once again on middle-income tax relief. President Clinton 
was reelected, Republicans increased their majority in the Senate, and 
we retained a majority in the House.
  In 1997, congressional Republicans and President Clinton agreed to a 
significant tax relief package. It was the first tax relief law since 
the President Reagan administration, and it averaged about $13 billion 
a year. There you can see it in the year of 1997.
  George W. Bush campaigned on a broad-based tax relief plan for 2000, 
or in the 2000 campaign. He was elected then, obviously. The parties 
split the Senate 50-50, with Republicans in control because of Vice 
President Cheney's tie-breaking vote for organization. Republicans held 
their House majority.
  In 2001, President Bush and Congress agreed on the largest 
comprehensive tax relief package since President Reagan. Here it is, as 
you can see, the big tax reduction of 2001, averaging about $82 billion 
per year.
  As things happen around here, I was chairman of that committee for 
only about 5 months because Senator Jeffords switched from being a 
Republican to a Democrat, and in the wake of 9/11, corporate scandals, 
and other events, President Bush, a Republican House, and a Democratic 
Senate agreed on an economic stimulus package that averaged about $12 
billion a year.
  Republicans regained the Senate majority in 2002. So in 2003, 
President Bush and the Republican Congress continued to significantly 
reduce the overall tax burden.
  So here you can see in the 2003 and 2004 tax bills a combined about 
another $82 billion a year reduction in taxes. If you look at President 
George W. Bush's first term, enacted legislation totaled roughly $174 
billion per year, on average. Republicans held the House for all of 
that term. Republicans held the Senate for most but not all of that 
term.
  In 2004, President Bush campaigned for reelection by emphasizing the 
permanence of the lower tax burdens secured during his first term. 
Republicans increased their House and Senate majorities.
  So in 2006, President Bush and the Republican Congress extended the 
tax relief in the first term through the year 2010. It is shown here. 
It averages about $22 billion per year. In 2006, the situation now, as 
a result of that election, Democrats gained majorities in both the 
House and Senate.
  Despite the opposition of the Democratic leadership in the House and 
Senate, Congress passed and President Bush signed an ``unoffset'' 
alternative minimum tax. That legislation averaged $13 billion in tax 
relief.
  This year Congress and the President agreed to $34 billion in 
temporary economic stimulus. At present, the Democratic Congress and 
President Bush are in a stalemate on an AMT patch extension and other 
expiring tax relief matters. The reason for the stalemate is the House 
and Senate Democratic leadership's opposition to passing these bills 
``unoffset.''
  I want to use one chart to sum up today's discussion. This chart 
shows a tax thermometer. We have got it up there. The heat side is the 
tax increase side. This chart shows the relationship between party 
control of Congress, Presidency, and tax hikes or tax relief.
  If Republicans control the Presidency and Congress, then lowering the 
tax burden, which is a tentative Republican philosophy, is virtually 
certain to be put in place. So you can point to that point in the chart 
there that demonstrates having both a Republican President and a 
Republican Congress is a certainty to have a lower tax burden for the 
American people.
  If Democrats control both the Presidency and the Congress, then an 
increase in the tax burden is certain to occur. That is what history of 
the last 25 years shows. So it is a virtual certainty, regardless of 
campaign rhetoric to the contrary.
  If the parties split control of the Presidency and the Congress, the 
record is, as you might expect, mixed, though generally against tax 
relief.
  So if you look at the median picture there, you see that we have 
about three decades of history backing this up. I would encourage 
everyone to take a look at this thermometer chart. When folks go to the 
voting booth on November 4, they will need to consider the probability 
of a change in fiscal policy. They will need to consider the potential 
change to their family budget, from higher or lower taxes, because 
elections have consequences. They will have to also think about the 
broader economic effects of higher or lower tax

[[Page 16181]]

burdens on business or investment, because tax policies by the Congress 
of the United States do have consequences, some ways good, some ways 
bad. My view is, higher taxes are bad for the economy.
  That change could be dramatic if the vote is for one party to control 
the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. There would be consequences 
then, lower taxes if that is House and Senate Republicans, Republican 
President; House and Senate Democratic, Democratic President, higher 
taxes.
  In my next discussion, which will not be today, I will follow up this 
one with a detailed examination of what happens in the last bit of 
history most like the present. I am referring to the 1992 campaign and 
the legislative record that followed in 1993.
  The reason I do that is I think I see the same thing evolving in this 
campaign. We ought to learn from history, and the voters need to take 
that into consideration before November 4.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 
minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I commend Senator Grassley for focusing 
again on the importance of lower taxes and promoting a better economy 
and higher standard of living in America.
  It is disturbing, as we talk about energy and high gas prices, to 
hear from our Democratic colleagues in the House that they are actually 
considering raising taxes on gasoline 10 cents or more per gallon at a 
time when it is already a crushing cost to Americans on energy.
  The energy debate has been very helpful. I think for years Americans 
have known, at least many Americans, that the Democratic Party has 
blocked the development of energy supplies, America's own energy 
supplies, from the time of Jimmy Carter stopping nuclear generation to 
President Clinton vetoing the legislation that would have opened some 
oil reserves in Alaska, to constant votes by our Democratic colleagues 
to stop the opening of oil and natural gas which is plentiful in 
America.
  Americans do not trust Congress to fix this because they know it is 
the inaction by Congress that has caused the gas prices, and we see 
that the Democratic leadership is going to do everything they can to 
keep amendments and an open and honest debate about real energy 
development in America from happening.


                                Housing

  The same thing has happened on another bill that is going to be 
interjected into this energy debate, this massive housing bill, this 
massive mortgage bailout that is going to come back to the Senate floor 
for a vote. This is another situation where the American people know 
that the mortgage crisis, the foreclosure crisis, the problems with 
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are caused by incompetence and gross 
negligence by this Congress and past administrations.
  We suspect, and there is every evidence, that part of that negligence 
has come from the ability of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to spend 
hundreds of millions of dollars to lobby Members of Congress and other 
watchdog groups to keep them from focusing on the reforms that were 
needed.
  When this housing bill comes back, I have proposed one amendment. I 
asked for one amendment in this process, that if the American taxpayers 
put their money on the line to back these private companies, that these 
private companies should no longer be able to spend millions of dollars 
lobbying Members of Congress to keep them from implementing the reforms 
that are so important.
  Last night I made an offer to the majority leader. I suggested we 
could have one vote under a time agreement to allow my amendment to 
prohibit lobbying and political donations from Fannie Mae and Freddie 
Mac. We could have been done with the bill last night. If the majority 
leader tabled the amendment, the bill would have been passed and sent 
to the President last night. But I do not think he wanted his Members 
to have to vote on that.
  If the amendment had been adopted, the bill would have been 
immediately sent to the House, passed and sent to the President, 
probably today. The only thing that prevented this from happening was 
the objection of the majority leader last night, because the majority 
leader was intent on blocking this amendment to prohibit Fannie Mae and 
Freddie Mac from lobbying.
  The bill will likely pass the Senate on Saturday and will not reach 
the President until next week. So the argument that my one amendment is 
slowing this down is not true. Let me state again one more time, to be 
clear. This Senator was prepared to vote on the housing bill last 
night. I do not support the bill. I do not think it should become law. 
I simply wanted one amendment.
  My constituents sent me here to Washington to clean up this place. 
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have spent hundreds of millions of dollars 
over the past decade to block commonsense reform, which could have been 
prevented. We could have prevented the debacle that we are faced with 
now if Congress had not been blind to the problem. But because the 
leader was intent on filibustering my amendment, blocking me from doing 
what my constituents sent me here to do, the housing bill will be 
delayed until next week. This is fine with me, because there is a lot 
wrong with the bill. But the decision to delay the bill was made by the 
majority leader and him alone.
  I wish to offer one more opportunity here for the majority to 
expedite the housing bill and to give me the one vote on this amendment 
and then we can proceed to a final vote.


                  Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 3221

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate resumes 
the consideration of the housing bill, the pending Reid amendment be 
withdrawn and the only amendment in order be a DeMint amendment which I 
will send to the desk. This is a measure to address lobbying by Fannie 
Mae and Freddie Mac.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Ms. STABENOW. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, the majority clearly will not permit this 
or any other amendment on the bill. He says he does not want anything 
to delay it. As I have already pointed out, however, I think his own 
obstruction is delaying the bill.
  I wish to make one more proposal. I will explain it, and if the 
majority is willing, then I will read the technical language. But I am 
very willing to offer a unanimous consent request to move immediately 
to a final vote on the housing bill, and then once the energy debate is 
completed, that my amendment, then in bill form, be allowed a straight-
up vote in the Senate.
  This may be several weeks from now. But if the concern by the 
majority is that my amendment would slow the bill down, they should 
certainly agree that if we can move to housing and pass it straight up, 
and finish the energy debate, whatever time that is finished, then we 
could have a simple vote at the scheduling of the majority leader to 
vote on this lobbying amendment.
  I would be glad to put this in unanimous consent form if the majority 
is interested in entertaining this. If I could get some indication from 
the speaker or the leader over there. Would you be interested in that 
unanimous consent request?
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, in response to my colleague, I would 
indicate that on behalf of the majority, if that were offered I would 
object.
  Mr. DeMINT. I thank the Senator. Clearly there is no need to continue 
to try to get this housing bill expedited. It is clear my Democratic 
colleagues do not support this reform, and apparently they are going to 
do everything they can to protect their relationship with these 
Government entities.
  The majority leader suggested yesterday that he would be happy to 
join me in sending a letter to these two entities, Freddie Mac and 
Fannie Mae, to request that they be more transparent

[[Page 16182]]

in their lobbying. Well, I am not interested in sending a letter to the 
management of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That would be as effective as 
sending a letter, which has been suggested by my Democratic colleague, 
to Saudi Arabia demanding lower gas prices. I am not interested in 
transparency in their lobbying or political donations. The lobbying 
contracts need to be terminated and their PACs should be disbanded.
  The majority leader disagrees. In fact, his staff sent out a blast e-
mail to their lobbyist friends asking for help in defeating my 
amendment.
  I want to protect taxpayers and end the culture of corruption in 
Washington, but I am afraid in this case, the majority clearly does not 
want to join me.
  All I am requesting is one amendment on a 694-page bill that spends 
anywhere from $25 billion to hundreds of billions of dollars of 
taxpayer money to bail out two companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
  I believe my amendment is essential to considering the way Fannie Mae 
and Freddie Mac have spread their wealth around Washington for years to 
buy Government influence and to cover up their problems. The housing 
legislation that will be before us authorizes the Secretary of the 
Treasury to use taxpayer money to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, 
but it does not include an immediate end to their lobbying and 
political activities.
  If American taxpayers are forced to bail out or buy out Fannie Mae 
and Freddie Mac, their lobbying and political activities should stop. 
Our Nation has a longstanding tradition of preventing American tax 
dollars from being used for lobbying and for soliciting and making 
campaign contributions. There is no doubt that this housing legislation 
crosses that line. Under current law, the Department of Treasury cannot 
retain high-powered lobbyists or make political contributions to 
candidates. This rule should apply to Fannie and Freddie. There may 
have been some doubt as to whether a government guarantee existed for 
Fannie and Freddie before, but now with this legislation, that 
guarantee is made very explicit. They are, in effect, government 
entities and should be treated as such.
  The Politico newspaper recently reported on how Senators and 
Congressmen are benefiting politically from propping up these two 
mortgage giants. The article said:

       If you want to know how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have 
     survived scandal and crisis, consider this: Over the past 
     decade, they have spent nearly $200 million on lobbying and 
     campaign contributions. But the political tentacles of the 
     mortgage giants extend far beyond their checkbooks. The two 
     government-chartered companies run a highly sophisticated 
     lobbying operation with deep-pocketed lobbyists in Washington 
     and scores of local Fannie- and Freddie-sponsored homeowner 
     groups ready to pressure lawmakers back home.

