[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12424-12438]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             HABEAS CORPUS

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Chair.
  This morning, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional the 
portion of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which denied habeas 
corpus rights to detainees at Guantanamo Bay. In making its decision, 
the Supreme Court has recognized that detainees at Guantanamo cannot be 
denied the fundamental legal right to habeas corpus, enshrined in the 
Constitution.
  Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy wrote:

       The laws and the Constitution are designed to survive, and 
     to remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and 
     security can be reconciled; and in our system they are 
     reconciled within the framework of the law.

  I think that is a very important statement. I think it crystallizes a 
lot of the debates this Senate has been having over the past 5 to 6 
years. It recognizes the importance of the rule of law, one of the most 
fundamental values our country was founded upon.
  Detainees at Guantanamo have been in a legal quagmire since 2002. As 
the Court recognized, some have been held without court review for more 
than 6 years--6 years--many in isolation for long periods of time. The 
Court specifically stated it was not ruling on the issue of whether the 
writ for habeas corpus should be issued or whether detainees should be 
released. Rather, the decision focused on the fact that the detainees 
are entitled to the fundamental right of habeas corpus as a means to 
review whether they are being properly held.
  Four times now the Supreme Court has stepped in and struck down the 
Bush administration's policies at Guantanamo. Four times. In the Hamdi 
and Rasul decisions, the Court stated that U.S. law applied to 
Guantanamo and that detainees had to be determined enemy combatants 
before they could be held.

[[Page 12425]]

  In the Hamdan decision, the Court struck down the administration's 
claim that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the detainees at 
Guantanamo and repudiated the legal framework the Bush administration 
tried to construct to handle the trials of detainees.
  In today's decision, the Supreme Court has once and for all made it 
clear that even at Guantanamo our constitutional principles remain 
sound. It also recognizes that President Bush's repeated assertion that 
he has essentially unchecked powers in the war on terror is simply 
wrong.
  Guantanamo Bay has been a case study in what not to do in the war on 
terror. Consider all the early choices this administration has made: to 
deny the protections of the Geneva Conventions, to establish military 
tribunals based on the theory of unchecked Presidential power, to deny 
habeas corpus and, finally, to reverse decades of old precedent and 
authorize the use of coercive interrogation and torture.
  These decisions by the Bush administration and its operation of 
Guantanamo will go down in history as a black mark on the United 
States, decisions where this administration and this President simply 
forgot--or worse ignored--our own values and laws.
  Today's decision provides another reason why Guantanamo should be 
closed. Closing this facility is critical to our Nation's credibility 
and stature and our ability to conduct foreign policy and 
counterterrorism operations worldwide. If there is one thing that is 
very clear, the credibility of the United States as a bastion of law, 
of constitutional rights, and of human rights has gone downhill all 
over the world. As I have said on this floor before, I have never seen 
a time in my lifetime where Americans are thought so poorly of by 
citizens of countries that are our firm allies as well as our 
adversaries.
  Let me be clear: I have no sympathy for al-Qaida terrorists, Taliban 
fighters or anyone else around the world who wishes to harm Americans 
at home or abroad. But I strongly believe that continuing to operate 
Guantanamo, in the face of repeated reprimands from the Supreme Court, 
the stated wishes of senior administration officials, and a tidal wave 
of congressional and international condemnation, weakens the United 
States in its effort to fight the war on terror.
  Last July, I submitted an amendment to the fiscal year 2008 Defense 
authorization bill to close Guantanamo. I was joined in that amendment 
by 15 cosponsors: Senators Harkin, Hagel, Dodd, Clinton, Brown, 
Bingaman, Kennedy, Whitehouse, Obama, Salazar, Durbin, Byrd, Biden, 
Boxer, and Feingold. I intend to offer this amendment again this year.
  President Bush, Secretary Gates, Secretary Rice, Colin Powell, 9/11 
Commission heads Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, numerous retired four-star 
generals and admirals, as well as Senator Obama and Senator McCain, 
have all expressed their support for closing Guantanamo.
  It kind of boggles my mind. I was sitting in the Defense 
Appropriations Subcommittee, when I asked the question of Secretary 
Gates, and he said: Yes, I am for closing Guantanamo. I have heard 
Colin Powell say: Yes, I am for closing Guantanamo. I would do it right 
now. I have heard generals and admirals say: Guantanamo does this 
Nation no good. Yet nothing changes. So the question of closing the 
facility is when and not if.
  Guantanamo, as I have said, is a lightning rod of condemnation around 
the world, and not just because of a lack of adequate legal rights and 
remedies. It has also drawn criticism for the treatment of detainees 
that violates both American and international standards, laws and 
values. And coercive interrogation techniques undertaken there have 
failed to yield reliable and usable intelligence.
  Both the Presiding Officer and I sit on the Senate Intelligence 
Committee. We hear the classified data which obviously cannot be 
discussed here. We know there are bad people in Guantanamo, but we also 
know there are people who are hapless victims, who may have been picked 
up just because they were in a certain place at a certain time.
  This week I held a hearing on coercive interrogation techniques being 
used at Guantanamo. Glenn Fine, the inspector general of the Department 
of Justice, testified about his report that concluded that over 200 FBI 
agents observed or heard about military interrogators using a variety 
of harsh interrogation techniques, including but not limited to stress 
positions and short shackling, in which a detainee's hands are shackled 
close to his feet to prevent him from standing or sitting; isolation, 
sometimes for periods of 30 days or more; use of growling military 
dogs; twisting a detainee's thumbs back; using a female interrogator to 
touch or provoke a detainee in a sexual manner. Mr. Fine also argued 
these techniques are not only shocking but they are less effective and 
they produce less reliable intelligence than noncoercive means.
  Experienced FBI interrogators agree. We heard yesterday afternoon--
and it was kind of interesting because the minority apparently 
exercised a rule that would prevent the hearing from continuing. When I 
asked the question, why, I found it was because of my hearing, which 
was to elucidate some, I think, valuable facts and timelines of how all 
this happened. Fortunately, and thanks to the majority leader who came 
to the floor and recessed the Senate, we were able to conclude our 
hearing.
  One of the people testifying was a former FBI agent by the name of 
Jack Cloonan. Now, Jack Cloonan has interrogated at least six members 
of al-Qaida. He testified under oath that he was able to get 
convictions for three of them and was able to get actionable 
intelligence for every one of them using noncoercive techniques. As a 
matter of fact, he said these al-Qaida members were so struck by the 
process he used, the fairness of the process, they not only gave him 
information that was valuable, they are now in witness protection 
programs. I thought that is very relevant information. Why do this if 
it isn't effective?
  The conditions at Guantanamo have led to at least 4 documented 
detainee suicides and another 41 attempted suicides, according to media 
reports from 2006 and 2007. More recent press accounts discuss how 
detainees have gone mad during extensive periods of isolation, sleep 
deprivation, and degrading treatment.
  Finally, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
following my statement an article from the New York Times, dated April 
26, 2008, entitled, ``Detainees' Mental Health is Latest Legal 
Battle.''
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 1.)
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, the article describes how Salim Hamdan 
``has essentially been driven crazy by solitary confinement in an 8-
foot-by-12-foot cell, where he spent 22 hours a day, goes to the 
bathroom, and eats all his meals.''
  This is not about abuses from 2002 and 2003, like al-Qahtani and the 
Abu Ghraib scandal. This is 2008, and I fear it is going to continue as 
long as Guantanamo is able to operate in its isolated setting, in a 
highly confined environment, with no visitors and nobody able to go in 
and talk with inmates.
  Let me say a little about the status of Guantanamo today. There are 
approximately 260 detainees being held. They can be divided into 
roughly three equal groups: those the administration intends on 
charging with a crime and prosecuting; those the administration says 
can be transferred to another country, if another country is willing to 
take custody--and I will admit there are problems there. There are 
detainees, I know, who are awaiting repatriation to their own country, 
if they will take them back. In many cases, they will not take them, 
and that is a problem. We, on the Intelligence Committee, need to pay 
attention to this and find a solution to it.
  Third are those who can't be tried for a crime but who are deemed too 
dangerous to transfer and who, presumably, will be held indefinitely 
without charge.
  I think we need to provide a legal framework for that kind of 
administrative detention so that the detainees in

[[Page 12426]]

administrative detention have certain due process rights to ensure they 
can know why they are there, that they can have an opportunity to rebut 
the charges, and that they can have access to counsel.
  Since the end of 2001, nearly 500 detainees have been transferred 
back to the custody of their home nations. A group of seven Chinese 
Uighers, who had committed no crime, were sent to Albania, where they 
are now held as refugees in poor conditions.
  Exactly one man, in the 6 years Guantanamo has existed as a detention 
facility, has been convicted of a crime. He, of course, is David Hicks, 
a kangaroo skinner from Australia, who pled guilty in order to get out 
of Guantanamo. He has since been released by the Australian Government.
  I believe there are 19 more detainees against whom charges have been 
brought. The military commissions process is in turmoil. It is my hope 
that with today's ruling these cases will be moved to the district and 
circuit courts rather than the deeply flawed and separate system of 
justice set up in the Military Commissions Act, which I voted against, 
and I am very pleased I did so.
  Guantanamo began in the Bush administration, and it should end in the 
Bush administration. At every turn, the Supreme Court has struck down 
President Bush's policies with respect to Guantanamo.
  John Adams said that ``we are a Nation of laws, not men.'' This 
administration has turned that concept on its head, with President Bush 
deciding that he alone should make the legal and policy decisions in 
the fight against terrorism, and that the rule of law does not apply.
  In rejecting this notion, the Supreme Court's decision today once 
again reiterated that it would be wrong ``to hold that the political 
branches may switch the Constitution on or off at will.'' I hope the 
administration hears that. To me, this clearly indicates that the 
President's article 2 powers are limited, that his powers as Commander 
in Chief are limited, and that his powers under the war resolution and 
the authorization for use of military force in Afghanistan are limited, 
and he must follow the Constitution of the United States. That is what 
this decision says to me.
  So I commend the Court for its decision. I hope the President will 
recognize this. I suggest that he should. I suggest that after being 
repeatedly rebuffed by the Supreme Court, the administration come to us 
and say that the time has come to close Guantanamo. I would expect, now 
that we have both potential presidential nominees supporting closure of 
Guantanamo, we will close it. The Secretary of Defense, the former 
Secretary of State, the present Secretary of State, the co-chairs of 
the 9/11 Commission, Governor Kean and Representative Hamilton, and 
dozens of admirals and generals, recommend the closure of Guantanamo.
  When I present this amendment on the Defense authorization bill, I 
hope I will be able to press this toward a successful vote.


