[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16983-17021]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION ACT OF 2007--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it is my understanding until 12:30 the 
Democrats control the time; is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no agreement in order.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
recognized for 5 minutes and Senator Stabenow be recognized for 20 
minutes following me.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                 Energy

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this vote that was cast is something 
America should not miss. This was about an energy program for America, 
and it was defeated. It was defeated because only four Republicans--
maybe five--managed to cross the aisle and help us. This is 2 days 
running that the Republicans--who have given us speech after speech 
about why we need an energy policy--have voted no. That is all they do: 
vote no.
  What did this proposal include? It included energy tax credits 
desperately needed by America. This morning, Senator Stabenow gathered 
together Governors, leaders in business and leaders in labor and they 
all told us the same thing: Pass the energy tax credits, and pass it 
now. Jobs are at stake across America.
  I had a major company in Chicago that came in--the CEO came in to see 
Senator Reid and myself last week--facing bankruptcy because we cannot 
pass this bill. Why? Because the Tax Code was written year to year, 
creating incentives for investment in wind power. That is the power 
that does not pollute but creates electricity. Wind turbines all over 
my State and all over the country are doing the right thing for our 
future. They will not continue without these tax credits, and the 
Republicans consistently vote no. And then--hang on--after lunch they 
will be on the floor saying we desperately need an energy policy.
  Where were they when we needed them? That was not the only thing in 
this bill. This bill also put $8 billion in the highway trust fund that 
has gone broke. Across America, we are losing jobs, at a time when we 
need good-paying jobs right here at home, because Republicans refuse to 
do this. They will not vote for it.
  There was another provision or two in there equally important, but I 
wish to focus on those two. Let me explain to you why they would not 
vote for it. They would not vote for it because on the Democratic side 
we insisted that if you are going to have tax credits given, we pay for 
them so that, ultimately, it does not add to our national deficit.
  This President inherited a surplus from President Clinton and has now 
taken the gold, the silver, and the bronze medals for the biggest 
deficits--top three deficits--in the history of the United States in 
his 8 years. We are saying this has to end. We cannot broker America's 
future for our children. So we want to pay for these tax credits. We do 
it in a way that even the business community says: That is reasonable. 
We can live with it. But not the Republicans. Only four or five will 
cross the aisle to help us.
  A minute ago, I met in my office with the CEO of American Airlines, 
Gerard Arpey. This poor man is struggling to keep one of the major 
airlines in America out of bankruptcy. He is cutting back on schedule, 
reducing the number of employees because, unfortunately, when oil is 
$125, $135 a barrel, the cost of jet fuel is bankrupting his airline. 
He is begging me--begging me--the United States and the Congress to 
show some leadership.
  Now, what can we do? First, we can get some Republicans to join us 
for this energy policy. If they want to produce more energy in America, 
have them vote for it, not give more speeches with their ``produce 
more, use less'' slogans on the floor. Produce some votes for us. A few 
less speeches and a few more votes and we would have an energy policy. 
That is the reality.
  There is something that can be done immediately, though, and it is 
something this President can do and does not need to wait on Congress, 
and he ought to do it today. President Bush should announce he is going 
to start selling off oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to bring 
the price of a barrel of oil down to $100 a barrel. That is our target 
price for America. That will turn this economy on. That will give the 
airlines a chance. That will put the truckers back to work. That will 
give the farmers a break.
  The President can do it without any congressional approval. His 
father did it. It is not a radical idea. Seven hundred million barrels 
of oil--if the President released and sold 10 percent of that, saying: 
My goal is to get to $100 a barrel, that oil on the market would start 
the price coming down.
  All this discussion on the Republican side and from the President 
about drilling--if we decided today to start drilling certain acreage, 
you would not see the first drop of oil for 8 to 14 years. You would 
have to wait 8 to 14 hours for the President's announcement about 
releasing oil from SPR to see an impact on the market.
  It is time for Presidential leadership. The fact that the President 
comes out of the oil industry and the Vice President does as well, they 
understand it. And the oil industry has never done better.
  Now it is time for the President to show leadership. He can do it. We 
should call on him in Congress, on a bipartisan basis: Release this oil 
from the SPR, bring down the price of a barrel of oil, give American 
families a fighting chance when they go to the gas station, and give 
these companies a chance to create more good-paying jobs in America. 
That is what is at stake.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a couple 
questions?
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am happy to yield.
  Mrs. BOXER. First of all, Mr. President, I have known my friend from 
Illinois, the senior Senator from Illinois, for many years. We served 
in the House together. He is one of the most collegial Members of the 
Senate. I say to the Senator, I do not think I have ever seen you quite 
as upset and angry as you are.
  I wish to ask my friend--because he touched on this--as to the real 
impact on America's families that he started to discuss. As chair of 
the Environment and Public Works Committee, I know, as he does, we have 
to fund our highway program. I know my colleague from Michigan and my 
colleague from

[[Page 16984]]

Minnesota both are going to talk about the need for safe and sound 
infrastructure and the fact that with it comes good jobs.
  But here is where we are at this point. Because of the no, no, no 
votes by that side--what they said no to today was making sure we can 
pay for the highway projects we have already authorized, we have 
already told the States to go ahead and start constructing.
  I say to the Senator, $8 billion was in this bill that they just said 
no to, again--$8 billion to replenish the highway trust fund. That 
translates to--and hold on to your hats, folks--400,000 good-paying 
jobs that will be lost if we do not replenish this fund, not to mention 
the jobs that are already being lost because they refuse to renew these 
tax credits for solar, wind, and geothermal.
  Mrs. BOXER. In my State, we have a horrible housing crisis. It is 
terrible. Construction is down. What has been keeping us afloat, I say 
to my colleagues, is the renewable energy industry. Four hundred solar 
companies have moved in. They are taking these workers. So how could we 
have--Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator have 1 
more minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. So I say to my friend, this Republican Party here, they 
are the recession party. They stand for recession and moving into 
depression with their votes, does my friend not agree, with their votes 
today?
  Mr. DURBIN. This is the second time in 24 hours we have given the 
Republicans a chance to show whether they are for an energy policy 
which will produce more clean energy and more jobs for America, and 
four of them came forward to support us--only four. There are 49 of 
those Senators, and 4 voted with us.
  Mrs. BOXER. And the trust fund.
  Mr. DURBIN. And the trust fund, of course--a critical point--which 
can create 400,000 jobs across America.
  Middle-income families are struggling to survive. We need more good-
paying jobs right here in this country. How can they come down here and 
consistently vote no and say they want an energy policy?
  The President should release oil from SPR this week. Our goal should 
be $100-a-barrel oil. The President doesn't need Congress. Let him show 
some leadership in this energy crisis.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor to the Senator from Michigan.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
majority control the time until 12:30, the Republicans control the next 
30 minutes, the majority control the next 30 minutes, and the time 
until 6 p.m. be controlled in 30 minute blocks in an alternating 
fashion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                          America's Priorities

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleagues, our 
assistant majority leader from Illinois and the Senator from 
California, for speaking today, because we are quite astounded, I have 
to tell my colleagues. Coming from the great State of Michigan where we 
care about jobs--and I know the Presiding Officer does, coming from the 
great State of Pennsylvania--our folks are desperate for good-paying 
jobs, middle-class jobs that allow them to pay that mortgage and pay 
those outrageous gas prices and to be able to keep their families 
afloat and put food on the table.
  What we had happen in front of us today was an effort to once again 
block the future of alternative energy jobs and block today, by 
stopping it, an investment in the highway trust fund that would keep 
400,000 jobs going in our country. That is a lot of jobs--400,000 jobs.
  Now, why would they do that? When you look around, since this 
President and Vice President have taken office, gas prices have 
tripled. Oil prices are four times higher. Families and businesses are 
being squeezed on every side. Why can't we get action? Who benefits? I 
wonder who would like this picture.
  Well, let's look at who would like this picture. I only pick on one 
company because they happen to be the ones showing the highest profits. 
During this time that families and truckers on the road are trying to 
make a living, and businesses, small and large, are trying to hold it 
together, during this time of crisis, $185 billion profit since our 
President and the Vice President--two oilmen from Texas--took office. 
Mr. President, $185 billion in profits. What we have here is an oil 
agenda. We have had an oil company agenda since they took office on 
every step of the way.
  The bill that was turned down today--it wasn't just turned down 
today; it was, in fact, turned down on June 10 of this year, June 17 of 
this year, July 29, and today. This isn't the only time. We have gone 
back as far as last year, a year ago. Tax incentives in the Energy bill 
were blocked twice by Republican colleagues on behalf of big oil on 
June 21, 2007, and December 13, 2007. We can go on. February 7 of this 
year, Republicans blocked adding critical energy production tax 
incentives to the stimulus that was passed. They are willing to give 
everybody a little bit of a check, a little bit of a rebate check, but 
when we are talking about creating jobs and investing in competition 
with the oil companies, oh, no. Oh, no.
  Who wouldn't want that competition? Let me see. Maybe these folks 
wouldn't want that competition. Maybe they were the ones who said: No, 
no, we don't want to be focusing on electric vehicles and investing in 
battery technology or consumer credits for new vehicles. No, no, we 
don't want to be investing in solar and wind and geothermal. No, no. 
Getting off of oil? No, no, no, no. This is the oil administration. We 
don't want to get off of oil; we want to embrace it. We want to 
continue it.
  Unfortunately, that is exactly what has happened.
  Record profits. The total combined net profits of the big five oil 
companies since our President took office are upwards of $556 billion. 
If I sound a little upset, I am because I have folks in my State who 
are just struggling to try to make it. Are they investing here at home 
with that $556 billion? The oil companies spent $188 billion buying 
back their own stock in the last 5 years. Exporting. A record 1.6 
million barrels a day were exported, 33 percent higher than before.
  We are in a global economy. Unfortunately, even though I think it is 
important to have a domestic oil supply, it is in a global economy. It 
is not necessarily going to stay here. The drill-only, the drill-
forever crowd, that is the oil agenda. It is the oil profits agenda in 
a global economy.
  Let me share for a moment some folks who are suffering under the oil 
agenda of this President and Vice President and the Republicans who 
have been in charge.
  In South Haven, MI, a beautiful little town along Lake Michigan, this 
was in the paper. Early last month, Jeanne Fair, who is 62 years old, 
got her first hot meals delivered to her home in this little lake 
community in the rural southwestern part of the State. After two 
deliveries of meals, they stopped because the volunteers couldn't 
afford the gas to get her the food. ``They called and said I was 
outside of the delivery area,'' said Mrs. Fair, who is homebound and 
hasn't been able to use her left arm since a stroke in 1997.
  Faced with soaring gasoline prices, agencies around the country that 
provide services to the elderly say they are having to cut back on 
programs such as Meals on Wheels, transportation assistance, and home 
care, especially in rural areas that depend on volunteers to provide 
their own gas. In a recent survey by the National Association of Area 
Agencies on Aging, more than half said they already cut back on 
programs because of gas prices. Ninety percent say they are expected to 
cut them back in 2009.
  This is the United States of America, and we have volunteers who have 
to stop giving meals to people in rural Michigan so these folks can 
keep up this agenda here: $185 billion profit since George Bush took 
office. And our folks can't afford gas.

[[Page 16985]]

  Let me share something else, a letter from a gentleman:

       As my family's only breadwinner, I drive over an hour each 
     day to my job at LifeWays in Jackson . . . The reason I drive 
     over an hour each way is because jobs for professionals are 
     extremely rare in Hillsdale County where I live. Over 16 car 
     industry-related plants have closed in Hillsdale County in 
     the past 10 years, leaving the unemployment rate sky high and 
     wages extremely low. The newest hit is the high prices for 
     energy which are hurting me and my family. Not even looking 
     at the 55-cent increase per gallon of propane we were just 
     notified of, my commute costs me $28 a day and I drive a 
     midsized car. I urge Congress to act immediately.

  Mr. President, we had a chance to act immediately today to do 
something that would make a difference, a real difference, and Congress 
didn't do it.
  I also have one other letter from a 17-year-old high school student 
who has a job. She says: I make $7.15 an hour and put in about 20 hours 
a week. My job sometimes interferes with my education because I am 
trying to make money that I need. My job affects school because I need 
to work. It makes it difficult for me. I am paid every 2 weeks and 
spend about $100 a week on gas to get back and forth to school and 
work. She says: Even during school time, I ride the bus to try to save 
money, but now I probably won't be riding the bus because school 
districts are cutting back on transportation to school. They are doing 
this because they don't have enough money to fill up the buses' gas 
tanks.
  What is going on? What is going on here? We are fighting for the 
people of this country who expect to be able to put gas in the 
schoolbus, who expect to be able to have seniors get Meals on Wheels, 
who expect to be able to drive to work. That is what this is about. It 
is about time we change the agenda of this country and who decisions 
are being made for. The reality is--I think it is, unfortunately, way 
too simple, but it is true--we have had 8 years of two oilmen in the 
White House and it has gotten us paying $4-a-gallon gasoline, maybe a 
little less, maybe a little more. That is the reality. We have seen 
over and over not only efforts on this floor to block what we are doing 
but on top of that, to add insult to injury, a free ride for the oil 
companies.
  In January of 2006, the New York Times reported that the Bush 
administration was allowing oil and gas companies to forgo royalty 
payments--forgo royalty payments--on leases in Federal waters, public 
waters in the Gulf of Mexico. It would cost American taxpayers more 
than $60 billion. Sixty billion dollars would equal 38 days of free gas 
for every American. How about that. So not only are they blocking us 
from creating alternatives, not only are they blocking us from taking 
taxpayer money--the same people I just read about are subsidizing the 
oil companies because we can't stop these subsidies going to the most 
profitable companies in the world--the world. We can't get that stopped 
when we are trying to say: Take those dollars and move them over to the 
future, which is alternative energy that will allow gas prices to go 
down, that will free us from foreign oil, get us off of a policy that 
depends on those around the world who aren't exactly our friends, and 
make us stronger in terms of national security. We can't get that done. 
Then, to add insult to injury, they waive oil and gas leases--$60 
billion. I would love to have been able to waive some house payments. I 
would love to have been able to say to folks who were trying to make it 
and not lose their house in foreclosure: We will give you 90 days, 
don't worry about it, because we care about families and we want to 
make sure you keep your house.
  We finally have a housing bill. It is too late for many people, but 
we finally have one, thank goodness, that the President would sign.
  Where are the priorities of this country? Who are we making decisions 
for? That is the question. Who are we making decisions for?
  So I have extreme concern about the direction in which we are going. 
I have to tell my colleagues, as somebody who comes from a State where 
there is such a little bit of support right now, it would give us a 
whole lot more impact in the short run if we were to invest--and I know 
that. I am so grateful to our Senate leadership for supporting our 
efforts to retool our auto plants, to keep jobs in America for new 
vehicles. We are now focusing our talk so many times on this floor on 
what we are doing to support the advanced battery research and 
development so we are making those new batteries in America, not only 
for automobiles but for energy storage, and making sure we are the 
energy producers and creating the jobs of the future. A few investments 
we can do immediately within the next couple of years would 
tremendously impact us.
  I know my time is up. Let me just indicate that it is time to change 
the agenda. The American people have had enough. This big-oil agenda 
which has been driving the train here on the Senate floor and which has 
been driving the train in the White House has to stop.
  We have to take away their track and turn this thing around, so that 
we are focusing on what the American people want us to focus on to help 
them and their families in this country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise today to continue the discussion we 
are having on our Nation's energy situation and to point out that it is 
a discussion, it is not action.
  I point out that the other side of the aisle could be called the 
``great pretenders.'' They are pretending to be interested in energy, 
but they are not doing anything about energy. The only thing we have 
been allowed to debate on this has been the bill on speculators. I have 
talked about speculators and the role they have and what the 
possibilities are for them to skew the market. It is the blame game. 
For every person who gains a dollar, a person loses a dollar.
  Our airlines rely on the speculation, rely on those markets to hedge 
their prices, and we call it speculation. It has allowed them to lock 
in a reasonable price some of the time.
  So it is the great pretender package, because it doesn't solve 
energy. If we don't find some ways to use less and find more, we are 
not going to be able to make the transition to renewable energies. We 
are being blocked from doing that.
  What we are doing is ``gotcha'' politics. We have been doing it for 
several months now, and it is wrong. How can you tell when it is 
``gotcha'' politics? When a bill doesn't go through the regular 
process, when it doesn't go to committee so that there can be extensive 
debate among the people who are expert in that area, so that the people 
in that specific committee have a chance to make amendments. That is 
where a lot of the legislating happens. By the time it gets to the 
floor, it is kind of take it or leave it--maybe a few amendments but 
not many are ever allowed. On this one, the most we have been allowed 
is four amendments, which have been written by the other side of the 
aisle.
  That is unconscionable. It has never been done in the history of the 
United States. And then they demand a 60-vote margin on those. It will 
not happen, and neither is anything else, until we do something about 
energy because it is the No. 1 concern of people in America now. There 
is good reason for that. I know trucking firms that are going out of 
business. People want to take vacations, and they are either having to 
reduce the distance they are going or eliminate the vacation 
altogether. I know people who are having trouble getting to work.
  We can put quick solutions, medium, and long-range solutions, in 
there that would resolve the energy problem for America. The world is 
becoming more energy oriented. The world understands energy. China 
understands energy. China is buying up every source of energy it can 
find around the world, because it grows their economy. They are using 
some of the worst stuff they can possibly use. That is why housing at 
the Olympic village isn't going to be able to used for the athletes, 
because they won't be able to breathe properly--even though they have 
bought clean Wyoming coal, and they tried to

[[Page 16986]]

buy an oil company in the United States so they could take that oil to 
China. India is also competing for energy. That competition is driving 
up the prices.
  Unless we find more and use less and transition into renewables, we 
are going to have a long problem in the economy of this country. As 
long as we keep bringing bills to the floor that have not been through 
committee, where people with disagreements can move off to the side and 
work that out and bring it in, it is not going to work. We are going to 
have a higher education bill this week, and that will make a difference 
to students throughout the United States--in high school, going to 
college, and those in college continuing with college. That went 
through the whole process. That has been through the committees in both 
the House and the Senate. A lot of changes were made. That has been 
passed in the Senate and passed in the House on the floor, and changes 
were made. Now it has been conferenced. Last night, it took us all of 
an hour and a half to work out the differences and finish the bill. 
That will be a privileged motion that will come here. So we will finish 
up a major bill in about an hour and a half because it went through the 
process.
  You cannot take something such as energy, put out a phony bill, 
expect it to pass, and check off the box on energy. It is not going to 
work. We are not going to do that. That has never been the way we have 
done work in the Senate. We take a bill to committee, get it worked 
out, bring it to the floor, and let people make amendments. That is the 
way we do things here. It takes time, but it doesn't take nearly as 
much time as forcing all of these filibusters by putting up bills that 
the tree will be filled on, which means nobody can do any amendments--a 
take-it-or-leave-it bill.
  As long as we are doing take-it-or-leave-it bills, nothing is going 
to happen. It makes good publicity because they will run ads in Wyoming 
that will say Senator Enzi voted against this and that. And you know, I 
think the people in Wyoming kind of have it figured out. They know we 
are actually trying to get something done. They know what a crisis it 
is on energy. We have to make a difference there.
  So, remember, if a bill hasn't been to committee, it is a ``gotcha'' 
bill, designed by one party. Several times there have been negotiations 
started between the two parties, such as on the tax extenders bill. But 
thinking that would be a good ``gotcha'' vote, we had the package that 
you saw earlier that didn't make it through cloture. That could be 
negotiated out. That could make it through the process. It needs to 
make it through the process. But it is not going to make it through the 
process if one side says let's put this out there, and the other side 
will have a lot of trouble voting for this, and we can claim they don't 
like tax extenders. I don't think that has been the history of the 
country. I know it hasn't been the history of the Senate.
  Energy is so important. Energy impacts every part of our lives. When 
gasoline and diesel fuel are more expensive, you pay more to fill up 
your vehicle at the pump. So do truckers who transport the items we 
need, such as food. In turn, you pay more at the grocery store. You pay 
more for gifts you buy for loved ones. The high cost of fuel makes it 
harder for families to fill up their gas tanks. They are canceling 
vacations or they are picking ones closer to home. Because they are 
forced to cancel vacations, main street shops are closing down because 
they don't have consumers to buy their products.
  Low energy costs make it possible for our economy to flourish, and at 
a time of economic concern, we should be doing everything we can to 
improve our Nation's energy situation as opposed to hindering it. The 
``energy bill'' we are debating ignores this fact because it only deals 
with a small part of our energy situation--energy speculation.
  I have noticed that whenever a situation gets bad, Congress plays the 
blame game. In this instance, the price of gas is making you angry. It 
makes me angry, too. I am sick of paying $4 a gallon to fill my gas 
tank. I want action. Instead of action, the majority has given us the 
legislation to punish speculators. Never mind that speculators are 
pension funds, airlines, and other consumers who are looking for 
certainty in an uncertain market. They have given us a bill that clamps 
down on speculators even though the Chairman of the Federal Reserve has 
said there is no evidence that speculation is impacting the market.
  As I mentioned in my statements last week, this speculation bill 
might even have negative consequences on the market. I spoke at length 
regarding the possible unintended consequences of the majority leader's 
bill on institutional investors, including pension funds, and their 
ability to access and participate in our markets. Since I made those 
statements, I received two letters from The Committee on Investment of 
Employee Benefit Assets, and from a group of 10 associations that 
represents pension funds, companies, and their investment managers and 
fiduciaries, expressing their concern about the majority leader's bill. 
I ask unanimous consent that both of these letters be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                       The Committee on Investment


                                   of Employee Benefit Assets,

                                      Bethesda, MD, July 25, 2008.
     Re energy speculation legislation (S. 3268) erodes core ERISA 
         principle of investment flexibility.

     Hon. Edward M. Kennedy,
     Chairman, Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, 
         U.S. Senate, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, 
         DC.
     Hon. Michael B. Enzi,
     Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Health, Education, 
         Labor and Pension, U.S. Senate, Hart Senate Office 
         Building, Washington, DC.
     Hon. Max Baucus,
     Chairman, Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate, Dirksen Senate 
         Office Building, Washington, DC.
     Hon. Charles E. Grassley,
     Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate, 
         Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairmen Kennedy and Baucus and Ranking Members Enzi 
     and Grassley: I am writing today on behalf of the Committee 
     on Investment of Employee Benefit Assets (``CIEBA'') to 
     express our concerns regarding S. 3268, the Stop Excessive 
     Energy Speculation Act. This legislation would erode a 
     central principle of the legal regime governing our voluntary 
     pension system. We share the sentiments expressed in the 
     letter of concern regarding S. 3268 sent to the Senate 
     earlier today by ten trade associations active in the pension 
     arena but wished to write separately to highlight our 
     particular concerns about potential erosion of one of the 
     core principles of the Employee Retirement Income Security 
     Act (ERISA).
       CIEBA is a group of over 115 private pension funds that 
     manage more than $1.5 trillion in defined benefit and defined 
     contribution plan assets on behalf of more than 17 million 
     plan participants and beneficiaries. As you know, our 
     nation's voluntary employer-sponsored pension system has 
     served Americans well for over half a century and tens of 
     millions of workers and retirees rely on defined benefit and 
     defined contribution retirement plans as a critical element 
     of their retirement security.
       CIEBA is concerned about the possible unintended 
     consequences of S. 3268. While we understand and share the 
     concerns regarding the rising costs of energy, severely 
     restricting investment in energy commodities markets, as S. 
     3268 would do, endangers the financial well-being of the 
     pension system and the American families who rely on this 
     system.
       CIEBA has been working actively to highlight the pension 
     implications of restrictions on commodities investing and 
     warn against the adverse effects of such restrictions on 
     pension participants and beneficiaries. I testified on June 
     24, 2008, before the Senate Homeland Security and 
     Governmental Affairs Committee on these issues, and the 
     chairman of CIEBA's defined benefit subcommittee, Robin 
     Diamonte, testified before the House Agriculture Committee on 
     July 10, 2008. In our testimony, we made clear that while 
     commodities are only a modest component of a pension fund's 
     total investment portfolio, they are nonetheless quite 
     important because commodity returns are uncorrelated with 
     stock and bond returns and commodities provide a critical 
     hedge against inflation. We further testified that efforts to 
     restrict the ability of pension plans to invest in 
     commodities markets, whether through outright prohibitions or 
     severe limitations, is short-sighted and counterproductive. 
     Such restrictions would make

[[Page 16987]]

     it difficult for pension plans to adequately diversify 
     investments to hedge against market volatility and inflation. 
     Consequently, they would put at risk the retirement funds and 
     benefits of the very workers the legislative proposals are 
     intended to help.
       As leaders of the Senate committees with pension 
     jurisdiction, we hope you share our concern about adopting 
     energy legislation with such major implications for the 
     pension system, particularly when your committees of 
     jurisdiction have not had an opportunity to consider these 
     issues. Congress has long recognized that direct government 
     regulation regarding specific pension plan investments is 
     ill-conceived, and ERISA very consciously avoids such an 
     approach. As you know, ERISA imposes rigorous fiduciary 
     responsibilities on those who manage pension plan assets. 
     These rules require plan fiduciaries to act prudently, and to 
     diversify plan investments so as to minimize the risk of 
     large losses. Moreover, ERISA requires fiduciaries to act 
     solely in the interest of plan participants and beneficiaries 
     and for the exclusive purpose of providing participant 
     benefits. Accomplishment of these participant-focused 
     objectives can best be achieved by broad fiduciary discretion 
     to select appropriate investments and asset classes and this 
     is precisely the regime adopted in ERISA. Fiduciaries cannot 
     faithfully execute their obligations and respond to market 
     conditions if restrictions are imposed on important 
     investment approaches and asset classes. Unfortunately, this 
     is precisely what S. 3268 would do. Its restrictions would 
     erode fiduciaries' critical investment discretion and thereby 
     undermine one of ERISA's core principles.
       The experience of other nations has shown that efforts to 
     impose investment restrictions and/or investment requirements 
     on pension plans impairs performance and thereby harms the 
     interests of pension plan participants and beneficiaries. 
     This has been the European experience, and we fear current 
     efforts to restrict investments in commodities could be the 
     beginning of a counter-productive movement in this direction 
     in the U.S. We hope to work with you and your Senate 
     colleagues to ensure that this will not be the case. Instead, 
     we must ensure that our existing ERISA structure--imposition 
     of demanding fiduciary obligations paired with broad 
     investment flexibility--is preserved.
       Thank you for your consideration of our views on this 
     important issue. We would be happy to provide further input 
     on this legislation to ensure the health of a secure 
     retirement system that will continue to serve the interests 
     of the tens of millions of pension plan participants and 
     beneficiaries.
     Sincerely,
                                                 William F. Quinn,
     CIEBA Chairman.
                                  ____

                                                    July 25, 2008.
     Re adverse retirement plan implications of energy speculation 
         legislation (S. 3268).

     Hon. Harry Reid,
     Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
     Hon. Mitch McConnell,
     Republican Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Majority Leader Reid and Republican Leader McConnell: 
     We are writing today to express concerns about the 
     implications of S. 3268, the ``Stop Excessive Energy 
     Speculation Act of 2008'', on employer-sponsored retirement 
     plans and the tens of millions of American workers and 
     retirees who rely on these plans for their retirement 
     security. We represent organizations that assist employers of 
     all sizes, and their service providers, in providing 
     retirement benefits to employees.
       We are very concerned that the serious implications of S. 
     3268 on retirement plans and retirement plan participants 
     have not been sufficiently evaluated. We are also concerned 
     that this legislation relating to energy policy could 
     unintentionally harm the long-term financial security of 
     American workers and their families.
       Employer-sponsored defined benefit plans invest for the 
     long-term and do so in a wide range of asset classes in order 
     to diversify plan investments and reduce to the greatest 
     extent possible the risk of large losses. These strategies 
     are central to employers' fiduciary obligations to act 
     prudently and solely in the interest of the plan's 
     participants and beneficiaries. Plan fiduciaries are subject 
     to extremely demanding legal obligations under the Employee 
     Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). ERISA was drafted to 
     preserve the fiduciary's flexibility to select the 
     investments that will allow them to carry out their mission 
     of providing retirement benefits to employees. Commodities 
     are one of a broad range of asset classes upon which 
     fiduciaries rely. Commodities serve as a modest but important 
     element of the investments held by employer-sponsored defined 
     benefit pensions because commodity returns are uncorrelated 
     with stocks and bonds and because they provide an important 
     protection against inflation.
       For the same reasons, commodities are used in many of the 
     diversified ``single fund'' solutions (lifecycle funds, 
     target retirement date funds) that have been developed to 
     simplify investing for the tens of millions of Americans 
     participating in defined contribution plans such as 401(k), 
     403(b) and governmental 457 plans. These single fund 
     solutions, which policymakers have encouraged through 
     legislation and regulation, make investing easier while 
     giving workers access to professionally managed, diversified 
     portfolios.
       The restrictions imposed on commodities investing under S. 
     3268 would greatly limit the ability of employer-sponsored 
     defined benefit and defined contribution plans to use this 
     important asset class. The result will be less ability to 
     diversify investments, manage investment volatility and 
     provide a buffer against inflation. Unfortunately, it is the 
     employees and retirees who depend on employer retirement 
     plans for their income in retirement who will ultimately 
     suffer. We hope, with this in mind, that the implications for 
     retirement plans and plan participants will be examined more 
     fully before S. 3268 is considered further.
       We sincerely appreciate your consideration of our views on 
     this important matter. Please let us know if we can provide 
     additional information or address any questions you may have.
     Sincerely,
     American Bankers Association.
     American Benefits Council.
     American Council of Life Insurers.
     The ERISA Industry Committee.
     The Financial Services Roundtable.
     Investment Company Institute.
     Managed Funds Association.
     Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America.
     Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.
     U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

  Mr. ENZI. While the majority has given us someone to blame, they have 
not given us a comprehensive bill that will get us out of this energy 
mess. They have not given us a proposal that addresses the heart of the 
problem--the problem of supply and demand. We need to find more 
American oil from American soil at the same time that we use less. We 
need to quit shipping those dollars overseas to countries that would 
like to do us harm. We need to do something with renewables. But there 
are also things we can do with the coal resources we have. My State has 
more coal than the Btus of oil in the Middle East. I have a lot of 
faith in our young people. When I was going to junior high, Russia put 
up Sputnik, and we panicked. We discovered--even in junior high we 
realized this--we were now behind Russia, and it was a crisis. We 
didn't want to be there. Education changed, parents changed, and 
teachers changed. We began inventing. We not only solved the problem of 
space, we sent a man to the Moon. We have sent vehicles to Mars and 
other planets. That was the rocket generation.
  Then we went to the computer generation. We have people with 
extraordinary minds, because of the freedom we have in the United 
States, who came up with great inventions for computers. I remember 
when they said that 640K would be the maximum memory you could ever use 
in a computer. Nobody even knows what that is anymore, it is so small.
  Then we went to communications, and we said there ought to be better 
ways to communicate. Then we began the cell phone generation.
  Now we are in the energy generation. There are young people out there 
who can invent clean ways to do what we need to do, who can change 
things that we never considered to be energy. I have a lot of faith in 
them. I have challenged them. I do the inventors conference every 
winter in Wyoming, and I have asked the young people to come up with 
inventions--and they don't have to be difficult, but they should 
pertain to a pertinent problem so they can be marketed. We got more 
than 250 inventions as a result of it.
  Now I am pressing for energy inventions. We have not built a new 
refinery in the United States for 40 years. Part of it is the 
permitting process and part is a fear of lawsuits. We permitted a new 
refinery in Douglas, WY. It will turn out diesel fuel. That is one of 
the biggest needs we have in our country, because of how much we rely 
on trucking in the United States, including trucking to be able to mine 
the coal.
  By producing American energy, we reduce our Nation's dependence upon 
foreign oil sources and, at the same time, we work to develop new 
technologies that will make it so we don't need oil in the future. We 
can safely produce more American energy off of the coasts of States 
that want exploration to take place. We can produce nearly a million 
barrels of American

[[Page 16988]]

energy each day from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in an 
environmentally sensitive manner, from an area smaller than Dulles 
Airport. In fact, it is smaller than the Casper, WY airport. A million 
barrels a day will bring down the price at least $20 a barrel. We can 
improve the permitting process to allow some of the leases that the 
other side claims are not in production to be drilled by restricting 
the amount of times we let radical environmental groups file frivolous 
lawsuits. They have to file all of their objections at the same time, 
so they can be done consecutively instead of sequentially. Most of the 
original leases are by small investors. It costs about $1,500 an acre. 
It is 5 or 6 years before they can even use the lease. We hear all of 
these acres of leases that are not being drilled, and it is because 
they are tied up in the courts. As soon as they can be drilled, they 
are. There is a tremendous investment. They don't know if they are 
going to hit oil, but the cost of a well now is about $8 million.
  Instead of relying on oil from Hugo Chavez, in Venezuela, or other 
nations that wish us harm, instead of playing the blame game, we can do 
something to bring down the price of gas. That is what my constituents 
are begging us to do.
  Unfortunately, we are not having a real debate on the bill. The 
Senate is oftentimes called the most deliberative body in the world. 
Yet we are not allowed to debate the issue that is most important to 
the American people. Why, you might ask? The majority leader has used a 
procedural tactic to prohibit us from offering amendments. He has used 
a procedural tactic to prevent votes on amendments. No votes, just a 
speculation bill, bills that haven't gone through committee. He has 
prevented a vote on amendments I have cosponsored to produce more 
American energy. He prevented a vote on my amendments to make the 
speculation bill more reasonable. He is preventing a vote on an 
amendment of which I am a cosponsor that would encourage production of 
diesel and jet fuel from America's most abundant energy source--coal.
  It is the wrong way to legislate and will not help you when you go to 
fill your gas tank. It will not help you when you get your electricity 
bill, your heating bill this winter.
  What we need is legislation that encourages us to find more American 
energy as we use less. I am the cosponsor of legislation to do that. 
The Gas Price Reduction Act, which is cosponsored by 43 of my 
Republican colleagues, includes a provision to open coastal waters in 
States where they want energy production. It ends the ban on the 
development of promising oil shale in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, oil 
shale that can provide as much as 2 trillion barrels of oil. At the 
same time, the Gas Price Reduction Act encourages increases in the 
supply of American energy, it promotes the development of better 
technology so we use less energy.
  Thus far, we haven't had a vote on those issues. We have been told by 
the majority leader we can have limited amendments with limits as to 
how those amendments can be debated. That is not right, and it needs to 
stop. If it doesn't, we will not address this issue and the American 
people will continue to suffer.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.