  One thing that should get our colleagues' attention, this chart is a 
copy of an invitation by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and other groups 
for a big party at the Democratic National Convention. There is one 
very similar to this for the Republicans. They will continue to lavish 
entertainment on those of us in Congress until we stop it.
  National Public Radio reported that in the first 3 months of the year 
alone, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spent a combined total of $3.5 
million on lobbying and hired 42 outside firms.
  According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Fannie Mae and 
Freddie Mac have been such prolific donors to political parties, 
candidates, and PACs that they are the No. 1 and No. 3 top contributors 
in the mortgage industry and rank in the top 100 political donors of 
all time.
  May I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has about 3 minutes remaining.
  Mr. DeMINT. I thank the Chair. I can see I have more to say than I 
have time to say it.
  Let me close by encouraging my colleagues. There is no need for this 
issue to be partisan. Clearly, if we are going to put hard-working 
taxpayer dollars behind our bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we 
should not allow them to continue to throw millions of dollars around 
for political activities. It just makes good common sense.
  On a bill that is this large and this important and that probably not 
one Senator has read even half of, the opportunity to have at least one 
amendment and a limited time for debate seems to be a small request. 
Unfortunately, the majority is not going to give us any amendments, and 
apparently they are going to turn a blind eye to this obvious problem 
on which the Wall Street Journal and news media all over the country 
have been focusing. The American people know about it. I think they 
would trust the Senate much more to make the proper reforms for housing 
and mortgages and Fannie and Freddie Mac if they could see that we were 
eliminating a conflict of interest that has clearly existed for a 
number of years.
  I thank the Presiding Officer and encourage my colleagues to ask the 
majority leader to reconsider and give us the opportunity to have a 
vote on this one amendment, and then we could speed the housing bill 
through.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, let me indicate my strong support for 
the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program and the motion to proceed 
under which we are currently working. I hope we will have a strong 
vote. We know regardless of the debate we are having on solutions or 
causes for how we got here, seniors, families, those we represent are 
being affected by this every single day.
  Making sure that LIHEAP is increased and that we have support for 
families in paying their heating bills is absolutely critical. I very 
much appreciate our majority leader making this a top priority and 
Senator Sanders for his advocacy. I look forward to what I hope will be 
a strong bipartisan vote in support of improving and strengthening 
LIHEAP.
  I want to speak further today about the reality of what is happening 
for families, businesses all across America, certainly in my great home 
State of Michigan. Since President Bush and Vice President Cheney, two 
oilmen, two people from the oil industry, took office, gas prices have 
nearly tripled. Oil prices have gone up four times higher than before 
the current administration came into office. The average family is 
spending a record 6 percent of their income, and counting, paying for 
gas to get to work, to get the kids to childcare, to try and maybe take 
a little vacation up north in beautiful northern Michigan or Rhode 
Island. I can't leave out beautiful Rhode Island, the State of our 
Presiding Officer.
  But the reality is, families are making incredibly tough choices. At 
the same time, energy prices certainly are taking a toll on the 
economy. We are seeing the level of unemployment going up. People are 
losing their jobs or are underemployed or are working three jobs, 
trying to get to work, paying more for gas. It is outrageous. I go home 
every weekend, and it is amazing. It makes you want to scream as you 
stand at the pump and the price goes $50, $60, $70, $80, to fill up a 
gas tank. It is unbelievable. Families are trying to figure out what to 
do about it.
  Unemployment rises, and we have now 12 States with unemployment rates 
over 6 percent. My State has an unemployment rate of 8.5 percent, 45 
out of 50 States have seen job loss and unemployment numbers going up.
  One of the challenges, if we are going to talk about what to do about 
this, is we need to be talking about how we got here. How did we get 
here? We have had 8 years and two oilmen leading us in the White House, 
and it is not, unfortunately, a surprise, based on their agenda, that 
we have ended up with $4 and higher per gallon of gasoline. That is the 
shorthand way of talking about what has been happening.
  For the folks they represent, for the folks who met with the Vice 
President to put together his energy policy, what has been happening 
for them, while families are seeing their wages go down, if they have a 
job at all, every cost they have going up--what has

[[Page 16183]]

been happening to them? The total combined net profits of the big five 
oil companies since this President took office are upwards of $556 
billion. That is net profits. ExxonMobil alone has had, since this 
President took office, $185 billion in profits.
  One could say, well, businesses want to be profitable. I want them to 
be profitable, and I am working hard to make sure our manufacturers 
who, by the way, pay a lot of these costs and are impacted by gas 
prices when it comes to what is happening in the economy, I want them 
to be profitable as well. This is not about whether companies should be 
profitable. This is about the fact that we have had an energy policy 
put forward by two oilmen in the White House that has focused on 
supporting an industry and their backers, their supporters, that has 
now created a crisis in America, a crisis in the economy.
  To add insult to injury, it is one thing if there are profits and 
they are put back into creating more oil and gas exploration, 
alternative energy exploration, if this was reinvested to strengthen 
America, the folks who are helping to subsidize this, taxpayer money. 
The folks I represent who have lost their jobs, they are subsidizing 
this right now because of tax policy.
  To add insult to injury, are they putting this back into the economy 
to make us energy independent? No. The oil companies have spent $188 
billion in stock buybacks over the last 5 years, instead of investing 
in increasing supply at home or in supporting a man who has now become 
very well known to everyone, T. Boone Pickens, an oilman his whole 
life, who is now investing in alternative energy. Instead of going in 
that direction because they care about America, the American people, 
American businesses, American economy--no, that is not what is 
happening. That is what adds such insult to injury about what is 
happening to the people of Michigan and around the country. It is the 
fact that people are taking this and having stock buybacks or adding 
another corporate jet or putting it into their pockets as opposed to 
investing in America and the ability for us to have energy 
independence.
  Then, on top of that, with what is being drilled for--and we know we 
are in a global market. We understand that. We are in a global economy 
where commodities move around the world. But it is important to know 
that when our colleagues put forward the oil agenda of drill, drill, 
drill, let's keep doing what we have always done and hope maybe 
something will change, maybe we will get out of the hole we are in if 
we just keep digging--when they talk about that, they are not 
acknowledging the fact that a record 1.6 million barrels a day from 
U.S. refineries, 1.6 million barrels a day in refined petroleum 
products were exported in the first 4 months of this year, up 33 
percent.
  So we are paying more. We are being told the problem is we are not 
drilling more, and then 33 percent more of the oil drilled in America 
leaves America. Why? We are in a global marketplace. It goes to the 
highest bidder. We understand that. We understand the fact that China 
is using more, the fact that the weak dollar impacts that and oil 
speculation, the whole question of energy speculation which, again, I 
appreciate Senator Reid and all the leadership of my colleagues--
Senator Durbin, Senator Dorgan, so many people--who have been focused 
on this as a piece of the problem, but we are being told: Use the old 
solution over and over and over, knowing that we don't even know if 
that oil is going to stay here.
  I have supported drilling in the gulf. I have supported efforts to 
add to our domestic supply. But this is not the way we are going to 
create energy independence by only focusing on that. According to the 
Department of Energy, shipments this February topped 1.8 million 
barrels a day, shipments outside the country, the highest for the first 
time in any given month.
  We are being told that we should do the same old thing, add to it, 
but do the same old strategy, and somehow we will get a different 
result. I suggest that the same old strategy, first of all, has 
achieved great results for friends of the administration, for friends 
of my colleagues, the Republican leadership that has been fighting for 
the oil agenda of this country. It has achieved a goal but not a goal 
for the American people. This is a question of who you are fighting 
for, whose side you are on.
  These folks are doing well. We know whose side the current 
administration and those who support the administration are on. 
Unfortunately, it is not the side of the folks in Michigan who are 
worrying about whether they can buy enough gas to get to work.
  We have, in fact, a formula the Presiding Officer is very well aware 
of: 8 years divided by 2 oilmen in the White House has gotten us this 
result: $4 and counting.
  So what has been the energy plan of the administration that has 
gotten us to this situation? Well, for one thing, we have seen a free 
ride for the oil companies. In January 2006, the New York Times 
reported that the Bush administration was allowing oil and gas 
companies to forego royalty payments--so they were not having to pay 
their royalty payments they should be paying--on oil and gas leases in 
Federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico. This decision by the Department 
of Interior could cost American taxpayers more than $60 billion.
  So to go back again to another chart--they are not paying oil and gas 
leases, which costs American taxpayers up to $60 billion. I wonder how 
much of these profits came from that decision. I wonder how much.
  We all know that the administration and, unfortunately, those who 
support the administration's policy, Republican colleagues, have joined 
in supporting an effort to block the elimination of taxpayer subsidies 
to the oil industry so we can take those precious dollars, hard-earned 
dollars of people working every single day, money that has been going 
to subsidize the oil companies--we wanted to move that over to real 
energy independence, to focus on the priorities of the American people, 
American families, American businesses that are having to pay for all 
this. We tried to move over $12.5 billion that would be used for real 
energy independence, for incentives for solar and wind and, yes, our 
new hybrid and plug-in vehicles that are coming in the next couple 
years that, frankly, provide a much quicker opportunity for us to be 
able to get to energy independence than what we are talking about here 
in terms of a long-term drilling strategy.
  We have an opportunity to take precious taxpayer money and move it 
over to invest in the future, to invest in the American people and in 
the future, rather than in the past and the oil companies. We lost that 
by one vote, not because we did not have enough to pass it, not that we 
did not have 51 votes, but unfortunately the Bush administration and 
the Senate Republican leadership blocked it, filibustered it: Let's 
filibuster. Let's make sure nothing happens to this. So there was a 
filibuster that then we were not able to overcome because we were 
missing one vote.
  So the solution that has come forward by this administration, the 
solution that has come over the last 8 years of the leadership in the 
White House--the two oilmen in the White House--has been simply to have 
one solution, which is to continue drilling even if, in fact, that oil 
does not stay in the United States. So between 2001 and 2007, the Bush 
administration issued leases on over 26 million acres of onshore public 
lands. There are already 44 million acres, as we know, of onshore 
Federal lands under lease, but 31 million acres of those are currently 
not being drilled upon. There are 2,200 producing leases on the Outer 
Continental Shelf and 6,300 nonproducing leases at this time.
  So that has been the strategy. That has been the strategy that has 
gotten us to this--okaying more and more land and not even using it. 
And in the first 4 months of this year, when we were drilling for 
domestic production--because we are in a global economy--33 percent 
more of that went out into the global marketplace.
  Let me say there is a better way. In addition to supporting the 
energy speculation bill that is in front of us and in

[[Page 16184]]

addition to supporting efforts, as I have done before, to have a 
responsible drilling policy in this country, there is a quicker way to 
get to where we want to go, and it is one that creates jobs, jobs right 
now.
  I am so appreciative of the fact that, through our budget resolution 
in the Senate, our Democratic majority put jobs as No. 1 and green-
collar jobs in support of manufacturing and retooling our auto industry 
at the top of the list. I am grateful for our leader's support, Senator 
Reid, and Senator Dorgan, who has been such a leader on these issues, 
chairing the Energy and Water Subcommittee in Appropriations. I am very 
grateful for his support. But here is what we could be doing.
  Oil exploration and drilling will take 7 to 10 years to bring new 
supplies to market. Some people say longer. But there are technologies 
we can bring to market in the next 2 years--in the next 2 years--for 
advanced technology vehicles. The more we invest in technologies such 
as advanced battery technologies, the quicker we are going to find 
relief at the pump. That is the way we are going to do it, not by 
rewarding the oil companies more but by investing in our own energy 
independence, with innovation, American ingenuity, hard work that 
allows us to not only create jobs but create a future for us here in 
terms of energy independence and lowering costs.
  The facts are simple. Advanced vehicles that run with new batteries 
are much cheaper to drive than conventional automobiles, and we need to 
be moving to them as quickly as possible. Currently, the average cost 
to run a vehicle is 16 cents per mile--16 cents per mile--on the roads. 
But the cost to run a plug-in hybrid car with advanced lithium-ion 
batteries is only 3 or 4 cents a mile--a 75-percent reduction. Not only 
does this save energy, but, as I said before, it creates jobs. This 
technology is right around the corner.
  Frankly, there is a huge competition going on in the world today to 
see who is going to get to that plug-in battery, that lithium-ion 
battery that is lightweight enough, small enough, with the technologies 
that will allow it to be mass-produced on the assembly lines so 
thousands can be produced a day. The prototypes are there. We have 
probably all driven them. We have prototypes for a variety of different 
vehicles. The question is not the prototype; the question is being able 
to get something mass-produced so it is in the realm of price where 
consumers can afford to buy it and it can be produced in the volumes we 
need. We are really in a race right now to do that.
  I am grateful there is support from our Senate Democratic leadership 
to invest in advanced battery research, R&D, the next generation, to 
provide low-interest credit to retool our plants, to keep the jobs here 
in America, and to provide consumer tax credits for plug-ins and 
hybrids to make sure the price is affordable. All of those things are 
in legislation right now. They are before us in the tax package. They 
are before us in Senator Bingaman's amendment, if he has the 
opportunity to offer it, as it relates to the Energy bills. They are in 
our appropriations. They are right now in front of us, and we have the 
ability to act on this and quickly be able to move us to the next 
generation of vehicles that go from a cost of 16 cents per mile on the 
road down to 3 or 4 cents--much faster than what is being talked about 
in terms of drilling.
  Germany has announced the Great Battery Alliance, which will invest 
over $650 million in advanced lithium-ion batteries for German 
vehicles. The German automobile companies are receiving the support of 
the German Government to be able to be the first ones that are able to 
get to where we need to be in terms of the new battery technology.
  South Korea, by 2010, will have spent $700 million on advanced 
batteries and developing hybrid vehicles.
  China has invested over $100 million in battery research and 
development.
  Over the next 5 years, Japan will spend $230 million on advanced 
battery research. It is spending $278 million a year on hydrogen 
research for zero-emission fuel-cell vehicles.
  We are in a race. We are in a race as it relates to technology. We 
have the engineers. We have the scientists. We have the skilled 
workforce here in America to do this. We have not had an administration 
or a willingness by our Republican colleagues to join with us to be 
able to partner in the investments that need to be made in the 
automotive industry of the future. That is just a reality. I believe it 
was last year when I looked at the President's budget and it was 
something like $22 million he was suggesting for advanced battery 
technology research. Unfortunately, they just don't get it about what 
is going on around us.
  If we want to see prices go down and have energy independence and be 
able to move to the future for our country, frankly, that is the 
fastest way to do it. I am very proud our Democratic majority 
understands that.
  We know there is no silver bullet on any of this. But I can tell you 
what I also know: a game show approach to battery technology research 
is not the answer. Frankly, both the Republican alternative as well as 
the candidate who we understand will be the Republican nominee for 
President have put forward the idea of a prize at the end of the line, 
a prize for whoever can create the new advanced battery technology 
research.
  Well, Mr. President, we do not need a prize. We do not need 
motivation. We do not need the motivation to get there. We need the 
capital to get there. We need the investment. We need the partnering. 
We need the priority of investing in this innovation to get there. The 
prize is going to be real easy. Whoever gets there first, they are 
going to get a big enough prize without us in terms of the marketplace.
  The question is, How do we invest up front? What is it that Germany 
knows, Japan knows, South Korea knows, China knows that we do not know 
about this, when they are all racing to put hundreds of millions of 
dollars into this technology? It is very unfortunate that the approach 
that has been taken--primarily in the Republican alternative; not 
completely but primarily; and certainly by the Republican nominee--is 
to treat our economy and certainly the industry that I care deeply 
about somehow as a game show, and I find that really appalling.
  As I conclude, as indicated before, there is no silver bullet to stop 
the outrageous price increases at the pump. We know that. We have to 
pass our legislation dealing with energy speculation. I hope we will be 
able to proceed to do that. We all understand that a responsible 
drilling policy is part of this. We have, frankly, supported that and 
made those acres available. But we also know--we also know--if we want 
America to be energy independent, we have to invest in the future.
  We have seen this chart before, but I am going to show it again 
because we have a lifelong oilman now running ads on television who is 
so concerned about what is happening in our country and this constant 
policy that has not been working that he has been presenting, through 
commercials, a message that we should be paying attention to:

       I've been an oilman all my life, but this is one emergency 
     we can't drill our way out of. . . .