                         Signing Authorization

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Senator from Montana, Mr. Tester, be authorized to sign the enrollment 
of H.R. 6124.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah is recognized.


                             Habeas Corpus

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of the 
distinguished Senator, my friend from California. She is an excellent 
Senator and a very good person. She certainly tries to bring both sides 
of the aisle together. Over the years we have had a number of 
disagreements, but that is part of the legislative process. However, 
that has never diminished the respect that I have for her.
  Yet the fact is, I disagree with her regarding the Supreme Court's 
decision. This decision, written by Justice Kennedy, gives terrorists 
one of the most important rights enjoyed by the people of the United 
States.
  We face difficult times ahead. Many have legitimate concerns about 
the prospect of closing Guantanamo Bay and then housing these alleged 
terrorists somewhere within the continental United States.
  These are not easy questions. However, I do not believe that the 
Supreme Court has provided the correct answer.
  Our government has publicly stated that there have been three 
instances in which waterboarding has been used. In one of those 
instances, it was used against a leading terrorist who actually 
masterminded the terrible incidents that occurred on 9/11.
  These are interesting and difficult issues. I certainly appreciate 
the anguish and the feelings of those who believe, as the distinguished 
Senator from California does, that we should provide these alleged 
terrorists every right that the American people have, in spite of the 
fact that these terrorists do not represent a country, do not wear a 
uniform, are willing to kill innocent human beings, and are willing to 
have their own children blow themselves up. We have never before faced 
these types of events in our society. Yet it is important that we not 
ignore them. We are dealing with people who do not abide by the norms 
of the world.
  Some concerned people ask, why should the terrorists have the rights 
that everybody else has? Are we not binding future Presidents who may 
face even greater terrorist threats? Will the next President be able to 
get the information we need to protect the American people? We know 
there are terrorists who would, if they could, not bat an eyelash as 
they used a nuclear weapon against the innocent.
  Sometimes we have to take stern measures to deal with these types of 
people. It is always nice to be concerned about people's feelings and 
about people's rights, even those of terrorists, but sometimes we have 
to be practical and pragmatic and do the things that have to be done to 
protect the American people, and our citizens overseas.
  These are tough issues. We should all work together to try to resolve 
them. There are many who will believe that the Supreme Court made the 
right decision and others, such as myself, who believe that the Court 
made a lousy decision.
  However, I uphold the Supreme Court, even though it was a 5-to-4 
decision. Nevertheless, it is a decision by one-third of the separated 
powers of this country, and must be recognized as such.
  Having said all that, I admire my friend from California. She knows 
it. We have worked together on a whole raft of issues through the 
years. I appreciate her sincere leadership in the Senate and will 
always appreciate knowing her and having the experience of calling her 
my friend.


                                 Energy

  Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes to address arguments by 
my friends on the other side of the aisle related to energy production. 
Some Democrats are complaining that oil companies own tens of millions 
of acres of oil and gas leases on Federal lands that they are just 
sitting on.
  Now, that is an interesting way of formulating an argument because 
some are obviously trying to paint a picture of oil companies holding 
back production purposely to raise gas prices. Some Democrats have 
argued that the oil companies are purposefully holding back production 
to raise gas prices, and others are arguing that this fact makes it 
totally fine to close off all our good offshore oil and natural gas and 
all our oil shale and tar sands because there are undeveloped leases on 
public lands right now. Here we go again with the anti-oil agenda of 
the more extreme environmentalists, which the Democratic leadership has 
adopted as their own energy policy--or should I say anti-energy policy, 
which is what I believe it to be.
  Take oil shale alone. We have an estimated 3 trillion barrels of oil 
in the tristate area of Colorado, Wyoming, and my home State of Utah. 
There is anywhere from 800 billion at the low end to 1.6 trillion 
barrels that are recoverable, and recoverable at a much lower price 
than the $135 we are paying for oil, but we're being told we can't 
develop it.

[[Page 12427]]

  It is true that there are tens of millions of acres of leases held by 
oil companies. But it is also true that they are being developed as 
fast as possible. Guess what. You cannot develop a lease on Federal 
land unless you have a permit to drill, and there is a very large 
backlog in the permitting process on Federal lands. It is the job of 
the Bureau of Land Management to issue these permits, and I don't blame 
them for the backlog because they are working as hard and as fast as 
they can. All of the environmental work has to be done before one of 
these permits can be given. Our Nation happens to have very stringent 
environmental laws on oil and gas drilling.
  In the Energy Policy Act of 2005, I supported an effort pushed by the 
senior Senator from New Mexico, who has been one of the most prescient 
forces in our Senate on energy and who was chairman of the Senate 
Energy Committee at the time, to put more funds toward the permitting 
process, and that has helped to a certain degree.
  What proof do we have that our oil companies are trying their hardest 
to develop their leases? Let's look at the numbers. In the year 2000, 
the BLM gave out 3,413 permits for oil drilling. In 2007, just this 
last year, the BLM gave out 7,124 permits for oil drilling. In the year 
2000, oil companies drilled 2,341 new oil wells. In 2007, again just 
this last year, they drilled 4,640 new wells. In other words, in the 
last 7 years, oil companies have more than doubled their effort to 
develop their leases on Federal lands. I am not sure how an industry 
that is literally doubling its efforts to supply our energy needs can 
be painted as ``sitting on their leases.'' I don't blame the liberals 
in Congress for not understanding this because it seems as if they get 
almost everything they know about energy from the most extreme 
environmentalists in our society who have no problem with seeing our 
people suffer as long as their anti-oil agenda moves forward. That is 
the best you can call it, an anti-oil agenda.
  In Utah, we have leases, and we have a lawsuit every time somebody 
tries to develop anything. It is ironic because the extreme 
environmentalists know perfectly well that oil companies are drilling 
as fast as they can on these leases. How can they be so sure, one may 
ask. I know for sure because I have watched these groups do everything 
in their power through protests, lawsuits, and policy changes to slow 
the oil companies down. The oil companies could do a much greater job 
if they did not have all of these lawsuits, slowdowns.
  The Federal Government spends a large portion of its public land 
management budget fighting these lawsuits. I have heard estimates that 
during certain periods, up to 50 percent of the Bureau of Land 
Management budget has gone to litigation costs. That is pathetic. Can 
you imagine what could be done for our habitat, our forest lands, BLM 
lands, and so many other things if we didn't have all of that money 
being spent on lawsuits?
  It is ridiculous for these radical groups to do everything in their 
power to stop energy production on our public lands and then sell an 
argument to liberal Members of Congress that oil companies are not 
trying hard enough to drill on their own leases. They would drill a lot 
more if they had the leases and no lawsuits in areas where they 
actually have leases.
  I have said it before and I will say it again: Our country simply 
cannot afford to promote an anti-oil agenda. It is an agenda that will 
cause the most harm to our poorest citizens. The poorest among us spend 
50 percent of their income on energy prices mainly to get to work or to 
buy groceries. I hope my well-intentioned but sometimes misguided 
friends in Congress keep that in mind.
  We have it within our power to alleviate a lot of pressure on the 
price of oil. If we just announced tomorrow that we are going to go 
forward and do more oil and gas exploration offshore and developing our 
oil shale in that tristate area, the price of oil could drop simply 
from the announcement. The problem is that Saudi Arabia and the other 
countries do not have the ability to flood the world with oil and to 
bring the prices down anymore. There is such an insatiable demand for 
the current oil that is being developed.
  I heard familiar arguments against oil shale during the Clinton 
administration in 1995: It will take 10 years to develop oil shale, 
they said. Here we are 13 years later, and now they are saying: It will 
take 10 years to develop oil shale. What if we had started to do it 
then in a realistic fashion and we were able to get that 100,000 to 1 
million barrels of oil out of each acre of oil shale in the productive 
areas of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming--keep in mind, abiding by very 
stringent environmental concerns? It is mind-boggling to me.
  Yesterday, I was on a radio show in my State, one of the most popular 
radio shows. The announcer said: Why aren't you for the Democratic 
Energy bill? I briefly said: Well, it is not an energy bill, it is a 
regulatory bill that will stifle energy development.
  Back in the last years of the Carter administration, they put on a 
windfall profits tax that cost us 129 million barrels of oil and sent 
this country into a downward spiral. If you tax something, you get less 
of it. That is just a simple fact of life. But that is what my 
colleagues are doing in their ``energy'' bill.
  I am the author, along with some other wonderful colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle, of the CLEAR Act. It took us 5 years to get the 
CLEAR Act through, if I recall it correctly, something that should be a 
no-brainer for anybody.
  We now have the Freedom Act, which will give economic incentives for 
the development of plug-in hybrids and other kinds of battery-operated 
electric cars. I just saw one today that is all electric, it goes more 
than 200 miles on a charge and goes from zero to sixty in less than 4 
seconds. The problem is it costs around $100,000 to buy. But future 
models will be cheaper, and plug-in hybrids will be affordable for 
average citizens.
  But today, and tomorrow, and for quite a while, we're going to need 
oil. I cannot believe we in this body cannot acknowledge that for many 
years from now, we are going to have to use our oil, our coal, our 
natural gas, and we are not going to be well off if we do not.
  I am proud to tell you that I believe we have some 22 natural gas-
providing gas stations in Utah for natural gas-driven vehicles. We 
could do that all over the country. We have 22 of them, and those 
people are driving their vehicles--mainly Honda Civics--at a rate of 68 
cents per equivalent gallon of gas. If we would move into these types 
of situations--yes, it would take us years to get there, and it takes 
oil to fill up those intervening years--if we would move that way and 
acknowledge that this is what we have to do, within 10 to 15 to 20 
years, we would become very energy independent.
  If we would develop our offshore oil instead of letting China and 
Cuba and other countries come offshore and take our oil because we will 
not allow it to be done--let the States have control over it. The 
distinguished Presiding Officer comes from Florida. If Florida does not 
want energy development offshore, that is Florida's concern, as far as 
I am concerned. But we stop it here. There are a number of other 
places, such as Virginia, that would love to be able to do this and 
would help alleviate the dependency we have right now in our country.
  I wish we could get around these extremists who seem to control the 
liberal agenda. I wish we would work together to provide a means 
whereby we can overcome these problems together and keep our country 
strong.
  We are sending upwards of $700 billion every year to other countries 
for foreign oil, much of which comes from countries that are not all 
that friendly to us, and it is ridiculous. It is time that we wake up 
and do something about it.
  Mr. President, I thank my colleagues. I am sorry to have gone on. I 
yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, certainly no apology is necessary from 
my