                             Tax Extenders

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, we finished a fourth vote on the tax 
extenders bill. As the great baseball philosopher, Yogi Berra, said: 
``It's deja vu all over again.''
  Here we are getting ready to vote and just finishing a vote for the 
fourth time on the motion to proceed to the House tax extenders bill. 
As I said, it is deja vu all over again and yet again.
  The vote, I believe, was 51 to 43, so very short of what it takes to 
get business done in the Senate, which is to work a bipartisan 
agreement so we have more than 60 votes to get business done. This is a 
no-brainer, in this particular instance, to get an extenders bill and 
the AMT.
  The futility of this exercise, which is motivated purely by partisan 
politics, makes this vote as silly as a ``Three Stooges'' episode. 
Instead of wasting time on such a silly exercise, the Senate Democratic 
leadership should be working on negotiating a bipartisan deal with 
Senate Republicans that can be signed into law by the President. The 
American people do not want another futile vote on tax extenders. They 
want a bill that will be signed into law. That would provide the 
American people with the tax relief that is needed.
  The extenders vote we had has already failed before. Albert Einstein 
famously stated the definition of ``insanity'' is doing the same thing 
over and over and expecting different results. The Senate Democratic 
leadership has already done the same thing too many times and, of 
course, today sought to do it again. This is a waste of everyone's 
time. Everyone can see through the Democratic leadership's strategy for 
what it is: a partisan political exercise, designed solely to get 30-
second sound bites for political ads.
  Let's stop this nonsense. Let's work out a bipartisan compromise on 
the tax extenders bill. Let's reach agreement in a form that can be 
signed into law by the President. The President made it very clear 
today that he is not willing to sign what we had before us a few 
minutes ago into law. Of course, what I am asking is that the Senate 
Republican leadership has been trying to urge the Senate majority to 
move in this direction.
  The Senate Republican leadership has made numerous offers to the 
Senate Democratic leadership to try to find a way to break the logjam 
on tax extenders. So far, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
have been unwilling to enter into a bipartisan agreement on a tax 
extenders bill that even attempts to address legitimate concerns of the 
minority party in this body.
  As the Senate Democratic leadership engages in pure partisan politics 
by bringing up the tax extenders bill for yet another vote, the 
chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is probably 
grinning like a Cheshire cat, thinking of all the 30-second campaign 
ads they will be able to make. However, the people of New York are not 
grinning because they are not getting the benefit of any of these tax 
relief provisions. All the tax relief provisions that are very 
important to the American people, including even to the people of New 
York, are being held hostage as part of the political game of the 
Democratic Senate leadership having vote after vote on cloture to stop 
debate for whatever reason.
  Some of these important tax relief provisions are the alternative 
minimum tax patch, the deduction for the State and local sales tax, the 
deduction of tuition expenses, and the deduction for expenses of school 
teachers. How is anybody going to find fault with the fact that these 
provisions should have been done a long time ago? In fact, the AMT 
patch should have been done because, since the first of the year, 
taxpayers who have had to file quarterly tax payments have been 
violating the law if they haven't taken into consideration that there 
are 24 million American families right now hit by the alternative 
minimum tax. That figure would include 3.1 million New York families. 
The provision for the State and local sales tax would help almost 11 
million families. Also, the deduction for expenses for tuition and fees 
would help over 4.6 million families. In addition, the deduction for 
expenses of school teachers would help 3.4 million Americans. These 
hard-working taxpayers are more important than a 30-second sound bite 
to be used in the next campaign because of political games that are 
being played.
  The bottom line is, when we have 24 million people being hit by AMT, 
4.6 million people on the deduction of college expenses, and 3.4 
million people hit by increased taxes because school teachers will not 
be able to deduct supplies from their income taxes, real Americans are 
being hurt while political games are being played, when everybody in 
this body knows the only way we get things done is in a bipartisan way.

[[Page 16989]]

  The biggest divide between Republicans and Democrats regarding tax 
extenders relates to the issue of offsets, also known as revenue 
raisers, or I think we ought to be more intellectually honest and call 
these tax increases. In other words, tax increases on Americans 
generally to provide the extension of some policy that has been on the 
books for decades.
  My party's position has been clear on this issue. We are perfectly 
willing to use offsets that make sense from a tax policy perspective to 
pay for new tax policy. However, tax relief provided by extending 
existing tax policy or expiring provisions, or somebody may call these 
sunset provisions, we do not feel they should have to be offset. We 
should not be raising taxes in order to pay for the extension of 
existing tax policy.
  One reason I care about this issue is that there is currently a bias 
in favor of using this as an excuse to bring in more money to increase 
the size of Government. The pay-as-you-go rules apply to expiring tax 
provisions which are not built into the revenue base. On the other 
hand, if you have sunset of appropriations, these are built into the 
spending baseline. Therefore, in order to extend expiring tax 
provisions, the pay-go rules require an offset, and that happens to be 
a big tax increase. Whereas, if you have extensions of expiring 
appropriations provisions--in other words, spending provisions--they do 
not need to be paid for by decreased spending in other areas because 
they are assumed in the spending baseline. Therefore, pay-as-you-go 
rules apply to the extension of expiring tax provisions, but in an 
intellectually, inconsistent way do not apply to the extension of 
expiring spending provisions.
  This inconsistent treatment makes no sense--intellectually 
inconsistent; I say to the taxpayers of America, intellectually 
dishonest. It is biased to create ever larger Government. The money the 
American people earn, after all, is their money. We should only take 
the money from them that it truly takes to run the Government. We 
should not be using sunset tax provisions as an excuse to increase 
taxes, and that is all it is.
  In addition, the Democrats' desire to use permanent offsets to pay 
for an extension of temporary tax provisions is extremely problematic. 
It creates a situation where the permanent offsets that can be agreed 
to on a bipartisan basis--in other words, the low-hanging fruit all 
gets used to pay for the extension of temporary tax provisions.
  Under the Democrats' tax side only, pay-go obsession, once all the 
low-hanging fruit is used--and we are rapidly approaching that point--
then the choice becomes much uglier for them and much uglier for the 
American taxpayers. The choice becomes whether to extend existing tax 
policy that has broad support by increasing taxes in areas that will 
hurt Americans.
  Nobody advocates the inconsistency of the pay-as-you-go rules more 
than the famed House of Representatives Blue Dogs, and they are all 
Democrats. The Blue Dogs portray themselves as fiscal conservatives. We 
agree with the Blue Dogs' goals of fiscal responsibility. They will 
have allies all over my side of the aisle if they want to control 
spending. The problem is the Blue Dogs are pursuing the same old tax-
and-spend game under the cloak of fiscal responsibility. The Blue Dogs 
will fight tooth and paw over any tax relief that is not offset with a 
corresponding tax increase.
  However, the same self-described fiscally conservative Blue Dogs are 
not willing to fight tooth and paw to seek the same equality for the 
taxpayers on the spending side of the ledger. They have a big appetite 
for spending. The Blue Dogs generally do not seek to offset spending 
increases with spending cuts in other areas. But in taxes, it is a 
whole different story. In fact, the Blue Dogs do not even seek to curb 
the amount of spending increases for which they hunger.
  By portraying themselves as fiscal conservatives, while in reality 
playing the same old tax-and-spend game, the Blue Dogs remind me of the 
land shark character played by Chevy Chase on ``Saturday Night Live.'' 
This was many years ago, so maybe some of you will not remember. But we 
have a picture of the land shark skit with the theme from ``Jaws'' 
playing in the background.
  The land shark knocks on a person's door. With the door still closed, 
the person would ask: Who is at the door?
  The land shark would reply: Flower delivery.
  The person answering the door then said: You are that clever shark, 
aren't you?
  And in response, the land shark said: Candygram.
  If you don't know how the skit ended, the person eventually let the 
land shark in the door because that person believed the land shark when 
the land shark said he was a dolphin. And, yes, the land shark ate that 
person.
  The moral of the land shark story is, don't let yourself be fooled 
that the Blue Dogs are fiscal conservatives because they are pursuing 
the same old tax-and-spend Washington game. Don't let the House of 
Representatives Blue Dogs' insatiable appetite for spending swallow the 
much-needed tax relief contained in the tax extenders.
  I recommend that folks take a look at the cover story of the June 14, 
2008, edition of the National Journal magazine about the Blue Dogs. It 
is very enlightening.
  In trying to reach a bipartisan agreement on tax extenders, my 
party's leadership has made several offers to the other side's 
leadership. One of these offers is to pay for some new tax policy using 
offsets that make good tax policy sense. This is not simply a vague 
promise to look for such offsets. For instance, I have suggested we use 
the offset that closes the loophole that allows hedge fund managers to 
defer compensation for tax haven jurisdictions.
  My time is up.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 4 more minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I thank the Chair.
  So we have offered something like closing a loophole that allows 
hedge fund managers to defer compensation in tax haven jurisdictions. 
However, we need to remove the huge charitable loophole that is 
contained in both the Democratic House and Senate extenders bill.
  Let me try to explain something that is not explainable. I would be 
embarrassed if I had this in one of my bills. This charitable loophole 
allows hedge fund managers to deduct 100 percent of their deferred 
compensation that is donated to charity. In contrast, the ordinary 
American is only permitted to deduct charitable contributions of up to 
50 percent of his or her income for that year. Everyone is obviously in 
favor of charity, but treating wealthy hedge fund managers better than 
the average American taxpayer makes no sense from a tax policy 
standpoint.
  Also, the Senate Republican leadership suggested that some of the 
other new tax policy could be paid for by decreasing the scheduled 
increase in new spending, but that was not taken into consideration, 
even considering the fact that the present budget authorizes an 
increase greater than $350 billion over the next 10 years, and none of 
that is offset.
  This extra $350 billion is like an extra checkbook that Congress is 
carrying around in addition to its already fat checkbook. This 
checkbook covers nondiscretionary spending and current levels of 
discretionary spending. We simply asked that they take a few checks out 
of this extra checkbook--not all of it, just a small part of it--to pay 
for some of these needed tax relief provisions. However, this 
suggestion was summarily dismissed.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are unwilling to even 
consider decreasing their increased nondefense discretionary spending 
that is above the President's budget. If the Blue Dogs of the other 
body are fiscal conservatives, they should come out and say they are 
willing to decrease this increase in the new extra nondefense 
discretionary spending. Instead, the Blue Dogs' position has been that 
all of the tax relief provided in the tax extenders package, even the 
extension of the existing tax policy, must be offset by an

[[Page 16990]]

equal amount of tax increases on every other American. Why not look at 
curbing this new excess spending to pay for part of the much needed tax 
relief? So let us get back to square one. I invite my Blue Dog friends 
who claim to be fiscal conservatives to answer that question.
  Back to where we started today--back to Yogi Berra. He also said: 
``It ain't over 'til it's over.'' This extenders vote failed because 
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have refused to negotiate 
toward a bipartisan bill that can be signed into law. Because of the 
Senate Democratic leadership's doomed plan, this extenders discussion 
``ain't over 'til it's over.'' Let's get this over with. Let's 
negotiate toward a bipartisan agreement that can become law so the 
American people will benefit. So far, the Senate Democratic leadership 
has not done that. For that reason alone, people did vote ``no'' on 
cloture, as they previously had.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I thank the Senator from Ohio 
for allowing me the additional 4 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that our half-hour 
be divided equally, with the first 15 minutes for myself, and Senator 
Nelson of Florida the other 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Ohio is recognized.


                        Doha Round of WTO Talks

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, the Doha Round of World Trade 
Organization--the WTO--talks broke down yesterday. Given the tremendous 
problem with this Nation's trade policy, I don't know of many Ohioans 
who are going to be very upset, and I don't know of many of my 
colleagues who will be too troubled about World Trade Organization 
trade talks breaking down either.
  The impasse at the WTO is no different from the pause we are in right 
now when it comes to trade. Americans are rightly skeptical about the 
course we are on when it comes to trade policy, and Congress reflects 
that skepticism. In the 2006 elections, voters all across the country 
told those of us in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, that 
they wanted a timeout on trade; that they wanted to see us go back and 
look at the success and failures of the North American Free Trade 
Agreement, the Central American Free Trade Agreement--so-called CAFTA 
and NAFTA--and they want us to look at what PNTR--Permanent Normal 
Trade Relations--with China has meant. They want us to look at 
Colombia, and Peru, and Panama, and South Korea, and what those 
agreements might mean to our country.
  It is pretty clear that Americans are not satisfied with the status 
quo of NAFTA, CAFTA, and WTO-modeled policies. One reason is our 
severely unbalanced trade relationship with the People's Republic of 
China. When it comes to competing with China, Ohio workers and 
manufacturers are playing with one hand tied behind their back. We 
shouldn't be playing under these rules.
  Athletes at next week's Olympics will not be playing by these rules. 
Maybe there is a lesson there for the Chinese Government, for the 
United States Government, and for our trade policy. Workers, like 
athletes, can compete with anyone--good athletes and certainly American 
workers can compete with anyone where there is a level playing field 
and the rules are not rigged. But manufacturers and workers in Ohio are 
struggling to compete while our Government too often stands idly by 
while China games the system over and over and over.
  This problem is urgent, as a new report from the Economic Policy 
Institute shows. This report finds that the United States is 
hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs at an alarming pace. Nothing new there. 
More than 366,000 jobs were lost last year alone because of our trade 
deficit with China--366,000 jobs in 1 year because of our trade 
relationship with one country. In all, EPI counts 2.3 million jobs lost 
to the China trade deficit since China joined the World Trade 
Organization less than a decade ago.
  Unless China raises the real value of its currency--the yuan--by at 
least an additional 30 percent, and lets it float on the international 
currency exchanges, as most countries do, the United States trade 
deficit and job losses will continue to grow.
  Labor rights are also a factor. The AFL-CIO estimates that repression 
of labor rights by the Chinese Government has lowered manufacturing 
rates by as much as 80 percent. To put it in perspective, my office 
receives at least two or three TAA certifications a week--trade 
adjustments from the Trade Adjustment Act on workers losing their jobs 
because of international trade. We receive from the Labor Department at 
least two or three TAA certifications a week for Ohio manufacturers. 
Each of these certifications represents, in most cases, hundreds of 
workers and their families.
  What happens to a community when there is job loss? Think about a 
community. I was speaking to a gentleman from Tiffin in the last hour. 
Think about the town of Tiffin, or Chillicothe or Wilmington or Finley 
or Mansfield--towns of 15,000, 20,000, 30,000, or 50,000 people. When 
they lose a plant, a manufacturing installation--or what is happening 
with DHL in Wilmington, which is way beyond that--even if they lose a 
plant with 300 or 400 workers, think about what it does, not just to a 
worker and his or her family, but what it does to the community at 
large, with the layoffs of police officers and teachers and 
firefighters, because there are significantly fewer jobs in a community 
of that size.
  Last week, it was Ceva Logistics in Miamisburg that we got a TAA 
certification about--near Dayton; Acuity Lighting in Newark, and more 
Delphi workers. The same old story with Delphi and what has happened in 
the last year in Moraine, OH--again, near Dayton.
  Yesterday, we got a TAA notice about Acklin Stamping Company in 
Toledo. The Labor Department certified that an increase in imports 
caused Acklin to lay off workers.
  That was last week and yesterday. But how about today and how about 
tomorrow? Probably more TAA notices, because we get two or three almost 
every week. Probably more today, tomorrow, and next week, again because 
of a failed trade policy.
  On my desk, I have a stack of auction notices from small tool and die 
manufacturers going out of business in my State and across the country. 
These notices are going-out-of-business sales. They are notices 
offering the sale of equipment from machine shops not just in my State 
but all over the country.
  This week, I spoke with the CEO and the family owners of Norwalk 
Furniture in Norwalk, OH, a community between Cleveland and Toledo. We 
are trying to keep this 105-year-old company in business. Norwalk 
workers are represented by the Teamsters and United Steelworkers. It is 
a company playing by the rules, paying good wages in a small town in 
Ohio, with good benefits, trying to stay competitive despite having the 
deck stacked against it because of our trade policy with China.
  Again, American companies are playing with one hand tied behind their 
back. China's undervalued currency and weak safety and environmental 
standards put American furniture manufacturers such as Norwalk at a 
huge disadvantage. Like many Ohio businesses, Norwalk Furniture can 
compete with China. It can and has competed with foreign competition. 
That is not the complaint. The reason manufacturers such as Norwalk 
Furniture are struggling and pleading for a change in trade policy is 
that they can't compete while the U.S. Government--the Bush Commerce 
Department, the Bush U.S. Trade Representative--stands by and allows 
China to game the system.
  We see what these plant closings do to communities, which is why not 
only Norwalk Furniture is fighting back, but Mayor Lesch and others in 
Norwalk are joining them in this struggle. The trade deficit with China 
costs manufacturing jobs, and not just low-skilled jobs, as is commonly 
thought.
  One very salient point from the EPI report is that it is not only 
apparel jobs we are talking about, and not only

[[Page 16991]]

relatively low-wage jobs. We are getting into high-tech products, many 
integral to our defense industrial base. The report finds that more 
than a quarter of last year's record trade deficit with China was due 
to advanced technology products.
  Last year, a $68 billion deficit in advanced technology products was 
responsible for more than 25 percent of the total United States-China 
trade deficit. Since 2001, the flood of advanced technology imports 
from China eliminated 561,000 United States jobs in computer and 
electronic products. So we are not just talking about textile and 
apparel jobs.
  EPI also counts more than $8,000 in lost income for displaced 
workers. People who support U.S. trade policy--President Bush, Vice 
President Cheney, the Republican leadership in this body--say: Well, 
yes, prices are low as a result of U.S. trade policy, but when 
companies such as shoe manufacturers move out of the United States or a 
steel manufacturer moves out of the United States, I don't see steel or 
shoe prices dropping necessarily. So I don't know if that argument 
holds water.
  Even if you concede it might affect prices some, EPI counts more than 
$8,000 in lost income per displaced worker. So what does that mean? It 
means someone working at American Standard in Tiffin, OH, or someone at 
the old Westinghouse plant in Mansfield, where I grew up, or a GM 
worker in Dayton or a DHL worker or ABX or ASTAR in Wilmington, when 
they lose a good-paying job making $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, or 
$60,000 a year, the next job they have on the average makes $8,000--if 
they can find a job--makes $8,000 less than they were used to making. 
And lower prices don't give you much of a break when you have a new job 
at $8,000 less than your old job.
  Proponents of China PNTR or NAFTA like to say that the jobs displaced 
from China are replaced with export-oriented jobs that pay better, or 
jobs in the service sector that pay better. Again, not true. The truth 
is that wages earned in United States export heavy industry paid 4 
percent less than the jobs displaced by Chinese imports. So when we 
lose these jobs to Chinese imports, it is costing our workers that 
$8,000 we were talking about. Even if we are exporting some to China, 
the amount we are exporting to China versus the amount we are bringing 
in obviously is a huge chasm. It is the better paying jobs that are 
moving offshore or closing because of a flood of Chinese imports.
  The failure of the WTO talks could, in fact, be a blessing. The DOHA 
talks long ago became more of a threat than an opportunity to American 
farmers and to American workers and long ago represented more of a 
threat than an opportunity for sustainable development abroad for our 
trading partners.
  We have an opportunity now, because of the failure of DOHA, to step 
away, to evaluate what is working and what is not working and start 
again with a new trade model--for New Jersey, the State of the 
Presiding Officer, and for my State. I have introduced legislation, S. 
3083, the TRADE Act, which evaluates our Trade Agreements Program, 
which allows for renegotiation and which sets forth principles for 
future trade deals.
  In my State, in the last year and a half, I have held about 110 
roundtables in 75 of Ohio's 88 counties where I gather a group of 20 or 
25 people, a cross-section of the community, and listen to them talk 
about their hopes and dreams and what they wish and hope for in their 
community and what they are fighting for, for their families and their 
communities. Few issues in these roundtables get workers and 
businesses, Democrats and Republicans--and I don't know people's party 
affiliations at these roundtables--few issues get them as worked up as 
our unfair trading relationship with China in deals such as NAFTA and 
CAFTA that protect Wall Street investors but don't protect labor, don't 
protect safety, don't protect the environment.
  We have an opportunity, in the coming months and especially next year 
with the new President, to renew a consensus on trade. I look forward 
to working in my caucus and across the aisle on a better approach to 
trade policy for our workers, for their families, for our communities, 
and for our country.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                  NASA

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, yesterday was the 50th 
anniversary of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I 
want to recall that after the space shuttle Challenger went down 22 
years ago, in a Nation that was shocked because the very symbol of 
technological prowess had exploded in front of our own eyes on our 
television screens, the President addressed a mourning Nation and noted 
that even out of that tragedy, we have grown accustomed to wonders in 
this country. He observed that we had been so accustomed to all of that 
technological achievement, it was almost as if it was a Sunday 
afternoon drive in the car. As President Reagan said, it is hard to 
dazzle us. But America's space program has been doing exactly that. Now 
for 50 years it has been dazzling us, even in times of loss and even in 
times of tragedy.
  Fifty years ago, it was President Eisenhower who signed the National 
Aeronautics and Space Act and created NASA. Fifty years ago, in 1958--
remember the context of history. The Soviets suddenly took the high 
ground. The Soviets shocked us because they put the first satellite, 
sputnik, in orbit. Here, time after time, with the old Navy Vanguard 
rocket, it would explode on the pad. It was not until the President 
went to a group of Germans--who were here because we, the United 
States, had gotten to Peenemunde, Germany, before the Soviets did and 
got about two-thirds of those German rocket scientists, headed by 
Wernher von Braun. So years later, the President goes to Wernher von 
Braun, as America's prestige was on the line because we couldn't get a 
rocket off the pad, and Wernher von Braun said: Give me 6 months. With 
the Army Redstone rocket, he put up America's first satellite--
Explorer. It was in that historical context that the Congress wrote 
this new act that set up NASA.
  Then, after we had been beaten in space by the Soviets with the first 
satellite, we were beaten in space by the first human in orbit. As a 
matter of fact, we didn't even have a rocket that had enough lift 
capability to get the Mercury capsule into orbit because it was that 
same Redstone rocket that we put the Mercury capsule on for Alan 
Shepard to go into suborbit. It was in that context that President 
Kennedy, after we had been shocked again with the Soviets putting up 
Gagarin for one orbit and then a few weeks later we put up Alan Shepard 
only into suborbit, it was at that point that the President, who is the 
only one who can lead America's space program--that President, in 1961, 
President John F. Kennedy, set the goal. He gave the vision. He said we 
are going to the Moon and back in 9 years, before the end of the 
decade. It was a bold challenge. He did that in front of a joint 
session of Congress: Send a human to another celestial body. Here we 
had not even gotten into orbit with John Glenn.
  It was 10 months later, on an Atlas rocket--which was an ICBM. It was 
not rated for humans. We knew it had a 20-percent chance of failure 
when John Glenn climbed into that Mercury capsule, and then we were off 
on that space race. The skeptics did not think it could be done. They 
certainly didn't think we could go to the Moon. But NASA's Mercury, 
Gemini, and Apollo missions were all designed because of that bold 
stroke of leadership and that vision of a young President.
  Nine years later, on July 20, 1969, the President's dream became a 
reality when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. Who can ever forget those 
immortal words: Houston, the Eagle has landed. And who can ever forget 
those words as the commander of that mission, Neil Armstrong, climbed 
down the ladder of

[[Page 16992]]

those spindly spider legs of the Apollo Lander, when he said: That is a 
small step for man, but that is a giant leap for mankind.
  Since then, we have flown the shuttles, we have built the space 
station, we have explored Jupiter and Mars, and we have had Rovers all 
over Mars. Indeed, it looks as if there was water on Mars. As we 
continue to explore the heavens, if there was water--and when we 
eventually get there with humans--with water, was there life? If there 
was life, how developed was it? If it was developed, was it civilized? 
And if that life was civilized, what happened? What can we learn as we 
explore the heavens in order to be better stewards of our planet, 
protecting our planet and this civilization that is on this home called 
planet Earth?
  I am quite excited, as America celebrates NASA's 50 years of history, 
that we are now preparing to chart a new course into the cosmos. I am 
excited about the wonders that await us. There is hope for space 
settlements and perhaps that discovery of life elsewhere in the 
universe. It is going to be a page-1 story when suddenly there is some 
kind of transmission that we intercept that indicates there is 
intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
  Mr. President, you and I--our human minds cannot conceive the 
enormousness of the universe. When we look at the size of our solar 
system around the Sun and we understand that there are billions of 
other solar systems just in our galaxy and then try to comprehend that 
there are billions of other galaxies--can you imagine that in a far-
distant galaxy, there is another star, similar to our Sun, with planets 
rotating around it, that has created the climatological conditions that 
have brought forth the life here on this planet? Given the infinite 
expanse of the universe--it is going to be quite interesting when we 
have some discovery of an intelligent message from somewhere else in 
the universe. This is the excitement of the future.
  As we look back on the accomplishments of 50 years of NASA, we can 
look with great pride, but excitement, to the future. This is the 
promise of a new President of the United States making a bold 
declaration of our understanding and exploration of the heavens.
  As President Kennedy promised all those years ago, science and 
education have been greatly enriched by the new knowledge of our 
universe and of our environment. Life here on Earth has improved by 
leaps and bounds from the spinoffs of the space technology--the space 
tools, the computers, the miniaturization--all of this which has been 
adapted to our daily lifestyles and to industry and to medicine and to 
our individual homes. America's space effort has created scores of new 
high-tech companies and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Simply put, we 
all reap the harvest of gains from our exploration of space. That is 
why now, at this watershed point of where NASA is going in the future, 
that is why we cannot cede our leadership in space or waiver in our 
support for our space program.
  There is another reason we undertake the risk and invest in space 
exploration.
  It is not the pure science, it is not the technology spinoffs, it is 
not the high-tech workforce, or it is not that we want to extend human 
civilization beyond our planet. We do it because it is in our character 
and our nature as a people. We are, as Americans, explorers by nature.
  In the past, we always have had a frontier. As this Nation developed, 
it was a westward-expanding frontier. Now that expansion is upward. It 
has been said that there are two fundamental differences between humans 
and other species. As humans, we have souls. As humans, we are curious. 
It has also been said that the exploration of space is a testament to 
these differences. Curiosity, which is unique to humans, drives us to 
explore, and our soul gives us meaning to this endeavor.
  As we celebrate 50 years of NASA's history, let us continue to be a 
bit overwhelmed. Let us be dazzled again. That concludes my comments on 
NASA. I have some other comments on a different subject unless we are 
in some restriction here on the time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 2 minutes 40 seconds 
remaining.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. When one of our colleagues comes to the floor, 
I am told that I can continue until that time.