  ``We can't drill our way out of.''

     . . . But if we create a new RENEWABLE energy network, we can 
     break our addiction to foreign oil.

  There are some folks who are making a lot of money by ignoring this 
strategy, there is no question about it. There has been an energy 
strategy in place that has worked for the oil companies. I understand 
that when somebody comes out of a particular industry, their focus is 
on that industry. I understand that. But the reality is, we have gone 
too long--too long--with a strategy: 8 years of a Republican strategy, 
with two oilmen at the head of this, creating $4-per-gallon gasoline. 
That is the simple explanation for how we got where we are. We have to 
stop digging. We have to stop doing more and more of the same and 
hoping somehow we are going to get a different result. We need a new 
strategy: Energy independence, investing in American ingenuity, 
investing in a strategy for the future, and, most importantly, what we 
need is to put the American

[[Page 16185]]

people first. That has not happened for the last 8 years. It is time to 
make it happen. That is what our energy proposals are all about. That 
is what we are fighting for, and we are going to continue to fight for 
that until we make it happen.
  The American people have had enough, and I don't blame them. I have 
had enough too. It is time for a change, and we are going to work very 
hard to get that change.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Menendez be the 
next speaker following the remarks of Senator Snowe.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Maine is recognized.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, today I rise in strong support of the Warm 
In Winter and Cool In Summer Act as the lead Republican cosponsor, 
along with 52 of my colleagues on both sides of the political aisle.
  I first thank the Senator from Vermont, Senator Sanders, for his 
tireless leadership on this vital issue of heating and cooling 
assistance and for his steadfast vigilance throughout the last few 
months in pressing for this debate on energy assistance when there is 
not a moment to waste in preparing for what could be the worst winter 
in a generation, given the historic cost of energy today. At a time 
when skyrocketing energy prices are at the forefront of our national 
agenda--when heating oil prices have increased from about $2.77 per 
gallon a year ago in my home State of Maine to a staggering $4.81 cents 
a gallon today, and when electricity has risen 3.6 percent in the last 
12 months, and gas prices have jumped from $3.05 a gallon to $4.05 in 
the last year--as we know, it should come as no surprise that countless 
American families are faced with choices that, frankly, no family 
should have to make. Indeed, as a direct result of spiraling energy 
costs, 70 percent of low-income Americans are buying less at the 
grocery store, 31 percent are purchasing less medicine, and 19 percent 
say they have changed plans for the education of their children. Even 
now, in the midst of July, in truth, Americans--and certainly Mainers 
across my home State--are wondering how exactly they will pay for the 
fundamental necessity of heating their homes this coming winter, just 
as many others cannot afford the costs for critical cooling during 
these dangerously hot summer months in so many States. In fact, in 
South Carolina, electricity services have been suspended to 39,000 
homes that are falling behind on their bills, leaving these individuals 
with no assistance to alleviate the stifling heat. In Arizona there has 
been a 40-percent spike in shutoffs for residential electricity users. 
The bottom line is this issue knows no boundaries regionally or 
politically.
  The reality is the stunning effects of these astronomical energy 
costs are not a regional problem, they are a national problem requiring 
national attention and a national solution. In fact, as I think about 
it, with the Low-Income Heating Assistance Program pending before the 
Senate--at least the motion to proceed; and I hope we will proceed, Mr. 
President and Members of this body, because I think we ought to be 
translating words into action--I think there is no better place to 
start than on this very crucial and vital program. In fact, if I 
recall, it was back in 1979 and 1980 when we first had the debate on 
whether to create this program called the Low-Income Fuel Assistance 
Program, and it was my first term in the House of Representatives. I, 
along with the late Speaker O'Neill, testified before the then House 
Appropriations Committee to create such a program. It was born out of 
the energy crisis that was engulfing our Nation at that time when we 
had gas lines here in the District of Columbia and across this country.
  It was interesting to think that at that time, in the midst of an 
energy crisis, that previously--6 years previously or 7 years 
previously--we had another energy crisis and, unfortunately, didn't 
learn from that event. Out of that crisis in 1979 and 1980, we created 
the Low-Income Fuel Assistance Program in order to give low-income 
families the ability to heat their homes and to cool their homes in 
other parts of the country. That is how this program was created. So I 
think this program was created as a result of a crisis--as a result of 
the failure of this country to create and enact a comprehensive energy 
plan. I think too today, 30 years later, we are in the same 
circumstance, regrettably and tragically, and the people who rely on 
this program should not be the victims of our inability, or our 
unwillingness, to address the energy problem. That is what we should 
come to terms with here in the Senate, that we should proceed to 
consider this legislation and have it become law. I think absolutely it 
is our responsibility and obligation to give peace of mind to our 
constituency as they are despairing about the oncoming winter and how 
they are going to meet the costs of home heating oil that is now close 
to $5 per gallon.
  I think we do have an obligation to continue to support this social 
safety net that is so essential. It is a matter of life and death, and 
I don't think they should be the victims of our political failure or 
our failure to address a comprehensive energy policy. That should 
happen. No doubt it should. Frankly, I hope we can reconcile our 
rhetoric here on the floor of the Senate with legislative action that 
becomes law that has an actual, direct impact on people's daily lives. 
They deserve that. They deserve for us to take action. Irrespective of 
the time or place we are in, in the Senate--whether or not it is a 
political year--we ought to reconcile our differences to do what is 
right for America on this mighty challenge that is facing so many 
across this country, including my constituency.
  Here we are in the third energy crisis of recent times, and we see 
that the program was at least designed to minimize the burden for the 
least fortunate for years and has provided a level of funding. However, 
as you can see, with the historically high home heating oil prices you 
see over time, and yet, even though we have provided funding for low-
income fuel assistance basically on a consistent basis, it never 
addressed the gap between the level of funding and the costs for home 
heating oil. So we are seeing, as you can see in the recent times, in 
the recent months, what has happened to the cost of home heating oil. 
Yet at the same time the level of funding for low-income fuel 
assistance has leveled off.
  That is why we need the legislation that is pending before the 
Senate. My colleague Senator Sanders is absolutely right, we need to 
double this funding. I thank the chairman of the Budget Committee as 
well for doubling the authorization. I appreciate his leadership on 
this question because we are in very different times, and that is the 
reason why we need to increase the level of support for this valuable 
program.
  This program is for the most vulnerable. We are talking about income 
limits of $17,680 for an individual, and the average individual 
recipient earns around $13,000 per year. Think about it. The assistance 
we are providing is for those who have income eligibility of somewhere 
between $17,000 and $13,000 on an individual basis. That is who we are 
talking about when it comes to the income eligibility standards for 
low-income fuel assistance--$13,000 for an individual and as high as 
$17,000, and for a family of four the limit is $36,000. In Maine, in 
terms of the projected costs for paying for a household for home 
heating oil during the course of a winter, based on today's prices, is 
close to $5,000, just to keep warm this winter--$5,000. So if the 
eligibility standards are $33,000--$36,000 for a family of four, and 
for an individual it is anywhere from $13,000 to $17,000, it costs 
$5,000 to heat one's home or residence for a winter. These are hard-
working individuals and families who, quite frankly, were in desperate 
need of assistance back in 2006 when we witnessed the first major 
increase in home heating oil. So we were able to provide additional 
funding at that time of $1 billion for a total of $3.1 billion. At that 
point, again, it was a crisis that, given the sharp hike, New 
Englanders were paying about $2.39 per

[[Page 16186]]

gallon. Well, fast forward 2 years to today and you will see, based on 
our charts we have provided, that oil costs $4.81. That is a 75-percent 
increase in only 2 years--75 percent.
  So we augmented the funding back in 2006 up to $3.1 billion when home 
heating oil was $2.39. Today, it is at $4.81, and of course we are in 
July, so we have no idea in terms of what we can anticipate or expect 
for home heating oil costs when it comes to winter. So a 75-percent 
increase as we know it today. So when winter actually arrives, New 
England could spend, under today's prices, more than $19 billion on 
home heating oil--$19 billion on home heating oil alone. That is a 
staggering price increase compared to back in 2006 when it was 
approximately $9 billion. That gives us a dimension of the escalation 
of the problem as we face it today and still not knowing what we can 
expect when winter approaches.
  As we see on this other chart I have presented, here is the cost of 
home heating oil, and as we have seen, it has increased 147 percent 
since 2004. So basically, in the last 3\1/2\ years, we have seen an 
increase in home heating oil of 147 percent. Yet when you look at the 
wage increase, it has only been 17.1 percent. So you see that the cost 
of home heating oil in Maine has outpaced wages by 174 percent. Prices 
are now well ensconced in the stratosphere, with the legitimate fears 
that the sky may not, in fact, be the limit. It is a huge disparity 
when you see how little wages have grown over the last 3\1/2\ years and 
what has happened with a basic commodity such as home heating oil 
having increased 147 percent.
  Yet given all of these alarming numbers, what has happened to the 
level of low-income fuel assistance? It has actually dropped. It has 
actually declined to $2.5 billion from the $3.1 billion that we 
provided and that I sought, very actively, back in 2006, when the 
prices had spiked. So we were able to augment, as I said, that funding 
by an additional billion dollars to reach $3.1 billion, but 
unfortunately, the funding for low-income fuel assistance fell back to 
$2.5 billion. So it obviously doesn't make sense. We are actually 
regressing in terms of a level of funding at a time when home heating 
oil is actually skyrocketing and we don't know where the boundaries 
are, we don't know where the limitations are. As I said, the sky could 
be the limit, given what the unknown presents for the future with 
respect to home heating oil.
  In testimony before the Senate Committee on Small Business that 
Senator Kerry and I convened last month to discuss the dimensions 
involving small businesses and home heating oil and what the impact 
would be in our region, I had an individual from my State--her name is 
Jennifer Brooks--who is the community relations manager at Penquis 
Community Action Program. They are on the front lines of providing 
critical services to Maine in multiple counties during these difficult 
times.
  Last year, the community action program provided fuel assistance to 
more than 9,000 Maine households. The average benefit received by each 
household was $736. In order to qualify for low-income fuel assistance 
this upcoming heating season, a family of four must earn less than 
$31,800. So under the best case scenario, if a household does qualify 
for LIHEAP and benefits remain constant, a household on average can 
expect to receive 158 gallons of oil for the season, which isn't even 
enough to fill a 250-gallon tank one time.
  We know it takes, on average, to get through a Maine winter, 850 
gallons of heating oil--850 to 1,000 gallons--and it costs $4.81, which 
we know is the price today. When you look at what is available in the 
low-income fuel assistance program, if we fail to take action and 
increase funding, as this legislation would prescribe, to $5.1 billion, 
our lowest income families will receive a mere 19 percent of their home 
heating oil costs through this program--the lowest in the program's 
history.
  Now, it is unbelievable to think people can anticipate this winter 
facing, at the minimum, spending close to $5,000 for home heating oil. 
Yet given the dimensions of this program, we will only be able to 
provide support for 19 percent of the entire cost for the entire 
winter. As you can see from the previous support of this program, the 
percentages have declined over the years. Over the last 25 years, the 
average Maine low-income fuel assistance recipient received assistance 
that provided 41 percent of their heating oil costs. Last year, that 
started eroding, and it declined from $3.1 billion to $2.5 billion. For 
the nearly 50,000 Maine households that received benefits, they were 
only provided 35 percent of the entire cost for the season.
  At today's prices, if we fail to increase or double the funding of 
the low-income fuel assistance program to $5.1 billion, then we can 
only provide 19 percent of the entire cost of winter for home heating 
oil. Obviously, I think that speaks volumes, in terms of the dimension 
of the problem we are facing and what families are facing in my State, 
in New England, and across the country. Whether you are living in a 
cold- or hot-weather region, you depend on this program either for air-
conditioning or heating during the winter. It is a basic social safety 
net program.
  I think it is absolutely incumbent upon us to do everything we can to 
double funding for this program and to do it now and provide the 
assurances, instead of the rhetoric about what we will do sometime down 
the road. I think we do have a responsibility, individually and 
collectively, to make the process work in the Senate and in the 
Congress, with the President, to do what is right for this country, for 
these families who are agonizing over the anticipation of what next 
winter will bring in terms of costs. Here, with this program, we are 
talking about the lowest of incomes. When it comes to $13,000, $17,000 
for a family of four, or even $31,000 or $33,000, we need to help these 
families and these individuals, without question.
  As my constituent Jennifer Brooks said in her testimony before the 
Small Business Committee:

       If the average person on fuel assistance makes about 
     $14,000 a year and the benefit only pays for 158 gallons of 
     oil, I don't know how they come up with any more money . . . 
     they can't, with the cost of food and the cost of gas and 
     everything else. There is no money left over to pay even in 
     the summer months . . . there is talk [of having] ``warming 
     places'' so people can shut their furnaces down real low 
     during the day and go to libraries and stay warm during the 
     day . . . we are in a crisis.