[[Page 12428]]

colleague. He comes to the floor very passionately and has worked with 
great passion, and we appreciate that.


                                Medicare

  Mr. President, I come to the floor today to echo so many comments 
that were made by many of my colleagues on the great policies in the 
Medicare bill that has been introduced by the Finance Committee 
chairman, Senator Max Baucus.
  I have, along with others, been exhausted, certainly disappointed and 
dismayed that so many in this body voted against moving forward on this 
bill today, a bill that I believe is essential to the needs and 
concerns of so many of the constituency I represent in our great State 
of Arkansas.
  When I first came to the Senate, people said: It is always easy to 
vote no. But to move things forward, to be progressive, to be willing 
to start and engage the debate and to move forward in starting to solve 
the problem, that means voting yes. And sometimes it is a difficult 
vote, to move forward and to get things going, to come together, to 
work together and to find the solutions that are necessary for this 
country.
  But as we have seen time and time again in these votes, it is a 
simple vote that happens on the other side. It is ``no.'' No, we are 
not going to create jobs and move forward in this tax extenders bill, 
providing tax cuts to industries for research and development and help 
in the creation of new jobs in the renewable fuels industry. No, we are 
not going to move forward in trying to fix the concerns our 
constituents have in their access to health care, particularly in the 
Medicare Program. ``No'' is that simple vote. The tough vote is yes; 
being able to say yes, it is worth it to the people of this country for 
us to come to the floor, to work together, and to be able to move 
forward in the debate. Not that any of us are going to get everything 
we want, but it is important that we are willing to come together and 
work on behalf of the people of this country.
  Now, I am not sure how many of my Senate colleagues here pump their 
own gas, but I do. I drive myself, unlike many of my colleagues, and I 
pump my own gas. I guess it was a couple of days ago, in between a 
Little League game and purchasing some items for the end-of-school 
party, that I stopped to buy my gas, and I was astonished, just as I 
had been the time before. My son commented on the fact that it had gone 
up so much since the last time we filled up, and I am thinking to 
myself here I am, with both my husband and me working and bringing home 
a paycheck, and realizing the crunch we feel. Think of how other hard-
working Americans feel across this country.
  I know the Presiding Officer has many of the same duties I do, 
whether it is Little League or school parties or birthday events or all 
kinds of things, but I think it is so important for our colleagues to 
stop and think. Because if they do not fill up that tank, if they are 
not going to the grocery store, as I am, and seeing the rising cost of 
food, then they need to start. They need to understand what Americans 
out in our States, the hard-working families of this country, who are 
the fabric of our Nation, are faced with, the decisions they must make.
  Certainly on job creation, on moving forward with the tax cuts, we 
could have provided those to industries and businesses, extending some 
where people don't know whether they are going to be there, and 
certainly providing them the wherewithal, the businesses and industries 
of this country, to be progressive in addressing and creating the kinds 
of jobs we need out there in these new and innovative technologies and 
new and innovative industries.
  Here today, we had an opportunity to move forward on improving the 
Medicare system, the health care available to seniors and others, and 
we missed it. We missed that opportunity. We are not here to create a 
work of art. I say this all the time. We are here to create a work in 
progress. Several years ago, we passed the Medicare Modernization Act. 
Here we had an opportunity to improve upon and to move forward in 
making sure that some of these policies in Medicare can continue to 
happen.
  S. 3101, the bill we tried to move forward today, contains a number 
of provisions that would improve care and access to care for low-income 
Medicare beneficiaries, and a number of important provisions to support 
our providers in the Medicare Program. Low-income Medicare 
beneficiaries, the people more than likely who are on a fixed income, 
get hit the hardest by increased gasoline prices and increased food 
prices because they are on a fixed income. So here was an opportunity 
to say yes, we understand the pain you are feeling, we are working on 
it. We know there is not a ton of immediate impact that we can make on 
the price of fuel, but we can do some things, and here is something we 
can do. We chose not to, because there weren't enough votes to move 
forward.
  Besides fixing the reimbursement for physicians, it bolsters Medicare 
in rural areas and includes a number of provisions from the Craig 
Thomas Rural Health Care bill, in honor of our former colleague, 
Senator Craig Thomas. That is a bill I and so many of my colleagues in 
the Senate have supported year after year. These are not new things. 
These are things that are essential.
  If you look in rural America today--and I was visited in my office by 
elected officials from a county that is predominantly Federal lands. 
They won't be able to meet their county budget this year. They are 
operating a jail that is over 100 years old and on the National 
Historic Register, but it doesn't do the job they need it to do.
  People who live in rural America, hard-working Americans, those who 
have worked hard to make this country great, need us to be paying 
attention. Yet what are we doing? We are not moving forward. We are 
continually stymied from even getting to the debate on the issues and 
offering amendments and moving forward on these matters because people 
want to say no. It doesn't work. We have to come away from that.
  The bill we tried to bring up earlier today, S. 3101, would continue 
to allow exception to when seniors need medical therapy beyond current 
funding caps. I have seniors who will not get their therapy until 
August because they are worried they are going to fall and they will 
need their therapy more desperately in the last several months of the 
year. If they use it in the first part of the year, they will hit the 
cap. So what does that do? They do not get the therapy, because they do 
not want to reach their caps early in the year, so they are not as 
ambulatory, they are more fragile, and then what happens? Yes, what 
they anticipate does happen. They do have a fall in August and then 
they have to go through even more extensive rehabilitation. It is not 
cost effective and it doesn't make sense. These are such smart things 
we could do on behalf of Americans who need our help and our 
rationalization in moving forward.
  The bill also extends a provision to pay pathologists for the 
valuable, technical component of their services. I didn't understand 
this one, so I took a tour of a pathology lab. I was taken through the 
different processes of what happens in that pathology lab and I saw 
what that technical component was. There were several steps in that 
pathology instrument, or that pathology series of events that didn't 
catch the eye of the physician--the trained pathologist, because they 
wouldn't get reimbursed. He looked at me and said: Would you want that 
to be the sample of your cancer tissue, or the possibility that it is 
not going to be caught because we are going to leave out three 
different processes or three different pieces in this process? No. We 
want to be thorough, and there is no reason why we shouldn't be.
  The bill also gives Medicare beneficiaries access to cardiac and 
pulmonary rehabilitation, which has already shown us to lower costs 
associated with COPD and other respiratory diseases. These are diseases 
that oftentimes are predominantly in older people, low-income older 
people who live in rural areas who are least likely to be able to get 
the help elsewhere. Why would we not want to save those dollars and 
create a greater quality of life for these individuals? That is an 
investment.