                              Samuel Snow

  I want to share with the Senate the tragedy of a fellow named Samuel 
Snow, Samuel Snow, 84 years old, African American. The time is 1944 and 
he is part of the U.S. forces in a military installation in Seattle, 
WA. It is an installation where there were Italian prisoners of war. 
Somehow a riot breaks out, and in the course of this riot in the 
prisoner of war camp, one of these Italian prisoners of war is lynched, 
and the African-American U.S. soldiers are charged. They are summarily 
dismissed. They are put in jail. For a year, Samuel Snow was put in 
jail. He was then dishonorably discharged, all the time maintaining his 
innocence.
  As he was discharged dishonorably, he went back to his hometown of 
Leesburg, FL. The only work he could get was that of janitor. Yet he 
was so respected in his neighborhood he became the neighborhood 
handyman. He married his high school sweetheart. They had children. He 
raised that family.
  In 2005, a journalist in Seattle, WA, an investigative journalist, 
dug into this situation and found that Sam Snow had been railroaded and 
showed he was innocent. Now, you can imagine all of those years after 
that.
  Then the Army, the U.S. Army, to its embarrassment, decides it is 
going to reverse the dishonorable discharge and give him an honorable 
discharge. And oh, by the way, out of their generosity of heart, they 
decide they are going to pay him his annual wage for the year he spent 
in the military prison, so they are going to cut him a check of $725.
  Well, when this Senator found out about that happening to a 
Floridian, this Senator about went into orbit again, and, of course, 
not only writing to the Pentagon but having direct talks with the 
Secretary of the Army in front of our committee, the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff. All of them came back and said: Well, the law is that we cannot 
pay any more. We cannot pay even what we were asking for.
  At least give him the cost-of-living adjustment for those 60 years of 
his military pay that he was denied. They say: No, we cannot do it. The 
law does not allow it.
  Well, we put it in the Defense authorization bill. It is before the 
Senate. And as soon as the Senate will finally take up the Defense 
authorization bill, we will pass it out of here. It is already in the 
version of the House that has passed the House. It will become law.
  But let me tell you the sad ending to this story. Last Saturday, Sam 
Snow and his son Ray traveled to Seattle for the ceremony conducted by 
the U.S. Army to give him his papers for his honorable discharge. He 
became ill in Seattle before the ceremony. His son went in his place. 
His son received the honorable discharge, brought it back to his dad, 
and with a big smile on his dad's face, his son read him the honorable 
discharge from an incident, a terrible mark upon the U.S. Army that had 
occurred 60 years before.
  I am sad to tell you that 3 hours later, Sam Snow passed away to go 
on to be with his Maker. He is still owed that back pay, and he is owed 
more than some $725. This Senator, when we pass that Defense 
authorization bill, is looking forward to the day that that sum, 
adjusted, will go to his grieving family.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                       Clean Boating Act of 2008

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, until another Senator has come 
to the floor to seek recognition, I have another subject I have been 
waiting patiently to speak on, and we have been so busy on the floor 
that I have not had a chance to speak on it.

[[Page 16993]]

  This is another good news story. We have finally passed, by the 
Senate working together across the aisle, bipartisan, we have passed a 
bill, we have passed legislation, and it is anticipated that it will be 
signed shortly by the President into law, averting a total disaster 
where the Environmental Protection Agency, pursuant to a judge's 
decision in Federal court on the west coast of the United States, the 
EPA was going to require a permit of every little recreational boat 
owner for any kind of runoff from that boat, whether it be in washing 
down the deck, whether it be the bilge water, whether it be water 
coming out of an outboard motor, whether it be trying to scoop out the 
water filling up in a little motorboat. Whatever it is, they were going 
to require, for the 23 million recreational boat owners, 2 million of 
which are in my State of Florida, they were going to require going to 
the EPA in order to get a permit.
  By working it out on both sides of the aisle in a bipartisan fashion, 
we were able also to get a delay of an additional 24 months for 
commercial vessels under 79 feet and all commercial fishing vessels 
regardless of size.
  All of this came from the decision of a judge who was trying to 
protect the interests of the United States. Because what happened is 
these foreign vessels that come in with ballast water in order to weigh 
down a vessel before it then comes to the United States and takes on 
cargo that weighs down the vessel would then dump this water that was 
there for ballast in the waters of the United States. The problem was 
they would take on water elsewhere in the world that was contaminated, 
and a certain kind of snail was one of these contaminants that would 
then go into any kind of drain under the water and start to clog up the 
drain. So there was clearly an environmental interest to be protected 
against all of these big commercial vessels bringing in this foreign 
ballast water that was contaminating our waters.
  But the fact is, the court's ruling became so expansive that it said 
in incidental runoff from little recreational boats, you are going to 
have to get an EPA permit as well.
  Fortunately, common sense prevailed and we have been able to overcome 
that. We passed it in the House and the Senate. It is on its way to the 
White House. Presumably the President will sign this momentarily and it 
will be law, averting this disaster that was about to occur in 
September where all of these recreational boat owners and the 
commercial small fishing vessels were going to have to get this EPA 
permit.
  That is a commonsense story. It is also a good news story. I wanted 
to share that with the Senate. I thank the folks who have worked with 
me on this legislation, particularly the chairman of the Environment 
Committee, Senator Boxer, and Senator Murkowski of Alaska, who helped 
work with us with regard to the commercial fishing vessels that were 79 
feet and less. I am glad to bring this good news to the Senate.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             9-1-1 Service

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I have the opportunity to clear 
the decks today with another speech I have been waiting to give. Since 
one of our colleagues is not coming, I am going to take advantage of 
this lull of the Senate and, since a Senator is walking in, I will make 
it short.
  A tragedy occurred in Florida about 4 years ago, when a child in 
Deltona, FL, which is north of Orlando, started choking. The mom raced 
to the phone and dialed 9-1-1 and then she ran back to the child when 
she could not get anyone to answer on 9-1-1 to help the child. But it 
was to no avail. And what we found out was, in fact, this was a voice 
over the Internet telephone conversation and that, in fact, there was 
no emergency 9-1-1. So for the last 3 or 4 years, some of us have been 
trying to make sure there is a mandate for 9-1-1 service on a telephone 
that happened to be transmitted over the Internet instead of over the 
normal telephonic wires. Happily, I can say to the Senate we worked 
that legislation out. It was comprehensive. We worked out the 
differences between the House and Senate. On another happy occasion, 
the President invited a bunch of us to come down for a signing 
ceremony. I'm happy to say that in the future, when anybody runs to a 
telephone to dial 9-1-1, it is not going to be the technical difference 
of that phone. They are going to know it is hooked up to emergency 
services. That is my good news story.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            Rural Gas Crisis

  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Florida for 
filling in for me while I was caught up in a radio interview.
  We are here today to talk about a real crisis, a rural America 
crisis. Rural America is suffering a gas price crisis. Rural America 
deserves action now to get gas prices down. Rural America knows this 
fundamentally is a problem of not enough supply to meet demand. We need 
to find more oil and use less to bring the real gas price relief rural 
America needs. Families, farmers, truckers across rural Missouri, my 
home State, are suffering record pain at the pump. At kitchen tables in 
the farmhouses of rural Missouri, farmers, dairy producers, and 
cattlemen are facing a gas price crisis. Farm costs are higher than 
ever. Farm fuel to run tractors and farm equipment is at record levels. 
Transportation costs to get goods to the market are at a record level. 
The ability of consumers to buy products is under record pressure. 
People are seeing higher food prices because food has to travel. The 
average item on the grocery shelf travels 1,300 miles. Record-high 
diesel prices are adding to the price of food goods in the store.
  All this means real suffering for rural Missouri and its farmers. 
Down country roads of rural Missouri, rural families are facing a gas 
price crisis. They have to cut budgets hit hard by high gas prices. 
Many of these families live in rural areas because they are of modest 
means. Maybe they are looking for cheaper housing than offered in big 
cities. Maybe they are fixed-income retirees staying in their own 
hometowns. Either way, when it comes time to cut the family budget, the 
cuts will go extra deep.
  What will these rural families cut because of higher gas prices? With 
the school year coming, they have to get the kids to school. Will a 
rural family give up buying new clothes for their kids? Will struggling 
fixed-income seniors cancel doctors appointments or cut back on 
medication?
  Truckers across Missouri are facing a gas price crisis. Many trucking 
firms are based in rural areas, where land and fuel were cheaper, but 
record diesel prices are hammering truckers and trucking companies. 
Mom-and-pop trucking firms are laying off drivers. Some are even going 
into bankruptcy. Many rural families and workers also depend on 
airlines for service and jobs. Airlines are facing record-high jet fuel 
prices. That is forcing airlines to lay off workers and cut back 
service. Many of the blue-collar workers who moved back to maintain 
planes and service airports are being affected.
  American Airlines, for example, is set to eliminate some 6,500 jobs 
because of record-high oil prices. Airlines also cut low-volume routes 
to rural areas first. Airlines are trying to manage rising fuel costs 
by using the financial markets to hedge against risk. But their experts 
tell me the main problem is a fear that there will not be a supply 
there in the future. They say if the U.S. Government would take steps 
to increase supply, it would bring about a huge change in the market 
and bring prices down immediately. Why? Because the current price being 
paid on

[[Page 16994]]

the hedging market for oil to be delivered in 3 years depends upon 
their expectation of what the demand and supply will be in the years 
ahead. Right now there is every reason to think that if we do nothing, 
if we are prevented from getting a gas price reduction bill that 
provides more and allows us to use less through this Senate, the price 
will not be just $140 a barrel. The price will not just be $185. It 
will be $200 or $250. So people's retirement plans, such as CalPERS, 
California Public Employees Retirement System, are bidding up the price 
in the future because they don't expect supply to go up. Bringing that 
price down will make a difference. It will make a difference in the 
price of oil today, just as President Bush's ending of the Executive 
moratorium on offshore drilling brought the price down from $145 to 
$120.
  Bringing the price down could make a real difference between keeping 
jobs and service in rural America and letting go thousands of workers. 
The suffering of rural Missouri families, farmers, and truckers is why 
we are fighting so hard to lower gas prices. We are fighting to open 
new supplies of oil needed to get prices down. Real action to lower gas 
prices is the most important thing we can do to help rural America and 
rural Missouri. Fighting for real action to lower gas prices is the 
most important thing I could do to help rural Missouri. I have 
amendments to force gas prices down by opening new offshore oil 
reserves waiting for us. I filed an amendment to lower gas prices by 
opening access to the 18 billion barrels of oil waiting for us off 
America's Atlantic and Pacific coasts. These reserves could supply 
America with 10 years of additional oil supplies, if we would only 
allow ourselves to use them to change a 30-year policy the Democrats 
have imposed, that Senator Obama continues to champion, of no drilling, 
no refineries, no nuclear power. The decision to open our offshore oil 
reserves would immediately cause the price of oil to fall.
  We know that because this happened earlier this month, when President 
Bush reversed the Executive ban and brought the price of oil 
immediately down $10 and, now, $20 a barrel. Nothing hurts speculators 
bidding up the price of oil more than news of additional oil supplies 
coming in the future. Congress must do our part to lower gas prices 
even further by opening new offshore reserves. However, the Democratic 
Party is blocking the Senate from considering my amendment to tap 
offshore oil reserves, even as I speak. I also cosponsored an amendment 
with several Senate colleagues to tap offshore oil reserves in the 
eastern Gulf of Mexico. There are almost 3 billion barrels of oil in 
the eastern gulf waiting to help bring gas prices down for rural 
Missouri. Unfortunately, the Democratic leadership is also blocking 
consideration of this amendment.
  I also agree we must help America use less oil. I have an amendment 
that would relieve the pressure on gas prices by increasing 
conservation. My amendment would aggressively promote advanced vehicle 
batteries and their production in the United States for hybrid, plug-in 
hybrid, and electric vehicles. My amendment would provide new funds for 
hybrid battery research and development, battery manufacturing 
equipment and capabilities, and reequipping, expanding or establishing 
U.S. domestic manufacturing facilities for hybrid vehicle batteries. 
U.S. domestic mass production of hybrid batteries would get battery 
prices down, getting the hybrid vehicle prices down. But most 
importantly, it would give our auto companies access to the batteries 
we need. Right now many of the batteries have to be brought in from 
Asia. As the demand for more batteries goes up in Asia, I can assure my 
colleagues that American auto companies will not necessarily be first 
in line to get that production. We need to put American workers to work 
building the batteries, the advanced batteries that will go into the 
electric cars, the plug-ins, and the hybrid plug-ins. This would not 
only conserve oil. It would give jobs to blue-collar manufacturing 
workers and help the environment. It is going to be good for Missouri 
when we do it. The question is when.
  Missouri is a national leader in hybrid car production, in batteries, 
and advanced vehicle batteries. We make traditional batteries across 
the State because we are the leader in lead. We mine a lot of lead in 
Missouri. When you are talking about environmental dangers, yes, lead 
has some dangers to it. There is only one simple reason we mine lead in 
Missouri, and that is because we have 90 percent of it in the United 
States. When people tell me they don't want to drill for natural gas 
because they don't like the sight of natural gas wells, but they have 
the natural gas, I say: If you will trade us your natural gas for our 
lead, I would be happy to let them drill in my backyard.
  But Missouri, with all the battery specialists, the technical workers 
we have, the scientists, is on the cutting edge of battery technology, 
with firms developing safer, stronger lithium ion batteries. We are 
also home to a hybrid SUV assembly plant in Kansas City. This success 
does not have to be limited to Missouri. Communities across America can 
share in the drive to establish a domestic manufacturing supply base 
for mass hybrid car construction.
  Rural communities, especially, can benefit from the good-paying 
manufacturing jobs that U.S. mass battery production would provide. 
Rural school districts would benefit from new tax revenues. Rural 
police and firefighters would benefit. Unfortunately, as I said, 
Democrats are blocking Senate consideration.
  Now, what answers do my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
have for rural America? Well they propose making things worse by suing 
oil-producing countries.
  Folks back home in my part of rural Missouri may not know much about 
antitrust laws--most folks don't--but anyone with common sense would 
know, if you sue someone, they would likely take what they have and 
sell it to somebody else.
  I guess this was an idea cooked up by trial lawyers who are eager to 
sue anybody they can. As you might imagine, there are not too many 
trial lawyers in rural Missouri.
  Democrats also proposed raiding our emergency oil supplies in the 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Putting aside the fact that these 
emergency reserves are only meant to be used in times supply is cut 
off, such as during a war, this plan would only produce 3\1/2\ days of 
additional oil.
  So while Republicans are offering rural America 10 years of 
additional oil supplies, Democrats think rural America should get by on 
only 3\1/2\ days of extra supplies. This lack of sympathy for taking 
real action may be based on the fact that a lot of Democrats are fine 
with higher oil prices.
  After all, the Democratic nominee for President, Senator Obama, said 
the problem was not that gas prices were so high, the problem was 
merely that gas prices had risen so quickly. That is akin to telling 
people it is OK to drown as long as the water rises slowly.
  Today, in Springfield, MO, the Democratic nominee suggested we all 
make sure we properly inflate our tires. Big deal. I believe in all 
tires being fully inflated. But, frankly, that is the kind of hot air--
this hot air being into tires--that we have been hearing too much of on 
this floor.
  Rural Missouri is suffering record pain at the pump, and the best 
thing he can come up with is more hot air--this time for our tires. 
Rural Missouri deserves more than the hot air from the Illinois 
Senator.
  Senator McCain has come out very clearly and strongly in support of 
drilling, of exploring, of developing nuclear power.
  We tried last year. Congress passed the largest increase in auto fuel 
efficiency requirements in a generation to bring down gas usage. Well, 
that did nothing to prevent record-high prices. That is because it will 
take years before more fuel-efficient cars are required. The Democratic 
candidate for President must want us to suffer through record-high gas 
prices until those conservation measures kick in.
  I support increasing conservation, but we must not force a 
prescription of pain on America while we wait years for these 
conservation measures to kick in.

[[Page 16995]]

  The Democratic candidate for President has suggested another stimulus 
package to help drivers through this price crisis. I am sure Missouri 
rural families would be happy to receive a few hundred dollars more in 
stimulus relief. But what they want is not to get a check from the 
Government--after the handful of tanks of gasoline that money could buy 
is spent--they want to bring down the price. They will be right back 
where they are, paying the full price of record-high gas prices, and we 
will do nothing but increase our deficit.
  Rural Missouri and America deserve more than a prescription of pain 
to address the gas price crisis. We deserve more than half measures 
that will only produce a few days or months more of additional 
supplies. Rural Missouri deserves more than a Senate attempting to 
abandon them and this gas price crisis by moving on to other issues.
  Rural Missouri and the people of America deserve real action now to 
lower gas prices. That means new offshore oil supplies to get prices 
down, new offshore oil supplies for Missouri families, new offshore oil 
supplies for Missouri farmers, and new offshore oil supplies for 
Missouri truckers. That is our only real hope for real gas price 
relief.
  I urge my Senate colleagues to let us act on it and act now.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana is recognized.


                         Montana National Guard

  Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, I wish to begin by noting that, again, it 
is fire season in Montana.
  Right now, major wildfires are threatening homes in a small town 
called Red Lodge. The Cascade fire has been burning and has burned 
about 6,000 acres. It is burning uncomfortably close to the Red Lodge 
Mountain ski area.
  The hot, dry weather forecast over the next week means there are 
likely to be more fires and more acres of rangeland and forest lost.
  Fire season in Montana officially runs from August until the first 
snow in fall. So, once again, we are off to an early start.
  Wildfires are becoming a fact of the West. We accept it. We deal with 
it.
  The good news is Montana is blessed with outstanding firefighters 
from the U.S. Forest Service, Tribal Nations, and the State Department 
of Natural Resources, as well as first responders from local volunteer 
and paid fire departments.
  When they need reinforcements, they turn to the Montana National 
Guard. Last year, more than 200 guardsmen were mobilized to help fight 
wildfires in Montana. While no guardsmen have been mobilized yet this 
year, it will happen at some point--just as they are mobilized every 
year to protect people and homes, dig out fire lines, smother embers, 
and provide all manner of hands-on support to this team effort.
  There are not too many jobs in this country where the work is as 
varied as service in our National Guard. This summer we can expect that 
hundreds of National Guardsmen in Montana and throughout the West will 
be mobilized to help fight wildfires. It has already happened in 
California, where the Governor called up 200 Guardsmen.
  This is a vital role in our Nation's homeland security.
  And just as the Guard answers the call for homeland security 
missions, they answer the bell when it comes to national security.
  In 2004 and 2005, more than 1,500 of my State's National Guard 
deployed to Iraq. They did yeoman's work over there, and we can all be 
very proud of their service and grateful for it as well. Today, there 
are nearly 23,000 National Guardsmen serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Another 3,000 Guardsmen from all over the country work hard to 
protect our southern border, helping the Border Patrol get a better 
handle on securing that border. Four hundred Montana Guardsmen were a 
proud part of that important effort earlier this year.
  So as the National Guard in Montana prepares for the inevitable 
mobilization fight against wildfires here at home, I think it is 
appropriate we stop to thank the 3,500-strong members of our Montana 
National Guard for what they do both abroad and here at home.
  As wildfires continue to threaten Montana's countryside and our 
communities, I wish to pay tribute to all the brave men and women who 
put it on the line to fight our fires.


                                 Energy

  Mr. President, I wish to comment on the energy debate we have been 
having in the Senate. Every Tuesday morning, for 2\1/2\ hours, I get to 
preside over this great body, and I get to hear folks from both sides 
of the aisle talk about issues of importance.
  The energy debate has been particularly intriguing because I have 
seen folks on the other side of the aisle hold up signs that talk about 
drilling more and using less.
  They are quick to support oil production. But on the other hand, they 
will not support alternative energies or conservation methods. They 
talk about drilling more as if it is going to change the price of 
gasoline tomorrow.
  The fact is, the United States has less than 3 percent of the world's 
reserves of oil. We use 25 percent of the supply. As far as drilling 
goes, we are drilling now like there is no tomorrow. In fact, in 
Montana, you would be hard-pressed to find a drilling rig if you wanted 
to punch a hole.
  In Montana, we have offered over 3 million acres of leasing since 
2000. We have increased our oil production two and a half-fold. We have 
drilled 4,870 wells in the last 5 years. Yet we continually see the 
price of oil go up and up and up. Why? Well, a lot of it has to do with 
the fact that the major oil companies last year made hundreds of 
billions of dollars off the consumers' back.
  What can we do? What can we do to help bring the price of oil down? 
Sure, we are going to continue to drill, and I support that effort. But 
we need additions to our energy portfolio. If we continue to rely on 
oil as our chief supplier of energy, we are going to be continuing to 
be beholden to Saudi Arabia and OPEC forever. That ought not be the 
direction we go.
  My good friend, my comrade, Senator Baucus, put forth a tax extenders 
bill earlier today. Yesterday, we had a chance to vote on one from the 
House. They were both defeated. They were not allowed to move forward. 
There was a majority, but there was not 60 votes.
  What was in that tax extenders bill? One of the things that was in it 
was a renewable energy tax credit extension, a continuation that would 
put more energy in the marketplace.
  As shown on this chart, we can see what happens when we have the wind 
energy tax credit. The yellow bars indicate that. The orange bars 
indicate when it does not happen. If we have the wind energy tax 
credit, wind energy production goes up, and there is more energy in the 
marketplace. When we don't, it does not.
  Because of the vote that was taken earlier today, you will see a 
decrease in wind energy production--a big mistake for this country, not 
very visionary.
  Because of the vote that took place earlier today, we not only will 
see wind energy grind to a halt, we will see geothermal--which we have 
a tremendous opportunity for throughout the country, particularly in 
Montana--we will see biomass, landfill gas--we have an electrical 
cooperative in northwestern Montana, Flathead Electric Cooperative, 
that is talking about capturing methane gas off the landfill to produce 
energy, getting something from nothing--we will not see any of that 
stuff go on because of the defeat of the tax extenders bill.
  In that tax extenders bill, there were also long-term extensions of 
tax credits for solar energy and fuel cells. Solar energy: getting our 
energy from the Sun to help replace some of that oil from the Middle 
East--not going to happen. Folks talk about corn ethanol and how they 
don't like it. I am not one of them. But I do think we need to get the 
second generation of ethanol production, cellulosic ethanol. There was 
a credit for property in that tax extenders bill that was not agreed to 
earlier today. That will not happen; a biodiesel tax credit. I have 
talked about a camelina provision in the farm

[[Page 16996]]

bill for biodiesel, and there are other opportunities in all sorts of 
oilseeds out there. The biodiesel tax credit does not happen because we 
did not pass that bill Senator Baucus offered earlier today.
  Carbon capture and storage technology to make our coal burn cleaner. 
In Montana, we are the ``Saudi Arabia'' of coal. We have an incredible 
opportunity. But without good technology to capture carbon and store 
it, we will never be all we can be. It would make us more energy 
independent.
  Talk about producing more here at home: Drilling is part of the 
equation. But an even bigger part of the equation could have been to 
pass that tax extenders bill earlier today.
  Let's talk about using less.
  In that tax extenders bill, there were energy efficiency tax credits 
to help make our homes more energy efficient. It is not going to 
happen. There was a credit to reduce idling for truckers--that we all 
see happen--to save transportation fuel. It is not going to happen.
  You want to talk about using less? There was a bicycling tax credit 
for those folks who want to ride their bicycle to work rather than to 
drive. It will not happen.
  There were incentives for geothermal heat pumps in our homes that use 
less energy with more consistency. It is not going to happen.
  There were energy conservation bonds for States and local school 
districts. The list goes on and on and on.
  I ask myself: Why? Why does it have to be this way? Why aren't we 
looking to the future? Why are we not talking about more than drilling? 
The fact is, we are drilling. We are drilling an incredible amount of 
land in this country. It needs to be a bridge. But it needs to be a 
bridge to somewhere this time. If we put forth the renewable energy 
components that are in the tax extenders bill, we will have a future. 
We will have a future of affordable energy.
  I ask my comrades to pass that tax extenders bill. It is incredibly 
important. It is not just because of energy that it is important.


                          Secure Rural Schools

  Finally, I wish to talk about the security of rural schools. These 
are payments to Montana's rural communities and forested counties that 
have an incredible amount of public lands.
  The Secure Rural Schools dollars are important not only for the 
school but also for our roads and our rural counties. Montana is rich 
in public lands. Consequently, it puts more pressure on property taxes 
of private property in those counties. With the Secure Rural Schools 
money, it gives those rural and forested counties the opportunity to 
meet the needs of the kids in these rural districts and to meet the 
needs of the transportation industry in those rural districts. We all 
know that less money for rural schools means lower teacher pay, bigger 
classroom size, fewer activities, and students start to fall behind.
  County road workers right now are being laid off. I spoke with the 
head of the Montana Association of Counties. He said to the counties: 
Take your budgets and utilize them as if this money is not going to 
happen because it is not until we pass the tax extenders programs.
  We had the opportunity in this body today and yesterday to pass a 
good bill that meets the needs of America's families, small businesses, 
and the economy. It was not passed. There are all sorts of excuses for 
it, but they are simply that: excuses. We need to move forward with 
some proactive thinking in this body. I hope the next time this bill 
hits this floor, it is passed and passed by a large margin.
  I thank the Chair.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin). The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized 
following the presentation by the Senator from Minnesota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today with much 
dismay over the fact that we were not able to pass the energy 
extenders, the tax extenders, the package of important provisions for 
our country's economy because of this obstructionism on the other side.
  Let me tell my colleagues why this was so important to me. We only 
got four Republican votes for this package. I think it is outrageous 
when you look at what we are dealing with. This week we are going to be 
memorializing the tragic, tragic, tragic fall of the bridge in the 
middle of Minnesota. I am going to speak to that tomorrow and do a 
fitting tribute, along with Senator Coleman, to the victims of that 
bridge collapse and to the first responders who saved so many lives, 
and to the reconstruction work that has gone on thanks to the help of 
this Senate. I live six blocks from that bridge, so it means a lot to 
me.
  I said the week the bridge fell down that in America, a bridge 
shouldn't fall down in the middle of the Mississippi River, especially 
not on an eight-lane highway, especially not on one of the most heavily 
traveled bridges in the State, especially not at rush hour in the heart 
of a major metropolitan area. Unfortunately, however, it took that 
disaster to put the issue of infrastructure funding squarely on the 
national agenda, and it is long overdue. That is why I was so 
disappointed that in this important bill was $8 billion to replenish 
the highway trust fund of this country, to replenish that fund. Mr. 
President, 400,000 jobs in this country are at stake in that bill that 
was voted down by the other side.
  Look what is happening in this country with our infrastructure. Let's 
take the issue of bridges. Nationwide, bridges are deteriorating far 
faster than we can repair or replace them. About 78,000 bridges across 
the Nation are structurally deficient. What does structurally deficient 
mean? When inspectors evaluate a bridge, they examine the bridge's 
deck, superstructure, and substructure. Each of these components is 
ranked on a scale of 0 to 9, with 0 being failed and 9 being excellent. 
If the deck, superstructure, or substructure is given a 4 or less, the 
bridge is classified as structurally deficient.
  In June of 2006, the I-35W bridge's superstructure--meaning the 
physical conditions of all structural members--was rated at a 4. The 
bridge's deck was rated at a 5, and the substructure, comprised of the 
piers, the footings, and other components, was rated as a 6. A bridge 
is shut down if any of its parts are rated at a 2.
  Then we have another 80,000 bridges across the Nation which are 
functionally obsolete. What does functionally obsolete mean? That means 
they don't meet today's design standards, they don't conform to today's 
safety standards, and they are handling traffic far beyond their 
design. Fully one-quarter of America's 600,000 bridges have aged so 
much that their physical condition or their ability to withstand 
current traffic levels is simply inadequate. These bridges require 
immediate attention.
  I can tell you since our bridge fell on that summer day on August 1, 
we have had a number of bridges shut down, close down in our State, 
including one that handled a lot of traffic in St. Cloud, MN. There was 
one in Winona, MN, that was actually on the Federal stamp from our 
State that was temporarily closed down and is going to have to be 
rebuilt.
  We are seeing this across the country. We are seeing a need for 
infrastructure funding. At a time when our economy is facing such 
difficult times, I see this as an investment, not only in the long-term 
viability for our country's transportation system but also in jobs. 
That is why I am so disappointed that the other side was willing to 
turn their backs on 400,000 existing jobs, much less add new ones, by 
turning down that $8 billion replenishment of the highway trust fund.
  It was President Kennedy who once said that building a road or 
highway isn't pretty, but it is something our economy needs to have. I 
can tell you beyond the bridges in metropolitan areas, nowhere is that 
truer than in rural America. We are seeing a rejuvenation because of 
the energy economy right now in rural Minnesota as

[[Page 16997]]

we are in so much of rural America. Senator Tester from Montana talked 
about this. We are seeing biofuels, whether it is biodiesel, ethanol, 
moving to cellulosic ethanol; whether it is wind or solar. We are third 
in the country in Minnesota with wind energy--third in the country.
  I have seen jobs such as in Starbuck, MN, where a group of 10 people 
decided to quit their jobs and go work for a solar panel factory. They 
were so proud of their work they had me jump up and down on those solar 
panels to show that they can withstand hail damage, and they did.
  I can tell you this: We are seeing these jobs and we need courage in 
Washington that matches the courage of these employees in Starbuck, MN, 
or in Pipestone--the courage of these employees who are willing to see 
a better energy future, while this body on the other side is willing to 
shoot it down by shooting down those tax extenders for energy. This is 
the wave of the future. This is the way we are going to be investing in 
homegrown energy and in the farmers and the workers of the Midwest 
instead of the oil cartels in the Mideast.
  So it is about the energy extenders for me in my State and across the 
country, but it is also about the transportation funding that came in 
replenishing that highway trust fund. When you start building this 
energy economy, with the wind turbines and with the biofuels in the 
trucks going across these roads, you are going to put more stress on 
the roads and the rail in rural America. If we are going to move to the 
next century's economic system, we can't be stuck in the last century's 
transportation system.
  I will give some examples. The ethanol plant in Bentsen, MN, now has 
over 525 fully loaded semis hauling the ethanol from their plant every 
week. This is a 45-million gallon facility. Their production falls 
about in the middle of our biodiesel facilities in Minnesota.
  SMI Hydraulics is a company in rural southwestern Minnesota that 
manufactures the bases for the wind towers you see all across our 
country. This is a company that started as a barn. The wind towers they 
manufacture actually come out of the side of the barn as they are 
employing dozens of people right in this little town. The heavy trucks 
that bring the steel to the company put a heavy burden on the road as 
they travel and are putting durability to a test. This truck travel and 
the need for more rail travel is part of our transportation future, but 
when the other side shoots down our ability to even replenish the 
highway trust fund, we are not going to be moving in the right 
direction for our economy. We are not going to help these rural people 
to develop the true energy economy they need to develop.
  In his 1963 ``Memoir for Change,'' President Eisenhower famously 
said:

       More than any single action by the government since the end 
     of the war, this one would change the face of America.