  Last year, I heard many stories. After we were expecting $2.50 to 
$2.70 a gallon for home heating oil, I heard stories of desperation 
then. One TV station, channel 13, in Portland, ME, decided they would 
initiate a program where they would provide a few hundred gallons of 
heating oil to four families requiring assistance. They were asked to 
submit e-mails or letters if they believe they qualified for this 
assistance. They received an astounding response, with more than 2,000 
requests.
  Again, there is no doubt as to the magnitude of the problem. That was 
for last winter. One hesitates to think about what we can expect for 
this winter, when prices have increased by more than $2 since last 
winter. Here we are in July. So we must step up to our responsibilities 
in this crisis and fully fund the low-income fuel assistance program at 
the $5.1 billion. That is the least we can do. It is not that it will 
address all the problems or fulfill the needs for all those individuals 
who rely on this program, but certainly it will be a very important 
step forward. We must do it now. We should be proactive and preemptive 
and prescriptive in our measures, not reactive, and not wait until 
after the August recess and continue to dither and talk but fail to 
take action.
  We have a responsibility to provide assurances to those people we 
represent in this country, to take the strong measures, and to take 
those actions that are so vital and instrumental to providing peace of 
mind during these very difficult times when people are facing these 
mighty challenges.
  There are many ways to debate this energy problem. Certainly, we 
should have a comprehensive energy solution, no doubt. I don't think we 
should place

[[Page 16187]]

the burden on those individuals who rely on this program, who are 
concerned--deeply concerned--and anguishing about the future because of 
our failure to reconcile our differences to reach out across the 
political aisle. I question as to why we cannot do it. I don't think we 
should live in an all-or-nothing world because that is not the world 
our constituents live in. These issues are not mutually exclusive. It 
is not that we cannot do one because we were haven't done the other. 
How about starting someplace? We can start with this program, which was 
born because of an energy crisis 30 years ago. We are in a similar 
circumstance today.
  These people should not bear the brunt of our political failures or 
unwillingness or inability to resolve these differences.
  I think the Senate should not be a roadblock to results but a pathway 
to hope. What I see here today, regrettably, is, again, my way or the 
highway. Here, at a time when we are dealing with monumental challenges 
confronting this Nation--and they are affecting our country 
simultaneously. Look at our economy and the job picture, the housing, 
energy, and we are in a war in Iraq and in Afghanistan and we continue 
to dither, to remain intractable, intransigent about achieving results. 
Truly, it is not in keeping with the legacy of this institution, which 
has done so much throughout our history.
  That is why Senator Nelson, from Nebraska, and I sent a letter to the 
President, along with 14 other colleagues, asking the President for a 
bipartisan summit. After all, we think these times demand it. The 
President should convene a national energy summit, bringing together 
the congressional leadership, on a bipartisan basis, and other Members 
of the House and Senate from the committees of jurisdiction, 
environmental leaders, industry leaders and scientists, to sit around a 
table to see what we can do for the good of this country now.
  It is immaterial that we are in an election year, that we are 7 
months away from the election. The American people deserve to have us 
honor our obligations as elected officials. After all, there was an 
election in 2006, as I recall. We promised our constituents we would 
work on the problems facing this country. Here we are today with an 
abysmal 14 percent approval rating. I don't know, that may be the 
lowest approval rating in the history of Gallup Polls.
  We all bear a responsibility, individually and collectively. We 
should care how Americans feel about this institution and what can we 
do every day to make it better. Some days, I wonder if we wake up and 
say: Well, this is going to be another ``can't do'' day. We are not 
going to achieve anything for the people. We are going to see if we can 
continue to be a roadblock to results and action. We are going to do 
everything we can to be a barrier to solutions. We will wait for the 
next election or next year or maybe some other time.
  Yet people are suffering. They are losing their jobs. They are 
wondering how to heat their homes next winter. They are losing their 
homes. This is a time for us to step up to the plate and demonstrate to 
the American people that we can do it. Frankly, we are experiencing a 
crisis in confidence in America, in a variety of institutions, not the 
least of which is Congress. People are not only despairing about their 
individual situations, they are also despairing about the inability of 
elected officials in our political institutions to address these 
problems. It is not so much that America has these problems, it is the 
question of our inability to address them and to reach across the 
political aisle.
  I hope we can find a way to extricate ourselves from this 
confrontational morass and not constantly engage in all-or-nothing 
politics and scoring political points, making it all about the 
election, and not live up to the expectations the people rightfully 
have of their elected officials and political institutions to address 
the mighty challenges confronting this Nation.
  Without question, we can and we must have answers to this national 
emergency. That is why I thought it would be an important step forward 
if the President convened an emergency energy summit. There are short-
term and long-term solutions. There are many pieces to the energy pie. 
The low-income energy assistance program is a critical aspect of that 
in terms of mitigating the impact on the most vulnerable in our 
society. We have an obligation, at a very minimum, to address that for 
these individuals. It is not their burden and it should not be; they 
should not have the responsibility of our failure to address the energy 
problem. That is why we need to double the funding for this critical 
program.
  Yes, we should pass legislation with respect to speculation. It is 
something most of us agree on. Why can't we do it? There are other 
aspects to energy policy we have failed to address. Everybody is 
agreeing we should extend the tax credit for renewables. So why haven't 
we done that? It should have been part of the stimulus package--and it 
was, to a point. But, regrettably, again, there were those who opposed 
it. Yet it could have very well been stimulative to this economy. It 
would have created up to 100,000 jobs. In Maine, we get $1.5 billion 
for wind projects, but we didn't extend the tax credits for renewables 
beyond this year. Why couldn't we do it? Everybody talks about it. Yet 
we failed to address that problem. We keep postponing, deferring, 
delaying, and denying that the problem exists. Yet this is something 
that could be readily accomplished.
  My constituents are looking into alternatives; for example, wood 
pellet stoves or other energy-efficient means of heating our homes. Yet 
the tax credits for those have expired. They expired at the end of last 
year. So they cannot even resort to that as an alternative because, 
regrettably, we have not extended that tax credit.
  The question is, Why? Why are we at an impasse on those issues upon 
which we agree? I think that is the most startling dimension to the 
problems facing this country--that in the Senate, where we should be 
taking and adopting the can-do approach, why can't we do the right 
thing and address this energy crisis? We all agree extending tax 
credits for renewables is something we should do. So why aren't we 
doing it? Because individuals or companies or entities aren't going to 
make investments in renewables if they don't have the assurance of tax 
credits. That is abundantly clear. They have no way of knowing how long 
or whether they are going to be extended. They are not going to put 
themselves on the line financially without the certainty of knowing 
they will be extended.
  Why are we not doing that? It will create jobs and, certainly, we 
need job creation in America, at a time when unemployment is rising at 
high levels.
  We should be concerned about creating jobs, and that is one 
dimension. We should be concerned about creating alternatives, creating 
incentives, inspiring innovation, entrepreneurial spirit. We should do 
all of that and more, and we hesitate and fail to take action on issues 
on which we agree, which is truly dismaying and disconcerting, most 
certainly to the American people who depend on us to take those 
measures and those steps that can begin to resolve effectively the 
problems that are at hand.
  We can do all of these things. We are certainly capable of doing 
them, unless we are stuck in the status quo and the gridlock that 
constantly is where we try to score the political points time and time 
again to no avail.
  I hope we can proceed and take action on this very basic social 
safety net program for the most vulnerable in our society and 
demonstrate that we do have the opportunity, these rare moments, to 
reach across the political aisle and proceed to double the funding for 
this program at this moment in time because, certainly, it is one 
program that is of immense value to the people of my State and 
throughout this country, and it is certainly at the very least, at the 
minimal, what we should be able to accomplish.
  I hope we can do more. I hope we can find the political wherewithal 
to search within ourselves to reach across the political aisle so the 
monkey wrenches

[[Page 16188]]

don't continue to grind down the deliberative process with polarization 
and partisanship that yields no achievements, no accomplishments, no 
opportunity, and provides no hope for the people we represent.
  The American people deserve more than what they are receiving today. 
Frankly, I cannot believe that we would adjourn for the August recess 
without addressing the energy crisis--this program, speculation, and 
much more. The American people do deserve to have a comprehensive 
approach. They do deserve to have their elected officials stay here as 
long as it takes, as much time as it requires for bold action that will 
be so essential and can measure it with the problems we are facing in 
this country today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I wish to start off by saying how much I 
agree with my distinguished colleague from Maine. I think the LIHEAP 
program is one that is essential. There is a real possibility if we do 
not deal with the LIHEAP program, fellow Americans across the landscape 
of this country will find themselves in the cold, literally and 
figuratively, and they will be in such a situation where they will have 
to make desperate choices in their lives.
  So this is something, among other things, on which we should be 
reaching across the aisle. As one Democratic Senator, I want the 
Senator from Maine to know that we are absolutely in agreement with 
her, and we believe this is essential to move forward.
  I appreciate her comments about coming to common ground and common 
cause on those things on which, in fact, we can agree. There is much, 
at least from listening to the speeches on the Senate floor, that, in 
fact, we supposedly can agree on. We see there are elements of the 
Republican package that deal with market speculation. That is the 
essence of the underlying bill we are debating. Let's come together on 
that. Let's come together on the renewable energy tax credit extenders, 
something that we began, that existed, and we need to extend if we want 
to get the marketplace not depending on oil, whether it be foreign or 
domestic. Let's agree on that. That is apparently something we can 
agree on from speeches I heard. We should come together in that 
respect.
  I heard conservation about using less. We agree on that issue. Let's 
come together on that. I agree with the Senator from Maine that while 
there may be differences, there are a lot of elements together that we 
do agree on, and if we can begin to move on those elements, maybe we 
could come to a point in which we could move forward on other items as 
well.
  But why not allow those things that ultimately can make a difference 
in the short term and in the long term for our collective constituents? 
When you are cold, it doesn't have a Republican or Democratic label to 
it. When you have to make a choice between a gallon of gas or putting a 
gallon of milk on the table, it doesn't have a Democratic or Republican 
label on it.
  I agree with the Senator from Maine. I am glad to have been on the 
floor to listen to her. She is a voice of reason, and I appreciate 
where she stands on these issues, and I agree with her. Hopefully, we 
can move in that direction.


                            Coastal Drilling

  Mr. President, I have come to the floor various times over the last 
couple of weeks to discuss opening our coastline to drilling. This is 
part of one of the marvelous beaches in New Jersey. You have to get off 
the New Jersey Turnpike to understand.
  I had some colleagues say: Why are you so fixated on this drilling 
issue? Isn't your State one big refining place? They obviously never 
got off the New Jersey Turnpike.
  If you get off the New Jersey Turnpike, you will see one of the most 
incredible parts of the United States coastline where not only millions 
of New Jerseyans go, which they consider a birthright, but people from 
throughout the region. Canadians come down and contribute to our 
economy because they want to go to the New Jersey shore.
  The Presiding Officer, the distinguished senior Senator from Florida, 
understands what that Florida coastline means to his State and his 
economy. That is why he has been such a vigorous voice on the floor of 
the Senate.
  Ever since I have been having to come down to the floor, ever since 
we have had these two oilmen in the White House, the Presidential 
candidate they support, and many on the other side of the aisle--not 
all but many on the other side of the aisle--have begun a very hard 
sell to the American people over an absurd notion that opening our 
coastlines to drilling will ever lower gas prices. They have grabbed on 
to a source of fear and frustration among American families, and there 
is no question that there is frustration and pain for our American 
families. But they are using that frustration and pain to pull a fast 
one on the American people.
  Exploitation of pain at the pump to grab more land to build up stock 
prices, that is what this is all about. They are using it to sell a 
plan that in reality will bring absolutely zero relief to Americans but 
instead represents one last great big handout to oil companies that are 
already making astronomically staggering profits.
  We just saw the beginning of that parade with ConocoPhillips, an 
incredible increase in profits. On one hand, you have American families 
who are getting absolutely slammed by high gas prices. On the other 
hand, you have oil companies counting their money, sitting on 68 
million acres of public land that are not being put to use and focusing 
way more on taking that money and using it on stock buybacks that 
ultimately drive up the value of their shares than exploration or 
innovation.
  It is not because I say that. Listen to what the President of the 
American Petroleum Institute said when he was asked: Why can't you 
create more production?
  He said: We don't have the infrastructure and the rigs and the drills 
and all the pipeline and everything that is necessary to create more 
production. He didn't say why. One of the reasons is they haven't been 
investing the money to do that.
  So all the suggestions to lift the moratoria and tomorrow out sprouts 
oil and, therefore, gasoline and prices plunge is simply not true. They 
cannot even pursue the 68 million acres, the extra area in the gulf, 
the extra area off the Outer Continental Shelf in Alaska that is not 
subject to any moratoria right now. They cannot even do that and 
haven't done it. What an incredible falsehood perpetuated on the 
American people. But I believe the American people know better.
  If we listen to these proposals, you would think--I have seen some of 
my colleagues shake the legislation and say: There is no oil in here. 
Guess what. There is no oil in their proposals either. That is really 
laughable.
  Who do our colleagues on the other side of the aisle choose to help? 
The oil companies have more money than the eye can see, and you don't 
even hear them talk about the oil companies. They never invoke their 
name unless it is to say: Oh, we need to give them more. We need to do 
more for them. We need to do everything for them. The average American 
wishes they were in the role of the oil companies--record profits, huge 
amounts of money. Let's give them more. Let's give them more.
  We never hear from our Republican friends talking about the oil 
companies having any responsibility--I am not saying the 
responsibility, any responsibility--for some of our lack of production. 
I have just heard one too many speeches that are apologies for the oil 
companies. Multibillion profits--I am not going to be an apologist for 
the oil companies.
  As we try to pass legislation to crack down on greedy oil speculation 
which could lower gas prices quicker than anything, they just say no, 
even though they include it as part of their proposals.
  Back at home, people who are hearing these debates say: They keep 
talking about speculation. I know what speculation generally means.
  What does it mean in the context to the average person? What it means 
is

[[Page 16189]]

traders buy huge quantities of oil online, many times intentionally 
inflating prices. They then turn around and sell those very orders to 
other traders at even higher prices. These traders never intend to use 
the oil. This is not a purchase of oil because they are going to 
ultimately use it in distribution in the country and make sure people 
have, for example, home heating oil or they are going to refine it and 
have gasoline. No, they use these constant trades bidding up the price 
so they can ultimately cash in.
  But who gets stuck with the bill every time we have to pay to fill 
our tanks and heat our homes? It is the American consumer.
  We Democrats want to do something about it. For those who keep 
saying--even though it is part of their plan--oh, no, this is really 
not a problem, let me read to you from an article that appeared today, 
July 25, in the New York Times:

       Firm said to manipulate oil market. Commodity regulators in 
     Washington have accused a Dutch trading company of making 
     roughly a million dollars in illegal profits by manipulating 
     the prices of crude oil, heating oil--

  What we are going to be using this winter--

     and gasoline--

  Over what period of time?

     over an 11 day period of time.