[[Page 12429]]

  The bill also educates kidney disease patients with managing their 
disease, before they end up on costly dialysis, which can drastically 
improve their quality of life and greatly reduce medical costs down the 
road. Again, we are talking about procedures and making sure those 
procedures are reimbursed that are cost effective. That is how we 
improve on Medicare.
  We are getting ready to see an explosion of baby boomers who are 
going to be using the Medicare system. Why would we not want to act now 
to put in cost-saving measures that will create greater savings and 
greater quality of life?
  It also extends for 2 years the critical diabetes research conducted 
in the CDC and the NIH. I tell my colleagues if they have not met with 
the families in their State who suffer from diabetes, they should do 
so. I have never in my life sat with more passionate people, 
particularly those families who suffer with a child who has juvenile 
diabetes, who are passionate about the idea of not only how do we find 
better ways to care for our children but also investing in the research 
that will one day find the cure.
  I looked at a mother who had tears in her eyes and she said: My 
daughter, who is 12 years old, is going to her first sleepover, and I 
am going with her because I cannot leave her side. She needs to be so 
closely monitored, she said. But I refuse--I refuse--not to let my 
child have a childhood.
  These are the things we can change, and we should.
  Now, unlike the Republican alternative that was introduced by Senator 
Grassley, the Baucus bill also ensures that pharmacists receive prompt 
pay in Medicare. As I mentioned before, I don't work under the auspices 
that we are here to create a work of art, and when I supported the 
Medicare Modernization Act, I knew it wasn't perfect, and I knew we 
would have to watch to see what worked and what didn't work. I went a 
step further. I went to my State and I traveled county to county and 
had meetings with seniors, with the AARP, with our area agency on 
aging, and with Sunday school teachers to try and work through what we 
needed to know and what they needed to know to help one another about 
the prescription Part D in Medicare, and we had good results. Arkansas 
was one of the top States in terms of signing up seniors and getting 
them into the right plans, figuring out how we could help them, and 
working through making that a success.
  But the fact is that in rural America, oftentimes pharmacists are the 
last touch for a medical provider. If you are in a community that has a 
commuting physician, perhaps, or maybe you don't have a hospital and 
have to use one in a larger MSA somewhere, your pharmacist is probably 
the only person who is going to be there on the weekend, and it is 
critical that we keep them in business. Well, if they do not get paid 
on a timely basis--I had two, three pharmacists, at least, who had to 
take out loans of $500,000 to be able to carry over the burden of 
providing the prescription drugs for seniors on Medicare when we 
transitioned into the Medicare Part D. That is unreasonable to ask of 
any small business such as that, to have to carry that over.
  The bill we tried to move forward today also delays the harmful 
Medicaid average manufacturers price rule so that we can improve it to 
reflect the true cost that pharmacists face and to increase patient 
access to generic drugs; again, a commonsense way to move us into a 
more practical, more cost-effective delivery of Medicare services--
generic drugs. We all talk about them frequently. Here is something 
that would actually implement moving in that direction, not to mention 
the true cost these smalltown pharmacists face.
  Many of them can't work within cooperatives. They don't have the 
advantages, lots of times, of the large pharmacies out there, where 
they can buy in these huge bulk purchases and get greater prices. We 
need to make sure we are supporting everybody, and those pharmacists in 
rural America definitely have their needs. That was something in our 
bill that the Republicans did not address.
  S. 3101 makes several much needed reforms to the Medicare Advantage 
Program, or the Medicare Part C. This is something new we added. When 
Congress first decided to allow private insurers to participate in the 
Medicare Program, the health insurance industry maintained that the 
efficiency and the competitiveness of the private marketplace would 
enable them to provide Medicare beneficiaries with better coverage at 
less cost to the Government.
  Despite congressional intent, these plans do not save the Government 
money. As a matter of fact, they cost the Government money. Many of 
them offer absolutely no data to suggest they provide significant extra 
benefits or any better quality at all.
  Since passage of the Medicare Modernization Act in 2003, more and 
more private health insurers have entered the private Medicare market 
and enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans has increased exponentially 
across the country. I heard someone make the comment the other day that 
they were multiplying like rabbits, particularly in rural America. The 
high enrollment growth, especially for Medicare Advantage plan types 
known as private fee for service, is alarming to me since these private 
plans are paid 20 percent more by the Government, on average, than it 
would cost traditional Medicare to cover those same beneficiaries. So 
if they are multiplying like rabbits out there and we are paying them 
20 percent more than what we would pay for traditional Medicare fee for 
service, we are wasting taxpayers' dollars.
  Private fee-for-service plans are not required to create networks 
with providers or to report any quality measures. So in terms of 
tracking whether they are providing greater quality, we have had 
studies done, but we cannot even track the measures to determine 
whether there is an improved quality.
  Many seniors in my State of Arkansas have run into trouble with 
private fee-for-service plans. Many of them have been duped into 
signing up for these plans through misleading or even fraudulent 
marketing practices. Once they do sign up, they often find that when 
they try to go to their regular doctor, their provider does not accept 
the plan. People have signed them up for something simply to get a 
bonus for the number of people they can sign up for a plan.
  We had one woman who came into our office. We heard about this case 
in Arkansas of a sales agent going door to door, wearing medical scrubs 
and a stethoscope, trying to enroll seniors in this plan, not knowing 
much about the plan, and certainly not being willing to work with these 
seniors to figure out what was best for them.
  The Baucus Medicare bill includes a number of improvements to the 
oversight of sales and marketing of Medicare Advantage plans, much 
needed and certainly a part of our responsibility, including banning 
certain practices such as door-to-door sales, cold calling, and free 
meals to seniors as an enticement to sign up.
  We saw the invitations sent out to seniors for a free meal if they 
come and sign up for this package or seniors who simply get cold-called 
in their homes who get kind of hassled and made to feel insignificant 
to the point they say: OK, whatever, come see me.
  It also asks the HHS Secretary to place limits on free gifts and 
commissions to sales agents. That is completely reasonable. We have 
heard of agents getting paid $10,000 for signing up up to 150 
beneficiaries. That is not right. That is taking advantage of seniors 
who may not understand some of these programs and who need more time 
and assistance to be able to figure out what is right for them if, in 
fact, they need to change at all.
  S. 3101 also requires private fee-for-service plans and Medicare 
Advantage to develop networks of providers to ensure care for 
beneficiaries and to measure and report on quality of care. Plans would 
no longer be allowed to deem a hospital or provider as part of the 
plan's network without negotiating an actual contract for payment and 
care.
  In Arkansas, we have about 11 percent of our total Medicare-eligible 
population enrolled in Medicare Advantage. Most of these beneficiaries 
have

[[Page 12430]]

the private fee-for-service plan type, and that is why it is especially 
critical to me that these plans work for our beneficiaries or, if they 
do not, that we get our seniors back into regular Medicare, where they 
can have their needs met. Let me tell you, we have worked hard. Some of 
these seniors have been duped. They called my office, we sat down with 
them, and we worked hard. Getting them back into traditional Medicare 
fee for service where they were, and they liked their service, is 
unbelievably difficult getting through that redtape over at CMS.
  We have heard a lot of rhetoric on the Senate floor lately about 
``choice'' and ``fiscal responsibility.'' However, I would like to ask: 
What kind of choice is it when the plan you chose doesn't meet your 
needs, and you chose a plan because you have been harassed by people 
who are either trying to make an extra $10,000 or who are just out 
there trying to sign up as many people as they possibly can?
  As for fiscal responsibility, we already know the Medicare Hospital 
Insurance Trust Fund is estimated to be insolvent by the year 2019. 
When American taxpayers are subsidizing private companies' profits 
rather than the needs of our seniors, we are simply exacerbating that 
problem. We are adding to the debt of our children and our 
grandchildren. I, for one, would argue this is not fiscally 
responsible.
  I hope we can move beyond the rhetoric. I hope we can have 
productive, bipartisan negotiations over the next days and weeks and 
make these many needed improvements to our Medicare Program a reality. 
Simply saying no is not good enough. It is hard to say yes sometimes, 
but the fact is the American people need us to be working right now. 
They need us to be focused and paying attention to the issues with 
which they are faced.
  Yes, the price of gas is out of control. Yes, their food prices are 
going up. Yes, their health care costs are going up and their access is 
dwindling. The number of Medicare patients I know in my State who can 
no longer find doctors because doctors are no longer taking new 
Medicare patients--we actually experienced that in my own family. Our 
lifetime family physician who lived across the street passed away, my 
dad hit Medicare age, and all of a sudden we didn't have a physician. 
These are issues people in our States are facing every single day. The 
least we can do is bring forward measures that will show the people we 
are working toward figuring out some of these issues and some of these 
concerns that are hitting them square in the face.
  As I said before, I stop and pump my own gas and I do the grocery 
shopping at my house. I have to say I see what they are up against. I 
think every one of us needs to take the time to figure out what it is 
our constituents are facing and redouble our efforts to work together 
to find the solutions that will make an impact on this great country 
and, more importantly, on its greatest asset and that is the working 
families of this great country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bayh). The Senator from Oklahoma is 
recognized.
  (The remarks of Mr. Inhofe are printed in today's Record under 
``Morning Business.'')
  Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, are we in morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are on the motion to proceed.
  Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent then that I be 
allowed to speak as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             National Debt

  Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise today to comment on the need for 
fiscal responsibility and to call attention to our ever-increasing 
national debt. Building on a speech I gave in March, I hope to 
regularly provide my colleagues and the American people with updates on 
our growing national debt.
  I recently voted against the budget bill that would have allowed the 
national debt to increase to $11.8 trillion over the next couple of 
years. We need to be reminded of the fiscal realities in which we find 
ourselves. We cannot continue to live in the United States of Denial.
  Behind me is a chart that shows the accumulated national debt today. 
As of 2007, the national debt stood at almost $9 trillion. Today it is 
at $9.4 trillion, with each American owing some $31,000; that is, every 
man, woman, and child in the country owes $31,000. And the deficit for 
2008 will be added to that number, including an average $273 billion a 
year in interest payments on that debt.
  If interest rates increase, the interest payments could be much more, 
eating up revenues that could be used for other purposes. In January, 
the Congressional Budget Office projected a $219 billion deficit for 
2008, but they did not include the $152 billion economic stimulus 
package that President Bush later signed into law in February.
  With the addition of the economic stimulus bill and other recent 
changes in the baseline, CBO's updated deficit projection for 2008 is 
$357 billion. The Congressional Budget Office number also does not 
include borrowing from the Social Security trust fund and other trust 
funds to the tune of almost $200 billion.
  We only talk about the public debt, but we do not talk about the 
debt, the money that we are borrowing from our own Government. In 
addition to all of this, soon we are going to be considering a 
supplemental appropriations bill to the tune of $193 billion which, 
again, will be added to the national debt.
  So if we are really honest with the American people, the projected 
real debt for 2008 is $746 billion--$746 billion. That is more than 
three times the $219 billion deficit projected at the start of 2008.
  Now, to get an idea of how much that is, $746 billion is more than we 
spent on the war on terror, including Iraq and Afghanistan and 
elsewhere, during the last 5 years. And we borrowed every penny of it.
  The Treasury Department in April reported that the deficit through 
the first 6 months of the budget year to date was $311.4 billion, up 20 
percent from the same period a year ago. That was the largest deficit 
for the first half of a budget year on record, surpassing the old 6-
month mark of $302 billion that was set back in 2006.
  The Federal deficit through the first half of fiscal year 2008 is an 
all-time high, underscoring the pressure the budget is coming under as, 
overall, our economy slumps, spending is higher, tax revenues are 
lower.
  But the deficit only describes the annual difference between revenues 
and outlays. And that is not what is really threatening our future. We 
do not talk about it. It is the cumulative ongoing increase in our 
national debt that really matters, with too many people in Washington 
pretending this debt does not even exist.
  When was the last time you heard the President of the United States 
talk about the national debt? I cannot remember. And he happens to be a 
Republican. One of the reasons I am a Republican is that I have always 
believed in balancing budgets and paying down debt. But we do not even 
talk about it. It is not even there. It is like it has evaporated. When 
have we heard the Presidential candidates talk about the national debt 
and what they are going to be doing about it?
  Recently, USA Today reported that the Federal Government's 
accumulated long-term financial obligations grew by $2.5 trillion last 
year--$2.5 trillion--as a result of the increase in the cost of 
Medicare and Social Security benefits as more baby boomers retire.
  I think $2.5 trillion is about what we spend on everything in the 
Federal Government each year. Taxpayers are on the hook for a record 
$57 trillion in Federal liabilities to cover the lifetime benefits of 
everyone eligible for Medicare, Social Security, and other Government 
programs.
  If you figure it out by households, that is $500,000 per household in 
this country. When people come to me and ask me to spend money on a 
special program that they want me to spend money on, I explain our $9.4 
trillion national debt and the fact that each of us owes $31,000. Then 
I ask them if what

[[Page 12431]]

they want is important enough to borrow the money and put the cost, 
including interest, on the back of our children and grandchildren.
  It is an interesting question that I pose to people. And they think 
about it. After a moment, the smiles on their faces vanish, and their 
answer is no. Unfortunately, however, our political leaders in 
Washington hide the real budget numbers from the public and fail to 
even mention the rising national debt.
  Most Americans are clueless as to how fiscally irresponsible Congress 
and the administration have been. The U.S. Government is the biggest 
credit card abuser in the world. We talk to our kids and others: You 
have to watch credit. We are the worst example of a credit card abuser 
in the world.
  You know what. The rest of the world gets it, which is why they are 
covering their bets on the U.S. dollar. So why do we refuse to see the 
warning signs? A decade ago who would ever have imagined that the 
Canadian dollar would be worth just as much as the U.S. dollar? I 
remember when it was two to one. Now the dollar's value has fallen by 
half.
  A few years ago, one Euro was worth barely 80 cents; now it is worth 
more than $1.50. I think the President remembers when we were in Rome 
together that the dollar that we had bought 60 cents of a Euro. It is 
hard to believe. Then, to top it off, because of our deficits, we are 
forced to borrow money from other countries.
  As a matter of fact, 51 percent of the privately owned national debt 
is held by foreign creditors. It is supposed to be held by the United 
States; that is public debt. But they have come in and they have 51 
percent of it. That is up from 37 percent 6 years ago.
  Foreign creditors provide more than 70 percent of the funds the 
United States has borrowed since 2001, according to the Department of 
Treasury. Think about it. And who are those foreign creditors? 
According to the Treasury Department, the three largest foreign holders 
of U.S. debt are China, Japan, and the oil-exporting countries known as 
OPEC.
  As you know, we are sending them a lot of money because of the high 
cost of gasoline. So we send them the money and then they come back and 
they are now buying our companies and they are buying more of our debt. 
If these foreign investors were to lose confidence and pull out of U.S. 
Treasurys, ``Katey, bar the door.''
  Borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from China and OPEC puts 
not only our future economy but also our national economy at risk. It 
is critical that we ensure that the countries that control our debt, 
the countries that control our debt, do not control the future of this 
country.
  To try to avert this train wreck, I have introduced the Securing 
Americas Economic Future--it is a commission--legislation that would 
create a bipartisan commission to look at our Nation's tax and 
entitlement systems and recommend reforms to put us back on a fiscally 
sustainable course and ensure the solvency of entitlement programs for 
future generations. My colleague, Senator Isakson, has cosponsored 
that.
  Over in the House, Democratic Congressman Jim Copper of Tennessee and 
a Republican Congressman, Frank Wolf of Virginia, have introduced a 
bipartisan version of the same commission. In the House they have 93 
cosponsors from both parties. This bicameral group has support from 
corporate executives, religious leaders, think tanks across the 
political spectrum from the Heritage Foundation to the Brookings 
Institution. Brookings is real liberal; Heritage is real conservative. 
They all agree we have to do something and we have to do it fast.
  Building on that legislation, two of my colleagues in the Senate, the 
Budget Committee chairman from North Dakota and the ranking member from 
New Hampshire, introduced a bipartisan bill that would create a tax and 
entitlement reform task force very similar to the same commission. We 
call it the Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action. There 
are 19 cosponsors of the Conrad-Gregg proposal. I have a commitment 
from Senator Gregg and Senator Conrad that they were going to bring 
this bill to the floor so we could get the commission created. It is a 
16-member commission: 14 members made up of the House and Senate, and 
then two of the other members would be the Secretary of Treasury and 
also the head of the Office of Management and Budget. And the vision is 
that we would get that legislation passed this year.
  By the way, the way it works is that if 75 percent of the people make 
a suggestion as to tax reform, entitlement reform, it gets an expedited 
procedure here, and we have an up-or-down vote like the BRAC process. 
You can't have our colleagues spend a lot of time doing this hard work 
and not guarantee them that if most agree about it, they are going to 
get a vote and it is not going to get stalled like so much other stuff 
that we would like to see and never do.
  The thing that disappoints me--and I have greatest respect for the 
chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Conrad. We have worked 
together over the years on all kinds of things. He said he doesn't 
think we are going to get it out. He said that the Democratic, at that 
time, Presidential candidates, the last time I talked to him about it, 
decided that ``People don't want to do something extraordinary unless 
they are absolutely persuaded.'' I think we need to persuade our 
colleagues and the American people that entitlement and tax reform 
cannot be put off for another day. Wouldn't it be just great if we got 
this done? The new President comes in, puts in the head of the OPM and 
the Secretary-Treasurer, and they go to work. It would probably take 
them almost a year, but they would be able to come back and do 
something about tax reform.
  When I tell people, they are shocked: $240 billion we all pay to 
someone to do our taxes. It is unbelievable. I am a lawyer. I used to 
do my own return. I used to do returns for my clients. I wouldn't touch 
my tax return with a 10-foot pole.
  In fact, a couple weeks ago, my wife looked at our return and said: I 
don't understand it.
  I said: I don't understand it either. We have to go see our 
accountant and have him explain what this is about.
  She said: No, you don't. He will charge us $200 an hour.
  I have to believe there are many Americans out there who have no idea 
what this is all about. We have had 15,000 changes in the code. It is 
overdue that we do this. Tax reform is a no-brainer. We have to do it. 
Even if we save half the $240 billion, think of the savings to 
Americans. By the way, that is a real tax reduction, and it doesn't 
cost the Treasury one nickel. I am hoping we can continue to push this 
with everything we have.
  Recently, David Walker, former Comptroller General, accepted a new 
challenge by joining Pete Peterson's new foundation to address the 
undeniable fiscal challenges our country must face. I have known Pete 
Peterson for a long time. He is head of the Blackstone Group. He 
stated, in creating the foundation, he ``cannot think of anything more 
important than trying in this way to preserve the possibilities of the 
American Dream for my children and grandchildren's generations and 
generations to come.''
  I would like to say a few words about Pete Peterson and David Walker. 
Pete is chairman of the Peterson Foundation. He was President Nixon's 
Secretary of Commerce. He was born in Kearney, NE, to Greek immigrant 
parents, received an undergraduate degree from Northwestern, and 
graduated summa cum laude. He then received an MBA from the University 
of Chicago and is now senior chairman and cofounder of the Blackstone 
Group. He is also chairman emeritus of the Council on Foreign 
Relations, chairman of the council's international advisory board, 
founding chairman of the Peterson Institute for International 
Economics, and founding president of the Concord Coalition, which I 
have worked with for the last number of years. Here is the son of an 
immigrant who has made a pile of money, and he is so worried about his 
children and grandchildren. I suspect he has a little money over the 
years, and his grandchildren and children are probably going to be a 
little