  He was talking about the interstate highway system. Its impact on the 
American economy, the jobs it would produce in manufacturing and 
construction, the rural areas it would open up were beyond calculation. 
Well, he was right. Just as he was right back in 1963, we know he is 
still right in 2008. So the gall to turn down the replenishment of that 
highway trust fund and to stop America as we try to head to the new 
energy future--other countries are leapfrogging us because they have 
government policies in place that mandate these green jobs and move in 
the right direction--is plain wrong.
  The one last thing I wish to say is there is one way--as we look to 
jump-starting the economy right now, as we look at solving our oil 
crisis and our dependency on foreign oil and our spending of $600,000 a 
minute on foreign oil--and that is the President. He doesn't need the 
Congress. He can complain about Congress all he wants, but the 
President of the United States can actually release barrels of oil from 
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He can do it right now. He could do it 
in the next hour. We can look at what has happened in the past: 1990 to 
1991, 11 million barrels were released; 1996 to 1997, 28 million 
barrels were released to reduce the Federal debt. In 2005, 21 million 
barrels were released after Katrina. We can look at how full the 
petroleum reserve has been. In 1993, 79 percent full; in 2001, it was 
74 percent full. Well, right now, in 2008, it is 97 percent full. So 
this President, on his own, could simply release the barrels of oil 
from that Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
  We are the home of Northwest Airlines in Minnesota. The CEO there, 
Doug Steenland, has spoken with me many times. Tens of thousands of 
customers have sent e-mails saying we want to stop this speculation and 
we want to do something about helping Americans and helping these 
companies with oil prices. One way to do this immediately is to release 
some of the barrels of oil, 97 percent full, from that Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve. If you even go down to 90 percent, you could inject 
$6 billion into the American economy and help to bring those oil prices 
down. This is up to the President. He could do it with one signature on 
one document. He doesn't need us passing a bill to have to deal with 
these guys and their filibuster. He could do it himself.
  So in addition to passing these tax extenders, to getting our green 
energy economy going and doing something about that highway trust fund 
so another bridge doesn't fall down in the middle of America, this 
President, himself, without even one vote from Congress, could release 
barrels of oil into the American economy and help not only customers 
but also help the businesses in this country who are finding it harder 
and harder to compete as we see the price of oil escalate.
  Thank you very much, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. WEBB. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 minutes as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.


                      Remembering Freddie Hutchins

  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I rise today to extend my condolences to the 
family and friends of Mr. Freddie Hutchins who passed away suddenly 
yesterday, on July 29. Freddie served on my staff since my election. He 
managed my Roanoke Senate office. He was a tremendous individual with a 
great deal of promise. I had selected him from a number of very 
talented people down in southwest Virginia to run this office. He 
passed away, as I said, suddenly only at the age of 26.
  Freddie was a product of southwest Virginia. He grew up in Botetourt 
County. He was very heavily influenced by his grandfather, who was a 
very active Democrat and railroad man, a union man down in southwest 
Virginia. He was known for having made himself a business card at the 
age of 13 saying Freddie Hutchins, Democrat. He loved the rich culture 
of southwest Virginia.
  He represented the values that characterize that region. He loved his 
country. He had a great sense of service and a determination to work 
hard. He developed a very early interest in politics. He was a C-SPAN 
enthusiast at a young age. Before joining my office, he had worked for 
State Delegate Onzlee Ware as a legislative aide and had been active in 
a number of political campaigns.
  He was a tireless and vocal advocate for working people in this 
country. He was committed to social justice and was someone who was 
always eager and enthusiastic to help people.
  He was one of the most honorable and friendly individuals I have ever 
had the pleasure of knowing. He was a mainstay in that community and 
had a very bright future. I had always assumed that Freddie Hutchins 
would be running for elective office in the near future. He was a 
friend to all who knew him.
  Again, I express my condolences to his mother Karen and the rest of 
his family and all of those whom he had reached out and done so much 
with and for over the years. He will be greatly missed.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. What is the status of the floor?

[[Page 16998]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 4 minutes 40 seconds remaining for 
the majority in this block of time.
  Mr. REID. For how long?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time is alternating 30 minutes between the 
majority and the Republicans.
  Mr. REID. I am going to use leader time now, and I ask unanimous 
consent that the Democrats' 4 minutes be preserved.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we over here, the mighty band of Democrats, 
with the majority of 1--there are 51 of us and 49 of them--trying so 
hard to do something on energy. We have been trying for months now. I 
think we have done some things that would be good for the American 
people but for the fact that the Republicans have basically objected to 
everything we have tried to do.
  What have we tried to do? We introduced S. 3044, called the Consumer-
First Energy Act. It has some tremendously powerful things in it that 
relate to what the American people's problem is today: high gas prices.
  In that legislation, we talk about price gouging. Do we have any 
reason to have in a provision of law an element that we can go after 
companies that price gouge? Of course. The oil companies, during the 
Bush years, have had net profits of $609 billion. So our price-gouging 
provision was, we thought, very key in doing something about energy.
  In S. 3044, we had something dealing with the oil subsidies the oil 
companies have received, that perhaps they should be cut back. They are 
making these huge profits. In this bill, we had a provision that was 
bipartisan and has been pushed by Senator Kohl of Wisconsin and Senator 
Specter of Pennsylvania--NOPEC is what it was called. It was a proposal 
to have the OPEC cartel be subject to the Sherman Antitrust Act. That 
seems reasonable, since these countries have the absolute ability to so 
easily lock in prices and determine what prices are going to be charged 
around the world. Senators Kohl and Specter thought this was good 
legislation, and so did we. That is why we put it in our legislation.
  We also had a provision in our legislation dealing with speculation. 
I will talk about that later. We not only had it in S. 3044, we had 
freestanding legislation dealing with speculation.
  We also had in S. 3044 something dealing with a windfall profits tax, 
which should be part of the law of our country today. The American 
consumer agrees with that.
  Mr. President, Senator Bingaman also prepared legislation, which has 
now been filed at the desk. It is very good legislation. We were asking 
for help from the Republicans and got none. Senator Bingaman is one of 
the most astute, hard-working, creative, and smartest Senators we have 
ever had in this body. In that legislation, S. 5135, we had some really 
good things. It wasn't ``take it or leave it'' legislation. With the 68 
million acres the oil companies have, it called for due diligence. It 
said: With the 68 million acres you have, let's find out what you are 
doing with it, why you are not drilling in some parts of it, and report 
to the Interior Department and find out what is going on with that 
land. It is typical of Senator Bingaman because it was well thought 
out. Rather than the provision that some were talking about--use it or 
lose it--Senator Bingaman believed that was appropriate, and that is 
why he went through the trouble of coming up with this legislation.
  He also had something in the bill that would be important which deals 
with building codes, making it so that in the future, when things are 
built, when construction takes place, it deals with the environment. 
There is so much that can be done to save huge amounts of electricity 
if we had buildings built properly.
  We also had a provision on which the Senator from Minnesota spoke so 
eloquently which said that we want you to take the great resource we 
have--the more than 700 million barrels of oil we have in our Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve--and we want you to announce to the world that we are 
going to start using some of that. We are going to start using that to 
bring down the price of oil. We know it works. We know it works because 
the President's father did it, and it brought down the price of oil. We 
have asked that this be done on other occasions, but we put it in this 
legislation Senator Bingaman came up with.
  The airlines tell us it is important to bring down the prices. The 
airline companies need to have oil, for these companies to be able to 
succeed, at about $100 a barrel. That is high, but they could succeed 
with that. Anything over that is a tremendous losing proposition for 
them. This would bring the price of oil down to at or near that price. 
But we got no suggestions from the Republicans that they cared about 
this.
  Also, I thought what Senator Bingaman did was very important. He said 
there is about 25 million acres of land that is available now to be 
leased for oil exploration. All the administration has to do is tell 
the Interior Department to issue leases on it. It has already been 
determined that it has tremendous oil potential. Much of it is on- and 
offshore in Alaska. It would add another 25 million acres to the 68 
million acres the oil companies already have.
  There were other provisions in the Bingaman bill--good pieces of 
legislation. Again, we had no takers on that from the Republicans.
  Today, we voted on H.R. 6049, and, of course, that was defeated 
because of another cloture motion that was necessary to be filed 
because of a Republican filibuster. The same with the Warm in Winter 
and Cool in Summer Act, S. 3186, LIHEAP. It was filibustered, and we 
weren't able to proceed to that. That is really unusually harsh. I have 
heard the Senator from Vermont talk about that on numerous occasions. I 
told him that more people die from exposure in the summer than in the 
winter because they become dehydrated. We need to have the ability for 
the old, disabled, and poor to have air-conditioning. In the winter, of 
course, they need heat. But this was rejected by the Republicans.
  We asked--because it was certainly bipartisan every step of the way, 
the NOPEC bill, the Specter-Kohl bill--that we move to that alone. That 
was S. 879. It was rejected. Again, the Republicans refused to let us 
do that.
  We had the Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act, which we have dealt 
with for several weeks now. I spoke the night before last to the 
President of United Airlines. He said he has no question in his mind 
that one reason the oil prices have gone down by the barrel in recent 
days is because we are debating and talking about speculation. This 
would work. The Republicans have been listening to the monied interests 
of this country and have refused to allow us to do this.
  Then, of course, today, we had the issue of the so-called extenders 
bill on which Senator Baucus worked so hard. It was rejected. It had 
many good provisions in it. He worked hard to try to get bipartisan 
support. There was disaster relief in it. There was finally something 
in there that we could pass to do the mental health parity, which is so 
long overdue. We had a provision to reestablish money that has been 
taken out of the highway trust fund, which is so important--to 
reestablish that. People are losing their jobs.
  The most significant thing, from my perspective, in that 
legislation--even though there was much more--was that it would do 
something now, today, about taking care of the energy crisis in this 
country. It is not Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States, 
talking; it is T. Boone Pickens--from a different political party and 
persuasion than Al Gore--saying we have to move to renewables. That is 
what this legislation is all about, creating hundreds of thousands of 
jobs, construction jobs and other jobs, that lessen our dependence on 
foreign oil. As T. Boone Pickens said, ``You can't drill your way out 
of this crisis.'' We were blocked on that.
  Mr. President, in the newspapers all over America and in other parts 
of the world, Thomas Friedman's column is running today. He is a person 
who has won all kinds of prizes around the

[[Page 16999]]

world for his writing. He has had three bestselling books. For weeks, 
his books have been No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. He 
writes with great preciseness, and he is right to the point. Here is 
what he said today:

       Republicans have become so obsessed with the notion that we 
     can drill our way out of our current energy crisis that 
     reopening our coastal waters to offshore drilling has become 
     their answer for every energy question.
       Anyone who looks at the growth of middle classes around the 
     world and their rising demands for natural resources, plus 
     the dangers of climate change driven by our addiction to 
     fossil fuels, can see the clean renewable energy--wind, 
     solar, nuclear and stuff we haven't yet invented--is going to 
     be the next great global industry. It has to be if we are 
     going to grow in a stable way.
       Therefore, the country that most owns the clean power 
     industry is going to most own the next great technology 
     breakthrough--the E.T. revolution, the energy technology 
     revolution--and create millions of jobs and thousands of new 
     businesses, just like the I.T. revolution did.
       Republicans, by mindlessly repeating their offshore-
     drilling mantra, focusing on a 19th-century fuel, remind me 
     of someone back in 1980 arguing we should be putting all our 
     money into making more and cheaper IBM Selectric 
     typewriters--and forget about these things called the ``PC'' 
     and ``the Internet.'' It is a strategy for making America a 
     second-rate power and economy.

  Mr. President, earlier this week, on Monday, I offered the 
Republicans, on the speculation bill, four amendments, and we would 
have a like number. That was rejected out of hand--offer made and they 
rejected it.
  Yesterday, right after the Senate opened, Senator McConnell said to 
me: How about six amendments?
  I said: I am happy to discuss amendments, but I am through discussing 
amendments unless we pass the extenders bill.
  That was clear language. I said it directly, and I meant it. I am 
speaking for 50 other Democratic Senators. I am speaking for my caucus.
  So Senator McConnell said: Well, fine, we will have Senator Baucus, 
chairman of the Finance Committee, and Senator Grassley, the ranking 
member, work on this.
  I said that Senator Baucus said Senator Grassley has no authority to 
do anything.
  He said: Yes, he does. I will instruct him that he has all the 
authority in the world.
  They met for 2 hours last night. The only thing Senator Grassley 
wanted to discuss was having all of these extenders not paid for. So we 
are right back where we started. So that is gone. That was turned down 
overwhelmingly. The Republicans didn't support the extenders. So that 
is where we are.
  My caucus demands that we focus on something to really make a 
difference: renewables, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs--
Friedman said millions; I am saying hundreds of thousands within the 
next few months. It will make a cleaner environment, and it will be 
good for the economy.
  Mr. President, that is where it is. That is where it is.
  Again, as Thomas Friedman wrote:

       Republicans, by mindlessly repeating their offshore-
     drilling mantra, focusing on a 19th century fuel, remind me 
     of someone back in 1980 arguing that we should be putting all 
     our money into making more and cheaper IBM Selectric 
     typewriters--and forget about these things called the ``PC'' 
     and ``the Internet.'' It is a strategy for making America a 
     second-rate power and economy.

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. REID. Yes.
  Mr. DURBIN. I wish to address a question to the majority leader 
through the Chair. I ask the Senator whether yesterday we brought to 
the floor an opportunity for the Republicans to join us in a bipartisan 
way to come up with a clear package of incentives for renewable energy, 
energy that we need now and for future generations, and yesterday when 
that measure came to the floor as it originally passed the House of 
Representatives, I ask the majority leader what the support level was 
on the Democratic side and whether there were more than four Republican 
Senators who joined us in that effort.
  Mr. REID. All Democrats supported it, a handful of Republicans, 
mostly those who are in very difficult Senate races, I might add, for 
reelection.
  Mr. DURBIN. That is one of the reoccurring themes. When four or five 
Republicans join us, it is because many of them are facing a tough 
reelection.
  I ask the Senator from Nevada, today when we brought this measure 
before the Senate again, incentives for renewable energy, we included 
in it $8 billion for the highway trust fund, which can be attributed to 
400,000 good-paying American jobs. We also included the mental health 
parity bill, which has been a bipartisan bill that has been sought by 
this Senate for maybe a decade. It has certainly been a long time. We 
included as well an extension of the exemption for the alternative 
minimum tax so middle-income families would not face higher taxes.
  I ask the Senator from Nevada what kind of support we had from the 
Republican side of the aisle. If I am not mistaken, only five 
Republicans, four of whom are up for reelection in November, joined us 
in that vote.
  Mr. REID. The Senator is absolutely right, absolutely right. I can't 
express how the Republican Party, as I have always known it--when I 
went into politics, I had the idea that the Republicans were the party 
of fiscal responsibility. That has long since gone. We are going to 
have a deficit this year of about a half trillion dollars, and that 
isn't a fair view of it because they are using the Social Security 
trust fund to offset and make the deficit look even smaller.
  But I also will say this: Big oil during the Bush years has made a 
$609 billion profit--$609 billion. The Republicans side with big oil 
every step of the way. They have done it in all this energy 
legislation. They are beholden to big oil. Everyone knows that. I think 
it is time we start talking about something that will help; that is, we 
need to move to have energy created by the Sun, wind, geothermal, and 
we need to do it as quickly as possible.
  That is where we are. I have said on a number of occasions--I said it 
earlier today--there was a lot of activity on the Senate floor--
understand, Mr. President, where we are. Because the Republicans have 
blocked everything--they have blocked energy for old people, sick 
people, disabled people; they have blocked everything we have tried to 
do here--we have a decision. They can make the decision. We have been 
fortunate enough to finish the Higher Education Act. We have been 
fortunate to finish consumer product safety. Both conference reports 
are finished. We can do those in the next couple of days. We can move 
to the Defense authorization bill. It is up to the Republicans what 
they want to do. But if they want to be here during August, more power 
to them because we will be here with them. We all have things to do, 
longstanding obligations during August, but those can be changed. If 
people want to debate during August the Defense Authorization Act, that 
is fine. They can go out and hold their press conferences that they 
would rather be doing something on drilling, drilling, drilling. They 
can continue to do that, or we can come back in September--there is 
going to be a bipartisan summit on energy prices, and maybe by the 
August recess, maybe some of my friends will be more willing to do some 
actual compromise.
  Legislation is the art of compromise. If the art of compromise is not 
present, we cannot get the business done. There simply has been no 
compromise from my friends. That is why we have faced almost 90 
filibusters.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Webb). The Senator from Colorado is 
recognized.
  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I am joined on the Senate floor by my 
colleague from Wyoming. I ask unanimous consent that we may engage in a 
colloquy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Cost of Energy

  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I had an opportunity to speak on the floor 
this past week a number of times and speak in committee about the cost 
of energy, about pain at the pump. I am of the view that we need to act 
now.
  My position on energy has always been that we should not take 
anything off the table; that is, we need renewable energy, we need to 
have energy

[[Page 17000]]

 from whatever source we can derive--oil and gas, nuclear energy. We 
need to concentrate on our efforts to try to produce more energy. We 
need more. That is not the entire solution. We also need to consume 
less. We need to encourage conservation everywhere we can.
  That is why I have signed onto bills such as the Gas Price Reduction 
Act of 2008. This bill says we begin to open deep sea exploration, 
where we go out more than 50 miles from the coast, and that we begin to 
drill in those areas and share the revenues with the States that are 
involved. Under our proposal the Governor petitions to allow 
exploration, and he does that with the concurrence of the State 
legislature. A portion of funds generated would even go to the Land and 
Water Conservation Fund in addition to States, with other funds going 
to the general fund.
  Also, in the particular legislation I mentioned, we talk about 
Western State oil shale exploration. This resource would provide more 
than three times the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia, this oil shale is 
found in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado.
  The legislation I have signed onto says we also look at ways of 
trying to create conservation, such as electric cars and trucks, and 
focus our attention on better batteries so we can create an electrical 
supplement to the use of liquid fuel, whether it is a truck or car, and 
create some efficiencies on the highway. In the case of cars, as much 
as 60, 70 miles to the gallon with an augmentation from an electrical 
source. For these efficiencies to happen batteries are a key 
technological advancement that has to occur, and it has to occur at a 
price that consumers can afford. In this bill, we put our efforts into 
coming up with that type of a battery.
  In addition, we try to do what we can to strengthen U.S. futures 
markets. That means increased funding for staff to the Commodity 
Futures Trading Commission, and it directs the present working group to 
study the international regulation of commodity markets. Remember, on 
commodity markets, it is not just an American market, it is 
international. We have to be careful how we disrupt the markets as we 
do that. If we are not careful we can create a real disadvantage to 
Americans and not really help in the supply of energy.
  These are the types of actions that will make a difference in the 
price of oil and gas because we increase the supply. That is our 
problem; we don't have enough to meet worldwide demand. Because of high 
global demand we need to work not only in this country but also in 
other countries to spread the idea of conservation.
  I have to tell you, Mr. President, the suggestion from the majority 
leader that somehow if we just stand on the floor of the Senate and 
talk about more rules and regulations on the commodity markets, somehow 
that is going to bring down the price of gas, I happen to think that 
just talking doesn't bring about action. But I do happen to believe 
that action does create a reduction in the price of oil at the gas 
pump.
  I credit most of the recent price reduction to the President because 
he actually took action, which was to take the moratorium off the Outer 
Continental Shelf. This took us closer to allowing for exploration for 
more energy sources out in the deep ocean. Because of that, the markets 
did respond. I don't believe it was the debate on the Senate floor 
where we just talked, because the markets looked and said the President 
took real action to repeal a regulation, making it easier for us to 
extract energy out of the ground.
  That is the kind of action in which this Congress needs to 
participate. It is action that needs to happen now, not 30 days from 
now, not a week, not a day. The sooner we act, the better it is because 
people every day are feeling the impact on their daily lives of high 
energy costs.
  I recently participated in a press conference where we had people who 
are involved with supportive programs for the poor. They said because 
of the high cost of food, it is making it difficult for them to meet 
their goals and objectives and to keep their budgets within what they 
allocated at the first of the year. They are having all sorts of supply 
issues when it comes to feeding the poor and the disadvantaged in this 
country. We heard from all aspects of the various agencies and 
religious groups that make it part of their mission to provide for the 
hungry in this country.
  We heard from truckdrivers today. I was at a press conference where 
we heard from truckers. When you think about it, renewable energy 
obviously works pretty good if you are talking about power lines. What 
kind of renewable source do they use in trucks? Ethanol, perhaps, might 
have some uses for trucks, but basically they are locked in with one 
source of energy right and that is diesel.
  The only way we are going to bring down the price of fuels to the 
truckers who provide medical supplies, who provide food to Americans--
they transport all sorts of produce around the country. They haul 
around all sorts of manufacturing. They deliver our mail. I am trying 
to think of one commodity that at some point in time does not spend 
some time on a truck. It is very important that we keep the total 
prospect. There is not a simple solution. It is not a one-issue 
solution where we can say: We are just going to focus on renewable 
energy and the heck with everything else. We need to look at all 
alternatives. We are having supply problems. We can't take anything off 
the table. That is what I want to comment on.
  I have on the floor with me a Senator from Wyoming, a good friend of 
mine who is new to the Senate, one of our newest Members, doing a 
tremendous job for the State of Wyoming. I know that in Wyoming, for 
example, they have lots of energy. One of the sources of energy they 
have is coal. The western part of the United States has hard coal, 
which is very unique. Frequently, it is mixed with soft coal so 
communities and towns on the east coast can meet their pollution 
requirements.
  In our discussions, there was some talk about the various alternative 
sources we could look at for clean coal, for example. I was hoping that 
perhaps maybe my colleague who is on the Senate floor with me can talk 
a little bit about energy in Wyoming and how their economy is being 
impacted with the high cost of gas and diesel and what energy potential 
is in their State.
  I yield the floor to my colleague from Wyoming to talk a little bit 
about Wyoming. We are neighbors. We have very similar environments and 
very similar natural resources. Senator Barrasso.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Colorado. He 
is absolutely right, Wyoming is a State which has been very blessed--
blessed with abundant sources of energy, and certainly coal, natural 
gas, oil, uranium for our nuclear power, and also wind, a renewable 
source of energy. So we have lots of different resources with which we 
have been blessed.
  But in terms of coal--and we know half the electricity in the United 
States comes from coal--what we know is that there is enough coal in 
Wyoming to power this country for centuries--not decades but centuries. 
There is that much coal in Wyoming. Coal is available, affordable, 
reliable, and a secure source of energy for our Nation.
  To me, this is about being self-sufficient in terms of our own 
energy. We are sending so much of the wealth of this great country 
overseas. Every time we buy another barrel of oil overseas. Whether it 
is $120, $130, $140 per barrel, that is a transfer of the wealth of our 
Nation to people who are not necessarily our friends.
  Mr. ALLARD. The figure I have seen is more than $700 billion in 1 
year's time. That is a whale of a lot of money to be sending overseas, 
to our enemies potentially.
  Mr. BARRASSO. And we have the source of energy here, with the coal, 
and the technology is incredible. There are ways to use the coal to 
convert it to electricity and there are other ways to use the coal to 
convert it to liquids. Aviation fuel. The military uses an incredible 
amount of fuel. I have amendments I have introduced and am trying to 
have debated on this floor that deal

[[Page 17001]]

specifically with converting coal to liquids, to allow us to use that 
liquid for our aviation.
  There is another technology, coal to gas. There is a true visionary 
in Wyoming. His name is John Wold, 91 years old, and he is here today 
to visit. His granddaughter works in my office. I have talked to him 
for years about the technology of coal to gas, and it is ready to go 
and available in Wyoming. It is being done in other places around the 
world, but not yet here. So it is incredible in terms of the available 
resources we have. But it is not only one source of energy. We need it 
all. We need the coal, we need the natural gas, we need the uranium, we 
need the oil, and certainly we need to be more efficient, as my 
colleague from Colorado has talked about. We need to be energy 
efficient, but we need the renewables. So we need the transmission 
lines, but we have plenty of wind in Wyoming.
  Look at oil shale. The Senator from Colorado is familiar with that, 
because Colorado, as well as Wyoming, as well as Utah, is blessed with 
oil shale. Perhaps I could ask my colleague from Colorado to discuss 
some of the issues related to that.
  Mr. ALLARD. I would be delighted to talk about oil shale. First, I 
want to address the issue where the majority leader tried to imply that 
Republicans are interested in only one issue, and that is extraction of 
oil and gas from the ground. Republicans I talk to on this Senate 
floor, in my party, understand we need to have a balanced approach. We 
need to go after all sources of energy. The problem is that on the 
Democratic side, they only want to go after renewable sources.
  I helped to found the Renewable Energy Caucus, and so I understand 
how important renewable energy is to our future. But we need something 
to bridge us over, and that is where I think the comments of my 
colleague from Wyoming are so important, when we are talking about 
converting oil to liquids or to natural gas. It helps create that 
bridge. We need to create that bridge by having an opportunity to go 
and explore for oil and gas in the ground.
  One source of fuel in the ground is oil shale, and I think it is 
important that my colleagues here on the floor understand that oil 
shale is a huge resource in this country. We have oil shale in the 
State of Wyoming to a lesser amount than we have in Utah and Colorado, 
but we have lots of oil shale in Colorado. In fact, most of it is in 
Colorado. There is a fair amount in Utah, and then a smaller amount in 
Wyoming. We have different types of oil shale in Utah and Wyoming, and 
the extraction proposal out of those two States is a little different.
  We need to move forward with oil shale, and that is why I am working 
so hard to get the moratorium off of oil shale because Shell Oil 
Company and other companies have developed a technique where extraction 
is environmentally friendly. Utah's oil shale is closer to the surface. 
It is a higher quality shale which contains lots of oil in one small 
chunk of rock. What they do is they go ahead and grind it up, heat it, 
and they extract a heavy type of oil out of that product.
  In Colorado, what we are talking about in Mesa and Garfield Counties, 
for example, is a deeper oil shale. It is a good quality oil shale--not 
quite as good quality as we see in Utah--and we have a new technology 
that is being developed there that takes the ground and freezes a 
perimeter around the section of ground and then heat the middle of it. 
Basically what you have is a refinery in the ground. So what you 
extract out is basically a jet fuel that contains sulfur and nitrogen. 
Obviously, the sulfur and nitrogen has to be refined out, but it is a 
very good, high-quality product. It is a jet fuel. Then the heavy tarry 
stuff is left in the ground.
  There is no disruption of the surface of the ground other than the 
fact that you run some pipes in the ground, and you need some water. 
They have taken out water rights in that part of Colorado to make sure 
they have water. It is the type of water that can be recycled and 
reused. So there are lots of conservation aspects to this new 
technology that is being developed for oil shale. That is why I had the 
support for the provision that was provided for in the Gas Price 
Reduction Act of 2008, removing the moratorium we have on oil shale.
  The current law says you can't move forward with the regulatory 
process on oil shale, so it has stopped it dead in its tracks. In the 
meantime, up to 2 trillion barrels of oil in the form of oil shale is 
in the ground, and we think, with today's technology, that between 800 
billion and 1 trillion barrels is what can be economically extracted 
out of the ground and made available to us. That is three times all of 
the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.
  Oil shale is a huge resource, but we need to remove the moratorium 
that says we can't even go ahead and layout the rules and regulations. 
Now, why is that important? Because they tell the oil companies what 
the rules of the game are going to be, what they can expect the 
royalties to be, what they can expect the price of leasing the public 
lands to be, and also what remediation requirements are there for 
cleaning up the environment. When the President removed the moratorium 
on going after our natural resources through the floor of the ocean, he 
sent a significant message that he is willing to provide more supply 
for oil and gas, and that had a positive impact on the market. We need 
to continue that sincerity the President showed to the American people 
by taking some real action here on the floor of the Senate, and we need 
to do that by removing an additional moratorium on drilling off the 
coast and we need to relieve or take off the moratorium on oil shale so 
that resource can be developed.
  The technology is not going to be developed until about 3 years from 
now, so it would be around 2011 or later before it is ready to go. But 
you need to put in place the rules and regulations first. We need that 
now. Some of the reasons for objecting that I have heard is people will 
say: Well, it is going to take 10 years to develop. Maybe so. But 10 
years from now, are you going to say now is the time? It will still 
take 10 years.
  My point is that the sooner you put this in place, you can begin to 
prepare this bridge we need to have for today's energy sources to get 
us to future energy sources, which are the renewables--the Sun, or 
photovoltaic cells, wind, geothermal, and hydrogen. That is what we are 
talking about, and that is what this particular piece of legislation 
provides for.
  Citizens in Colorado are being dramatically impacted by high fuel 
prices. We talked before about the agricultural sector and the trucking 
sector. Trucking is more heavily impacted than any other area, because 
in the West, we are big States and we have lots of land to cover to 
provide our goods and services. I don't know whether the Senator from 
Wyoming has anything to say about how his citizens in his State are 
feeling the impact of high fuel prices, but certainly they are being 
felt in the State of Colorado, and it wouldn't surprise me if they 
aren't very similar in the State of Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. The people in Wyoming clearly are affected the same way 
folks in Colorado are in terms of the large distances they have to 
drive, whether going to see the doctor, or taking the kids to school, 
or going to shop for groceries. I think statistically, when they look 
at how many miles on average people drive a year, Wyoming is No. 1 in 
terms of the longest distances. So when the price of fuel goes up, the 
price of gas at the pump, the people of Wyoming feel it the greatest 
because they are driving that many more miles. Many of them have pickup 
trucks or utility vehicles, because when you are that far away from 
home during the winter, you need to have those higher profile, larger 
vehicles. It is a matter of personal safety. It is what we want our 
kids to be in as well.
  So the inflation is there at the pump, but it is not only that. There 
was an article in the Wall Street Journal this past week about a woman 
in Casper, WY, who runs a bakery. It is a great bakery, down on First 
Street, and sheoes a nice job. But the supplies, the cooking things she 
buys to put in the

[[Page 17002]]

bagels--whether it is the canned apples or the sugar--everything is up 
pricewise because it has to be shipped in to be used. So it is the fuel 
we use in our own vehicles but it is also the fuel that is being used 
to ship products.
  The people of Wyoming are smart. At all these town meetings I have, 
they get it. They understand there is going to be a change in the 
energy we use in this Nation, a change in the different sources of 
energy. The people in Wyoming know we would be wise to be conserving, 
and we are, and they know we would be wise to be using the renewables 
that we have a lot of, but they are also wise in knowing we do need to 
find more and use less; that it is a matter of supply and demand. And 
until you can deal with both sides of that equation--not just one side 
but deal with both sides--people are going to continue to feel the pain 
not only at the pump but also at the grocery store. So the people of 
Wyoming get it. They know the importance of the work we are doing here 
in trying to find solutions that will help America become energy self-
sufficient by developing American coal, American oil, American natural 
gas, American uranium, and American renewable energy sources.
  Mr. ALLARD. That is very key. We need to be less dependent on foreign 
sources of oil, not only for our own economic well-being but also for 
the security of this country. If we have to rely on our enemies, or 
possible enemies, to provide us with fuel, that creates all sorts of 
security problems for this country. So we have to make sure we have 
plenty of sources for us to meet our military needs throughout the 
world if we are going to be the Nation's and this world's peacekeepers.
  I note that the Senator has a very busy corridor that goes through 
the southern part of Wyoming, and it is a big trucking corridor. I 
think nearly every truck going east to west has to go through Wyoming. 
They like to avoid the high mountains passes in Colorado, so they find 
it easier driving through Wyoming, and I expect you see quite an impact 
there in your State.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Interstate 80, which runs west to east across the lower 
part of the State of Wyoming, is a national transportation route where 
people are taking products from the coastal areas, the ports in 
California or Oregon, and they come to a pinch point in Utah and then 
they all get onto I-80, west of the Wyoming border at Evanston, and 
they come all the way across the State. Fuel prices are high, and the 
miles are long. People who talk about a 55-mile-an-hour speed limit in 
this body clearly have not driven across I-80, where a speed limit like 
that didn't work before when they tried it, and it won't work now.
  I served in the State Senate in Wyoming, a great place. On the third 
floor of the capital building, there is a large mural on the wall which 
sort of depicts the State of Wyoming. There is a part of the bottom 
where I-80 is running across it. Even back when this was painted, years 
ago, if you count the vehicles on the mural, half of them are trucks. 
Half of them. And I think the proportion now is even greater than half 
of them being trucks.
  Think about all the product that is being moved east and west on I-
80, and I am sure you are seeing it in Colorado as well, with people 
awaiting the delivery of those products across this Nation and paying 
higher prices for those products because of the fuel it takes to fill 
the trucks in order for them to deliver the product. So we are seeing 
that not just at the pump but also in the pockets of consumers.
  Mr. ALLARD. I don't see any solution on the Democratic side. They are 
talking about more taxes on oil and gas production; they are talking 
about more rules and regulations. I don't see any proposal that says we 
need to increase the supply, as we do on the Republican proposal, where 
we want to turn to oil shale, and to the Outer Continental Shelf, and 
we turn to the futures market to try to put more enforcement there, and 
we also work on the conservation side with the electric car.
  Truckers are small business people, I attended a press conference 
today with truckers, I was struck by how conscious they were in trying 
to conserve. They were maintaining their trucks. They had great safety 
records. They were making sure the air in their tires was optimal so 
they could improve the mileage on it. The trucker I heard this morning, 
he was saying that about a year ago he was spending somewhere around 
$1,200 to $1,300 to make a trip from Virginia to Texas. There are no 
high mountain ranges such as we are used to in the West but a 
relatively flat trip. This year it is up around $2,500, $2,600 to make 
that same trip. It is getting close to double what he was paying last 
year. That has to have an impact on the goods and services that are 
provided in this country.
  We need to be looking at real solutions. That is the point of this 
colloquy. That is the point the Republicans are trying to make. Just 
standing here debating on the floor of the Senate doesn't make a 
difference. We need to have an opportunity where Republican Senators 
can put their ideas forward. These need to be in the form of 
amendments.
  We need to pick our own amendments. The majority leader should not be 
picking our amendments. It happens he wants to dictate that process. 
This is the Senate. This is where we should have open and free debate. 
I think if we had an opportunity to debate these amendments on the 
floor we could change the direction of this country. I think we could 
change the type of legislation that is being proposed as a solution.
  Deep down I believe most Members of this Senate understand this is a 
supply-and-demand problem and we need to produce more supply and we 
also need to encourage more conservation. My hope is we will have an 
opportunity to make amendments to achieve this. I have made some of 
those amendments in committee and found I had bipartisan support and 
had commitments from both Democrats and Republicans that would help 
support my position on taking the moratorium off oil shale and similar 
moratoria.
  We are simply cutting off supplies to this country and we are 
becoming more and more dependent on foreign oil. We are sending more 
than $700 billion overseas to potentially our enemies--countries such 
as Iran and Venezuela, for example, and many of the Arab countries 
which are marginal friends. We have to admit, they are there one day 
and gone the next.
  We will need to make sure we have the security we need in this 
country, both economically and from a military standpoint. That means 
we need more oil and gas and not less. We need to have more energy from 
all over the energy spectrum and encourage the American people to 
conserve.
  I thank my friend from Wyoming for his contribution to this colloquy. 
I think he is doing a great job and Wyoming should be proud of him.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, we started talking a little bit about 
coal. I wish to say it is not just Wyoming and Montana, coal is 
abundant throughout the United States. Whether it is Pennsylvania--I 
see our colleague from Pennsylvania is here. Actually, the whole region 
of Pennsylvania is called the coal region. He made mention of that. But 
in West Virginia and Illinois, coal is abundant, it is affordable, it 
is reliable and secure.
  I appreciate the efforts my colleague from Colorado is engaged in, in 
terms of oil shale--another abundant source of energy that is not being 
utilized. It is American energy that can be used for the betterment and 
future of our great Nation.
  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.
  Mr. CASEY. I thank the Chair.