  One million dollars in 11 days in illegal profits. Oh, it is not a 
problem; speculation is not a problem.

       In audio tapes uncovered in their investigation, regulators 
     said one defendant described the scheme as an effort to 
     ``bully the market''--

  Bully the market--

     by making a large number of trades at or near the end of the 
     trading day to move closing prices.

  But this is a marketplace that cannot be bullied. Therefore, we don't 
need to do anything about the speculative nature and unbridled 
speculation. Well, guess what. One million dollars in 11 days, with 
their own voices saying that this is an effort to ``bully the market.'' 
Moreover, unlike many manipulation cases, this one accuses the 
defendants of actually succeeding in moving prices that were used as 
benchmarks for consumer markets--actually moving the benchmarks that 
are used for consumer markets, in essence, saying not only is it our 
intention to bully the market, but the regulators are saying yes, and 
they did bully the markets. They did bully the markets.
  Now, the complaint that was filed in the Federal District Court in 
Manhattan says at least two of those attempts resulted in, guess what, 
higher prices for gasoline and crude oil. But our Republican friends 
say: Oh, no, market manipulation and speculation isn't a problem. But 
here is only one example, and this has been a reluctant regulator to 
pursue this. When they have heard the speeches on the floor and they 
have heard this going on for some time now, all of a sudden we grab one 
of these companies, 11 days, $1 million, bullying the market and doing 
it successfully.
  That is why we need the legislation Senator Reid and the Democratic 
majority brought to the floor and that others only talk about, saying 
it is part of our package. Well, join us. Join us before more market 
speculation takes place.
  What are Democrats trying to do about it? We are trying to add 100 
new cops on the beat to the commission that oversees these traders. We 
are trying to create greater transparency, for the first time 
requiring--for the first time--detailed reporting of previously 
undisclosed trades. And oversight--stopping speculators from inflating 
oil prices by playing domestic and foreign markets off of each other.
  We had testimony before the Congress, sworn testimony, as a matter of 
fact--and it is not often we have sworn testimony--from oil company 
executives. They were challenged as to why we are having these high 
prices. You tell us, in fact, it is the demand and the supply side. We 
said we have heard a lot of talk about supply and demand, and that 
largely over the last 2 years they have traced each other pretty 
closely together. Well then, what is the issue? And what is their 
response, these very oil company executives? Their response is: market 
speculation. But no, we don't have to go after that. It is not one of 
the most important issues, something that can be done now. So they say 
no.
  I have to hand it to my colleagues for their political talent, to 
take an issue so vital to the daily lives of Americans and convince 
them they want to do something about it with a proposal that is more 
about oil company stock prices than gas prices. That is quite a feat, 
if you can pull it off. That is talent. But here is the problem. The 
facts always come out, and the facts ultimately always win.
  It has been tremendously important to me, as a Senator from New 
Jersey, to come down here and give the facts about coastline drilling. 
It is not just the facts about drilling and gas prices, although that 
is how they initially make their plan popular, it is also the facts 
about oil spills, which they say are virtually impossible with today's 
drilling technology, virtually impossible.
  That is exactly what they told us about the tanker industry that 
carries the oil. We don't have any rigs that I know of in the country, 
along the coastal waters of the United States, where there is drilling, 
that either don't have a pipeline system or don't ultimately have a 
vessel. And we were told: Don't worry about our tanker system. In fact, 
it is impossible to have any spills.
  This is what happened with that impossibility. Workers there are 
cleaning up after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound--a 
lot of oil there, obviously, a huge disaster. So if we could say that, 
and if it were true, that would surely be nice for the eastern and 
western coastlines of the United States. If it were true, in fact, that 
it is virtually impossible to have no spills, that surely would be nice 
for the $200 billion that our coasts generate each and every year in 
fishing and tourism revenues--$200 billion. And it surely would be nice 
if it were true for my home State of New Jersey and the millions of 
people who end up on the Jersey shore each summer and the half a 
million jobs in the State of New Jersey supported by the economy there 
between recreation, tourism, and the commercial and recreational 
fishermen.
  It surely would be nice if an oil spill off the coast of Virginia 
didn't have the potential to affect the coastline from South Carolina 
up to New York. That surely would be nice, if it were true. But the 
facts always come out, and at the end of the day, the facts always win.
  Earlier this month, the distinguished minority leader made this 
statement, echoed by several of his colleagues as part of their hard 
sell to the American people: ``Not a drop of oil was spilled during 
Katrina.'' Not a drop of oil. Well, that surely would be nice, if it 
were true. But the fact is, we can see here from this U.S. Coast Guard 
photo that was published in the Washington Post on July 14 of 2008 what 
was happening with this spill and how they were trying to burn the 
spill up in order to try to deal with the disaster. Oh, but not a drop 
of oil was spilled during Katrina. I guess this picture must be a 
fabrication of the Coast Guard.
  Last month Senator McCain said: ``Not even Hurricanes Katrina and 
Rita could cause significant spillage.'' Well, the same picture from 
the U.S. Coast Guard. That surely would be nice, if it were true. Last 
time I checked, 7.7 million gallons of oil is pretty significant, 
pretty significant.
  And then in the last 24 hours, there was a stroke of poetic justice. 
Senator McCain was ready to fly out to an oil platform in the Gulf of 
Mexico to stage a photo opportunity. He was ready to show how safe it 
is to drill for and transport oil these days. Nothing to worry about. 
Unfortunately, he should have known better, because the facts always 
come out, and the facts always win. Just as he was set to do this 
yesterday, there was an accident on the Mississippi near New Orleans in 
which a freighter rammed a barge and spilled 419,000 gallons of fuel 
oil. Next thing you know, the McCain photo-op was postponed. It seems 
they realized it is hard to make the case that oil drilling

[[Page 16190]]

and oil transportation is completely safe when there are 419,000 
gallons of oil floating around and washing up on the shore nearby.
  Of course, now his representatives are saying it was postponed 
because of the hurricane that hit the southern tip of Texas yesterday 
that this event was cancelled. I thought: Well, that might be a 
legitimate reason. But then I checked the National Weather Service 
forecast. And what did the National Weather Service's detailed forecast 
say, which I have right here--satellite images?
  The National Weather Service made the following forecast today for 
the Louisiana gulf coast: Partly cloudy. Scattered thunderstorms, 
mainly in the afternoon. Highs in the lower 90s. Southeast winds 5 to 
10 miles per hour. Chance of thunderstorms, 30 percent.
  I think the Presiding Officer has a pretty good sense that this is 
pretty tame weather conditions for this time of the year--certainly not 
hurricane weather.
  So if you look up ``irony'' in the dictionary, I think you will find 
possibly that it might describe cancelling an oil drilling photo-op 
because a massive nearby oil spill took place. Having to cancel your 
big oil drilling photo-op because of a massive oil spill is like 
cancelling a crime safety photo-op because the house next door got 
robbed. In selling this absurd coastline drilling plan to the American 
people, Senator McCain and others have time and time again pointed to 
advanced technology that would supposedly eliminate the threat of 
massive oil spills. Well, this is the oil fire after Katrina. As he can 
now personally attest to, even with the most modern technology, we 
can't prevent massive oil spills such as the one currently devastating 
the Mississippi, just as we couldn't prevent a 7.7 million gallon oil 
spill after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And that is the type of 
straight talk we need about oil drilling and the type of talk the 
American people need to hear and that they deserve.
  As to the claim that coastline drilling will lower gas prices, we 
know it simply won't. That is clear when we realize there are millions 
of acres already subject to oil exploration that aren't being pursued. 
In fact, the American Petroleum Institute president says: Well, we 
don't have the infrastructure and the rigs and the drills to pursue it. 
We can't do that overnight.
  We know we have reduced 800,000 barrels a day in demand because of 
high gas prices. The Saudis have produced 500,000 barrels a day in 
extra production--a 1.3 million barrel a day shift in barrels of oil--
and yet gas prices have done what? They have gone up. We opened the 
gulf--181--and gas prices have gone up.
  So if 1.3 million barrels in either reduced demand or increased 
production haven't done anything about gas prices, imagine the very 
large sum of 200,000 barrels in the year 2030 at this risk. If 1.3 
million barrels can't do it, how does 200,000 do it, and yet accept 
this risk? Accept this risk to this environment and to the $200 billion 
that is generated by the coasts of the east and west.
  And, by the way, that 200,000 would mean that every State would have 
to agree, assuming we would give States an option, and we have already 
heard the Governor of California say: No way. They are one of the 
biggest parts of the coastline. I doubt you will get Oregon and 
Washington in that respect. We have heard some of their distinguished 
colleagues say that is not going to happen. New Jersey won't do it. So 
by the time you are finished, you are nowhere near even the 200,000.
  Now, what is it we can do? Well, I agree with the comments of the 
distinguished Senator from Maine, who said: Let's do what is possible 
and what we agree to. And what is possible and what we agree to is very 
significant.
  The Republicans say they are for a renewable energy source, and are 
providing the tax credits that existed and expired and should be 
brought back to life. They say they are for that. Well, they have said 
``no'' twice, though. Twice we have brought that forward, and twice 
they have said ``no.''
  The fact is that passing the tax credit extenders would create the 
incentives that are necessary to move us in a direction in which oil is 
not the issue, and risking the coastlines and the $200 billion economy 
is not the issue, and where we could do things in a tighter timeframe 
and better timeframe than the year 2030. That would move us toward 
renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, biomass, and cellulosic 
ethanol, plug-in hybrids, which are critical. All of these things would 
move us in a direction long before 2030, which is when all of this 
production would take place, if it takes place.
  We supposedly agree on moving forward on that, but our Republican 
friends have said ``no'' twice. Republicans say that speculation is 
part of their package. I talked about that earlier. We saw already one 
company being pursued--$1 million, 11 days, bullying the market and 
succeeding in doing it. Well, it is time to move on speculation. Yet 
that is the very essence of the underlying bill. We can't seem to get 
them to agree on that. Most of the speeches I have been hearing is that 
they pooh-pooh speculation. When it made a difference in oil and gas 
prices, as that case suggests, I would simply say that is certainly not 
anything to be pooh-poohed. It is real and it is consequential, and 
even the testimony of the oil company executives says it could produce 
anywhere up to $50 per barrel more.
  Republicans say that conservation is part of their package. We agree. 
So why not join us in that respect as well, with the conservation 
proposals we have put forward?
  There are three very significant areas: renewable energy tax credits, 
speculation, conservation. Let's move forward. But instead, what we 
have is a series of noes. Then we have 18 amendments filed by 
Republicans, all to do what? To open the coastline of our country, 
which, as I have already discussed, will not achieve anything. But do 
you need 18 different amendments even to pursue what you think is an 
appropriate energy policy to open the coastline to drilling, to risk 
the consequences of this? OK, the majority leader said: Go ahead, we 
will give you an amendment. But you cannot take yes for an answer. We 
have to have 18 different amendments to do virtually the same thing.
  You can repeat a big lie over and over. We have seen that in the 
history of the world, that you can take something that is not quite 
true, repeat it over and over, and try to give it the life it otherwise 
does not deserve--try to make it true. But saying it over and over 
doesn't make it true, saying over and over that drilling is the 
panacea, the solution to bring down gas prices.
  The way I hear it, I hear: Pass the legislation, have the President 
sign it, tomorrow oil sprouts up, gas gets made, prices go down. I give 
a lot more credit to the American people than that.
  The truth, crushed down to the floor, springs back up. The truth is 
that, in fact, we have the wherewithal to move our country in a much 
different direction. It is the can-do spirit of America. It is the 
pioneer spirit of America. It is the spirit that gets going--the tough 
get going when the going gets tough. That is the spirit we have. That 
is the spirit we should pursue. That is the renewable energy from tax 
credits. That is the conservation. That is stopping the speculation in 
the marketplace. That is ensuring that, in fact, we move to necessary 
renewable energy sources. That makes for a great America, a new 
economy--and do something about global warming all at the same time 
that we deal with the challenges of gas prices in the short term and 
liberate ourselves in the long term. That is what the debate is all 
about.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. MENENDEZ. I will be happy to yield.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. The Senator has given an excellent exposition 
and debunking of a number of these myths. As to his recitation 
debunking the statements made by a number of Senators on this floor 
that there was no oilspill in the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane 
Katrina and Hurricane Rita, I want to ask the Senator whether he

[[Page 16191]]

had seen this particular report from the White House, ``The Federal 
Response to Hurricane Katrina, Lessons Learned,'' February of 2006, 
after Katrina, in August of 2005.
  I want to find out whether the Senator had seen this report:

       In fact, Hurricane Katrina caused at least 10 oil spills 
     releasing the same quantity of oil as some of the worst oil 
     spills in U.S. history. Louisiana reported at least six major 
     spills of over 100,000 gallons and four medium spills of over 
     10,000 gallons. All told, more than 7.4 million gallons 
     poured into the Gulf Coast region's waterways, over two-
     thirds of the amount that spilled out during America's worst 
     oil disaster, the rupturing of the Exxon Valdez tanker off 
     the Alaskan coast in 1989.