[[Page 12432]]

better off than mine, most Americans. But here is somebody who is 
worried about the rest of us and our families.
  The other is David Walker. David Walker is the president and CEO of 
Peterson. He is charged with leading the foundation's effort to enhance 
public understanding of the sustainability challenge that threatens 
America's future. If David Walker were here, he would have given a far 
more eloquent speech than I have to explain to my colleagues and to the 
American people where we are. The purpose of the foundation is to 
propose sensible and workable solutions to address these challenges and 
build public and political will to do something about them. Prior to 
joining the foundation, he served over 9 years as the seventh 
Comptroller General of the United States and head of the U.S. 
Government Accountability Office.
  Here is a man who had a job, a good job, a high-paying job, and he is 
leaving it with 6 years left because he is so concerned about where we 
are. Everywhere he goes, he talks about this. I have been with him on 
several occasions. Somehow, we keep banging away, banging away, banging 
away, trying to get people to pay attention.
  I have sent letters off to both the Presidential candidates. They are 
both Members of the Senate. Why don't they sign on to Kent Conrad and 
to Judd Gregg's legislation, sign on, talk about the debt. Let the 
American people know we have a problem out there and they are going to 
do something about it. When people hear both candidates talking about 
this program and that program and now they are counting up how much 
money they are going to cost, at the same time they are talking about 
the programs, they ought to be talking about the debt. What are you 
going to do about tax reform? We have to ask these questions. We are 
running out of time.
  I wish Pete Peterson and David Walker the best of luck in this 
endeavor. I look forward to working with them.
  The time to act is now. When you look at the numbers, it is self-
evident that we must confront our swelling national debt. We must make 
a concerted bipartisan effort to reform our Tax Code. Nothing works 
here unless it is bipartisan. That ought to be the flag we fly under 
the rest of this year. Working together, like the Presiding Officer and 
I are working on a couple pieces of legislation, is the only way to get 
something done around here.
  It is a moral issue. When I first introduced the legislation that 
talked about it, I got a call from Frank Wolf, a terrific guy. He said: 
You know, George, I want to join you. I haven't paid much attention, 
but this is a moral obligation. It is a moral obligation to our 
children and grandchildren.
  I think most of us down here are worried about the legacy we are 
going to leave to the next generation. We have a lot to say about it. 
These are challenging times. I am confident that with the inspiration 
of the Holy Spirit, maybe we will get it and get on with some of these 
things that are long overdue so that we can get back on our feet again 
financially.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, before my friend from Ohio leaves the 
floor, I want to tell him, through the Chair, that he has his finger on 
the right issue. There are so many of us here in this Chamber on both 
sides of the aisle who recognize that the fiscal house of America is in 
a disastrous condition, and how we move forward when we get a new 
President in 2009 is going to be very important in terms of how we 
address the fiscal reality and fiscal challenges we face.
  I think the recklessness we have seen with respect to this mountain 
of debt, which my good friend from Ohio has pointed out is now nearing 
the $10 trillion mark, is something we have a moral obligation to 
address. I know among colleagues on both sides, including Senator 
Conrad and Senator Gregg, there have been conversations about how we 
might be able to develop a process to try to get our fiscal house back 
in order. And I appreciate the leadership of my friend from Ohio on 
this issue.
  Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about an issue which has 
been talked about here quite a bit over the last several days. It has 
to do with what people think is an easy solution that will deal with 
the gas price and energy crisis we face here in America.
  I have heard several of my colleagues come to the floor saying we 
have a panacea here--just develop the oil shale of the West, just 
develop 2 trillion barrels of oil that are locked up in the shale of 
the United States of America, 80 percent of which is in Colorado, and 
somehow we are going to wave a magic wand and that magic wand will 
automatically start creating these billions and trillions of barrels of 
oil that all of a sudden will bring about this abrupt decline in the 
price of gasoline and the price of oil.
  There is a lot of hot air in those statements that are being made 
because the reality of it is that oil shale development in Colorado is 
still a long way away. That is because the research and development 
program, which we approved in this Congress, in the Senate, in the 2005 
Energy Policy Act, contemplated that we would enter into a research and 
development phase to determine whether oil shale could be commercially 
developed.
  Why is that so important? It is important, first of all, because for 
100 years people have been looking at the possibility of developing the 
oil that is locked up in the shales of mostly Colorado and some in Utah 
and some in Wyoming, and they haven't been successful. We have had the 
largest economic bust of the West and in western Colorado in 1980s, as 
major companies tried to develop oil shale and found out, after 
investing billions of dollars, that they simply could not under those 
technologies.
  It is easy to understand why. It is because when you look at where 
the kerogen is, which is the oil substance, it is locked up in the 
rock. It is shale. There is a reason why they call it oil shale. It is 
not kerogen. It is shale. It is rock.
  So when my friends come to the floor on the other side and say: Hey, 
here is a panacea to deal with the high gas prices of today, I would 
ask them all, with all due respect, to simply look at the reality of 
oil shale and its potential and also to look at its limitations.
  Chevron, which is one of the largest oil companies in the world and a 
company that has been interested in looking at the possibility of oil 
shale development, in submitting its own comments to the Department of 
Interior's Bureau of Land Management, as they moved forward with their 
programmatic environmental impact statement on commercial oil shale 
development a few months ago, said:

       Chevron believes that a full scale commercial leasing 
     program should not proceed at this time without clear 
     demonstration of commercial technologies.

  That was a statement by Chevron on March 20, 2008. Yet there are 
myths being spread across the country. There are people who are talking 
to newspaper editorial boards and all around the country saying that 
all we have to do in America is go to Colorado, go to the western 
slope, go get the trillion barrels of oil locked up in that rock and, 
hey, we will solve all of our gas problems in America. That is simply 
not true.
  I want to first go through what I think are some myths with respect 
to oil shale development, myths that have been propagated by some who, 
frankly, have the financial interest and concerns of only the oil 
companies, not the interests of the environment and of developing real 
solutions to the energy problems we face.
  Myth No. 1 is that we on this side, including myself and other 
Democratic colleagues, are in fact stopping oil shale from being 
developed. Nothing could be further from the truth.
  In 2005, under legislation that we offered out of the Energy 
Committee in a bipartisan way, with the leadership of Senator Domenici 
and Senator Bingaman, we included oil shale provisions which I helped 
to write. Those oil shale provisions created an orderly process for us 
to move forward with oil shale development. That legislation, which 
came out of committee and which came out of this Chamber, included

[[Page 12433]]

sponsors: Senators Hatch, Allard, myself, Domenici, and Bingaman. What 
that legislation asked the Secretary of Interior to do--in fact, it did 
not ask; it directed the Secretary of Interior--was to enter into a 
research, development, and demonstration program on oil shale.
  Since that time, not so long ago, 2005--we can still remember that, 
just a few years ago--six of these leases have already been issued. 
Five of them are in Colorado. Three of them have been issued to one 
company, the Shell Exploration and Production Company.
  Under the provisions of the law that we included in that legislation, 
it is also important to remember that with the 160-acre research and 
development lease, these companies also have the right to convert those 
research and development leases to 5,000 acres. That is 5,000 acres of 
our public lands for R&D lease. That is 5 times 5, 25,000 acres that 
can convert over into full-scale commercial development, if they should 
so wish. So we have a program that is already underway.
  Now, the Bureau of Land Management has decided to move forward with a 
commercial oil shale leasing program under provisions that were stuck 
in, in the dark of night, in the conference committee over in the House 
of Representatives that seem to direct the Bureau of Land Management to 
move forward with a commercial oil shale leasing program.
  I do not believe, nor do many of the leaders in my State of Colorado, 
including our Governor of Colorado, that this is the way we ought to 
move. Governor Freudenthal in Wyoming does not believe this is the way 
we should move forward on the possibility of oil shale development. 
They support the legislation I have introduced on how we move forward 
with oil shale development. It is very simple legislation. I introduced 
this legislation that would clarify the process for us to look at how 
we move forward with oil shale development.
  Let me simply walk through what the five steps would be.
  First, the BLM would have 1 year to complete an environmental review 
of a commercial oil shale leasing program. That is a good amount of 
time for the BLM to look at completing the environmental review of 
something which is going to be so impactful to the Western Slope and to 
the State of Colorado.
  Second of all, because we believe in making sure the States are 
providing us input on these Federal lands, which is so important to us 
in the West--it is so important to us in the West in large part because 
a third of my State is owned by the Federal Government. The Federal 
Government is the largest landlord we have in our State. So it has 
always been important for us to make sure the States and local 
governments are having input into the development of the resources that 
are on those Federal lands. My legislation would allow the Governors of 
the affected States to have 90 days--90 days is not a lot of time--to 
comment on a commercial oil shale leasing program.
  Third, the legislation would give the BLM a year to develop a 
commercial leasing program and to propose the regulations to accompany 
it--all, I think, very reasonable pieces of the legislation.
  Fourth, the Department of the Interior and the National Academy of 
Sciences would prepare reports to Congress on the technology and the 
proposed plan for oil shale development.
  Finally, oil shale development would have to comply with our already 
existing environmental laws--a very simple, straightforward process for 
us to look at how we can develop oil shale.
  There are people out there who are saying we in Colorado oppose oil 
shale development or that Democrats have opposed it. That is simply not 
the case. We did not oppose it in 2005, and we do not oppose it today. 
We simply say we want to move forward in a thoughtful and responsible 
way as we look at the possibility of developing oil shale.
  So myth No. 1--that we are opposed to oil shale--is simply false. It 
is a myth. It is not true.
  Secondly, there is another myth out there that says the current 
moratorium which is in place as a result of legislation which the 
Congress adopted last year on commercial leasing regulations is somehow 
preventing energy companies from developing oil shale, that we are 
somehow preventing the oil companies from developing oil shale today. 
Again, that is a myth. It is not true.
  The reality is, the BLM has clearly stated that the current 
moratorium on issuing commercial leasing regulations will have no 
effect--no effect--on U.S. energy supply or on when commercial oil 
shale production could begin.
  I have here a part of a transcript of a hearing we had in the Energy 
Committee not too long ago, where we had the Assistant Secretary of the 
Department of the Interior, Secretary Allred, come before our committee 
and testify about the potential of oil shale. It debunks the myths that 
somehow we are going to wave this magic wand and all of a sudden, this 
year or next year or the following year, we are going to have all this 
oil flowing from oil shale in the West.
  I asked Secretary Allred:

       When I look at your chart on oil shale development on 
     public lands, you have at some point on that chart this 
     little brown dot that says ``project completion: phase 3--
     commercial.'' When do you think that will happen? What year?

  Assistant Secretary Allred responded:

       Senator, it's hard to predict that because . . .

  I asked him the question:

       2011?

  Secretary Allred's response:

       Oh no, I think, I think . . .

  I then asked Secretary Allred:

       2016?

  Secretary Allred responded:

       Probably in the latter half of, say, 2015 and beyond.

  ``2015 and beyond.'' So that is what the Assistant Secretary of the 
Interior, responsible for this program, is actually saying, that we 
would be ready possibly to move forward with commercial development of 
oil shale in the year 2015--7 years from now.
  Why, therefore, is there such a rush to move forward headlong today 
and to complete the development of commercial oil shale regulations 
before the end of the Bush administration? Why is that the case? I do 
not understand it because it is not going to produce any oil that will 
help us deal with the energy crisis we face in the Nation today or 
tomorrow or the next year. So we have to keep asking those questions.
  There is another part of the myth with respect to oil shale, and that 
is that we need to understand that even companies such as Chevron and 
others do not know what kind of technology ultimately is going to be 
viable for us in the development of oil shale. Even Jill Davis from 
Royal Dutch Shell Corporation, in the Rocky Mountain News, is quoted as 
saying:

       The thing is we have to determine whether it works on a 
     commercial scale.

  So there are lots of myths.
  Myth No. 3 is that the BLM is prepared--I hear some of my colleagues 
come to the floor and writing letters and making statements in the 
media--that the BLM is prepared to issue commercial oil shale leasing 
regulations because the BLM knows the nature and the needs of the 
development of oil shale, including water and power requirements.
  Nothing could be further from the truth. BLM has clearly stated it 
does not know how much water would be required to implement and carry 
out a commercial oil shale leasing program. So how can we move forward 
with a commercial oil shale leasing program when we do not know how 
much water would be required to develop this oil shale?
  In a hearing, again with Assistant Secretary Allred, I asked the 
following question:

       Let me ask you about water availability. Under the Colorado 
     River Compact, as described, there is a significant share of 
     water of the Colorado River between all of the seven States--
     Upper Basin, Lower Basin--we have a share of water within 
     Colorado that we are entitled under the compacts to consume 
     for Colorado water users. Do you know, today, how much of 
     that water consumption under those compacts would be required 
     to be able to implement a commercial oil shale leasing 
     program?


[[Page 12434]]


  Secretary Allred's response:

       Senator, we do not. And that's part of the . . . that's 
     part of the purpose of the R&D leases--to try to determine 
     that.

  So how can we move forward headlong with a commercial oil shale 
leasing program when we have no idea how much water is going to be 
consumed in the development of these so-called half a trillion or a 
trillion barrels of oil? We do not know because we do not know how much 
water is going to be required based on whatever technology ultimately 
might be chosen.
  Another myth is that the BLM, Department of the Interior, is 
absolutely ready to move forward with a commercial oil shale leasing 
program because they know what they are doing with respect to the power 
requirements.
  They do not know what the power requirements are going to be. 
Producing 100,000 barrels per day of oil shale will require 
approximately 1.2 gigawatts of dedicated electric generating capacity. 
The question is, where is that electricity going to come from? Where is 
that power going to come from? What will its impact be? None of those 
questions have been answered. Yet the Bureau of Land Management is 
insistent on completing this commercial oil shale leasing program as 
fast as they can. I think, again, they are wrong.
  There is another myth out there that says without commercial 
leasing--I hear some of my colleagues say this--without commercial 
leasing regulations from the Bureau of Land Management, investors may 
decide to stop risking their capital on oil shale and instead focus on 
other projects with more certain returns.
  That is not true. The reality is the commercial leasing moratorium is 
giving BLM, investors, energy companies, scientists, Congress, and 
local communities the time they need to get more information about oil 
shale development and to allow the technologies to mature before any 
full-scale operation begins on public land.
  Again, as Chevron commented in the Programmatic Environmental Impact 
Statement:

       Chevron believes that a full scale commercial leasing 
     program should not proceed at this time without clear 
     demonstration of commercial technologies.

  So there are a lot of myths with respect to oil shale development.
  Mr. President, I have several more minutes to go, and I see the 
assistant majority leader has come to the floor, so I will yield to him 
if he would so choose.
  Mr. President, I will continue.
  Myth No. 5. Somehow or another, those purveyors and artists of 
wanting to move forward with oil shale development with all speed ahead 
are saying this is somehow supported by the State and local governments 
it affects.
  Well, more than half--probably 75 percent--of all the oil shale 
resources are located in my State of Colorado. The Governor of the 
State of Colorado, Bill Ritter, says let's go slow and be thoughtful 
about oil shale development because we know the kind of impact it can 
have on the vast Western Slope of the State of Colorado. But it is not 
just the Governor of the State of Colorado who says that, it is also 
the Governor of Wyoming, Governor Freudenthal, as well.
  Within my State of Colorado, there is a whole host of local 
governments that are very concerned about the Department of the 
Interior and the BLM moving forward, rushing headlong, moving 
recklessly to develop oil shale on the Western Slope without knowing 
yet what they are doing. Joining in stating those concerns are the City 
of Rifle, the town of Silt, the Pitkin County Board of County 
Commissioners, the Routt County Board of County Commissioners, the San 
Miguel County Board of Commissioners, the Front Range Water Users 
Council, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, the Colorado 
Springs Utilities, Aurora Water, the Board of Water Works of Pueblo--
and the list goes on and on.
  Even the newspapers in Colorado are saying this. This is an editorial 
that was written in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. The Grand 
Junction Daily Sentinel is the newspaper that covers the 20 counties of 
the Western Slope of Colorado. This is what the Grand Junction Daily 
Sentinel said:

       There is no need to accelerate leasing of federal land for 
     commercial oil shale production. The notion that the one-year 
     moratorium on commercial leasing approved by Congress last 
     year is somehow a barrier to commercial development is 
     nonsense. If anything, that moratorium should be extended.
       The real barriers to commercial oil shale production are 
     technological, environmental and financial.

  The Denver Post, the State's largest statewide newspaper, said the 
following:

       Given that oil from shale isn't just around the corner, and 
     given the vital questions of water and energy, shale 
     development deserves the most careful--and lengthy, if 
     necessary--study possible.
       Developing oil shale has been a dream since the early 20th 
     century. But careful planning is needed to make sure the 
     dream doesn't turn into a nightmare.

  In conclusion, what I want to say is I think Chevron is correct 
today, that it is a mistake for the Department of the Interior and the 
Bureau of Land Management to want to push forward to complete the 
implementation of the Bush-Cheney agenda with respect to oil and gas 
and oil shale development. They want to rush head long to get this done 
before the end of the administration when we know that there are so 
many technological barriers and so much we do not yet know about how we 
are going to develop oil shale. So Chevron is correct when it says we 
are not ready to move forward with a full-scale oil shale program.
  Let me conclude by simply saying this: For me, as a longtime farmer 
and rancher and as a person who has spent my life fighting to protect 
the beauty of Colorado, fighting for the land and water of that State, 
it is important for me always, as a Senator, to remember that the 
planet we have and the great State of Colorado I have is something I 
need to protect for my children and for my grandchildren and great-
grandchildren for generations to come. It would be a mistake for us, in 
my view, for the State of Colorado or the United States of America to 
move forward with a program that is going to create significant 
problems to that legacy we are attempting to give to our children and 
to our grandchildren. I hope we could work together in a bipartisan 
basis to look at the possibility of the development of the oil shale 
resource but to do it in a thoughtful and deliberate way so we don't 
destroy the environment along the way.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.