40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON NUTRITION AND HUMAN 
                                 NEEDS

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to recognize the 40th anniversary of 
the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs. Today we 
recognize the contributions of two members of that original committee, 
the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, Democratic 
Senator George McGovern of South Dakota and

[[Page 17003]]

Republican Senator Bob Dole of Kansas. Both made and continue to make 
contributions in the war on hunger.
  It was 40 years ago that CBS television aired a landmark documentary 
entitled, ``Hunger in America.'' This documentary exposed the magnitude 
of hunger that existed all across the Nation. For the first time, 
Americans got a closeup look at the true faces of hunger--pregnant 
women and children who were malnourished, infants dying of starvation, 
starving tenant farmers living just miles from this Nation's Capitol. 
Their stories and their faces moved the Congress to try to end hunger.
  It was just last month that I was privileged to have the opportunity 
to sit down with Senator McGovern to talk about the challenge of 
combating hunger still today. As we were sitting talking, he related to 
me a story, 40 years later, that still has had a profound effect on him 
all these years later. The evening of that CBS television documentary 
broadcast I spoke of, the evening that was on, Senator McGovern and his 
family were gathered around the television set watching the 
documentary. Senator McGovern still vividly remembers the effect one 
particular image from this documentary had on him at that time.
  The image was that of a school-age boy leaning against a wall while 
most of his classmates ate lunch. The interviewer in the documentary 
asked the boy how he felt standing there, day after day, watching the 
other children eat.
  His answer was not that he was angry or bitter but, rather, that he 
was ashamed.
  At that moment, Senator McGovern recalls telling his family that he, 
George McGovern, as a Senator, and not that boy was the one who should 
have been ashamed. I think what that shows is the humility and decency 
of George McGovern, first of all. But I think what he tried to convey 
to me in our conversation was that young person's response in that 
documentary--a person who was a victim of not having enough to eat--
that response had such a profound effect on Senator George McGovern 
that he returned to the Senate the very next day and began working on a 
resolution to establish a committee to address hunger in this country. 
Forty years ago today, that resolution was, indeed, enacted, 
establishing the Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs.
  Senator McGovern chaired the committee from the time of its inception 
in 1968 until 1977, when the committee was absorbed into the 
Agriculture Committee, the committee we know today as the Committee on 
Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, chaired by Senator Tom Harkin.
  Senator McGovern was committed to exposing the failure of Federal 
food assistance programs at that time and making reforms to ensure that 
these programs were reaching those most in need. But knowing this was a 
goal he could not achieve on his own, he reached across the aisle to 
form a key partnership with Senator Bob Dole, a partnership and an 
abiding friendship, I might add, that continues to this very day. 
Despite their differences, both these men share the conviction that 
ending hunger is a moral imperative. Working together, Senators 
McGovern and Dole set out to end hunger in America. Their work helped 
educate the Congress, the Federal Government, and the Nation at large 
about the sheer magnitude of hunger in the United States. Over the next 
decade, they and other members of this unique Senate committee 
developed a bipartisan response to hunger and laid the foundation of 
our current food assistance programs.
  Among their chief successes was reforming the Food Stamp Program, 
culminating in the passage of the Food Stamp Reform Act of 1977. This 
act made the program more efficient and more accessible to those most 
in need by finally eliminating the requirement that Americans pay for a 
portion of their own food stamps.
  They expanded the National School Lunch Program and made the School 
Breakfast Program, the Childcare Food Program, and the Summer Food 
Service Program permanent programs in our Government; and they 
established the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants 
and Children, better known today by the acronym WIC.
  Forty years later, the programs that Senators McGovern and Dole 
championed and shepherded through the Senate have succeeded in 
eliminating the most serious chronic malnutrition in the United States. 
Today, nearly 28 million Americans receive food stamps, more than 17.5 
million low-income children receive free or reduced school meals, and 
more than 8 million women and children receive WIC benefits.
  The legacy of Senators McGovern and Dole is truly a testament to what 
can be achieved when we work in a bipartisan fashion on shared 
priorities that address the basic needs of the American people.
  These two men came from vastly different ends of the political 
spectrum and vehemently disagreed on many other issues, but they came 
together and both agreed that hunger was and is an issue that 
transcends partisan politics. The bipartisan spirit with which these 
two men collaborated to fight hunger has certainly served as a model 
and a inspiration to me and I know to many others in Congress.
  Following their example of bipartisanship, this year on the farm bill 
we were able to provide a record level of nutrition funding to reform 
and strengthen Federal nutrition programs. We were able to make key 
improvements to the Food Stamp Program itself, and we were able to 
strengthen the domestic food assistance safety net by providing 
significant increased funding to increase commodity purchases for local 
area food banks.
  But we all know the war on hunger requires constant vigilance and we 
must recognize that unmet needs still exist in America. Despite the 
existence of Federal food programs, hunger continues to be a serious 
problem plaguing more than 35.5 million Americans, including 12.6 
million children.
  Children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of hunger. Even 
mild malnutrition can have adverse impacts on health, development, 
behavior, school attendance and performance and self-esteem as well. In 
the coming year, we will have an opportunity to have a direct impact on 
combating child hunger with reauthorization of the National School 
Lunch Act. This legislation, which is set to expire September 30, 2009, 
authorizes all Federal child nutrition programs.
  One of the most important reforms that can be enacted is to expand 
the school breakfast program. With 30 million children a day 
participating in the school lunch program, only one-third or 10 million 
children receive a school breakfast. We must find innovative ways to 
reach more of these children to get them breakfast.
  There is a direct link between school breakfast and academic 
achievement, and if the United States is going to compete effectively 
in a new world economy, we must educate our children and to do that we 
must provide the best possible nutrition at school.
  We must also recognize that many low-income working parents with 
children are struggling to afford even the low fees charged for 
reduced-price school meals. According to the School Nutrition 
Association, approximately 1 million children in this country are 
eligible for reduced-price meals and yet are not participating in the 
program due to the cost barrier. We must devise ways to ensure these 
children, too, are receiving proper nutritional assistance at school 
and do not fall through the cracks.
  But providing adequate nutrition to the children during the school 
year is only part of the answer. Congress also needs to implement 
changes to ensure that the millions of children who rely upon school 
meals are not left behind during the summer. Currently, only 2 in 10 
children who benefit from school meals also receive meals during the 
summer months. We must find ways to make programs such as the Summer 
Food Service Program more accessible to children, not only in metro 
areas but in rural areas as well.
  Data from the USDA's Economic Research Service shows that as far back

[[Page 17004]]

as at least 1970, the percentage of children living in poverty in rural 
areas consistently exceeds that of children in metro or urban areas.
  A bill I have introduced with Senator Specter, my colleague from 
Pennsylvania, S. 1755, the Summer Food Service Rural Explanation Act, 
would lower the threshold for feeding sites in rural areas to qualify 
for this program.
  We hope to help to ensure the availability of summer meals for more 
of these children living in poverty who happen to live in rural areas. 
We know that hunger itself does not take a vacation, and we owe it to 
these children to ensure that the Food Assistance Program does not take 
a vacation either.
  Finally, Congress must continue to improve the quality of all 
nutrition assistance programs. One of the great ironies of the current 
challenge is to recognize that hunger and obesity can exist at the same 
time.
  While we recognize we are facing huge Federal deficits, we must 
refuse to let funding challenges serve as an impediment to these 
critical changes. There is not a more important domestic social 
objective facing us in the coming years than to provide adequate 
nutrition to children across America.
  Finally, Senators Dole and McGovern blazed a path 40 years ago when 
they joined to help fight the war on hunger. They put aside 
partisanship to bring light to the darkness of hunger. Now is time for 
a new generation of leaders to pick up that mantra on behalf of the 
more than 35.5 million faces of American hunger.
  I therefore call upon my friends in Congress, both Chambers, both 
sides of the aisle, to join me and millions of advocates across this 
country in a mission to end hunger.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following 
my comments Senator Bennett be recognized.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleague from 
Pennsylvania, Senator Casey, to support July 30, 2008, as the 40th 
anniversary of the establishment of the Senate Select Committee on 
Nutrition and Human Needs.
  Forty years ago there was a significant awakening in this country 
about the issue of hunger and its impact on Americans. As the 
resolution states, the CBS award-winning documentary ``Hunger in 
America'' was an important impetus to putting a human face on this 
situation.
  Like many Americans, Senators George McGovern of South Dakota and 
Robert Dole of Kansas were moved by this documentary, and thus into 
action. The first step was the creation of the Senate Select Committee 
on Nutrition and Human Needs. The committee focused on the magnitude of 
hunger within our borders as well as shortcomings of existing domestic 
nutrition assistance programs.
  For example, the Food Stamp Program required participants to purchase 
a portion of their food stamp allotment which left many Americans 
unable to receive any benefit because they could not afford to buy 
stamps.
  The work of the Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs and the 
McGovern-Dole partnership led to many improvements in our country's 
nutrition assistance safety net. Today, domestic food assistance 
programs touch one in five Americans each year. The Food Stamp Program, 
which was recently renamed in the farm bill the Supplemental Nutrition 
Assistance Program, is the cornerstone of this safety net by assisting 
over 27 million Americans each month.
  The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and 
Children, or WIC, serves 8.5 million Americans and provides expecting 
mothers and their young children with the nutrition needed for a 
healthy start in life.
  The National School Lunch Program provides over 31 million lunches 
each day and nourishes schoolchildren with balanced and healthy meals. 
As a husband and father of public schoolteachers, I particularly know 
the direct correlation between healthy, nutritious meals and the 
ability of a child to learn.
  The Emergency Food Assistance Program assists food banks all across 
the country in meeting families' food needs in times of sudden 
hardship. I am very proud to serve as ranking member on the Senate 
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. This committee ties 
the important role of production agriculture to the necessity of 
ensuring that all Americans have a safe, nutritious, and affordable 
food supply.
  The select committee we are honoring today is the predecessor of the 
committee's Subcommittee on Nutrition and Food Assistance, and the 
issues before it receive significant attention.
  My colleagues on the committee and I share the determination to 
provide an effective nutrition safety net, and we continue the 
bipartisan approach established by Senators McGovern and Dole. This is 
proven in the recently enacted 2008 farm bill, in which funding for 
domestic nutrition assistance was substantially increased. Now, 73 
percent of the total spending in the 2008 farm bill is allocated to 
domestic nutrition assistance programs. Given rising food prices, we 
worked to lend a hand to those citizens in both rural and urban America 
who are struggling to feed their families.
  I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of this resolution. I look 
forward to continuing to work with my colleagues in the fight against 
hunger.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. BENNETT. I appreciate the yielding of the floor to me, but I 
understand Senator Lincoln was going to speak on this same subject. If 
she is available, I would be happy to yield to her. I understand she 
will be coming later so I will proceed.


                                 Energy

  Mr. President, we have had a lot of debate, a lot of discussion that 
does not qualify as debate, over the last week or two with respect to 
energy. I simply want to make a few comments of my own with regard to 
that issue. The energy crisis we face is a worldwide crisis. It cannot 
be solved with a national solution. But it is a national crisis as 
well, and we need to do what we can as Americans toward finding the 
solution. We need to help build a bridge, a bridge that can be a 
worldwide bridge to the long-term vision we have.
  As we talk about that bridge, let's ask ourselves what is at the 
other end of the bridge? The vision people have at the other end of the 
bridge is a world that does not depend as heavily on fossil fuels as we 
do today. It is a world that has nuclear power, it is a world that has 
wind power, and solar power, geothermal power, biomass, hydropower, and 
one that I am particularly enthusiastic about is tidal power--the 
rising and falling of the tides being harnessed in generating 
electricity.
  All of those possibilities are there, and all of those possibilities 
should be embraced, because all of them can contribute to the world we 
want to be in 10, 15, 20 years from now.
  We need to build a bridge to that world because that world is not 
available now. There are wind farms, but they are producing a tiny 
fraction of the amount of electricity we use. There are solar panels 
that are basically demonstrating the technology, but not producing 
anything like the kind of volume we would need. There are studies about 
tidal power. There are experiments going on with biomass. There are 
explorations with geothermal. But all of those are in the future, 10 
years away, 15, 20, 30 years away. That is where we want to be, but we 
need to build a bridge to get there.
  Now, who is going to build it? I want Americans to be in the driver's 
seat of building the bridge and solving the problem. I want Americans 
to take the lead in figuring out what we need to do as a world to get 
to the other side of the bridge I have described.
  I want Americans to once again achieve their ability to influence 
world energy prices. There was a time when the Americans could 
determine the

[[Page 17005]]

world price of oil simply by determining whether they would drill 
another well in East Texas.
  When the price of oil seemed to be too high, we could open up 
additional areas of East Texas to exploration. East Texas was full of 
oil and at the time, we led the world in oil production. Now that 
leadership is gone. It left the shores in the 1970s. It lies now with 
the Saudi royal family.
  If we are talking about building the bridge, I want the Americans to 
be the ones to build the bridge. I want Americans to bring back to this 
continent our ability to affect the world's price of fossil fuels.
  And how do we do that? Well, we do it simply by increasing the number 
of American sources of fossil fuels. That is how we were in charge of 
the price of oil at one time, and that is how we can be in charge 
again. A lot of people do not realize that America, though, is the 
third largest oil-producing country in the world. Saudi Arabia is No. 
1, Russia is No. 2, America is No. 3. We used to be No. 1; we are now 
No. 3.
  If we can increase our ability to produce energy, we can control the 
building of the bridge to the long-term future when we are no longer as 
dependent on fossil fuels as we are now. If we want to get to 
renewables, we have to build a bridge to get there.
  The material we will use to build that bridge will be American 
energy. We have almost limitless sources to which we can turn to find 
that American energy.
  The Gas Price Reduction Act, which I have cosponsored along with a 
number of my colleagues, outlines two of the areas where we can 
increase American sources of energy and thus help build that bridge and 
control, influence, and impact world energy prices.
  The first one has to do with taking oil out of the Outer Continental 
Shelf. Since the early 1980s, we have prohibited drilling in 85 percent 
of our Outer Continental Shelf waters. It is interesting that this 
prohibition came about the time that pricing power left the United 
States and went into the hands of the Saudi royal family. It will not 
bring it back automatically, but it will certainly make a major impact 
if we can now make that 85 percent of our Outer Continental Shelf 
available for exploration and the delivery of oil.
  We now know in a way we did not in the 1980s that it is safe because 
Hurricane Katrina brutally told us that oil rigs can withstand 
virtually any kind of pressure from the weather. It is not a lesson we 
wanted to learn in that way, but it is a lesson that we now know.
  The other area in the Gas Price Reduction Act where we can find more 
oil hits closer to my home in Utah. It would allow us to extract oil 
from oil shale. In eastern Utah, western Colorado and southern Wyoming, 
there is more oil than there is in all of Saudi Arabia by a factor of 
three. People say: ``But we do not have it yet. It is unproven 
technology,'' although oil shale is being turned into oil in other 
countries of the world, just not this one. ``But new technology is 
being tried out. Well, it is 10 or 15 years away. It will be 
expensive.''
  I take you back to the proposition of the bridge. The world where we 
drastically decrease our dependence on fossil fuels is far more than 10 
years away or even 15 years away. We cannot wish it into existence 
immediately. It is hypocritical to say we are strongly for wind power 
and solar power and geothermal and biomass as the solution to our 
problems, but we are opposed to oil shale and Outer Continental Shelf 
drilling because they take years to develop.
  If one is 20 years or 30 years away, and the other is only 10 years 
away, we should be working on the one that is only 10 years away at the 
same time we are working on the one that is 30 or 40 years away.
  America has fossil fuels that are abundant, available, and 
affordable, and that can be used as the source of building the bridge 
to the world of less dependence on fossil fuels. Our economy runs on 
energy. The world economy runs on energy.
  We cannot, while hoping that the land we dream of is available at 
some point, refuse to build the bridge with America's available 
building materials.
  I hope as we wind down this debate and finally decide to do something 
about it, we will be focused on taking the assets we already have and 
using them as the material to build the bridge to get to the place 
where we want to go. If we do that, then our constituents will see the 
price of gas come down at the pump. They will see movement in the right 
direction as to where we want to be. They will say to us: You have 
finally started to do your job in the way we sent you to Washington to 
do it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tester). The Senator from Arkansas.


                             Tax Extenders

  Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about my support and 
encourage my colleagues to join me in revisiting and passing what we 
tried to do earlier today, and that was supporting the Jobs, Energy, 
Families, and Disaster Relief Act of 2008 on which we had a procedural 
motion. I find this bill, in these last couple of days of our working 
period before we leave to return to our States, one of the most 
important things we can do. Is it everything we can do? No, it is not. 
We can't do everything in one fell swoop. But there are a lot of things 
we can do to get started.
  I applaud the hard work that was put into this package by the Finance 
Committee chairman, Senator Baucus. I also congratulate our 
counterparts in the House Ways and Means Committee for their tremendous 
efforts in putting together this very important piece of legislation 
that puts us off on a very sound footing and a good beginning, heading 
in the right direction of where we need to go.
  The vote we took earlier today was the third time we have attempted 
to proceed to this very important package of tax incentives, the so-
called tax extenders package, this year. Unfortunately, we do it every 
year. Unfortunately, we patch over every year the opportunity we try to 
have put forward by the Government, the incentives we need to create an 
environment. That is what government does. Government creates an 
environment where businesses, families, industries, and States can be 
successful. That is exactly what this bill does. It is what we tried to 
do earlier today. I hope we will continue to push forward in creating 
an environment where people and businesses can do for themselves in an 
environment that government has created, to take care of their issues, 
whether they be disasters or a competitive nature across this globe, 
but to use that environment to strengthen themselves, to build their 
businesses, their families, their communities in a way that has been 
consistent with the American spirit through generations of great 
Americans.
  We tried three times, and I had so hoped that the third time would be 
the charm. Maybe it is the fourth time. Maybe it is the fifth. I very 
much believe this is something we have to do, and we should do it 
before we leave to head home to our States for the break. During the 
past few months I have talked extensively about this extenders package 
and some of the things I think are so important. There are many 
benefits here that working families will see, benefits for working 
families, communities, businesses, so many of which are so needed at 
this time. Under this legislation, some 1 million additional children 
will be covered by the child tax credit and more than 27,000 American 
businesses will be able to remain globally competitive through the use 
of research and development tax credits. We are talking about a time 
when gas prices are high. Food prices are high. People are finding that 
the dollars they are earning are not going as far. Yet they are still 
trying hard to keep their body and soul and their families together. 
They are still trying to do for their children and aging parents the 
things that need to be done. One million additional children would have 
been covered in this bill with the child tax credit. These are 
extremely important policy initiatives we need to be providing, now 
more than ever, for our American taxpayers.
  In addition, there is almost $20 billion in incentives included in 
this

[[Page 17006]]

package to move us toward energy independence. We have heard all of our 
colleagues coming down here talking about energy independence, talking 
about the dire straits working families are in. My State ranks 48 in 
the low-income category of hard-working Americans. I know because in 
recent studies we have seen back in May, on average Arkansans were 
paying 8 percent of their income toward gasoline and in some other, 
more desperate counties, they were paying up to 11 percent of their 
income for fuel, particularly for gasoline. They are being hit hard.
  There are some things we can do. This package will provide long-term 
extension of our renewable energy and energy efficiency tax credits so 
we can provide some certainty in these very important new industries 
that are job creators but also the hope for the future of where we go 
in terms of energy needs. It creates a tax credit for consumers who 
purchase new technology, highly fuel-efficient vehicles. It also 
continues our commitment of moving toward alternative fuels through the 
extension of the renewable diesel and biodiesel tax credit.
  We know there are a lot of opportunities we have. Yes, trying to deal 
with the manipulation of markets by speculation is one route we need to 
take. Yes, we know that making sure we are taking advantage of new 
resources and old resources that exist in our oil and gas industry is 
important. We know there are multiple things we can do in renewable 
fuels and a host of other areas where we can turn to that we never 
believed we could get fuel from, everything from biomass to algae, a 
whole host of new technologies coming out, research that is proving to 
us that there is a whole new world out there of energy and energy 
sources. These are all initiatives in a bill that should have broad 
bipartisan support. We should enact them as soon as possible.
  To be sure, there is certainly a lot more, whether it is speculation 
or drilling or other things, that we could be doing. There is more that 
can be done to deal with our energy crisis. But the almost $20 billion 
in incentives included in this package is quite a downpayment in moving 
us in the right direction. To my friends on the other side of the aisle 
who have been here on the floor this week arguing for action on energy 
legislation before we leave for August, I agree with you. I think it is 
so important that we do something. We need to do something. We have to 
do something. This package we have seen come before us earlier today 
would have been a great first step. It still can be. We need to make 
sure we are passing an extenders bill, coupled with a host of other 
things that are essential for us to go home in August with to tell our 
constituents that we do hear the message they are sending. We could 
pass it with bipartisan support and get even more done when we come 
back in September.
  People know we are not going to do everything at once. They don't 
expect that of us. But they do expect us to take, step by step, the 
opportunities we have to do something about the energy crisis.
  We also have in this bill the highway trust fund. The needs in the 
highway trust fund are tremendous. Come next month, we are going to see 
a deficit there. We are going to see a crisis in our highway trust 
fund. We are going to have to deal with that. Why shouldn't we be 
dealing with it today or tomorrow but certainly before we leave?
  Finally and most importantly, the chairman of the Finance Committee 
has included a package of tax relief for areas all across the country 
hit with horrific weather and declared Federal disaster areas. This 
will provide vital resources to help in recovery efforts all across the 
Nation; in 26 States, to be exact. I am extremely thankful for the 
inclusion of this piece in the bill because Arkansas has suffered from 
a string of tornadoes and record-setting floods. The series of natural 
disasters in my home State this year has been unlike any I have seen in 
my lifetime. It has left 62 of our 75 counties in Arkansas in need of 
Federal disaster assistance. Wave after wave of storms have rocked the 
residents of Arkansas and have left many shell shocked.
  It started on February 5 when a band of tornadoes created a path of 
destruction, which we can see here, that stretched across 12 counties 
in Arkansas, killing 13 people, injuring 133, and destroying more than 
880 homes. It was the deadliest storm in nearly 10 years. On that day, 
one tornado gouged a 123-mile path, hitting the ground, staying on the 
ground for that long a period. Along the way, around 5:30 that 
afternoon, it hit a family-owned boat factory in Clinton, AR, where 16 
employees were in the factory at the time working late to load a 
shipment of boats on a truck. The F-4 tornado struck. Unfortunately, 
the life of Thomas Armstrong was lost. The building was totaled. The 
20-year-old business that had produced 550 to 600 boats a year and 
provided $15,000 a week in salaries to its 45 employees was a complete 
loss. As we can see here, it was completely destroyed.
  I traveled with Senator Pryor and Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe to 
assess the damage across the State. In Van Buren County in central 
Arkansas, 45 homes and countless businesses were destroyed. Conway 
County had 140 homes destroyed or that suffered major damage.
  The hospital in Mountain View got hit as well. Within hours, hospital 
administrators and personnel, helped by volunteers, reacted swiftly to 
stabilize the area. They were able to use the emergency room for 
persons with serious injuries and evacuated patients with nonlife-
threatening conditions to nursing homes and other facilities around the 
county. In the town of Highland in north central Arkansas, a facility 
that housed the equipment for the volunteer fire department was 
completely destroyed.
  A little more than a month later, heavy storms hit Arkansas again. 
This time they brought rain and more rain and more rain. The result was 
flooding not seen in some areas for over 90 years. Thirty-five Arkansas 
counties were declared disaster areas from the storm. In the town of 
Pocahontas, the Black River crested at 26.5 feet, its highest level 
since August of 1915, and three breaks in its levees flooded homes and 
apartments. This is a scene from the Black River in Pocahontas in 
Randolph County.
  In Des Arc, where I traveled with Governor Beebe, the White River 
crested at a little more than 33 feet, almost 9 feet above flood stage. 
Further up the White River, the community of Oil Trough got hit twice. 
The first time it was only a few homes. Ten days later, rains came a 
second time and flooded the entire city, forcing residents and 
businesses to completely evacuate.
  On April 3, another set of tornadoes hit central Arkansas. Although 
not as deadly as the ones that hit us in February, four twisters 
touched down in a five-county area, including some of the counties 
suffering from those floods. In addition, two more rounds of tornadoes 
hit the State in May, bringing the total to 62 counties affected by 
these storms that hit this year.
  All but 13 counties in my State have been declared Federal disaster 
areas, causing millions of dollars in property damage and at least 26 
known deaths. While it has been a traumatic few months for thousands of 
Arkansans, I have been struck, of course, by the resiliency of my 
State's residents. I have always said the people of Arkansas are our 
greatest resource, whether it is to the rest of this country and what 
we have to offer or whether it is to one another. Their ability to 
pitch in and help their neighbors has been nothing short of 
extraordinary. But they need help to finish the job.
  This bill we tried to pass earlier today and in weeks past provides 
needed assistance. That is why I am so grateful Chairman Baucus has 
included this tax incentive package for individuals who have 
experienced loss from these horrific disasters.
  This tax relief will help my Arkansas families deal with expenses 
related to debris removal, cleanup, and repair. It will allow them to 
adjust their taxable income, taking into account property losses they 
have suffered. It will allow them to access their own savings they have 
tucked away in IRAs and other

[[Page 17007]]

retirement plans penalty free. It will provide a credit for small 
businesses that continue paying their employees while their business is 
inoperable and being rebuilt. These important provisions, among others, 
will do wonders for my Arkansas families and businesses impacted by 
these unbelievable storms and flooding.
  And I am not alone. Many of my neighboring States--Missouri, 
Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky--experienced the 
same storms Arkansas did, and they are suffering in the same ways--not 
to mention the floods that impacted individuals in Iowa, Indiana, 
Nebraska, and Kansas in recent months, who all would benefit from this.
  I recognize this package of disaster relief may not be as generous as 
some may have preferred. But it is a good package. It is a consensus 
package. If passed, it will provide immediate relief for all of our 
storm victims.
  I urge my colleagues to recognize the value in this package. I urge 
them to take a close look and recognize the benefits it will bring to 
their communities that are suffering so desperately.
  We should stand together. We should all look around this room and 
understand we are here together as a body to represent this great land, 
each of our States, of course, but to recognize as neighbors we all 
have shared in much disaster. We should stand together to do the right 
thing and enact this package--if we get another opportunity--of broad-
based tax relief that will help our working families, our businesses, 
and our damaged communities.
  There is certainly a great opportunity here if all of us band 
together and realize that in the next 2 days before we leave we have 
this wonderful opportunity to come together to do something for our 
Nation. I hope we will. I encourage my colleagues to ask to be able to 
come back to that relief package as well as that tax incentive package 
that will do so much.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.