  That is the end of the quote from the very report on Katrina from the 
White House. Has the Senator seen that report?
  Mr. MENENDEZ. I have. I appreciate the distinguished Senator from 
Florida pointing it out. The words are powerful because there it is not 
a Member of the Senate saying this, not a Democrat saying this. This is 
the official report. I have used the pictures because a picture speaks 
better than a thousand words, and you cannot deny it as you cannot deny 
the report. The fact is that we had massive oilspills after Katrina and 
Rita.
  This is a Coast Guard picture. That is the reality. The fact is, we 
were told we have the most highly technologically advanced--it is 
impossible to have any spills as a result of tankers.
  The Exxon Valdez.
  It simply is not true to suggest that there was not. How is it that 
it has been quoted here--

       Not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause 
     significant spillage . . .

  At least that says ``significant spillage.''

       Not a drop of oil was spilled during Katrina . . .

  It is pretty tough to say that not a drop of oil was spilled during 
Katrina. This is why we have to be so cautious about risking the 
coastlines, the economy, the environment, when it will not produce a 
drop of oil for over a decade, it will not do anything about gas prices 
now or in the future, but can create an enormous consequence.
  We need to be honest with the American people, and I hope this 
opportunity to get to the floor and talk about some of the facts and 
show some of the photos from the Coast Guard will make it very clear.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sanders). The Senator from Pennsylvania is 
recognized.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, this is an unusual day in the Senate. I 
have been in this body for a while. I have never seen the floor so 
crowded. I have sought, since early morning, to find a little floor 
time and have waited more than an hour at the present time, past the 
time I was scheduled to speak. I am glad to listen.
  I am beginning, on my consideration of the pending legislation, the 
energy speculation bill, to note what is happening on the Senate floor. 
There has been a lot of talk, a lot of talk in the Senate for the last 
4 days, and really no action--only one vote on Tuesday morning on a 
procedural matter to invoke cloture to proceed to the consideration of 
the bill. What has happened? We have been talking a great deal but not 
considering anything which would advance an energy policy for the 
United States.
  We are engaged in a process which is a little difficult to 
understand, but I think it is important for the American people to know 
what is happening. A procedure has been utilized recently--the past 
couple of decades--where the majority leader exercises his rights as 
leader to take a procedural step which precludes anybody from offering 
amendments to the bill.
  This is an opportunity. The Senate Chamber is empty, which it is 
frequently, certainly past 7 o'clock on a Thursday evening, but it is 
very hard to convey this information so that people would understand 
why no action is being taken in the Senate. There is no doubt that it 
is a do-nothing Senate and has been for some time as a result of 
political gridlock. That is why the ratings of the Senate have 
plummeted.
  We have a situation which really started to percolate back in 1992, 
and it has been a practice of both Democrats and Republicans. 
Customarily--really invariably--when there is political blame in this 
body, it is attributable to both political parties. You can divide it 
right down the center aisle, and it is evenly split. But this procedure 
to preclude amendments is of fairly recent origin.
  In the 101st Congress of 1989 to 1990, where Senator Mitchell was the 
leader, he did not use this procedure on any occasion. But by the 103rd 
Congress, 1993 to 1994, Senator Mitchell employed it on nine occasions. 
Then it was picked up in the Republican tenure of Senator Lott in the 
106th Congress, in 1999 to 2000, when Senator Lott used it nine times. 
Then, in the 109th Congress, 2005 to 2006, Senator Frist, the majority 
leader, used it nine times. In this Congress, the 110th, 2007 and 
partly through 2008, Senator Reid has used it 13 times.
  What does this mean so that it can be understood by the American 
people who have such a vital interest in having the Senate function? 
Let me illustrate it with a bill on climate change which was called up 
in June of this year.
  As soon as the bill was called up, Senator Reid exercised his rights 
as leader to get first recognition. In the Senate, Senators are 
recognized in terms of who first seeks recognition, but in case of a 
tie it goes to the leader. He then offers an amendment and then another 
amendment so that procedurally no other of the 99 Senators can offer 
any amendment.
  The global warming bill was a very important bill. There has been a 
demand to deal with this issue which poses great threats to our 
environment. There was legislation pending, legislation which Senator 
Bingaman and I had introduced, the Bingaman-Specter bill, legislation 
introduced by Senator Lieberman and Senator Warner on a very complex 
subject.
  Early in the week of June 2, I came to the floor and spoke about some 
amendments which I wanted to offer. I wanted to offer an amendment on 
emission caps. I wanted to offer another amendment on cost-containment 
safety valve--a price cap. I wanted to offer a third amendment on 
energy-intensive manufacturing competitiveness and a fourth amendment 
on steel process gas emissions. Of course, that was only one Senator, 
at the beginning of what I wanted to have considered. But I was 
foreclosed from offering any of those amendments by the procedure which 
Senator Reid used to fill the tree.
  Then Senator Reid moved for what is called cloture; that means to cut 
off debate in order to proceed to final passage of the bill.
  I wanted to consider the global warming issue, but I certainly was 
not about to agree to cutting off debate and proceeding to final 
passage before I or others had had an opportunity to offer amendments.
  Now, what happens as a result? The result is that Republicans 
complain about what Senator Reid has done on precluding amendments, and 
Senator Reid complains about it being another Republican filibuster in 
response to the Republican's inability to offer amendments.
  So there is finger-pointing. That is what we are really good at these 
days. And the American people do not understand anything except that 
nothing is being done. Now, we have had consideration this week on a 
bill called the energy speculation bill. We all wonder why the cost of 
oil has gone through the roof, causing gasoline prices of more than $4 
a gallon.
  There is no doubt about the anguish and difficulties that the 
American people are suffering as a result of these costs, of these 
prices. And there is concern about the speculators who may be involved. 
Maybe they are. There are some indicators that part of the problem is 
caused by speculation.
  Well, we haven't dealt with the issue in a logical, factual way; that 
is, for Senators to come to the floor and address the substance of the 
bill which is pending or offer amendments to modify the bill which is 
pending.
  Now, Senator Reid, the majority leader, has followed the same course 
of

[[Page 16192]]

action. He has filed cloture. We are going to have a cloture vote 
tomorrow. It takes 60 votes for cloture to cut off debate. It will not 
happen. When the motion for cloture fails, Senator Reid is going to go 
to his podium over there, and he is going to blast the Republicans for 
shutting down the bill at a time when the American people need relief, 
at a time when the American people need a decision as to what the 
speculators are doing.
  I want to offer an amendment on bringing OPEC within our antitrust 
laws; something that I have been pushing for years. Right now, the OPEC 
combine has an exemption under our antitrust laws. The OPEC nations get 
into a room, they decide how much the production is going to be, they 
limit supply, and the price of oil goes up.
  They have what is called sovereign immunity. Well, they ought not to 
have it. The Congress of the United States has the authority to change 
that. We can bring them within our antitrust laws so that the Attorney 
General can take action against them.
  They are subject to jurisdiction in the United States because they do 
business here, and they have a lot of assets here. If we brought OPEC 
within our antitrust laws, you would see a change in their policy. They 
have argued for a long time--Saudi Arabia--that they cannot have any 
greater production. But about a month ago, when there were some signs 
of change in our consumption of oil, some fear that their preeminent 
position in their monopoly was in some jeopardy, somehow they increased 
their production.
  If they increase their production, if the supply goes up, prices will 
come down--the inexorable law of supply and demand, one of the few laws 
that works.
  So here we are, with an enormously serious problem with what is 
happening with the issue of oil prices and gasoline prices, and here we 
have a bill on the floor which addresses an issue of grave concern to 
the American people, and my hands are tied. My hands are tied with 99 
other Senators because procedurally we are blocked.
  Then the next move is going to be to invoke cloture. It is not going 
to be invoked. Debate is not going to be cut off; 60 votes will not be 
received. Then the majority leader will remove the bill from the floor, 
and he is going to blame Republicans for obstructing, and the American 
people are not going to have any opportunity to understand what went 
on, except for the few who were watching on C-SPAN.
  I made this speech during the consideration of the global warming 
bill. There was not a word in the newspapers about it. Why? Well, it is 
too complicated. It is too arcane. It is too ``inside the beltway.'' 
But until the American people understand it and send a message to 
Washington that they are not going to tolerate it, we are going to have 
to continue to have this gridlock.
  When the shoe was on the other foot and Republicans controlled the 
Senate, during the time when Senator Frist was the majority leader, he 
invoked this procedure on nine occasions. Senator Reid and the 
Democrats were very unhappy about it, as well as Senator Durbin and 
Senator Dodd.
  This is what Senator Dodd had to say about it:

       This chamber historically is the place where debate occurs.

  And what Senator Dodd is referring to is that the Senate, unlike the 
House of Representatives, Senators have been able to offer any 
amendment on any subject at any time. And that is one of the great 
beauties about the Senate because any one of us can bring up an issue 
and call the attention of the American people to it, and with 
sufficient public backing, sufficient newspaper coverage, radio, TV, a 
little broader than C-SPAN2, there can be some action. But that has 
been foreclosed.
  Senator Dodd was very emphatic about it back on May 11, 2006, when 
the Republican leader, Senator First, had filled the tree. Senator Dodd 
had this to say:

       To basically lock out any amendments that might be offered 
     to this proposal runs contrary to the very essence of this 
     body. When the amendment tree has been entirely filled--

  He called it filling the tree when the procedure is used--

     when the amendment tree has been entirely filled, obviously 
     we are dealing with a process that ought not to be. The 
     Senate ought to be a place where we can offer amendments, 
     have healthy debate over a reasonable time, and then come to 
     closure on the subject matter.

  Well, what did Senator Reid have to say about this subject on March 
2, 2006, when we were debating the PATRIOT Act? Senator Reid said:

       Do not fill the tree. That is a bad way, in my opinion, to 
     run this Senate.

  What did Senator Reid have to say about the subject on February 28, 
2006, on the PATRIOT Act reauthorization, speaking about filling the 
tree.

       This is a very bad practice. It runs against the basic 
     nature of the Senate. The hallmark of the Senate is free 
     speech and open debate.

  What did Senator Durbin have to say about it, the assistant majority 
leader for the Democrats, on May 11, 2006, when the Republican majority 
leader had filled the tree and precluded amendments?

       The Republican majority brings a bill to the Senate, fills 
     the tree so no amendments can be offered, and then files 
     cloture which stops debate; we cannot offer amendments.

  So Senator Durbin outlines it as I did: The Republican majority 
leader fills the tree and then files cloture. Well, cloture was not 
adopted, and then these important issues are not considered and the 
American people wonder what is going on.
  Well, I have taken a little longer to explain the subject, but it is 
very hard to get it across. I am going to keep trying. I have acted 
within the Senate to try to get the rule changed. A year and a half 
ago, I filed a rule amendment to try to get the rule changed. On 
February 15, 2007, I introduced S. Res. 83, and so far, I have not been 
able to get an answer from the chairman of the Rules Committee about 
what action she intends to take.
  I might say to my colleague from Washington that I have been waiting 
an hour. I have limited time. But I am always a little wary when I see 
a colleague waiting. But there are some other subjects I want to talk 
about, so I want to give you some advance notice.
  May the record show that Senator Murray has graciously given me a 
hand signal, sort of like the Patriots used in the Jets game, a hand 
signal, understanding that I am going to talk a little more. I will try 
to be brief, but there are some subjects I do want to address.


                                  Iran

  I am very encouraged by what the administration has done as noted in 
the Washington Post within the past few days. The President has sent 
his first high-level emissary to sit down with Iran and has agreed for 
the first time to set a time horizon for withdrawing troops from Iraq 
and has authorized the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, to join 
the North Korean diplomats at the Six Party talks about ending that 
country's nuclear weapons program.
  I would urge the President, in the course of these talks, to exercise 
flexibility in the dealings with Iran. There is no doubt that on the 
international scene the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon 
is the most serious international threat there is in the world today. 
No doubt about that. It is intolerable for Iran to have a nuclear 
weapon when its President talks about wiping Israel off the face of the 
Earth. And when Iran flouts international law by supporting 
international terrorists, no doubt about the threat that would pose.
  It has been my urging of the administration that the United States 
not impose a precondition on the talks. The object of the talks is to 
stop Iran from continuing to process nuclear weapons and to abandon 
their effort to get nuclear weapons. They should stop their activities 
on processing uranium.
  It seems to me where the object of the talks is to stop Iran from 
processing nuclear materials, that ought not to be a precondition of 
the talks. It is very difficult to go to a sovereign nation, it seems 
to me, and say: Before we begin the talks, we want you to

[[Page 16193]]

have a freeze on processing nuclear materials, which is the object of 
our talks.
  We have to approach anybody in any situation with a certain amount of 
dignity, with a certain amount of understanding about the other 
person's position, if we are to find some way to solve the problem. The 
administration talks about a freeze for freeze, but the freezes are 
very different. The freeze demanded by Iran is for them to stop a 
process which they have been engaged in, which they have asserted they 
have a right to as a sovereign nation. We don't like what they are 
doing. If they become a sufficient threat under the U.N. charter, 
article 51, there are circumstances where the threat is sufficiently 
imminent to take preemptive action. We all hope we never get to that 
stage. But until you have that situation, they are a sovereign nation, 
and they are engaging in activities which sovereign nations do.
  The freeze we are offering is a freeze to not impose sanctions to 
take negative action against Iran. It is the projection of the six 
powers, led by the United States, that we have suggestions to make to 
Iran on a package of economic, political, a variety of incentives to 
stop Iran from processing nuclear material. It seems to me the best way 
to get on with it is to start to discuss with Iran what we have to 
offer specifically, to see if what we have to offer will be sufficient 
on the talks or to engage in the discussions and in the negotiations. 
We do know that notwithstanding the grave difficulties in dealing with 
North Korea, that when the United States was willing to engage in 
bilateral talks with North Korea, we made some progress. We thought the 
North Korean leadership was impossible, but we were able to work 
through it.
  Similarly, in dealing with Libya and Qadhafi, we were able to work 
out an arrangement where Libya, Qadhafi, stopped the development of 
nuclear weapons. Qadhafi is the greatest terrorist in the history of 
the world; with very heavy competition, the greatest terrorist in the 
history of the world. He blew up Pan Am 103. It was proved that he did 
it. He made reparations to the passengers. He blew up a discotheque in 
Germany, killed American soldiers. Yet through discussions, through 
talks, he has been brought back into the so-called family of nations. 
Libya has a seat on the Security Council. It is hard for me, frankly, 
to understand how we have gone that far with Libya, but that goes to 
show how far we can go.
  As these talks proceed, it would be my hope the United States would 
show flexibility. When the Secretary of State talks about their having 
2 weeks to respond, I don't think that is the way negotiators deal in 
putting on time limits. Iran responded, apparently, according to the 
media reports, with a long written statement which was not 
understandable. But they have quite a number of points which they want 
to make. I have had the opportunity, and have discussed this on the 
Senate floor at some length, of having a number of discussions with the 
current Iranian Ambassador to the U.N. and the previous two 
Ambassadors. There are people from Iran whom you can talk to in a 
sensible way. But a demand on a precondition that they stop processing 
nuclear material, which is the object of the talks, seems to me to be 
totally counterproductive.
  I have raised these issues at some considerable length over the 
course of the past year and a half, going back to an appropriations 
hearing on February 27, 2007, when Secretary of State Rice was before 
the committee, posing the issue with her as to why the precondition. I 
had an extensive discussion with her, similarly, with Secretary of 
Defense Gates, in hearings before the Department of Defense 
Appropriations Subcommittee. It is worth noting that when Secretary of 
Defense Gates was on the Commission evaluating United States-Iranian 
relations, he was a party to recommending discussions with Iran. These 
discussions, these lines of questioning and responses are lengthy.
  I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the statement be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       Statement of Senator Arlen Specter, U.S.-Iranian Relations

       Mr. President. I have sought recognition to compliment 
     President Bush and Secretary Rice on their initiative to 
     dispatch Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs 
     William Burns to meet directly with Iranian officials this 
     past weekend in Geneva, Switzerland.
       On Saturday, July 19, Secretary Burns joined 
     representatives of Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, 
     Germany and the European Union in negotiations with Iran's 
     chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, over Iran's nuclear program. 
     This was one of the highest level meetings between a 
     representative of the U.S. and Iran since the American 
     Embassy was seized in Tehran in 1979, and represents the 
     highest level of American engagement with Tehran during the 
     Bush administration's tenure.
       The meeting followed a June 12, 2008 letter from Secretary 
     Rice, European Union foreign minister Javier Solana, and the 
     foreign ministers of China, France, Germany, Russia, and the 
     United Kingdom to Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki 
     outlining a new set of incentives to encourage Iran to stop 
     enriching uranium. The letter proposed that the six world 
     powers ``will refrain from any new action in the Security 
     Council,'' while Iran ``will refrain from any new nuclear 
     activity, including the installation of any new 
     centrifuges.'' The formula was called ``freeze-for-freeze.'' 
     The letter and accompanying proposal was notable in that it 
     concentrated on incentives rather than proposing new punitive 
     measures.
       I spoke with Secretary Burns this week who briefed me on 
     the meeting. While I will not detail our conversation, I 
     commended Secretary Burns for his efforts.
       The Administration has long held they would not sit down 
     with the Iranians prior to them agreeing to suspend their 
     nuclear activities. The meeting this weekend at Geneva's City 
     Hall represents a welcomed flexibility in that policy--a 
     flexibility I strongly support and hope will continue.
       I have consistently, both publically and privately, urged 
     President Bush, Secretary Rice and Secretary Gates, for the 
     U.S. to have direct talks with the Iranians without 
     preconditions.
       During the May 20, 2008 hearing before the Defense 
     Appropriations Subcommittee, I made the following statement: 
     ``I would like to focus on the future and most specifically 
     on Iran and on the critical issue of talks with Iran and 
     whether talking with Iran is really feasible. We have seen 
     our talks with North Korea bear fruition. We have seen the 
     talks with Libya--Qadhafi--bear fruition. Qadhafi, arguably 
     the worst terrorist in the history of the world in a very 
     tough competition with Pan Am 103 and the bombing of the 
     Berlin discotheque, and yet he has given up his nuclear 
     weapons.'' I further stated, ``We have seen the president's 
     comment about appeasement of terrorists, but if we do not 
     have dialogue with Iran, at least in one man's opinion, we're 
     missing a great opportunity to avoid a future conflict.''
       This hearing afforded me the opportunity to engage 
     Secretary Gates on the matter. It is important to note that 
     Secretary Gates, prior to his tenure at the Department of 
     Defense, co-chaired a Council on Foreign Relations task force 
     which concluded, ``it is in the interests of the United 
     States to engage selectively with Iran to promote regional 
     stability, dissuade Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons, 
     preserve reliable energy supplies, reduce the threat of 
     terror, and address the `democracy deficit' that pervades the 
     Middle East as a whole.'' When asked about dialogue and Iran 
     in a questionnaire submitted by members of the Armed Services 
     Committee, Secretary Gates responded that, ``no option that 
     could potentially benefit U.S. policy should be off the 
     table'' and noted that ``in the worst days of the cold war 
     the U.S. maintained a dialogue with the Soviet Union and 
     China.''
       Picking up on Secretary Gates' comments about the Soviet 
     Union, I discussed the applicability to Iran:
       ``Secretary Gates, we have seen that President Reagan 
     identified the Soviet Union as the `evil empire' and shortly 
     thereafter engaged in direct bilateral negotiations and very, 
     very successfully. As noted before, we have seen President 
     Bush authorize bilateral talks with North Korea, as well as 
     multilateral talks, which produced results. As noted with 
     Libya, on Gadhafi, the talks have produced very positive 
     results. I note that there have been three rounds of 
     bilateral talks where United States Ambassador Crocker has 
     had direct contact with Iranian Ambassador Qomi. So we are 
     not really saying, in practice, that we will not talk to 
     them. The question is to what extent will we talk? I'm very 
     much encouraged, Mr. Secretary, by the statement you made on 
     May 14th of this year that, ``We need to figure out a way to 
     develop some leverage and then sit down and talk with them. 
     If there is to be a discussion then they need something too. 
     We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander 
     with them not feeling that they need anything from us.''
       Continuing with Secretary Gates, I said, ``Now the position 
     taken by the Secretary of

[[Page 16194]]

     State has been `we won't talk to Iran unless, as a 
     precondition, they stop enriching Uranium.' It seems to me 
     that it is unrealistic to try to have discussions but to say 
     to the opposite party, `as a precondition to discussions we 
     want the principal concession that we're after.' Do you think 
     it made sense to insist on a concession like stopping 
     enriching Uranium, which is what our ultimate objective is, 
     before we even sit down and talk to them on a broader range 
     of issues?''
       I further questioned, ``Isn't it sensible to engage in 
     discussion with somebody to try to find out what it is they 
     are after? We sit apart from them and we speculate. We have 
     all of these learned op-ed pieces and speeches made and we're 
     searching for leverage. But wouldn't it make sense to talk to 
     the Iranians and try to find out what they need as at least 
     one step on the process? We only have one government to deal 
     with. Let me put it to you very bluntly, Mr. Secretary: is 
     President Bush correct when he says that it is appeasement to 
     talk to Iran?''
       Secretary Gates responded, ``Well, I don't know--I don't 
     know exactly what the president said. I believe he said it 
     was appeasement to talk to terrorists, to negotiate with 
     terrorists . . .''
       I interjected, ``He said in his May 15 address to the 
     members of the Knesset he said, `some seem to believe that we 
     should negotiate with terrorists and radicals.' He does not 
     say specifically Iran, but I think the inference is 
     unmistakable in light of the entire policy of the 
     administration.''
       I concluded by telling Secretary Gates, ``I've had an 
     opportunity to talk to the President about it directly, and I 
     believe he needs to hear more from people like you than 
     people like me, but from both of us and that it's not 
     appeasement and that the analogy to Neville Chamberlain is 
     wrong. We've only got one government to deal with there, and 
     they were receptive in 2003. I've had a chance to talk to the 
     last three Iranian ambassadors to the U.N. and I think there 
     is an opportunity for dialogue. I think we have to be a 
     little courageous about it and take a chance because the 
     alternatives are very, very, very bleak.''
       A month prior to my engagement with Secretary Gates, I 
     posed a similar question to Secretary Rice during the April 
     9, 2008 Foreign Operations Subcommittee hearing:
       I told Secretary Rice, ``I want to visit with you a couple 
     of subjects that you and I have talked about extensively both 
     on and off the record, and that is the Iranian issue and 
     later the Syrian issue. We have talked about the initiative 
     of 2003, which has been confirmed by a number of people in 
     the administration, on Iran's effort to initiate bilateral 
     talks with the United States. And I have discussed this with 
     you urging you to do so. We all know that among the many 
     pressing problems the United States faces, none is more 
     important than our relation with Iran and the threat of Iran 
     getting a nuclear weapon. And the multilateral talks and the 
     sanctions in the United Nations are very, very important. But 
     I would again take up and urge the bilateral talks. You were 
     successful on the bilateral talks with North Korea in 
     structuring an agreement. There had to be multilateral talks 
     with China involved and Japan and South Korea and other 
     nations. But Madam Secretary, in the waning days of the 
     administration, in light of the intensity of the problems, 
     why not use the approach taken in North Korea and engage Iran 
     in bilateral talks to try to find some way of coming together 
     with them on the critical issue of their building a nuclear 
     weapon?''
       Secretary Rice responded, ``Senator, I think we've made 
     clear that we don't have a problem with the idea of talking 
     to the Iranians. I said at one point in a recent speech that 
     we don't have any permanent enemies, so we don't--''
       I told Secretary Rice I was referring to dialogue, ``but 
     without preconditions.''
       Secretary Rice replied, ``But I think the problem of doing 
     this, and we do talk with North Korea bilaterally but, of 
     course, in the context of a six-party framework, and we have 
     a six-party framework really for Iran. The reason that the 
     precondition is there--and it's not just an American 
     precondition, it is one that the Europeans set well before we 
     entered this six-party arrangement some two years ago--it's 
     to not allow the Iranians to continue to improve their 
     capabilities while using negotiations as a cover. They have 
     only one thing to do, which is to suspend their enrichment 
     and reprocessing efforts, and then everybody will talk to 
     them. And I've been clear that we're prepared to talk to them 
     about anything, not just about their nuclear.''
       I followed up with Secretary Rice, ``They don't need talks 
     to have a cover to proceed with whatever it is they're doing. 
     They're proceeding with that now. I've had some experience. I 
     haven't been secretary of State and I haven't been in the 
     State Department, but I've been on this committee--
     subcommittee for 28 years and chaired the Intelligence 
     Committee, talked to many foreign leaders, and frankly, I 
     think it's insulting to go to another person or another 
     country and say we're not going to talk to you unless you 
     agree to something in advance. What we want them to do is 
     stop enriching uranium. That's the object of the talks. How 
     can we insist on their agreeing to the object that we want as 
     a precondition to having the talks?''
       Secretary Rice replied, ``Well, Senator, we've not told 
     them that we--the talks would be in fact about how to get 
     Iran civil nuclear energy and a whole host of other trade and 
     political benefits, by the way, because the package that the 
     six parties have put forward is actually very favorable to 
     Iran. But they do need to stop--suspend until those talks can 
     begin and those talks can have some substance. They need to 
     stop doing what they're doing, because to allow them to just 
     continue to do it, to say well, we're in negotiations while 
     they continue to do it, I think sends the wrong signal to 
     them and frankly would erode our ability to continue the kind 
     of efforts at sanctions that we're also engaged in.''
       On February 27, 2007, I questioned Secretary Rice when she 
     appeared before the Appropriations Committee. I stated that, 
     ``It would be my hope, as you know from our correspondence in 
     the past and our discussion, that there would be more intense 
     one on one negotiations with the Iranians. . . . And the most 
     famous illustration is President Nixon going to China--used 
     really as an example. If that can be done, that's the way to 
     do it.'' While Undersecretary Burns' recent meeting is not of 
     the same magnitude, it still represents a step in the right 
     direction and perhaps is the initial building block or 
     stepping stone to enhanced bilateral discussions.
       Perhaps one of the best opportunities to engage in serious 
     dialogue with Iran came during 2003. Press reports have 
     suggested the existence a document that was passed to the 
     United States through the Swiss Ambassador to Iran and later 
     rejected by the Administration. The document laid out issues 
     for the U.S. and Iran to discuss and parameters for dialogue.
       Knowledge of the memorandum existed in the State Department 
     and the National Security Council. However, according to 
     Michael Hirsh of the Washington Post, the memorandum ``was 
     ignored.''
       During my May 20, 2008 questioning of Secretary Gates, he 
     appeared to allude to the fact that the U.S. may have missed 
     an opportunity following the 2003 memorandum. I asked 
     Secretary Gates, ``Mr. Secretary, we had leverage in 2003 
     when we were successful in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the 
     record is pretty clear that we wasted an opportunity to 
     respond to their initiatives.'' Secretary Gates stated, ``I 
     think it was one of the things [Khatami's tenure as 
     President] that created perhaps an opportunity that may or 
     may not have been lost in 2003 and 2004.''
       While I believe it is clear that an opportunity to engage 
     Iran was lost in 2003, I agree with Secretary Gates that we 
     need to find ways to generate leverage in dealing with Iran 
     and need to continue to work on a resolution. One proposal 
     which I find promising is the Russian proposal to enrich 
     uranium for Iran's civil nuclear program. It would provide 
     Tehran with the nuclear power it claims is the sole intention 
     of its nuclear program, but would prevent Iran from turning 
     the lowly enriched uranium needed for civil nuclear reactors 
     to the highly enriched uranium needed for nuclear weapons.
       During the April 9, 2008 Foreign Operations Subcommittee 
     hearing I raised this issue with Secretary Rice, ``Let me 
     move to another subject, and that is President Putin's 
     proposal to have the Russians enrich their uranium. . . . To 
     what extent has the Putin proposal been pressed? In a sense, 
     if we join with Putin and they refuse what is really a good 
     offer to have somebody else enrich their uranium so they have 
     it for peaceful purposes, but there is a check on using it 
     for military purposes--why hasn't that worked?''
       Secretary Rice responded, ``Well, we are fully supportive 
     of it, and the president just told President Putin that again 
     at Shchuchye, that he is fully supportive of the Russian 
     proposal. And in fact, not only did President Putin himself 
     put that proposal to the Iranians when he was in Tehran, his 
     foreign minister went back within a few days and put the same 
     proposition to the Iranians, which makes people suspicious, 
     Senator, that this is not about civil nuclear power but 
     rather about the development of the capabilities for a 
     nuclear weapon . . . Not only did we support the Russians in 
     making their offer, but when the Russians decided to go ahead 
     and shift the fuel for Bushehr saying to the Iranians now 
     that we've shipped the fuel, you certainly have no reason to 
     enrich, we supported that effort too. So I think this really 
     speaks to the intentions of the Iranians.''
       I concurred with Secretary Rice, but urged her to press 
     this idea at the highest levels: ``My suggestion would be to 
     try to elevate it. It's been in the media and the press a 
     little, but not very much. So if we could elevate that, I 
     think you'd really put Iran on the spot that they deserve to 
     be on.'' Secretary Rice responded favorably to the 
     suggestion: ``It's a very good idea, Senator. We'll try to do 
     that.''
       I have engaged senior Administration officials in meetings, 
     phone conversations and via letters on the Iranian issue. On 
     January 14, 2007, I met Secretary Rice in her office and 
     urged her to undertake an aggressive diplomatic initiative in 
     the Middle East and to engage all regional actors including 
     Iran. One month later during her February 27, 2007