                            Predator Wolves

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, for the next few moments, I wish to change 
the pace of our debate on the floor of the Senate. I am pleased the 
Senator from Montana is now the Presiding Officer in the Senate because 
I want to tell that Senator I am a cosponsor of a piece of legislation 
he and the Senator from Wyoming have introduced that would provide 
grants to Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, and to tribes and other States, 
at the discretion of the Secretary of the Interior, to support 
landowner actions to prevent livestock predation, and to compensate 
landowners for a loss of livestock by gray wolves and other predator 
species.
  Why would I come to the floor of the Senate and want to talk about 
wolves? Well, let me tell you what happened in the States of Idaho, 
Montana, and Wyoming in 1995.
  In my opinion, the Secretary of the Interior at that time, Secretary 
Bruce Babbitt, Secretary to the administration of Bill Clinton, did 
something that I said at the time I believed to be a direct violation 
of Federal law and congressional intent. He allowed the U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service to go into Canada, collect Canadian gray wolves, bring 
them into the lower 48, and in the late fall or early winter of 1995, 
he dropped 15 of those wolves into a wilderness area in Idaho--
certainly satisfying the wishes of a lot of environmental interests, 
but, in my opinion, directly violating the language of an Interior 
appropriations bill, language that I and the then Senator from Montana, 
Mr. Conrad Burns, had put in the bill saying: None of these moneys 
shall be used for the purposes of introducing gray wolves into Idaho, 
Montana, and Wyoming.
  Well, Bruce Babbitt did it, with great fanfare, with great public 
attention, and with a very large smile on his face.
  Then, in 1996, he introduced another 20 wolves into central Idaho. 
What is the end result of what happened? This was the effort to do what 
we called the introduction of an experimental number of wolves back 
into a habitat that wolves once roamed wild in. It was supposed to be a 
limited experiment of what we called an experimental herd or pack, or 
packs, of wolves, an experimental species, and it was to be limited. We 
said at that time that when the number reached a certain number--at 
least 100 breeding pairs in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming--it would no 
longer be experimental, and it would no longer be endangered, and the 
extraordinary protection of the Endangered Species Act would come off.
  That simply did not happen. Today, we literally have thousands of 
wolves roaming the States of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Some would 
say: Oh, isn't that wonderful, and isn't that exciting, and isn't that 
natural? Well, it may be natural in relation to 1880 or 1890, and it 
may be wonderful for some who behold the dream of an unoccupied great 
West. But to those of us who live in the West today, who live in an 
occupied area, where domestic livestock graze, and where the human 
species loves to camp, we have a problem. Our problem is quite simple. 
Wolves protected have no predator. The human species is the only 
predator. And in the absence of our ability to control them, they 
multiply very rapidly in an unlimited area with an unlimited feed 
source. Their feed or food source--their prey base--happens to be what 
was once the great elk herds of Idaho along with our deer population. 
And now, as they have begun to decimate those populations, they are 
beginning to pick off domestic livestock, both cattle and sheep, that 
graze on these public lands.
  This map I have in the Chamber demonstrates, from the 35 wolves that 
were dumped into Idaho in 1995 and 1996--in approximately this area--
the phenomenal spread that has occurred across the entire State of 
Idaho, into Montana, and down into Wyoming, in areas where we believe 
there could well be more than 3,000 wild roaming wolves.
  So the Department of Interior then said: It is now time we delist 
these wolves. We thought that was going to work until again a judge, 
who probably knows nothing about wolves, listened to a couple 
environmental groups, and said: I don't think we ought to allow that to 
happen. As a result, all of that effort was stopped. But still the 
taking of domestic livestock--both cattle and sheep--continues to this 
day.
  I have served on the Appropriations Committee. In the absence of us 
doing the right and responsible thing, I kept adding money every year 
not only for the management and the shaping of these wolf populations, 
but also to offer some compensation to ranchers--both cattle and 
sheep--who were losing their livestock.
  The Senator from Montana, who is presiding at this moment, the 
Senator from Wyoming and I have joined--they have introduced the 
legislation; I am a cosponsor--to hopefully bring about a stabilized 
fund to offset the literally hundreds of thousands of dollars our 
ranchers are now losing, all in the good name of Secretary Bruce 
Babbitt of the Clinton administration, who had the wonderful dream that 
he could take a West once unoccupied by the human species and 
repopulate it with a wolf.
  Need I say more? A wolf is not a kind, sweet, and cuddly little 
animal. They are large. They are aggressive. They drag down elk, moose, 
deer. And they are now beginning, as I have said, to take domestic 
livestock.
  A week ago, a young man, who was out training his hounds by chasing 
bear, ran into a pack of wolves. The wolves chased the guy off and 
killed all the hounds. Some of these well-trained hounds are worth 
$4,000 and $5,000 apiece. There was absolutely nothing that gentleman 
could do. Could he shoot the wolves? No. No, it is against the law, the 
Federal law, that he dare touch them. So he had to watch his beloved 
dogs eaten.
  That is happening more and more every day in Idaho, as this map grows 
more and more covered with incidents of packs and individual and 
collective numbers of wolves. It is true in my State of Idaho. It is 
true in the State of the Senator from Montana. It is certainly true in 
Wyoming.
  As we try to bring these wolf populations under control, we have 
interest groups and a Federal judge who raps his gavel and says: No.
  The State of Idaho is attempting, under this Secretary of the 
Interior,

[[Page 17008]]

and others, to take reasonable and responsible control of them, and to 
once again shape these populations of wolves so wolves can once again 
be in Idaho and, at the same time, to recognize the need to maintain 
populations of elk and deer is what we want to do. And it is what the 
Idaho Fish and Wildlife Commission and Fish and Wildlife agencies were 
doing in a responsible way--until, once again, a Federal judge 
intervenes, who knows little to nothing about the species itself, or 
probably the law, and says: I guess maybe that environmental group is 
right. Maybe we need more wolves so we get a genetically clear balance. 
We are more interested in the genetics of the wolf than we are the 
decimation of the elk herds, the deer populations, and the domestic 
livestock.
  I have said with great trepidation, but I say in all sincerity: Do we 
have to wait until a wolf drags down a human species before there is a 
sense of alarm? Because they have now penetrated all of Idaho. They are 
literally in our backyards. Yet the romance goes on about this great 
dream of a wild West where you can hear the lonesome wolf howl at 
night. And they are howling. They are howling loudly right in our 
backyards. And a blind Federal agency and a blind Federal judge and a 
romantic environmental theory says that is OK.
  It is tragic for the wolf because, ultimately, these populations will 
have to be brought under control. It is tragic for Idahoans and folks 
in Montana and Wyoming to see their pets and their domestic livestock 
dragged down and killed, with little if anything they can do about it.
  I hope my colleagues would support S. 2875, as a minimal stopgap to 
provide these domestic livestock operators with some compensation for 
the losses they are now taking because Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the 
Interior under the Clinton administration, had a wonderful and wild 
western dream.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, how much time is left?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Nine and a half minutes.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Nine and a half minutes. I thank the Chair.


                                 Energy

  Mr. President, it is no doubt that the American people are engaged on 
the question of energy, and gasoline prices primarily. But they are 
worried about their country. They are worried about their own budgets. 
They are worried about the direction the Nation is heading and the fact 
that we are becoming more and more dependent on foreign sources of 
energy. It impacts our national security as well as our economy.
  We know that now $600 billion, perhaps $700 billion a year of 
American wealth is transferred abroad on an annual basis to purchase 
the 60 percent of imported oil we utilize in America, in our 
transportation system primarily. That is a wealth transfer the likes of 
which the world has never seen. It is not good for our economy.
  The average family--and I have calculated it based on a two-car 
family driving 24,000 miles a year--is paying $105 more per month for 
gasoline than they were 1 year ago using the same number of gallons of 
gasoline. This is a big deal. There is no doubt about it. After our 
families pay their taxes, after they pay their Social Security, after 
they pay their house payment, their insurance, their retirement, and 
their other bills, now $105 more every month is hitting them because of 
increased gas prices, and 60 percent of that money is going abroad to 
purchase the gasoline in a wealth transfer that is adversely affecting 
our economy. This is a national crisis. There is no doubt about it.
  This Nation needs to do something real. We need to take action that 
will work. I am, frankly, very open to a lot of different ideas that we 
might be able to adopt. I think both parties have ideas that would 
work. We need conservation. We need biofuels. We need more production 
of energy at home. All of those things, it seems to me, are quite 
possible. This Government should accelerate it and make it a reality. 
Yet we remain here, unable to act in any way it seems.
  For example, agriculture. Yes, crop prices, commodity prices are up, 
but the fuel that is utilized on the farm has doubled. Fertilizer 
prices, which come so often from natural gas, have also doubled. Our 
chemical industry, most of it is a worldwide industry. They have 
plants, these big chemical companies do, all over the world. When they 
decide where they are going to make a new chemical, they ask who has 
the lowest price for energy. Natural gas is often a component of new 
chemicals and because of prices--we have seen a flat or declining 
chemical industry and an expansion of it in other places where the 
price of energy is lower.
  I believe the future of the American economy is at stake. We must 
carry out conservation efforts. I see my esteemed colleague, Senator 
Bingaman, here. He had a hearing a week or so ago and he has had some 
of the best hearings on energy. I am honored to serve on his committee. 
We had some fabulous hearings with some wonderful witnesses. The 
hearing I refer to included Dr. David Green at the Oak Ridge Center in 
Tennessee, a National lab, a Federal lab, as a witness, and he made a 
series of suggestions for immediate actions on energy. This is just to 
increase the miles per gallon that we get. His first thing is driver 
behavior. He contends that the average driver, if they drove better, 
could save 10 percent. Curb aggressive driving, observe the speed 
limits, don't carry extra weight in your car, have vehicle maintenance, 
have realistic speed limits. For every 5 miles per hour over 55, the 
fuel economy, Dr. Green says, declines 7 percent.
  He talks about heavy trucks. Improved aerodynamics on the truck could 
save up to 600 gallons per year--just doing that--and other suggestions 
he made--low-rolling resistance tires. Better tires get better gas 
mileage. Driver training can be a big asset, updating fuel economy 
standards, the labeling of used cars. When people go out and buy a used 
car, it wouldn't be hard to have posted the mileage of all used cars so 
that the person could see what that mileage would be if they bought 
that particular used vehicle. He goes on with a number of other things.
  I say that just to point out that he was just one witness in one 
area: automobiles and vehicles. There are many more things we can do to 
conserve fuel and I support this.
  I believe we ought to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels as soon 
as possible. I believe we should get away from them as much as we 
possibly can and reduce our imports. This would include, for me, 
supporting investment in and promoting hydrogen vehicles and fuel cell 
vehicles. I think natural gas vehicles do have a role to play. Produce 
more diesel vehicles that get 35 to 40 percent better gas mileage. Half 
the cars in Europe are diesel; we only have 3 percent. Why is Europe 
doing that? They get better gas mileage. They tax diesel less in 
Europe; we tax diesel more. We have a new sulfur diesel fuel that is 
extremely clean.
  All right. I think we are in a position--and I think the Presiding 
Officer understands this--the American people want us to do something. 
We need to reach across the aisle and accomplish something.
  How much time remains, Mr. President?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 2 minutes 45 seconds.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I have to conclude that this is the problem. I don't 
believe it is the Democrats I know in Alabama, or I don't believe it is 
all the Democratic Senators and Congressmen I know in Washington, but 
let me tell my colleagues what is happening and where we are and how we 
have reached an impasse that has to be broken.
  Former Vice President Gore, a former Democratic nominee for President 
of the United States, made a speech recently and said that within 10 
years, we should generate all of our electricity without any fossil 
fuels. Half of our electricity today is coal. Twenty percent is natural 
gas. He would eliminate all of that and replace it with biofuels, with 
solar, wind, and the like. That is a radical proposal--a proposal that 
is not within the realm

[[Page 17009]]

of possibility. It is a stunning idea that simply cannot be achieved 
that fast. I would favor it as soon as we could, but we have no way of 
doing that.
  Senator Obama, the Presidential nominee now, praised that speech. He 
didn't adopt everything in it, thank goodness, but he did praise Gore 
and his speech. He has indicated he opposes further drilling, and he is 
at best lukewarm, if not unfavorable, to nuclear power.
  The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, said she 
wanted to save the planet. She has been opposing any production through 
drilling or shale oil or clean coal or offshore production. Our own 
leader, Senator Harry Reid, has said sometimes he favors production, 
but his only proposal he has brought forth on the floor of the Senate 
is to sue OPEC for not producing enough oil. I would suggest we could 
sue the Congress for not producing enough oil in America. He wanted to 
tax oil companies, which means you certainly would not get any more oil 
doing that. Now, we have a speculation bill. Not one of those three 
pieces of legislation actually would produce any energy.
  So let's get out of this. This is not a position the Democratic Party 
can take. It is not a position a majority of Democrats in America 
believe in. I am prepared to meet halfway. Let's move to hybrids any 
way we can. Let's do more biofuels. I think that can work. Let's go to 
wind, producing as much and as fast as we can. I am for whatever works 
if it is reasonable and not placing an unfair burden on the American 
people.
  All I can say is, we are seeing a position here that is not 
acceptable. It is radical. It is damaging our economy. It is saying we 
will not do the things necessary to create a bridge to get us to 
nuclear power, clean fuels in the future that can get us off fossil 
fuels.
  I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey is recognized.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I heard President Bush's statement at 
the White House today, and I have to be very blunt. I think the 
President must think the American people are stupid. For 7\1/2\ years 
we have had two oilmen in the White House, with Republican majorities 
in Congress for 6 years, and we have seen gas prices go from $1.46 when 
President Bush took office to over $4--to about $4 now; it went over $4 
at one point--per gallon. Now he would have us believe, after that 7\1/
2\ years--Republican majorities for 6 of those 7\1/2\ years and having 
the oil industry write the energy policy with Vice President Cheney in 
the White House--now he would have us believe, in fact, that we are 
responsible for this.
  It is a good lawyer's game. When you don't have the facts on your 
side, when you don't have the law on your side, you pound on the table 
and create a diversion. That is what they have done--tried to create a 
diversion. The American people are a lot smarter than that.
  The fact is, Democrats cannot act as we want to on the energy crisis 
because the Republican Party simply won't allow us. We have a slim 
majority in the Senate, and by Senate rules, the Republicans can 
filibuster to require us to get 60 votes for anything. That really 
means, in essence, for those watching, they have the ability to block 
any legislation they want, and they have used that power to the hilt. 
Over 90 times they have used this procedural tactic to block much 
needed legislation. Even though we are in the midst of an energy 
crisis, they are still blocking everything.
  At first they said they were blocking us from our work because they 
wanted a vote on opening our shores to oil drilling--something I don't 
support--but the majority leader said OK. We will give you a vote on 
opening our shores to oil drilling.
  Then the Republicans said: Oh, that is not good enough either. 
Instead, they claimed to want to vote on opening the shores to oil 
drilling, a vote on nuclear power, a vote on oil shale development, a 
vote on their larger package of proposals, and guess what. The majority 
leader said earlier this week: OK, you can have a vote on all of that. 
Yet, somehow, every time the majority leader offers the other side 
votes on exactly what they want, they keep saying that is not good 
enough. They simply won't take yes for an answer.
  I hear their speeches. They all mention speculation. Well, we have 
had testimony that, in fact, speculation in the marketplace could raise 
oil by $50 per barrel. We even saw a company that was just taken by the 
Commodity Futures Trading Commission being charged with having 
manipulated the marketplace--made $1 million in 11 days and increased 
gas and oil prices. Yet they won't let us go to speculation. They say 
one thing, they do another.
  The big issue they keep talking about is production, but the 
Republicans don't want production. They simply don't want us to have 
progress. That is their game plan. They have a political equation, and 
it is: Don't let anything be achieved.
  On five separate occasions, they have had the opportunity to vote for 
energy production. They have had the opportunity to keep the rapidly 
developing wind and solar industries growing at an accelerated pace, 
but instead they decide to play politics. The Republican Party doesn't 
seem to take renewable energy seriously. It is true that renewables are 
essential for our environment, essential for our economy. What these 
industries really represent are an opportunity to produce massive 
amounts of domestic energy cheaply and at least 100,000 new high-paying 
jobs in America.
  Now, if you don't think renewables are serious business, just ask 
landowners in Texas, Minnesota, Iowa, or Wyoming who are, in fact, 
receiving $3,000 to $5,000 per month for allowing a windmill to be 
sited on their property or ask oilman T. Boone Pickens, who is plowing 
billions of dollars of his own money into wind energy and a plan to use 
renewables to end our addiction to oil.
  Now, somebody who has made a lot of money in oil doesn't all of a 
sudden plow billions of dollars of his own money into renewable energy 
unless he thinks there is going to be a payoff at the end. He 
understands.
  In my home State of New Jersey we have windmills in Atlantic City, 
where the casinos are, generating a lot of electricity. Last year we 
installed enough turbines to power over 1.5 million homes. The solar 
power industry is growing at over 40 percent a year.
  These technologies work. They are working now. They are in high 
demand. They produce an enormous amount of energy. We need to 
accelerate and expand that. If we extend the wind and solar tax credits 
so these industries can continue their rapid growth, we could add 150 
gigawatts of installed capacity within 10 years. Now, what does that 
mean? That means that we would have enough electricity to power over 37 
million homes. At that rate, by 2030, we could get over 25 percent of 
our Nation's electricity from wind and solar power.
  The package of tax credits that the Republicans continue to block--
blocked again today--represents a solution also for the high price of 
oil. There is a large tax credit for the purchase of plug-in hybrid 
vehicles--cars, for example, such as the Chevy Volt, which will be able 
to run on electricity for the first 40 miles after being plugged in. 
That means a full three-quarters of all trips--all trips--driven by 
Americans would not use a drop of gas. If projections by some of the 
experts hold true, and half the cars on the road in 2030 are plug-in 
hybrids, we could easily cut our use of oil by 10 percent, and some 
would suggest that we could even displace much more. And by this time, 
we would be producing enough renewable energy to power all these cars 
and still have electricity to spare. If we want cheap gasoline and we 
want to be free from imported oil, we need to pass the tax credit 
extensions, and we need to build plug-in hybrids, solar panels, and 
winds turbines, to name a few. It is that simple.
  It is time for our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to stop 
exploiting our energy crisis for big oil's gain and let us vote on the 
things that will actually produce energy.
  Instead, they insist on holding up everything for an absurd plan 
that, according to the Energy Information

[[Page 17010]]

Agency, will not produce energy at all for 10 years and, in 2030, will 
only produce enough additional gasoline for the equivalent of a few 
tablespoons per American car.
  Let me try to put their plan into perspective. Since April of this 
year, Americans seeing the high cost of gas have actually reduced their 
consumption by 800,000 barrels of oil a day more than we did year ago. 
This is the most significant and sudden drop in oil since the 1970s. 
But what happened, even though we have reduced 800,000 barrels of oil 
every day? Prices went up.
  In recent weeks, in response to record oil prices, Saudi Arabia 
produced an additional half-million barrels of oil more each day. What 
happened? Prices went up.
  So how does the Bush-McCain drilling plan compare to these recent 
events? Well, based upon the Bush administration Energy Information 
Agency's own analysis, if we open all our shores to oil production, the 
first drop of oil would not be seen for almost a decade, and offshore 
oil production would peak in the year 2030. Then it would peak at only 
200,000 barrels a day.
  So, in fact, if 800,000 barrels a day in reduced consumption combined 
with an increase of 500,000 barrels a day in extra production hasn't 
lowered gas prices one bit, it is clear that the production of 200,000 
versus a combination of 1.3 million barrels in reduced demand or 
increased production--200,000 barrels in the year 2030--is going to do 
absolutely nothing about gas prices.
  In fact, the Energy Information Agency says that adding those 200,000 
barrels per day in production in 2030 will lower the price of gasoline 
by less than a penny per gallon.
  Let me repeat that. The Republican production plan to open all our 
shores to drilling and risk the environmental consequences we saw, for 
example, in the Gulf of Mexico during Katrina and Rita, with 700,000 
gallons of oil spilled and 7 million spilled on land by the facilities 
that bring that oil to the marketplace, would not lower gas prices but 
about a penny in 2030.
  Let's compare these numbers with what renewables have to offer. 
Remember, if we pass the renewable energy tax extender credits, we 
could produce massive amounts of electricity from renewable 
technologies. We hear this constantly being discussed by the 
Republicans, but they don't let us vote on it. Remember that the tax 
extenders will help us rapidly deploy plug-in hybrid technology so we 
can use this electricity for transportation.
  By some projections, this means that by 2030, the same time period 
they are drilling off the shore with the risk that comes to a $200 
billion coastal economy, we could replace 2 million to 3 million 
barrels of oil per day with electricity. Compare 2 million to 3 million 
barrels to a measly 200,000 barrels per day by the drilling.
  Some, such as the DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 
projected we could actually displace 3 times as much, or 6.5 million 
barrels per day by 2030 versus 200,000 barrels in this big drill, 
drill, drill.
  I don't quite get it. You can save the equivalent of 6.5 million 
barrels every day in energy by pursuing the renewables that they say 
they support but don't vote for or you can have 200,000 versus 6.5 
million by virtue of drilling 30 years from now. So this, of course, 
means that for us to achieve this, we need to get beyond the Republican 
efforts to stop us from maintaining the tax incentives we have. It 
means we actually have to get serious about our energy policies and 
start a serious effort to run our transportation fleet on electricity.
  That is what voters have to decide on this fall. Do they want to vote 
for the party of big oil, the party that saw the dramatic increase in 
gas over the administration's lifetime, where they wrote the rules and 
the law at the White House, sitting with the Vice President of the 
United States--do they want to vote for big oil that has record 
profits, starting with ConocoPhillips? I can't wait for tomorrow, or 
the day after, when ExxonMobil puts out their record profits. We are 
talking about billions in record profits. Do they want to vote for big 
oil, which concocted a plan that does nothing but enrich the oil 
companies?
  This is about one last grab before the administration goes out of 
office. They already have 68 million acres in this country that they 
have access to. Now they say we cannot do this or that. They have 68 
million acres. They have millions of acres in the Outer Continental 
Shelf that are not subject to the moratorium. They have areas in the 
gulf they have not pursued.
  The bottom line is that plenty of drilling can take place, and they 
have not done it. Even the President of the American Petroleum 
Institute says we don't have the infrastructure or the resources to do 
it. All this talk about drill, drill, drill, which would only produce 
200,000 barrels in 2030 versus 6.5 million barrels of reduced demand in 
oil--that would do something about the gas prices--and not letting us 
take out the speculation in the marketplace, which would reduce oil $50 
per barrel, some experts say, but they would not let us vote on that. 
They would not let us vote on the tax extenders.
  So this is not about creating production, this is about stopping 
progress. This is about a Republican game plan that says we will send 
the Congress home without having done anything about dealing with gas 
prices, and the minority will face the consequences. They are so sadly 
mistaken that the American people will not see through 6.5 years of 
record gas prices, record oil profits, unwilling to allow us to deal 
with speculation or deal with production and what the energy tax 
extenders provide, unwilling to allow us to pursue conservation, 
unwilling to let the American people get the relief they want.
  That is why I truly believe that if they continue on this course, the 
Nation will suffer and consumers will suffer. But they will suffer at 
the polls come November.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.


                       Tax Extenders Legislation

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I wish to take a few minutes here on a 
Wednesday afternoon. We are not toward the end of the week yet, but as 
most people know who observe the Congress and Senate in session, once 
you get to Wednesday afternoon, you sort of have a feel for how much 
you are going to be able to accomplish during the week.
  I think it is fair to say we have not been able to accomplish much so 
far this week. This is sort of a last-ditch effort to encourage us to 
try to do something constructive before we leave town, before the 
August recess.
  Let me try to put this debate in the general terms that I understand 
it. There are two packages of legislation that relate to our energy 
challenges which we have been talking about--two notional packages of 
legislation. One--and this is the one most of the speeches are probably 
about--relates to the general problem of high gas prices, which is a 
serious problem for all Americans. This set of speeches is not about a 
particular bill because we don't have a bill that has come out of any 
committee in the Senate dealing with this problem of high gas prices. 
There are bills the Republican leader has introduced on the subject, 
and there is the bill to deal with the part of the problem relating to 
speculation, which the Democratic leader has introduced, the majority 
leader. We have not been able to move ahead on that. There have been 
repeated efforts, and we have been blocked at every turn.
  The other package is the one I wish to talk about. I spoke about it 
briefly yesterday. I wish to talk about it again because I think it is 
extremely important. It is, in my opinion, the most important 
legislation we could pass and take action on this week. This relates to 
the extension of various tax provisions that are currently in the law 
or that have been in the law but expired this last year. I will briefly 
talk about that.
  Some of those tax provisions relate to energy. Many of them do not. 
Many relate to other items, other matters that are extremely important 
as well. Let me talk about how important this legislation is to our 
economy, to American jobs, and to our energy challenge

[[Page 17011]]

as well. First, I will talk about the provisions in the tax law that 
expired at the end of last year. These are provisions we need to extend 
in order that Americans will not face substantially higher taxes when 
they go to pay their taxes next spring. I am talking about things such 
as the alternative minimum tax.
  Most Americans don't have to worry about the alternative minimum tax. 
Unfortunately, the way it is written today, unless we pass legislation 
such as what I will argue for here, we are going to have millions of 
Americans have to calculate their taxes pursuant to the AMT and 
actually pay increased taxes because of the alternative minimum tax 
this next year if we don't pass that legislation.
  We have a provision for a child tax credit. You would think there 
would be strong support for maintaining the child tax credit that 
Americans believe is part of the Tax Code. Unfortunately, it expired at 
the end of last year. If we don't pass legislation such as what I am 
talking about, such as what we tried to pass earlier today, the child 
tax credit is not part of the law.
  The qualified tuition deduction for higher education expenses, again, 
this is something that is very important to many families in this 
country who have children or where one spouse or the other is going to 
school and they need that tuition deduction for higher education 
expenses.
  Also, there are the provisions for retirees to be able to make tax-
free IRA rollovers to qualified charitable organizations. These are 
examples of provisions that Americans think are in the Tax Code--and 
they are, except they expired at the end of last year. We need to go 
ahead and legislate to reestablish those so people can take advantage 
of them when they file their tax returns next year.
  All of that is contained in this legislation that failed earlier 
today on the Senate floor--failed in our efforts even to proceed to 
consider the legislation, in order to be specific about it.
  Let me talk about the energy provision. There are also, in the tax 
law today, several important provisions to encourage production of 
energy from alternative sources--production of energy from wind farms, 
wind turbines, from solar concentrating facilities, and production of 
energy from photovoltaic cells that people put on their homes. This is 
legislation that was enacted--most of it--in 2005. I was honored to be 
present in 2005 in my home State of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, when 
President Bush traveled there and stood with Senator Domenici and 
myself and others at the time to announce that he was signing the 2005 
Energy bill.
  There are some who criticize that bill, but I think there were many 
good provisions in it, and some of those provisions are these I am 
talking about right now--the production tax credit for wind energy, the 
investment tax credit for solar energy. Those provisions, 
unfortunately, were only enacted through the end of 2008, and that is 
about, as we can all tell by looking at the calendar, 5 months down the 
road. So companies that are thinking of investing in projects--under 
the law, the way we wrote those provisions, the project has to be 
actually completed and in operation prior to the expiring of the tax 
credit in order for them to get the tax benefit.
  Obviously, companies are now looking at this expiration date of 
December 31 coming up and they are saying: Wait a minute, hold off, we 
are not going to build that wind farm, we are not going to construct 
that concentrating solar power facility, we are not going to put those 
photovoltaic solar cells in place because we don't know if Congress is 
going to extend this provision or not extend this provision.
  The vote we had earlier today is not encouraging at all in that 
regard because it is a signal to the business community that, in fact, 
Congress is not going to be able to generate the votes necessary to 
extend that provision.
  As I understand it, all Democrats who were present voted for 
proceeding to the bill so we could bring it up, debate it, pass it--at 
least I hope pass it. I believe five of our Republican colleagues 
joined us in that effort. But we need more. We cannot get to the 60-
vote threshold that is needed without more support from our Republican 
colleagues.
  The arguments used against going ahead are numerous, and they are 
changing all the time. Let me briefly go through these arguments.
  A main argument is they like the provisions, they support the 
provisions, they just don't like the so-called offsets. They don't like 
the idea that we are generating revenue somewhere else to offset the 
lost revenue from extending these provisions. That is the argument.
  There are variations on that. One variation is, these are temporary 
tax provisions, and we are making changes in the Tax Code of a 
permanent nature in order to offset the loss of revenue. At any rate, 
we tried to fix that, and I think we have fixed that in the bill 
Senator Baucus offered earlier today.
  Another argument is these are in current law. We don't want to offset 
anything in current law. We want to extend current law from now on even 
though we were not able to do it under the original budget we are 
operating under. So that argument is being made.
  The other argument that is being made, unfortunately, at this point 
is that somehow or other there is a procedural advantage to refusing to 
allow us to deal with this legislation. There is some advantage that is 
being argued accrues to the Republican side in their larger debate 
about drilling offshore; somehow it helps their position that we ought 
to drill offshore if they deny us the right to extend these alternative 
energy tax provisions, the research and development tax provision, the 
child tax credit, and a variety of other provisions. I have trouble 
understanding that argument, but it is being made, and somehow it seems 
to be persuasive to an awful lot of our colleagues.
  Let me briefly review the bidding here. As far as I understand, the 
procedure we have gone through this week is on Monday, the majority 
leader offered debate and votes on domestic production and other 
matters. I believe the Republican leader at that time indicated he 
would respond later.
  On Tuesday, I believe Senator Vitter from Louisiana announced that he 
had seven amendments on energy that he would like to have considered. 
Tuesday afternoon, the Republican leader rejected Senator Reid's offer 
of four amendments on each side. Tuesday afternoon, Senator Reid stated 
that we would not go forward with amendments on the general subject of 
energy if we could not go ahead and deal with this extender package. 
That had to be done first, I think because of his great concern and my 
great concern that this is an urgent matter. This has languished too 
long. We need to act on it.
  In the last 24 hours, we have had filibusters on this effort to move 
ahead with the tax extender package a couple of times. We also, of 
course, had a filibuster on the effort to move ahead with the Warm in 
Winter and Cool in Summer Act, which is the Low-Income Home Energy 
Assistance Program, trying to increase the level of direct assistance 
to low-income families in anticipation of the very high costs they are 
going to face this winter.
  I don't know if there is a way to get the Senate to move ahead. I 
compliment the majority leader for the heroic effort he has been making 
in trying to do that. Obviously, he has not prevailed as yet.
  The timeline for trying to get action on this tax extender package, 
or some version of it, is as follows:
  In June of 2007, we had a bipartisan energy tax package that we 
brought to the Senate floor, and it got 57 votes. That was not enough 
to allow us to go ahead.
  On December 13, 2007, we had a bipartisan package that got actually 
59 votes. But, again, 59 votes is not enough to let us proceed in the 
Senate.
  On April 18, we did pass a package of provisions of this type with no 
offset contained. That was a useful thing to do. We have been told in 
clear and unequivocal terms that we cannot get support to pass such a 
bill through the House. So we are back trying to get some agreement on 
how we can pass this package of tax extenders, how we

[[Page 17012]]

can pass this package of tax provisions related to alternative energy 
production and related to energy conservation before we leave for the 
August recess.
  This is a high priority. Projects are being canceled and delayed as 
we speak because of our inaction on this matter. I felt it important to 
come to the Senate floor and try to urge action once again before the 
week ends.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.


                                 Energy

  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, we will soon be adjourning the current 
session of the Senate, and we have yet to consider any meaningful 
proposals to help relieve the pressure all of our constituents are 
feeling because of the high cost of energy. Before we return home, we 
should pass a bill that encourages increased production of energy here 
at home to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
  Americans have responded to the jump in the price of gasoline by 
driving less and using less, and the price of oil has decreased 
significantly in the last 2 weeks because of this effort.
  There is a direct link between supply and demand and the price of 
oil. In order to pay less for oil, we must have more supply and we must 
have our own domestic supplies.
  We have been debating a bill that will not increase supply or 
decrease demand. The Democrats continue to thwart our efforts on this 
subject, and we find ourselves in a logjam.
  Even though oil prices have dropped some, gas prices remain at an 
alltime high. Americans are spending an inordinate amount of their 
hard-earned income on gasoline. My constituents in Mississippi spend 
the highest amount of their income on gasoline of any State--nearly 8 
percent--according to the National Resources Defense Council.
  The status quo is not good enough. We must act. If the price of oil 
can drop more than $20 a barrel in 2 weeks because of decreased demand, 
imagine what could happen if we could couple that with increased 
supply.
  We are very lucky that we have energy resources in America to 
explore. Many areas offshore are currently off limits, but they hold 
great potential, as do the large deposits of oil shale in the Rocky 
Mountains. With our abundance of coal, we have the opportunity to 
utilize coal-to-liquids technology as another fuel source. We are not 
lacking in resources. Yet we continue to be beholden to foreign oil 
cartels that are not producing at the rate of current worldwide demand.
  We should also be making sure nuclear power is available in the 
quantities we need. Companies such as Entergy in Mississippi have made 
application to build new nuclear plants. We need to ensure that the 
permitting process is rigorous but more expeditious.
  We have the opportunity today to begin weaning ourselves from our 
dependence on foreign oil, but in spite of the suffering that high gas 
prices are creating across the country, we are not moving fast enough. 
Let's get together and get this job done.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Parliamentary inquiry: Am I correct in assuming that I 
have 20 minutes?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican side has 25 minutes 20 seconds.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I understand that time is allotted to 
the two Senators, the senior Senator from Tennessee and Senator Pete 
Domenici, the old man who is leaving the Senate soon.
  I wish to tell the Senator from Tennessee, our new chairman of our 
Republican conference, what a great job he has done as we have 
considered whether we should produce more oil for Americans from 
American-owned resources. That has been an exciting 8\1/2\ days. What 
disturbs the Senator from New Mexico is, even with the explanations the 
Senator from Tennessee and others have made, people the Senator has 
read about, the things he told us about in terms of what we ought to be 
finding and saving, we ought to be producing and conserving, and we 
ought to use our own resources, we have not been able to get meaningful 
amendments offered in the Senate to have a vote.
  I have come to the conclusion that there are some--perhaps more than 
I ever imagined--Democrats on the other side of the aisle who don't 
want to produce more American oil. I really didn't think that was 
possible, but I have come to that conclusion. I am not saying 
everybody. There are some who are working very hard on new ideas on how 
we can produce. But I believe the majority leader has been bugged, 
bothered, and pursued by those who don't want to let a vote because 
they don't want to produce any oil on the offshores of America even 
though there is a lot of it there and it belongs to us.
  Having said that, I wonder if the Senator will have a comment about 
statements that have been made by a couple of Democrats on the other 
side of the aisle who have said that there are Republicans who just 
want to drill, that is all they want to do, is drill for more oil. Do 
you know of any Republicans--you know the Republicans pretty well; that 
is why you have your job as chairman--do you know of any Republicans 
whose concern is nothing other than we drill for more oil?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I would say that the Senator from New Mexico knows the 
answer to that.
  And, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from New 
Mexico be allowed to proceed through our remaining time in a colloquy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. So the answer is no, to the Senator from New Mexico, 
and I think it is important to go back to when we first started talking 
about this matter.
  I think it might be useful to the people who are watching the Senate 
and wondering how we do things--maybe they have been watching C-SPAN 
and thinking: Well, these Senators sure know how to make a lot of fine 
speeches. And that is what we have been doing for the last 10 days, 
making speeches. But we haven't been doing anything more. But that 
isn't what we have wanted to do or what we do want to do now. What we 
want is a serious debate on legislation to lower gas prices that looks 
at ways to find more and use less.
  The Senator from New Mexico is exactly right. We understand high 
gasoline prices are the product of a law we learned in economics 101. I 
don't know how the Senator from New Mexico did in economics 101. I 
imagine pretty well because he is one of our most intelligent Senators. 
But economics 101 says the price of a commodity, such as oil--or it 
might be hay or wheat or anything else--is determined by the supply as 
well as the demand. So what we said in our Republican caucus was that 
we wanted a balanced approach; that we wanted to increase the supply--
``find more''--and we wanted to reduce the demand--``use less.''
  So if I may say just for a moment, we do talk a lot about finding 
more.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Yes.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Because that has become the issue between the two 
sides, really. We want to do both, and many of them don't. They want to 
use less, and we want to use less. But it is hard getting many of our 
Democratic friends to agree that even in the next 30 or 40 years we 
will need to use significant amounts of new American energy if we want 
to keep our lights on and drive our cars and heat our houses and have 
good jobs. It is hard for them to agree with that.
  But let me be very precise about our using less. Our ``finding more'' 
idea was really offshore drilling and oil shale, and our ``using less'' 
was plug-in electric vehicles. T. Boone Pickens thinks he has a pretty 
good plan, and he has bought a lot of television time to advertise it, 
and it is pretty simple: natural gas and windmills. Ours is about

[[Page 17013]]

as simple: offshore drilling, oil shale, and plug-in cars and trucks.
  But let's talk about the ``use less'' part. That will do more for us 
than the ``find more'' part will. That is the Republican proposal.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Yes.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. We import, I believe, Senator Domenici, about 12 or 13 
million barrels of oil a day. We use about 20 million barrels a day, or 
a quarter of all the oil in the world. So if we could find a way to use 
less, as well as find more, we could affect the price.
  I had a visit just this afternoon from the utility manager in Austin, 
TX, and we talked about plug-in electric vehicles--our way of using 
less. What I am trying to do is make the point that there is not 
anybody over here on this side of the aisle who just wants to drill 
alone. We know we have to use less.
  Now, why do we say plug-in cars and trucks? When I first started 
talking about that, people thought I had been out in the sun too long. 
I was far from the first to talk about it. Senator Hatch has introduced 
legislation on this issue, and it has been supported by a number of 
Democratic Senators as well. The director of the Austin, TX, utility 
started talking about it with me earlier today, and here is what he 
says can happen.
  In Austin, TX, they have about 1 million cars and light trucks in his 
utility district. His judgment is that they can get up to about 10 
percent of those cars--100,000--on electricity, where you just plug 
them in at night at home, within about 5 to 8 years without much 
trouble. He believes it is a reasonable goal in Austin, TX, to get half 
of those million cars and trucks on electricity in 10 to 15 years.
  Now, Senator Domenici, if we could help the United States take half 
of our 240 million cars and plug them in instead of filling them up 
with gas, we could cut our import of foreign oil by 4 million barrels a 
day and stop sending money overseas. And that is our way of using less. 
So we want to use less.
  We have other ways to do that as well. The problem is, we can't 
persuade our friends on the other side of the aisle to find more 
because when we say offshore drilling, they say: No, we can't. If we 
say oil shale, they say: No, we can't. Even if we say nuclear power for 
plugging in our cars and trucks with clean energy, they say: Sorry, not 
a proponent of that.
  So the answer to your question is, no, we are not just for more 
drilling--we are all for the demand side and using less. We know that 
makes a difference. We would just like to have a debate and a bill 
about both, and we are for both. Unfortunately, our friends on the 
other side are not. It seems to me they are kind of repealing the 
supply half of the law of supply and demand.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator for the answer, and I want to 
repeat that supply and demand clearly is what affects the price. The 
truth is, anyone who thinks we don't have to use oil for a significant 
amount of time--I mean import it--is just not taking into consideration 
the reality that what we use most of this oil for is cars and trucks 
and airplanes and the like, and we just can't make a change overnight.
  The Senator just mentioned one great way to lessen that, and Austin 
has a well-planned idea that would take 15 to 20 years to do half, to 
get rid of half of the automobiles and substitute electric cars. But 
what are you going to do during the 15 years or 20? You are going to 
use cars, today at least, using crude oil. You are going to use 
gasoline.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Then there is the other half of the cars and trucks 
that are presumably still running on gas.
  Mr. DOMENICI. You bet. Just so we make it clear, if there are Members 
of the Senate who don't want to let a vote occur on producing more oil 
because they don't think we need to produce more oil--and I can't 
imagine why, but some people just say no more carbon; some people say 
no more oil--they have to understand that we are going to be buying 
more oil whether we like it or not, unless we just stop driving or shut 
down America. It is going to continue to bleed us dry.
  So we didn't come down here after our majority leader offered an 
amendment, an amendment that he has been saying had an impact on the 
price of oil, if you can imagine that. It was an oil speculation bill. 
As we continue this debate, the majority leader's solution to an 
enormous energy crisis facing our Nation--and earlier today the 
majority leader gave a speech. I don't know if the Senator heard it. In 
that speech he said many things, but one of the things he said is that 
oil prices are going down because the Senate is debating--debating--oil 
speculation.
  Now, the Senator from Tennessee and I really work hard at legislating 
because we think legislation can have an impact. But on such a big 
world problem, to think that on oil supply and demand that you could 
come to the floor of the Senate and say in a credible manner that the 
price of oil has come down because a bill was introduced--and the bill 
was the speculation bill--you know, people haven't gone to sleep. The 
speculation bill has been written about, and the best thinkers have 
said: First, you don't need one; and, second, this one would not do 
anything.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. The Senator from New Mexico is right, and you are not 
the only one who thinks that. I picked up the New York Times a couple 
of days ago, and in their editorial--and they do not always agree with 
the Republican side of the aisle, I will have to concede--but they 
basically said the speculation bill is not a solution to high gas 
prices. Warren Buffett, who is a pretty good observer of the American 
economy, has said it is not speculation, it is supply and demand.
  I know for people who may be watching the Senate, they may ask: What 
are you hung about up about in the Senate? Why don't you work across 
party lines and come up with some good ideas about supply and some good 
ideas about demand and put them in a piece of legislation and vote on 
it and go home and you will have taken a big step in the right 
direction?
  We have said that is what we want to do: oil shale, offshore 
drilling, and plug-in cars.
  The problem is, we haven't been able to do that because the 
Democratic leader, for some reason, is reluctant to do the supply part 
of supply and demand.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I want to also say, Mr. President, I think some of us 
who work hard in the energy field know why the price of oil has dropped 
a little.
  First, those of us who have worked at it are concerned about the 
supply and demand problem because we entered an era for a short time 
when, obviously, there was no more new supply on hand and the demand 
was growing. And guess what happened. The United States, the American 
people, not because we passed a lot of laws but because they felt the 
price of oil in their pocketbooks, changed the way they behaved, and as 
a result they saved enormous amounts of crude oil. We estimate right 
now that U.S. demand has been decreased by 4.3 percent, and that is 
about 1 million barrels a day.
  When the Senator just spoke a minute ago, he was right. He gave the 
numbers, and 5 percent of that number would have been 1, and that is 
what we are at--1 million barrels. That came down. That lessened the 
demand, the world economy had some problems, less money was spent, and 
the demand came down. That was supply and demand working at its best.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I would say to the Senator from New Mexico, that is 1 
million barrels a day using less. What we are saying, with plug-in cars 
and trucks, we can cut out another 4 million barrels a day over a few 
years. But if we use offshore drilling and oil shale, we can add 3 
million. So we can reduce by one-third our imported oil and change the 
price of gasoline. And I would say to the Senator from New Mexico that 
some people say: Well, changing the price is way off in the future. I 
thought that today's price is based upon the expected supply.
  Mr. DOMENICI. You bet.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. And the expected demand. From the day the world 
thought that we might increase that by a few million barrels a day, or 
reduce that by a few million barrels a day, the prices started going 
down. Am I wrong about that?

[[Page 17014]]


  Mr. DOMENICI. Well, if you say just coming up with the idea would do 
it, then I would say no, the Senator is not right. But if we were to 
have done that, and it was a matter of law in America that we were 
going to find more because it was there--you know, Americans are pretty 
good at drilling. Americans don't mind using the word ``drill.'' They 
have told us now in the polls, in answer to the question, that they 
are, by 75 percent, for more drilling if it is on property we own. In 
fact, offshore has been the answer. So they want us to find more, and 
they also want to use less.
  It is obvious that if we would have passed that--and anybody who says 
we could not have because we didn't have time is just trying to pull 
the wool over the eyes of Americans. How many days would it take to do 
that if we had the will and we were given 7 days and we made a deal? We 
can't make a deal on anything else, but if we made one and we were 
going to have 7 days to debate this bill, amendments come as they may--
take down the thing that the majority leader put up there because he 
didn't want us to vote--7 full days of debate--we could have produced a 
bill that would have opened the offshore permanently, except for the 15 
percent that is already open, and we would have adopted the use less, 
find more provisions you have so eloquently brought to us from some of 
your experts, the experts you talked to, some of them at your National 
Laboratories.
  Just think, after we passed that and had a signing ceremony at the 
White House to say: Here is what we have done, Americans. You are 
saving on your own, so you are using less, and we really think that is 
great, but we think there is still danger the price will go up, so we 
want to find more to keep it down--we are having the ceremony where we 
are celebrating both.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. The Senator says we could have done that in maybe a 
week.
  Mr. DOMENICI. You bet.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. We could have agreed to a large number of amendments 
and said: Let's have an hour on each amendment and let's have a vote, 
and we might win some or lose some. But may I remind the Senator that 
Senator Reid brought this to the floor nearly 2 weeks ago. Could we not 
have started on that day to have amendments from the Republicans and 
amendments from the Democrats, limiting debate to 1-hour per amendment 
with all amendments germane to energy? Wouldn't that be a normal way 
for the Senate to work?
  Mr. DOMENICI. You were here, and we got three energy bills through. 
People think we did nothing, but we did. We had a 6-year span here 
where we did a lot for energy. We changed the CAFE standards for cars. 
What is that going to do? Use less.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. That is the single most important step Congress could 
take to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, according to experts at 
the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Congress did that last year.
  Mr. DOMENICI. And we did it with just one other item. It certainly 
didn't take as long as we have been down here talking instead of 
offering amendments--because we could not. We passed it, and there it 
is. Everyone knows it is great.
  People are telling us: Don't worry about the offshore, it takes 10 or 
15 years. Do you know what they told us about the ``use less'' 
provision that is so important, called new CAFE standards for American 
automobile fleets, all our cars? They told us that will not be totally 
effective for 20 years. The curve goes like this: you start--you don't 
save any, you don't save any, and then in the 15th and 20th years, you 
start to finally save.
  Should we not have done it because it takes a long time to take 
effect? Of course not. We were told to get started on it because, as 
you said, it is the single biggest way to save gasoline and diesel fuel 
that anybody knows of.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. It seems as if our job, Senator, the way I always 
remembered it, was to look ahead 5 or 10 years.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Sure.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. What if President Kennedy said we can't go to the Moon 
because it might take 10 years or Benjamin Franklin said we can't have 
a republic because it might take 50 years? And we also said--you just 
said it: From the day we pass legislation that includes oil shale, 
offshore drilling, plug-in cars and trucks--from the day we do that, 
then the buyers and sellers of oil say: It looks as if there is going 
to be a larger supply and less demand, and maybe we will pay a little 
less for oil.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I want to talk to the Senator for a minute about 
whether we are capable of doing big things that affect the energy 
field. We had a chance here in the last 7 to 10 days to do something 
rather big. But do you know what we did 4 years ago? I was fortunate. I 
left the Budget Committee, where I was chairing--it seemed as though I 
was, at the pleasure of the Republicans, running that thing for so 
long, they never wanted me to step down. I finally got tired of it, and 
I took the Energy Committee. The first bill we passed addressed an 
issue that is part of this ``find more.'' It addressed the issue of why 
we did not build a nuclear powerplant for 27 years. We answered it in 
that legislation, didn't we?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. And there has been a remarkable change today just 
because of that legislation 4 years ago.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Do you know how many applications there were when we 
passed that legislation, for all America? Zero. That meant something 
was awry.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. For nuclear powerplants.
  Mr. DOMENICI. We had not built any. You have to apply, and so you go 
there and look and you see whether there are any applications. As of 
today--I just got a briefing--do you know how many full-blown 
applications there are to build, locate, and design? You can put all 
that in one now. It takes a long time--4 years after you have done it. 
Sixteen American companies or consortia of companies, even though it 
takes a long time and they are going to have to have their money at 
risk for a long time, put their applications in and said: I want to get 
in line because I want to build, I want to find more energy.
  We are really grateful; for once, we have one where we don't have to 
argue about pollution, right?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. It is the only source of large, dependable amounts of 
energy with no carbon, no sulphur, no mercury, no nitrogen. It is our 
cleanest. And as the price of coal goes up and natural gas goes up, it 
is the least expensive of our reliable forms of energy.
  Mr. DOMENICI. So, you see, when there is a will, there is a way. The 
problem is, there was no will on the part of the Democratic leader--and 
perhaps some behind him. I am not going to say all of them, but surely 
they didn't express any dissatisfaction with what was going on until, 
at the end, we started feeling there was some rumbling going on. Maybe 
they had some friction. But nobody over on that side seemed to be 
saying to their leader: We want to get busy here and have some votes. 
There was not a will, so you can't do it. You couldn't change nuclear 
power without a will.
  In that same bill we were referring to, we changed a lot of things. I 
wanted to tell you, one thing you have been interested in is the 
electric grid because you are concerned about how we are going to get 
the electrical power when we cannot build powerplants. Certainly, it 
takes a long time to use this nuclear one as the way. It takes a long 
time. You can build coal fastest, but there are a lot of problems with 
EPA and others on that, right? Then you can build natural gas. That is 
pretty much--you and I look upon that as Senators and say: Yes, you can 
do it, but it sure is risky because we need that natural gas so badly. 
But that is the only way they built them in the last few years. That 
bothers you, right? Doesn't it? Aren't you worried about that?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, how much time do we have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). The Senator has 1 minute 7 
seconds remaining.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Let me ask the Senator from New Mexico on our last

[[Page 17015]]

minute and 7 seconds, one of the descriptions I like is his description 
of how we need to produce more American energy as our bridge to the 
future when we will have a different kind of energy.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I would think, if we could start using these words--we 
need a bridge to the future--and then we got together and thought about 
that and then said, What is that? Remember a while ago I told you how 
long it would take in the city of Austin before you would get all those 
cars that are using oil off the streets?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Ten to fifteen years, half of them.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Half of them. And then all the other things we talked 
about, CAFE, how long it would take going up and then start down--that 
applies to so many things in America that the truth is we are not going 
to be in a position to look to new, brand new generation of energy to 
move cars and trucks. We can't do that for a decade. So there is a 
bridge taking place, a bridge from now until we do not need oil any 
longer. But what does the bridge consist of? It is oil. Oil is the 
bridge between now and the time we do not use oil.
  I regret to tell you, for anyone who thinks there is no bridge--it 
just comes to me now--then they can walk into a canyon and drown in the 
water underground that is running there because they didn't walk on a 
bridge and they drowned themselves. I do not want to drown our country. 
I want to find new oil so the bridge will be less somebody else's and 
more ours.
  I understand the Chair tells us we are out of time. We will behave 
very well. Thank you very much.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.


                        Refueling Tanker Program

  Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I come to the floor this afternoon to 
join my colleague from Washington State to talk about--I actually say 
it is an energy issue. Yes, it is also about the Air Force and 
Department of Defense air refueling tanker program, but I believe it 
fits well into this debate today because we are talking about energy 
and the high cost of energy.
  This week, I am sending a letter to Secretary Gates, along with my 
colleague, Senator Murray, to make sure the Pentagon is doing its job 
and eliminating the evaluation errors identified by the GAO to make 
sure we have a fair competition and an even playing field when it comes 
to the air refueling tanker program.
  The fact is, our military's air refueling requirements are already 
well known. The original requirements were developed with input from 
the warfighting combatant commanders and approved by the Air Force 
Requirements Oversight Council and the Joint Oversight Requirements 
Council. According to the Federal rules, major changes to these 
requirements cannot be made without going through this process again.
  I think failing to account for what are full life-cycle costs and 
estimates or changing the requirements in the RFP would be another 
colossal failure in this long process. This was an evaluation problem, 
not an RFP problem. I am here to say that if the Pentagon fails to 
learn the lessons from the GAO decision and changes the requirements 
that have already been set, then I am sure they will hear from many of 
my colleagues and myself here in Congress. There may even be another 
GAO protest.
  The American people do not want to have an amended RFP that will 
result in a protracted protest rather than the tanker procurement we 
are all seeking. Therefore, the new competition should be based on the 
requirements that were reflected in the original Request for Proposal 
dated January 29, 2007. The world our warfighters are operating in has 
not changed since those requirements were set. I see no need for them 
to be changed.
  We are here on the floor now talking about the high cost of energy. 
The Boeing Company worked hard to meet the Air Force requirements for 
the tanker bid process. It picked the 767, the platform that best 
matched those Air Force requirements. If the Air Force had called for a 
larger tanker, Boeing could have offered a bigger plane, the 777, with 
far more fuel capacity. But the plane that Boeing picked, the 767, is a 
much better match for us, the American taxpayer, and for our 
environment.
  The Air Force currently uses more fuel than any other branch of the 
military, and the Boeing 767 plane burns 24 percent less fuel than its 
competitor and would have saved the taxpayers approximately $30 billion 
over the life of these tanker planes.
  As my colleagues are talking about what to do about the high cost of 
fuel, I ask them to consider one of the Government's largest users of 
fuel--the Air Force--and whether we should make sure fuel efficiency is 
integrated into the Air Force's procurement decisions.
  The Air Force uses more than half of all the fuel the U.S. Government 
consumes each year, and aviation fuel accounts for more than 80 percent 
of the Air Force's total energy budget. In 2006, the service spent more 
than $5.8 billion for almost 2.6 billion gallons of jet fuel--more than 
twice what it did in 2007.
  The American taxpayers obviously cannot afford their own higher fuel 
costs. I do not see how the American taxpayers can afford the U.S. Air 
Force running up a higher cost energy bill as well.
  An Air Force Assistant Secretary told the House Armed Services 
Committee that it wants to leave a greener footprint, with more 
environmentally sound energy resources. He testified that the rising 
gas and oil prices had forced the Air Force to take a harder look at 
the budget to find ways to save money while maintaining a high 
operations tempo in the war on terrorism.
  Assistant Secretary Bill Anderson said this:

       The increasing cost of energy and the Nation's commitment 
     to reducing its dependence on foreign oil have led to the 
     development of the Air Force energy strategy, to reduce 
     demand, increase the supply and change the culture within the 
     Air Force so that energy is considered in everything that we 
     do.

  I believe the Boeing 767 would have been a much better choice for the 
Air Force in energy savings and fuel efficiency. As I said, it burns 24 
percent less fuel than the alternative that was put on the table. The 
Air Force did not give full consideration to the national security 
impact of these fuel efficiency issues when it made its decision on the 
tanker.
  Given that the Air Force, as I said, uses more than half of all of 
the fuel the U.S. Government consumes, I hope they are thinking about 
the big picture issue when it comes to making sure our Nation reduces 
its dependence on foreign oil.
  This 767 has greater operational flexibility. It can land on shorter 
runways and it can be based at more locations worldwide with existing 
infrastructure instead of making us, the taxpayer, pay for more and 
more infrastructure costs.
  Boeing's medium-sized 767 tanker makes a lot more sense than the 
oversized option that was originally outlined by Northrop Grumman/EADS, 
and its greater operational flexibility.
  The tanker size was determined in the original requirements. And so 
the fact this plane, the 767, is more fuel efficient, can land on 
shorter runways, can have more base operations, in fact, over 1,000 
more base operations worldwide, and the fact that the other costs to 
the taxpayers in the long run are lower compared to the other offer the 
Air Force is considering, we must make sure we are doing our job here 
on the floor of the Senate to make sure these issues of cost savings to 
the taxpayer are considered.
  I want to make sure the Department of Defense takes a hard look at 
these issues and weighs the loss of critical skills in the U.S. 
manufacturing base. In this time of challenge, America wants to know it 
can rely on a workforce and manufacturing base here in the United 
States for our preparedness for whatever conflict comes in the future.
  I want to make sure that the problems identified by the Government 
Accountability Office are corrected and that we move forward. But 
failing to account for lifecycle costs on fuel, on

[[Page 17016]]

infrastructure, on maintenance would also be another failure in this 
process.
  I hope my colleagues will remember this was an evaluation problem, 
not the RFP. And we hope we will straighten this out as we move 
forward.
  I see I am joined on the floor by my colleague, the senior Senator 
from Washington. I hope she too can add to the focus of how those high 
costs are something we should be considering in making sure the Air 
Force moves forward on the appropriations choice to give the men and 
women of our country a long overdue air refueling tanker that we 
deserve.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington State.
  Mrs. MURRAY. I come to the floor this afternoon to join my colleague 
from Washington State and thank her for her comments and attention on 
this enormously important issue to our State and to our entire country.
  As she outlined earlier this month, the Department of Defense took a 
rare step involving a major procurement contract. Defense Secretary 
Gates decided the competition to replace the next generation of aerial 
refueling tanker was so flawed that it should be rebid. He elevated 
that competition from the Air Force to his office, and he promised to 
address all of the findings raised last month in a Government 
Accountability Office ruling which determined that the contest was 
skewed in favor of the European company Airbus and against Boeing.
  I was glad to hear the Defense Secretary had decided to take new bids 
and start over. But I come to the floor today to join with my colleague 
from Washington State because I too have very serious concerns about 
the Pentagon's plans for that new competition. Some Pentagon officials 
are already indicating to us they are considering using this 
opportunity to amend the request for proposals to give greater weight 
to a bigger plane.
  As a result of those comments, defense experts and analysts are now 
beginning to predict that as a result of that, the contract will simply 
go back to Airbus. I brought this up in a meeting this week with Acting 
Air Force Secretary Donley, in which we discussed the history of this 
tanker contract, and we talked about the needs of the Air Force, the 
criticisms that have been lodged against the latest competition, and 
our concerns about the amendment to that RFP that would tip the scales 
to favor one bidder.
  I am not saying the Pentagon cannot change the requests for 
proposals. However, I strongly believe that all those changes have to 
be rooted in the original requirements that were set out by the Air 
Force when it began the process of replacing the military's midsized 
tanker, the KC-135.
  I recognize the Pentagon's procurement team is very serious about 
getting this competition right. They want to get the right tanker for 
our warfighters. They want to do it quickly. But I also want to make it 
clear that if the Pentagon moves forward with this effort, officials 
must take the GAO's findings seriously and ensure that this competition 
is as fair and transparent as it can be.
  Last month the GAO upheld eight points of protest that were raised by 
Boeing, including that the Air Force changed directions midstream in 
the process about which criteria were more important. It did not give 
Boeing credit for providing a more capable plane, according to the Air 
Force's description of what it wanted. Yet it gave Airbus extra credit 
for offering amenities the Air Force did not even ask for. The GAO 
report said the Air Force deliberately and unreasonably increased 
Boeing's engineering costs. When that mistake was corrected, it was 
discovered that the Airbus tanker actually cost tens of millions of 
dollars more than Boeing.
  The GAO found that the Air Force accepted Airbus's proposal even 
though Airbus could not meet two of their key contract requirements. 
They could not meet the contract requirement, Airbus could not, and 
refused to commit to providing long-term maintenance as was specified 
directly in the RFP, even after the Air Force repeatedly asked them for 
it.
  Secondly, the Air Force could not prove that Airbus could refuel all 
of the military's aircraft according to procedure. This goes to show 
how there were major flaws that occurred throughout that process.
  So as it continues with this competition now, the Department of 
Defense must make sure there is no reason to question its motives. If 
they truly plan to make this a fair contest, Secretary Gates has to 
ensure that before the selection team reopens this competition, it goes 
back and addresses each one of those GAO findings. It has to ensure 
that both companies are on the same footing and it has to prove the 
competition is as transparent as possible. Our refueling tankers are 
the backbone of our global military strength. They are stationed around 
the world today and they service planes from every branch of our Armed 
Forces. This is a contract that is ultimately worth more than $100 
billion. We are going to have these planes for decades. We cannot 
afford to make mistakes.
  As I said at the beginning of my remarks, I recognize that Secretary 
Gates is very serious about getting this competition right. At the end 
of the day, this is about getting the right equipment for our airmen 
and airwomen who are put in harm's way for our security every day. Our 
servicemembers deserve a plane that will enable them to do their job 
and return home safely.
  Our taxpayers deserve to have confidence that the errors are going to 
be fixed in this contract as the GAO outlined. So I come to the floor 
today to say, as the Pentagon moves forward with this effort over the 
next several weeks, I strongly urge our officials to take those GAO 
findings seriously and ensure this competition is as fair and 
transparent as it can be.


                              Samuel Snow

  While I am on the floor this afternoon, I want to take a moment to 
say a few words about a different topic; that is, about a gentleman who 
sacrificed very dearly for our country.
  My colleague from Florida, Senator Nelson, was on the floor earlier 
today talking about a veteran named Samuel Snow who traveled from 
Florida all the way to my home State of Washington, all the way across 
the country this past week, to finally receive the honorable discharge 
from the Army that he deserved to get more than 60 years ago.
  This man traveled from Florida to Washington to finally get an 
honorable discharge 60 years later. Samuel Snow was one of 28 African-
American soldiers who were wrongly prosecuted in a court martial for a 
crime that occurred in Seattle at Fort Lawton in 1944.
  Last weekend, 64 years later, the Army finally publicly acknowledged 
that Mr. Snow and 27 others were unjustly convicted and issued a formal 
apology. As my colleague from Florida talked about this morning, Mr. 
Snow came all the way from Florida to Seattle and participated in the 
dinner there with sons and daughters of some of the men he served with 
in prison. But later that evening in Seattle, Mr. Snow checked himself 
into a hospital, and he missed the next day's ceremony. His son Ray 
Snow went to the ceremony and accepted the honorable discharge on his 
father's behalf, that honorable discharged he had waited decades to 
receive, and took it from that ceremony, went to his father's hospital 
bed and was able to hand it to him personally and see the smile in his 
dad's eyes for the first time.
  Sadly, very sadly, his father, Mr. Snow, passed away shortly after he 
was handed that honorable discharge. Samuel Snow was a hero for our 
country who suffered unjustly. He deserves the thanks of our entire 
country for his service and his sacrifice. My thoughts now are with the 
Snow family during this difficult time. I am so glad he was able to 
finally receive that honorable discharge he waited for so many years 
and to receive it before he died.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah is recognized.