[[Page 16195]]

     testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, she 
     announced an initiative to enhance regional engagement. When 
     I spoke to Secretary Rice via phone on August 14, 2007, she 
     indicated there had been no significant movement on this 
     front. After learning of the lackluster progress, I wrote to 
     Secretary Rice that, ``The U.S. should be willing to engage 
     in dialogue with those whom we consider to be our enemies in 
     order to advance our goals of peace and security. As I have 
     expressed to you in the past, I believe that talks with 
     people--even our most ardent adversaries--hold the potential 
     to yield positive results.''
       On September 10, 2007, I wrote a six page letter to 
     Secretary Rice in which I noted, ``Terrorism, military 
     nuclear capabilities, energy security, and the Israeli-
     Palestinian dilemma are all major issues confronting the U.S. 
     and indeed the world. These challenges cannot be confronted 
     without engaging Iran . . .''
       In a March 28, 2007 letter to Secretary Rice, I wrote ``In 
     my view, a renewed focus on dialogue with North Korea and 
     recent participation of the U.S. in an international 
     conference attended by Iran and Syria, hold open the 
     possibility of easing the tensions that exist in our 
     relationship with those countries through diplomacy. . . . On 
     a carefully selective basis, I believe dialogue should be 
     pursued with our adversaries.''
       On August 1, 2007, I stated on the Senate floor, ``While we 
     can't be sure that dialogue will succeed, we can be sure that 
     without dialogue there will be failure.''
       As the clock runs out on this administration, I urge it to 
     push for resolution of this matter through direct, bilateral, 
     unconditional negotiations with Tehran. The recent talks in 
     Geneva were significant, but I continue to believe that 
     bilateral negotiations may aid in resolving this issue of 
     tremendous importance.
       I yield the floor.


                       Syria-Israeli Negotiations

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, there is one further subject I wish to 
discuss. This will be not relatively brief, but brief. That is a 
discussion which is pending between Syria and Israel with Turkey acting 
as an intermediary. It would be my hope and suggestion to the President 
that he extend the flexibility which he is now showing as to Iran and 
North Korea and Iraq to assist in the Israeli-Syrian negotiations. The 
United States was instrumental in negotiations back in 1995, when Prime 
Minister Rabin almost came to terms with Syria on the Golan Heights. It 
is a very difficult subject that I don't believe anybody should tell 
Israel or suggest to Israel or in any way pressure Israel as to what to 
do about the Golan Heights. It is a decision Israel has to make for 
itself on their security. But it is a different world than it was in 
1967, when Israel took the Golan Heights. Now we have a world of 
rockets, and security matters are entirely different.
  Again, the United States participated extensively in the Syrian-
Israeli talks in the year 2000. I have made many trips to Syria since 
1984. I got to know President Hafez al-Asad and traveled to the Middle 
East extensively and recommended to a number of Israeli Prime Ministers 
the desirability of my view--at least in one man's opinion--to have the 
negotiations. Right now there is a unique opportunity which could 
impact on Lebanon. Syria is opening an embassy in Lebanon, treating 
Lebanon as a sovereign nation which is quite a shift. Syria has 
enormous influence on Hezbollah. It is a very complex subject in 
Lebanon, with Hezbollah having significant power in the government, a 
veto in their Parliament. Syria has considerable influence with Hamas. 
If the circumstances were right, there is a great opportunity to 
separate Syria from Iran, a great opportunity to get some assistance 
with Syria on some major problems. It is unknowable whether that can 
happen. But I do believe dialog is the way. It would be my hope the 
President would show he still has muscle. He is going to be in the 
White House for 6 months. What he has done with respect to North Korea 
and Iran and Iraq shows he is not taking his last 6 months with a view 
that there are things he can accomplish. I refer to an extensive 
article I have written on this subject which summarizes a good many of 
my activities and views in the Washington Quarterly for 2006-2007.
  I thank my colleague from Washington for her patience, if, in fact, 
she has been patient. It is always difficult with Senators having the 
right to speak. But it took me more than an hour to get the floor after 
waiting most of the day. As usual, Senator Murray is gracious and 
nodding in the affirmative. I thank her and the Chair.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. I assure my colleague from Pennsylvania, I was listening 
carefully to his comments. He has traveled worldwide, and I am 
certainly interested in his viewpoints. I hope I didn't make him feel 
rushed at all, and I appreciate what he had to say.


                                Housing

  Mr. President, this week, tens of thousands of homeowners traveled 
here to the Nation's Capital, and lined up for hours--and even days--in 
hopes of taking advantage of a mortgage counseling workshop through the 
Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America.
  These homeowners came from as far away as Boston or Miami--all 
because they are struggling to hold onto their homes, and they need 
help with their mortgages. Many others are now steps away from 
foreclosure because they have seen their mortgage rates rise out of 
control, or because their mortgage now exceeds the value of their home 
because property values have plummeted.
  Now, while many of the homeowners who came to DC this week were able 
to get help, there are millions more across this country in the same 
position who are still in need of assistance. Nearly 8,500 families 
file for foreclosure each day. And as many as 2 million homeowners 
could lose their homes this year. Fortunately, we will have a bill 
before us soon that will enable the Federal Government to lend a 
helping hand to many of those families.
  The housing package that passed the House on Wednesday includes a 
variety of provisions that would restore stability to the housing 
market, provide assistance to communities hurt by this crisis, and help 
prevent thousands of foreclosures. We have considered much of this 
package before, but it has been blocked by Republicans who have 
preferred to drag their feet than to address this crisis. We now have 
another chance, and I have come to the floor today to urge my 
colleagues to support this legislation and get help into the hands of 
the homeowners and communities that need it.
  Those of us who go home each weekend to talk to their constituents 
know how worried our families are about the economy--and about whether 
something will happen to threaten their ability to keep their homes.
  It is hard to overstate how serious the housing crisis has become. 
There are communities across this country where people are literally 
abandoning their homes because they can't afford their mortgages, and 
they can't find a willing buyer. As I said, as many as 2 million 
families could lose their homes to foreclosure this year. And reports 
estimate the number of families facing foreclosure is higher than at 
any time since the Great Depression.
  At the beginning of this crisis, many of those people were subprime 
borrowers who received adjustable-rate loans or who were the victims of 
loan scams. But as home values have dropped across the country, the 
problem has spread. Families with strong credit, who received fixed-
rate mortgages, have seen their homes drop in value by tens or hundreds 
of thousands of dollars over the past couple of years. Their mortgages 
are now under water, and thousands of them are at risk for foreclosure 
too.
  This is a problem even in regions that have been relatively healthy, 
like my home state of Washington--where more and more people tell me 
they are worried that they will be stuck with homes they can't afford.
  The housing legislation that we will consider soon may be one of the 
most important steps we take this year to help our faltering economy 
because it addresses the root of the problem--the housing crisis. So I 
want to take the next couple of moments to talk about three of the main 
provisions of this bill to explain why we must act now.
  First, the bill provides $180 million to give counseling agencies the 
resources to reach out and help struggling homeowners. Counseling is 
one of the most cost-effective tools we have to help

[[Page 16196]]

families who are on the verge of foreclosure. Counselors can help 
families negotiate with their lenders, readjust their payments, or 
learn how to budget their expenses better.
  And it is incredibly important that we provide the resources now so 
that we can help families before they reach the crisis point.
  Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to meet a single mother from 
Ohio who had fallen on hard times, which in turn led her to fall behind 
on her mortgage. Luckily she was able to talk to a counselor, and she 
and her children were able to stay in their home. She explained that 
when she got behind, she was overwhelmed. She told me she didn't know 
what to do. She said, ``This isn't something they teach you in 
school.''
  This bill would help more families like hers get help. Despite the 
numbers who traveled to Washington, DC for help this week, far too many 
homeowners still don't know they have options when they get behind on 
their mortgages.
  I fought alongside Senators Mikulski, Schumer, and Brown to include 
this counseling funding back when this bill was first debated in April. 
It comes on top of a $180 million initiative that my ranking member, 
Senator Bond, and I included in the 2008 Transportation-Housing 
Appropriations Act. And I want to thank Chairman Dodd and Ranking 
Member Shelby for helping to protect the funding in the most recent 
package.
  Next, the bill makes some important changes to help modernize the 
Federal Housing Administration and enable it to help more homeowners 
refinance their mortgages. First, it raises the loan limit to take into 
account the increase in home prices over the last several years. This 
is very important because in many communities, home prices are higher 
than the current loan limits, meaning FHA mortgages aren't an option.
  It also provides $300 billion to enable the FHA to back loans and 
help as many as 400,000 homeowners at risk of foreclosure get more 
affordable--and less risky--mortgages. These changes will help 
stabilize the housing market and encourage more mortgage holders to 
give borrowers a more affordable loan that will enable them to keep 
their homes.
  Now, while I support these measures, I want to add--as chairman of 
the Transportation and Housing Appropriations Subcommittee--that this 
bill is also putting a lot of new responsibility into the hands of the 
FHA. That agency currently has close to 300 vacancies and it has the 
money to fill them. Unfortunately, it has been burdened by the 
painfully slow hiring processes at HUD.
  It is my understanding that FHA Commissioner Montgomery, and our new 
HUD Secretary, Steve Preston, are determined to reverse this hiring 
record and get more people on board soon. I certainly hope they 
succeed. But I also recognize that as we head into the new fiscal year, 
we may need to take measures to boost the salary and expense funds 
provided to the FHA as well as get money to the agency to improve its 
computing capabilities. I intend to address those needs when the 
Appropriations Committee marks up the next Supplemental Appropriations 
bill in September.
  Finally, I want to caution my colleagues on the Banking Committee 
that we will all need to continually monitor the lending activity and 
the funding balance of the FHA's existing mutual mortgage insurance 
account as well as the new homeownership preservation entity fund 
established in this bill. None of us wants to saddle taxpayers with 
unnecessary risk as we try to help homeowners. This bill establishes a 
new board that will face the daunting challenge of deciding which 
homeowners can and can't be helped under this new program.
  But Congress will also need to do its part to monitor the fiscal 
health of both the new and old FHA accounts to ensure that the taxpayer 
isn't guaranteeing loans that have no hope of being repaid. The whole 
hope of this legislation is about calming the housing markets and using 
the FHA guarantee to entice mortgage holders to give borrowers a better 
break--an affordable loan that will keep them in their home. But we 
must ensure that taxpayers don't end up holding the bill for 
unsalvageable loans.
  Finally, the bill would take important steps to strengthen Fannie Mae 
and Freddie Mac by establishing a new regulator. It also provides 
temporary authority to allow the Treasury Department to take action 
when needed to keep them stable. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the 
foundation of our system to finance homeownership in the U.S., and it 
is absolutely critical that we take decisive action to help quickly 
restore confidence in them.
  We started work on this bill in February because Democrats wanted to 
get help into the hands of homeowners who need it. But despite the 
desperation people feel in communities across this country, some 
Republicans have preferred up to this point to stall and block this 
bill. Now, I was very happy to see President Bush finally drop his 
opposition this week. And I hope my Republican colleagues will help us 
get this bill to his desk as quickly as possible.
  Especially when it comes to helping people keep their homes, timing 
is everything. A family that gets access to housing counseling before 
they start missing mortgage payments can still save their home. And I 
hope we will finally be able to make that possible for thousands more 
families in need.
  I hope when we finally get this bill out of here, we will be able to 
make it possible for more families to feel secure in this country 
again.
  Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer and look forward to the 
vote tomorrow morning.
  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.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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