                          Research Tax Credit

  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I rise today to express my growing alarm 
over the current state of the expired and expiring tax provisions, and 
to express what I see as real problems in

[[Page 17017]]

getting these important provisions taken care of before Congress 
adjourns this year.
  My office is increasingly being contacted by businesses and 
individual taxpayers, not only from my home State but around the 
Nation, who are asking what the delay is in taking care of the so-
called extenders. I am sure this is true of all offices of all of my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
  It is already way past the time when Americans should have been able 
to expect a reasonable Congress to take care of what in prior years has 
been a fairly routine issue. While the almost annual rite of passing a 
tax extenders bill has never represented an ideal way of governing, the 
Congress has generally exercised a modicum of responsibility in getting 
this chore taken care of within a reasonable time. That is, until 
recently.
  Over the past several years, Congress's ability to take care of what 
is the least common denominator in our duty to ensure a stable tax 
system has eroded. We are now bordering, in my opinion, on gross 
negligence. No wonder the Congress's approval ratings are so incredibly 
low.
  Mr. DURBIN. Would the Senator from Utah yield for a question?
  Mr. HATCH. I would be happy to.
  Mr. DURBIN. We were doing half-hour segments. We had 11 minutes 
remaining on ours. How long is the Senator planning on speaking?
  Mr. HATCH. Not more than 10 minutes.
  Mr. DURBIN. I ask unanimous consent that we have some reallocation of 
the time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The time 
will be reallocated.
  Mr. HATCH. I was told to be here at 5:40. I thank my dear colleague 
for his kindness and understanding of the situation.
  Senate leaders on both sides have tried to make progress on the 
extenders bill but have repeatedly failed. The distinguished majority 
leader has chalked up this failure to Republican obstructionism, as he 
has with almost every other failure of his party to pass legislation 
this year, or legislation they desire.
  Contrary to the accusations of our leader on the other side, the 
reasons for Republican opposition to the Democratic extender bill are 
grounded in principles of solid tax policy and fiscal responsibility. 
Unfortunately, our position has been grossly distorted by many on the 
other side and many Democrats on the outside. The Democratic extenders 
legislation has failed because it contains fundamental flaws. The other 
side is insisting on raising taxes to pay for the loss in revenue from 
extending the expired tax provisions. Their so-called pay-as-you-go or 
pay-go rules call for all revenue losses to be matched with revenue 
increases or certain spending decreases. While I continue to be a 
strong believer in fiscal responsibility, there are three basic reasons 
why Republicans have rejected the false fiscal responsibility of the 
Democratic extenders bills.
  First, it is wrong to raise taxes on one group of taxpayers in order 
to prevent another group of taxpayers from suffering an increase in 
taxes. Second, it is wrong to offset temporary extensions of current 
law with permanent tax increases. Finally, it is wrong to increase 
taxes at a time when the Federal Government is already collecting more 
revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product than the 40-year 
historic average. This is particularly true at a time of slow or no 
economic growth. Our friends on the other side are ignoring a solution 
the Republicans have offered that would finance the tax extenders bill 
in a fiscally responsible way. We believe we should reduce the 
explosive growth in Federal spending instead of raising taxes in order 
to offset the revenue losses. Just during this Congress, Democrats have 
passed billions of dollars of new spending without bothering at all to 
offset the effect of these increases on the deficit. Billions more of 
new spending has been approved through the Democratic budget 
resolution.
  Among the tax provisions that have already expired is one the 
business community relies on to keep products and processes flowing, 
innovations that are the lifeblood of our economy. Businesses across 
the country are, once again, anxiously waiting to see if we will 
reinstate this important incentive for innovation, the research tax 
credit, which I have championed for decades. The purpose of the 
research tax credit is to encourage investment in technological 
innovation. Companies generally cannot fully recover R&D expenditures, 
thus discouraging companies from investing in innovation. The Federal 
Government provides tax incentives in order to support business R&D, 
and the business community is depending on us to continue to support 
R&D. We cannot wait until the end of this year to commit to this vital 
investment, this vital tax policy. The time is now.
  At a time when we are looking for ways to spur economic growth, I 
know of no thoughtful person who does not believe research and 
development is vital to our economy and to our future prosperity. My 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle are trying to create 
ridiculous permanent offsets in order to pay for temporarily extending 
the research tax credit which I argue we cannot afford to lose.
  Many U.S. companies are looking elsewhere to establish their R&D 
activities. Testifying before the House committee on Science and 
Technology, Dr. Robert Atkinson, president of the Information 
Technology and Innovation Foundation, testified that ``eight of the top 
ten [research and development]-spending companies in the world have 
established R&D facilities in China.''
  They could just as easily have been established here. If we are not 
careful, we will soon not only be dependent on foreign oil but also 
dependent on foreign research and development. The result would be a 
tragic loss of American jobs, economic growth, world leadership, and 
prestige. We simply cannot allow this to happen. Here we have a tax 
incentive that has been around for almost 30 years, which enjoys wide 
acceptance by the business sector, the academic community, economists, 
and which has very broad support from practically every corner of the 
political spectrum. Yet this tax credit provision has been allowed to 
expire 13 times. Each time we play the extension game, Congress seems 
to get a little more cavalier about the expiring or expired provisions 
in general and the research credit in particular. While we play this 
extension game, our business community loses out on chances of 
innovation that could spur economic growth at a time when we need it to 
be spurred.
  Now is not the time to create tax uncertainty for employers. A 
retroactive or, even worse, lapsed research credit will cost American 
jobs. There is no way you can avoid it, if we don't get this done. 
Seventy percent of research tax credit dollars are used for wages of 
R&D employees. It is estimated by the Information Technology 
Association of America that the lapse of the research tax credit will 
cost the economy $51 million per day. Are my friends on the other side 
of the aisle willing to risk losing American R&D jobs and severely 
impact the already difficult U.S. economy in the name of a perverse and 
wrong-headed sense of fiscal responsibility?
  We cannot drive our economy into the ground in the name of false 
fiscal notions such as a pay-go rule that is used only to grow 
Government and to add more taxes to people. Tax increases are not the 
prescription to what ails our economy. But extending these expiring tax 
cuts and making the research tax credit permanent will help our economy 
grow. I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to reconsider 
their opposition to spending cuts as a way to responsibly pay for the 
cost of extending the expired and expiring tax provisions. I wish we 
could make the research tax credit permanent. If we would, it would 
help our economy. It would help companies to have some sense of what is 
going to happen in the future. It would help them in their planning. It 
would help create jobs. It would help to create more and more 
innovation. My gosh, it makes sense. I hope my colleagues will

[[Page 17018]]

reconsider and that we can get this tax extenders bill passed as soon 
as possible.
  Having said all that, I thank my friend, the majority whip, for his 
graciousness in allowing me to make this statement, especially since I 
have been picking on him to a degree, only in good nature but also in 
seriousness. We have to work together. We have to start solving some of 
these problems. We can't do it by always increasing taxes.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. -Cantwell). The majority whip.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, the Senator from Utah is my friend. We 
disagree on so many things politically. But on a personal basis, we 
have a very good friendship and relationship. I am hoping the day will 
come when we find that issue on which he and I can march together arm 
in arm to achieve greatness for the country. I know that day is coming. 
I am an optimist.
  Mr. HATCH. If the Senator will kindly yield, this is the issue. This 
is one we could both march arm in arm on. We both agree. The question 
is, How do you pay for it? Frankly, we are not going to go with the 
pay-go rule. We have to find some other way. I would like to make it 
permanent. I would like to get rid of the AMT that is hurting so many, 
24, 25 million people. I believe my colleague wants to do these things 
as well. But we have to find a way of getting together and doing it. I 
think my good colleague knows where I stand on these issues.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from Utah.
  Madam President, we have a deficit. It is terrible. It is a debt 
which is growing. It is a mortgage on America. Our children are going 
to be saddled with it. The mortgagor, the bank for America's debt? 
China, Korea, Japan, the OPEC nations; they are holding our mortgage. 
Many of us believe this isn't fair to our children and grandchildren to 
continue to pile on the debt. We came up with a very simple approach. 
If you want to spend money, you have to pay for it. You either have to 
raise taxes or cut other spending. If you want to cut taxes, you have 
to have some balance; in other words, cut spending or raise another 
tax. When it is all over, we want a zero sum so it doesn't add to the 
national debt.
  I don't think that is unreasonable because it means we have to make 
choices. Here is the choice we faced in the last 2 days. We have a 
thriving industry in America for renewable energy. I can't believe what 
is going on in my State of Illinois. I go into parts of downstate 
Illinois and see farm after farm covered with wind turbines. Outside of 
Bloomington, IL, is the Twin Groves project, 240 wind turbines 
generating enough electricity for cities in Bloomington normal--no 
pollution, farmers love it because they get paid for the wind turbines 
on their land, and they can plant the corn and soybeans right up next 
to it. So it is a win-win situation, and it is there because we had a 
provision in the Tax Code which created an incentive to invest in wind 
power, solar power, geothermal, the clean energy solutions that will 
generate electricity without causing more global warming.
  We brought it to the floor. We said to our colleagues: We need to 
renew this. It is about to expire. If we don't renew it, these 
businesses may not reinvest. But giving a tax break takes money out of 
the Treasury, so we want to balance the books. To balance the books, we 
suggested raising a business tax to offset the cut in taxes for 
renewable energy, balance the books. The Republican side, the party of 
so-called fiscal conservatism, rejected this. As my friend from Utah 
said, they don't believe we should have to pay for tax cuts.
  Well, tax cuts, unfortunately, take money out of the Treasury and add 
to the deficit. We think balancing the books is the only way to get 
this deficit under control. So when the vote came--there are nominally 
51 Democrats, 49 Republicans--there were a few absences on both sides, 
but we were able to attract 5 Republicans who would join us for the 
renewable energy tax credits.
  The others said: There is no way. Forty-one of the forty-nine 
Republican Senators have signed a letter which I call ``death before 
taxes.'' It is a letter which says they will never--ever, ever, ever--
vote to increase a tax, never. That kind of paints you into a corner. 
Because if you are not willing to increase a tax on someone to cut a 
tax on someone else, you are stuck with a Tax Code that never changes, 
or you are stuck with a deficit which continues to get worse and worse 
as you try to make the Tax Code a generator of economic growth.
  The Republicans, for the last several weeks, have been on the floor 
talking about America's energy picture. They should. We have talked 
about it a lot on our side of the aisle. Their solution is a solution 
which is old-time religion: Drill, drill offshore, drill onshore, drill 
everywhere. If we drill and find more oil, we will be fine.
  They ignore the reality. The reality is, if you look at the entire 
potential supply of oil in the world, the United States has access and 
control of 3 percent of the world's oil. Each year our economy consumes 
25 percent. So let's do the math. If you drilled all the oil available 
in the U.S. offshore/onshore, how long could we sustain our economy 
just by drilling? The answer is, we couldn't. It can't be done.
  What is the alternative? You can import oil, which we are doing now, 
70 to 80 percent of the oil we use is brought in from overseas, from 
other countries, or you can find another approach--responsible 
exploration and production in America that doesn't violate basic 
environmental regulations, doesn't run the risk of contaminating or 
polluting offshore, and then a forward-looking approach to energy, an 
approach which looks for renewable, sustainable sources of energy for 
the future, that deals with the possibility that we will replace 
current electric power generation with pollution-free generation from 
wind turbines and solar power, moving toward a new generation of cars 
and trucks.
  A few years ago, about 4 or 5 years now, I offered an amendment on 
the floor to improve CAFE standards. We had not increased fuel 
efficiency in cars for over 20 years. We were stuck with an old number. 
We were falling backward. People bought heavier trucks and SUVs, and 
they were not as fuel efficient. So I said: Let's have a new goal, 
moving toward more fuel-efficient cars. Let's have a challenge to our 
industry and to our science to find these new cars for the future, safe 
cars, cars that use less fuel and meet our needs. I got beaten badly on 
the floor when I offered that, but gasoline wasn't $4.50 a gallon then. 
I lost that attempt twice in a row. The votes weren't that good. I am 
not sure I even had 30 votes out of 100 for the idea of fuel 
efficiency. But someone once said: There is nothing more pregnant than 
an idea whose time has come, and with gasoline at $4 a gallon, the 
idea's time has come. We passed a law to require more fuel efficiency 
in years to come. So we are moving in the right direction there. That 
is the future for us. The future for us is to find ways to conserve, 
find ways to be more fuel efficient, find ways to generate more 
renewable energy that doesn't pollute the environment.
  Today's vote was a disappointing vote. We tried to create incentives 
for renewable energy, and only 5 Republicans out of 49 would come and 
vote with us. Four of the five are up for reelection, some of them 
facing tough contests in November. They know it is hard to explain 
voting against this bill. They voted against our bill, which would have 
created incentives for biomass and hydropower, incentives for solar 
energy and microturbines, biodiesel production, renewable projects, 
coal electricity, advanced coal electricity demonstration projects, 
plug-in electric cars, new batteries that we will need for plug-in 
hybrids, ways to reduce pollution from trucks with idling reduction 
units, installing more E-85 fuel pumps around America so consumers have 
a choice to use a cheaper and more environmentally friendly fuel, home 
credits, building credits. All of these were incentives to move America 
in the right direction, not the wrong direction, and only 5 of the 49 
Republicans would vote for that.

[[Page 17019]]

  Their goal is more drilling. Their agenda is written by the oil 
companies. The oil companies have consistently asked for more and more 
and more that they can put in their portfolio of possible areas to 
drill. However, currently there are 68 million acres of federally owned 
land under lease to the oil companies that they are not using, they are 
not exploring. They are not bringing oil and gas out. They have ample 
opportunity in that area and others to meet the needs of future 
exploration. They are not doing it. Yet from the Republican side of the 
aisle, we hear they need more.
  This sign shows that the Republicans have engaged in 91 filibusters 
in this session. For most people who are following this debate that 
number may not mean much. In the history of the Senate, the largest 
number of filibusters in any 2-year period of time was 57 before this 
session. What is a filibuster? It is an attempt to slow down or stop 
the Senate from acting. Ninety-one times the Republicans have tried to 
slow down or stop the Senate from acting. Today they did it again. They 
stopped us when we tried to pass this energy policy for America that 
creates incentives for renewable energy.
  That isn't all that was in this bill. It wasn't just about energy 
alone. In this bill was protection for working families from the 
alternative minimum tax, creating more tax liability for them in next 
year's return. That is a good bill as far as I am concerned. We should 
be protecting working families who are struggling to get by.
  In this bill as well was $8 million for the highway trust fund. We 
are afraid this highway trust fund will run out of money before the end 
of the year and 400,000 good-paid workers would lose their jobs in 
America. I don't want to see that happen in my State; I don't think any 
Senator does. We tried to protect our economy from that happening in 
this bill.
  There was a provision, totally unrelated--and critics of Congress 
say: Why do you do things like this? Why would you put that provision 
in a bill about energy and jobs? But I will tell you, I would put that 
provision I am about to describe in any bill. It is called mental 
health parity. This bill would require private insurance companies to 
provide opportunities for people to buy health insurance to cover 
mental illness. We have been fighting for this for as long as I have 
been in the Senate. The fight was started by Paul Wellstone of 
Minnesota. What a great man he was. We lost him when he died in a plane 
crash 6 years ago, and we have tried to pass this bill ever since. I 
think we should put that amendment on every bill. There are so many 
American families who are affected by mental illness. We put that 
before the Senate today and only five Republicans would vote for that. 
I don't understand their thinking. Many have said they really believe 
in it, but they wouldn't vote for it. That is where we are.
  So their filibuster ended up stopping a bill from moving forward, as 
it did earlier this week. Earlier this week, another Republican 
filibuster stopped a bill which had 34 or 35 provisions in it to deal 
with a number of different issues. Some of them were health related: a 
registry for those suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease so we can do 
better research in finding a cure; efforts for additional research in 
rehabilitation activities at the National Institutes of Health for 
those suffering from paralysis; a stroke treatment bill, a bipartisan 
bill--all of these bills, incidentally, have passed the House of 
Representatives overwhelmingly. The Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS 
Act--one I am familiar with--dealing with postpartum depression to try 
to make sure new mothers who are suffering from that depression get the 
treatment they need. Vision care for kids so that we help the States 
pay for more visual screening so kids don't fall behind in the 
classroom simply because they need eyeglasses.
  Then we had a number of bills out of our Senate Judiciary Committee: 
a bill to reauthorize a program to find runaway and homeless kids. The 
Emmitt Till unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, Senator Dodd and I and 
others have cosponsored this one. Those responsible for killing civil 
rights workers, no matter how long ago, should be held accountable, and 
this bill would have moved us in that direction--a bill to deal with 
mental illness and crime, unfortunately, closely linked, and we should 
be doing something about it; bills dealing with reducing Internet child 
pornography.
  All of the things I have just mentioned--health care and crime 
related--were in a package of bills which the Republicans refused to 
support. I don't get it. I don't understand it. I don't know how you 
could go home and explain to the people you represent that you voted 
against these bills. Obviously, they think it is easy to do, and maybe 
it is for them. It wouldn't be for me. In the State of Illinois, there 
are too many people affected by these bills.
  The Republicans consistently--with their filibusters and holding back 
their votes--have stopped us from doing the people's work. I understand 
when people think of Congress across America, it is not in positive 
terms. They want us to do more. They want us to respond to the issues 
of the day, the things that make a difference. Whether we are dealing 
with medical issues, of research; whether we are dealing with law 
enforcement; whether we are dealing with the energy picture--these are 
things on which we should be voting to move forward. However, time and 
time and time again, the Republicans, through their filibusters, have 
stopped us in the Senate. That is what happens in a 51-to-49 Senate 
where it takes 60 votes to do anything significant. They have control 
of the agenda--at least control enough to say no--and they have said no 
repeatedly on 91 different occasions with their filibusters, breaking 
all the records in the Senate.
  I wish to get back to this energy policy. I don't want us to go home 
without addressing it, but I am afraid the Republicans have closed the 
door not just yesterday but again today. Earlier, the leader on the 
Democratic side, Senator Harry Reid, read from this morning's New York 
Times, July 30, an article by Tom Friedman entitled ``Drilling in 
Afghanistan.'' What Tom Friedman said about the Republican strategy on 
energy, I think, really hits the nail on the head. I quote from this 
article:

       Republicans become so obsessed with the notion that we can 
     drill our way out of the current energy crisis that reopening 
     our coastal waters to offshore drilling has become their 
     answer for every energy question. Anyone who looks at the 
     growth of middle classes around the world and the rising 
     demand for natural resources, plus the dangers of climate 
     change driven by our addiction to fossil fuel, can see that 
     clean, renewable energy--wind, solar, nuclear, and stuff we 
     haven't yet invented--is going to be the next great global 
     industry. It has to be if we are going to grow in a stable 
     way--

  Thomas Friedman writes.

       Therefore, the country that most owns the clean power 
     industry is going to most own the next great technology 
     breakthrough: The ET revolution--the energy technology 
     revolution--and create millions of jobs and thousands of new 
     businesses just like the IT revolution did. Republicans, by 
     mindlessly repeating their offshore drilling mantra, focusing 
     on a 19th century fuel, remind me of someone back in 1980 
     arguing that we should be putting all our money into making 
     more and cheaper IBM Selectric typewriters and forget about 
     those things called the PC and the Internet. It is a strategy 
     for making America a second great power and economy.

  So when it comes to paying for what we do on the floor of the Senate, 
the Republicans vote no. When it comes to an American energy policy 
that is forward looking, sadly, the Republicans vote no. When it comes 
to medical research in critical areas, this week the Republicans voted 
no. When it comes to crime provisions to deal with runaway kids and to 
deal with Internet pornography and children, this week the Republicans 
voted no.
  There comes a point where you have to stand for something. We have 
tried our best to bring these issues before the Senate. We will 
continue to.
  The last point I will make is this: There is one thing--one thing--
the President can do tomorrow morning that can change the debate on 
energy in America instantly, and that is an announcement. There is an 
announcement he could make that the United States--which has a 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve of 700 million barrels of oil that has been 
gathered and protected for our national security--is

[[Page 17020]]

now going to be part of our energy solution. If President Bush 
announced that he would start releasing oil from that reserve, selling 
it on the market, with the goal of bringing the price of a barrel of 
oil down to $100 from its current level of about $122, it would do more 
to breathe life into the American economy than any other thing. It 
would say: The United States can stop being a victim when it comes to 
energy and can become a player on the global market. It would send the 
signal that we are not going to tolerate $145-a-barrel oil and the 
prices it generates at the gasoline pump and when it comes to jet fuel 
for our airlines. If the President showed leadership in releasing oil 
from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve--if he called in the oil companies 
and put them on the carpet for the outrageous profits that they 
continue to report--we could turn this around.
  Simply suggesting that we have to drill more offshore in the hopes 
that 8 to 14 years from now there will be additional oil is not going 
to solve our energy problem. It is yesterday's answer. As Senator 
Dorgan from North Dakota has said so frequently: When the Republicans 
think of energy, it is yesterday for everything.
  Let's think about tomorrow. Let's have an energy policy that looks 
forward.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.


                          Mental Health Parity

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, this afternoon I spoke about how 
important it was to pass that extender bill, how important it was for 
my State and for the rest of the country to promote green jobs, to look 
at this new energy future, to stop spending $600,000 a minute on 
foreign oil. I said this afternoon we only got four Republicans to vote 
with us on a bill that was paid for, a bill that was the right way to 
go--only four Republicans.
  There was something else in that bill that is just as important to me 
and to my State of Minnesota and to the millions of people living in 
the shadow of mental illness, and that is the Paul Wellstone mental 
health parity bill that is included in that package. We have tried to 
pass this through the Senate over and over again. Senator Domenici on 
the other side of the aisle has been one of the biggest supporters and 
sponsors of this bill. Senator Kennedy has worked on it. Senator Durbin 
has worked on it. There are many people in the House, including Patrick 
Kennedy, and one of my favorite Republican Congressman, Jim Ramstad, 
who is retiring this year, and he doesn't want to leave the House until 
that bill gets done.
  For me, the Paul Wellstone mental health parity bill is about Paul 
Wellstone. It is about everything he stood for. It is about fighting 
for the people who don't have a voice. It is about all the people who 
have come up to me in the Capitol, not the Senators but the secretaries 
and the tram drivers who remember Paul and remember how kind he was to 
them. This bill is about his brother Stephen who struggled with mental 
illness his whole life. Paul would always talk about how the house they 
grew up in was always dark because of Stephen's mental illness and how, 
after Stephen got better and went on to teach, what a difference it 
made in the family, but it was a lifelong struggle for him.
  So this bill is for Paul. When Paul was alive, our friends on the 
other side of the aisle said they wanted to pass this bill. And when 
Paul died, they said they wanted to pass this bill. This is the time, 
and it was a part of that package. Senator Kennedy is at home watching 
everything that goes on in this Chamber, and he wants to get that done. 
Paul's son, David, has been here, day after day, walking the halls of 
the Capitol, knocking on doors to get this done in his father's memory. 
I implore my friends on the other side to get this done.
  Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator will yield for a question?
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Yes.
  Mr. DURBIN. I served with Senator Paul Wellstone from Minnesota, who 
passed away 6 years ago, just weeks before the election. He and his 
wife Sheila, his daughter, several staff members, and the pilot and 
copilot were lost in that plane crash. I attended that memorial service 
for him at the University of Minnesota.
  Paul had such a passion for so many issues. But the one thing that 
meant more than anything to him was this mental health parity bill. I 
am saddened that, 6 years later, we still haven't passed it. We only 
had 5 Republicans join us today and vote for it. I hope the Senator 
from Minnesota feels as I do, that we need to pass the Wellstone mental 
health parity bill--make no excuses, find no alternatives, other than 
to make sure it is named in his memory, the man who started us down 
this road and whose journey needs to be finished by us today.
  I am glad the Senator from Minnesota is here to participate in that. 
It should be the highest priority before we adjourn this year. Since I 
need to ask the question, I ask her if she agrees.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I thank the Senator so much for that question. I know 
from his family, those he left behind, who miss him so much, this is 
what he wanted to get done. I actually remember, I say to the Senator 
from Illinois, the last time I saw Paul Wellstone before he went down 
in that tragic plane crash. It was at an event for new citizens. 
Sheila, his wife, was supposed to be there, and the two of us were 
talking about our immigrant families, where they came from and how they 
pulled themselves up and funny stories about our families in 
Appalachia. There were about 30 new citizens there and no press, no 
cameras. All of a sudden, by surprise, in walked Paul. You know, it was 
3 or 4 weeks before one of the biggest elections in the country, and he 
was in that room with the new citizens.
  I knew there were two reasons: One, he loved Sheila and he wanted to 
surprise her. Second was he embraced this idea that no matter where you 
came from, no matter what you have gone through in your life, you could 
pull yourself up in this country. That is part of why this mental 
health parity bill was so important to him. He had seen in his family 
how his brother struggled and was able to pull himself up. There was a 
horrible financial situation for their family. He didn't want that to 
happen to someone else. He felt that if you can cover physical 
illnesses, you should also cover mental illnesses. This bill is what 
Paul wanted to get done.
  I know the majority leader and others have said the other side said 
they would pass it when he was alive and then when he died. This is 
their chance.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip is recognized.


             DETENTION OF GAMBIAN JOURNALIST EBRIMA MANNEH

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, America has long been a champion and 
source of hope around the world for those suffering human rights 
violations--those holed up in dictators' prisons, those fighting for 
press and political freedoms, those bravely standing up to tyranny or 
injustice.
  Many of those who have suffered, such as Vaclav Havel and Nelson 
Mandela, or continue to suffer this fate, such as Aung San Suu Kyi, are 
well-known to us. Sadly, for each one of them, there are many other, 
lesser known heroes being detained or harassed all over the world 
simply for wanting basic human freedoms.
  Through our annual human rights reporting at the State Department, 
our diplomacy, and steady public pressure on basic human rights, the 
U.S. has traditionally been a source of hope for those being illegally 
detained or persecuted.
  We should never forget what this kind of attention and pressure can 
accomplish and what kind of strength it provides for those being 
detained.
  Take for example, Ngawang Sangdrol, a Tibetan nun who was detained 
and tortured for peacefully expressing her belief in Tibetan 
independence. She was freed after 12 years of imprisonment following 
immense public pressure. After her release she said,

       I have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and 
     support . . . I am deeply

[[Page 17021]]

     touched to learn that many individuals, organizations, and 
     governments . . . have worked towards my release. It is very 
     clear to me that I have been released and allowed to come out 
     to the free world for medical treatment and to enjoy my 
     freedom because of international concern.

  Or Gurbandurdy Durdykuliev, a political activist from Turkmenistan 
who in 2004 was seized and forced into a psychiatric hospital by the 
country's ruling dictator. His crime--requesting permission for a 
peaceful political rally.
  He was released a few years later, just 10 days after 54 members of 
Congress sent a letter to the Turkmen Government about his case.
  We should listen and act upon the appeal made by Aung San Suu Kyi, 
who has remained under house arrest in Burma for most of the last 19 
years:

       Those fortunate enough to live in societies where they are 
     entitled to full political rights can reach out to help the 
     less fortunate in other parts of our troubled planet. . . . 
     Please use your liberty to promote ours.

  I realize we must also work to address our own recent shortcomings by 
unequivocally renouncing torture and by closing the detention facility 
in Guantanamo--and we will continue to work toward ending these 
shameful legacies.
  At the same time, we must continue to speak out in support of those 
imprisoned for advocating basic freedoms around the world.
  Many of us on both sides of the aisle have been arguing that 
America's strength resonates not only from its military power but from 
the power of its ideas and inspiration, the power of its values and 
hope, the power of its generosity and diplomacy--its smart power.
  Sadly, I worry that a measure of this leadership, of this 
inspiration, and of this uniquely American hope has been lost in recent 
years.
  Accordingly, today I want focus the Senate's attention on a tragic 
story from the small west African Nation of The Gambia.
  Chief Ebrima Manneh was a reporter for the Gambian newspaper, the 
Daily Observer. He was allegedly detained in July 2006 by plainclothes 
police officers thought to have been from the Gambian National 
Intelligence Agency after he tried to republish a BBC report critical 
of President Yahya Jammeh.
  He has been held incommunicado, without charge or trial, for two long 
years. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience and 
has called for his immediate release.
  I agree.
  Recent reports suggest he is being held at the Fatoto Police Station 
in eastern Gambia. In July 2007, he was also reportedly escorted by the 
members of the Gambian Police Intervention Unit to the Royal Victoria 
hospital in the capital for high blood pressure treatment.
  Despite repeated attempts by Manneh's father and fellow journalists, 
including the Committee to Protect Journalists, to seek information on 
Mr. Manneh, the Gambian Government continues to deny any involvement in 
his arrest or knowledge of his whereabouts.
  My direct request to the Gambian Embassy here in Washington has also 
been met with shameful silence.
  Last month in Nigeria, the Community Court of Justice of the Economic 
Community of West African States declared the arrest and detention of 
Mr. Manneh illegal and ordered Gambian officials to release him 
immediately.
  And yet the Gambian Government ignored this court's ruling as well--
even though this court has jurisdiction for human rights cases in the 
Gambia.
  Is the Gambian Government so afraid of one of its own reporters that 
it cannot even acknowledge his detention?
  I say to President Jammeh: Release this reporter. Let him return to 
his family.
  Sadly, Mr. Manneh's case is not alone in The Gambia. In December 
2004, a critic of President Jammeh, and press freedom advocate, Deyda 
Hydara, was shot and killed. His murder has yet to be solved or 
investigated.
  The government has also enacted laws muzzling the press and imposing 
mandatory prison sentences for media owners if convicted of publishing 
defamatory or seditious material--all part of a larger deterioration of 
basic freedoms in The Gambia.
  Madam President, the United States needs to be a forceful advocate 
for these kinds of blatant human rights abuses. Doing so is not only 
the right thing to do, but it is the smart thing to do in terms of our 
engagement abroad and in demonstrating our American values.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I withdraw the motion to proceed to S. 
2035.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is withdrawn.

                          ____________________