                         Republican Filibusters

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Colorado for his 
statement on oil shale. I wish to tell him a little story that goes 
back many years. When I first was involved in political life, in 1966 
as a college student I worked for a Senator from Illinois named Paul 
Douglas who used to give speeches about oil shale, saying there is a 
great untapped natural and national resource of oil shale in the 
Rockies, in Colorado, and in other areas. Yours is the first comment I 
can remember on the floor of the Senate in all of those years relating 
to this issue again. I am glad the Senator from Colorado not only 
brought it up but put it in perspective in terms of our national energy 
needs and the impact of oil shale exploration and production in the 
Senator's State. I think he has every right to be careful in what he 
does.
  I hear many colleagues, particularly from the Republican side of the 
aisle and from the White House, suggesting the reason we have our 
gasoline prices today and high crude oil prices is because we are not 
drilling for oil in ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I, for 
instance, personally think that is an oversimplification, that that one 
potential source of oil could in no way solve our problems in terms of 
what it could produce.
  I might call the attention of my friend and colleague from Colorado 
to some information that was given to me today. I hope the Senator from 
Colorado is aware there are 44 million offshore acres, off the shores 
of the United States of America, that have been leased by oil 
companies--44 million. Of those, only 10.5 million have

[[Page 12435]]

been put into production. One-fourth of all of the leased offshore 
acreage oil companies currently hold--land that the Federal Government 
has a right to--is being actually explored and utilized. Of the 47.5 
million onshore acres under lease for oil and gas production, only 13 
million are in production; again, about a fourth. So three-fourths of 
all of the land offshore and on shore owned by the Federal Government 
and the taxpayers, leased by oil companies for the potential production 
of oil and gas, is actually in production. Only one-fourth. Combined, 
oil and gas companies hold leases to 68 million acres of Federal land 
in waters they are not producing any oil and gas on--68 million. That 
is compared to 1.5 million acres in the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge.
  So those who come to the floor and say: ``You know the problem here? 
We are just not opening up enough area for oil and gas exploration,'' 
ignore the obvious. Oil and gas companies spend money to obtain them 
and then sit on them and then come back to us when we complain America 
needs a national energy policy and say the real problem is the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge. ``If we could just have a crack at those 1.5 
million acres,'' after they have taken 68 million acres, put them under 
lease, and are not utilizing them.
  I might add that Congressman Rahm Emanuel from my State of Illinois 
and Congressman Dodd are working on legislation that would say to these 
oil and gas companies: If you are going to lease this land and not use 
it, the cost of the annual lease is going to keep going up. Let someone 
else lease it who might use it. I think that is reasonable. They are 
suggesting that money from the leases should be dedicated to wind and 
solar energy--energy-efficient buildings; LIHEAP--which I know would be 
a good idea for the Senator who is now presiding who is from New 
England; weatherization assistance, and a number of other areas.
  I thank the Senator from Colorado for his thoughtful reflection on 
what we are facing here.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, will the Senator from Illinois yield for 
a question?
  Mr. DURBIN. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Through the Chair, I ask my friend from Illinois whether 
it is true that we have already opened huge amounts of offshore 
resources as well as onshore resources for the potential development of 
oil and gas and that ultimately, if we are going to get our Nation to 
have the kind of energy independence and national security that has 
been talked about now for 30 or 40 years, we need to, yes, develop 
those potential resources and those 75 percent of those offshore and 
onshore lands the Senator spoke about, but also to look at a whole new 
agenda of clean energy that will help us get to our national security, 
our environmental security, and create an economic opportunity here at 
home?
  Mr. DURBIN. I would respond to the Senator from Colorado and tell 
him, yes, of course. He has anticipated the reason I came to the floor: 
to discuss what happened this week in the Senate or, to be more 
accurate, what didn't happen this week in the Senate. Because on 
Tuesday, we offered to the Senate, both sides, Democrats and 
Republicans, an opportunity to debate what the Senator from Colorado 
suggested, whether we will invest as a nation in energy and job 
creation. The Senator from Colorado knows what happened as well as I 
do. The Republicans refused to join us to bring to the floor to debate 
the bill that would create tax incentives for investments in energy 
efficiency, renewable, sustainable energy that will not lead to global 
warming and will not lead to pollution. The frustration that I and 
other Members on the Democratic side feel comes from the fact that we 
have tried repeatedly to bring these measures to the floor and we have 
been stopped time and time again.
  I say to my colleague and friend from Colorado, through the Renewable 
Energy and Job Creation Act, we can create incentives we know will 
work. In my home State of Illinois, and probably in the State of 
Colorado, we are finding wind turbines being built in massive numbers 
to generate clean electric power. Near Bloomington, IL, an area I never 
would have dreamed of as a wind resource area, 240 wind turbines are 
being built. They will generate enough electricity there to provide all 
the needs of the two cities of Bloomington and Normal, IL, without 
pollution, using nature as a source.
  Why did this recently happen? Because we created, over the last 
couple of years, incentives for businesses to do it. Now when we come 
this week to the floor of the Senate and say to our Republican 
colleagues: Let's not stop this now; this is a move in the right 
direction for green energy sources, what did they say? ``We don't want 
to even debate it.'' They stopped us again.
  This week in the Senate--
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, would the Senator from Illinois yield for 
a question?
  Mr. DURBIN. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Through the Chair, I ask of my friend from Illinois how 
important the extension of these energy tax credits is for renewable 
energy, given the fact that this is not pie-in-the-sky kind of 
technology we are talking about. As I understand, in my State--and I 
know there are already three solar powerplants that are functioning--
there is a plan in the State of Arizona to put together a 400 or 500-
megawatt powerplant that will be powered by the Sun, a 200-megawatt 
powerplant in the State of California, a whole host of ways in which 
the Sun can become harnessed for our energy needs.
  The same thing is true with respect to wind. As my good friend from 
Illinois talked about, what is happening in Illinois is happening 
across America, including in my own home State of Colorado where we 
have gone from almost no wind production 3 years ago to 1,000 
megawatts, and there are three or four coal-fired powerplants in my 
State.
  So how important, I ask my friend from Illinois, would the extension 
of these tax credits be until 2015, 2016--however we end up finally 
reaching that number--to continue investing in harnessing the power of 
the Sun, the power of wind, the power of biofuels?
  Mr. DURBIN. I say in response, through the Chair to the Senator from 
Colorado, if we don't extend these Federal renewable energy tax 
credits, America could lose 76,000 jobs in the wind industry, 40,000 
jobs in the solar industry. The bill the Republicans refuse to allow us 
to bring to the floor to even debate provides $8.8 billion for research 
and development investment. This year alone, over 27,000 U.S. 
businesses would use this tax credit to benefit companies in computers 
and electronics, chemical manufacturing, information services, and 
scientific R&D services. The list goes on and on. The Renewable Energy 
and Job Creation Act, which they would not allow us to bring to the 
floor to debate this week, includes $18 billion in incentives for clean 
electricity, alternative transportation fuels, carbon sequestration, 
and energy efficiency.
  I say to my friend from Colorado through the Chair that this is 
nothing new. So far, during this session of Congress, the Republicans 
have engaged in 76 filibusters as of today. The record in the Senate 
for any 2-year period of time was 57 filibusters. A filibuster is every 
Senator's right to stop any bill, any nomination, for an indefinite 
period of time, and that filibuster can only be broken if 60 Senators 
vote to break it. It is called a cloture motion. We tried three times 
this week to break Republican filibusters, first on a bill dealing with 
the price of gasoline to try to bring it down and make it more 
affordable. The Republicans filibustered it. When we had our vote, we 
couldn't find 60 votes because they wouldn't cross the aisle to join 
the Democrats in breaking the filibuster and debating specific ways of 
bringing down the price of gasoline.
  We followed that with a measure to deal with, as I have said here, 
tax incentives for the right energy decisions for our future. The 
Republicans initiated another filibuster. We called it for a vote. We 
failed to come up with 60 votes again because we only had nine 
Republican Senators who would cross--well, I think the number was seven 
Republican Senators who would cross the

[[Page 12436]]

aisle and join us. We needed more. Out of 49, we needed about 10 or 15. 
We didn't get those. So that bill to create incentives for businesses 
and individuals to make the right energy decisions was defeated by 
another Republican filibuster.
  The last thing we considered was related to another program. It had 
nothing to do with energy but a lot to do with health care. We wanted 
to make certain the Medicare Program continued to reimburse the doctors 
and medical professionals who provide critical care for 40 million 
elderly and disabled Americans. The Bush administration wants to cut 
their compensation by 10 percent or more. I think it is unfair. These 
men and women are not being paid as much as others, and they are 
providing critical health services to a lot of needy people. The Bush 
administration, which is no fan of Medicare or Social Security, wanted 
to cut their reimbursement. Well, they will cut that reimbursement and 
fewer doctors will participate in the program and seniors will have a 
more difficult time getting their care.
  So we started to bring to the floor a measure that would restore the 
pay for doctors helping patients under Medicare and we also provided 
some incentives in there for better practices to reduce overall costs 
to the Medicare Program. We paid for it by looking at the Medicare 
Advantage Program. The Medicare Advantage Program allows private 
insurance companies to offer Medicare benefits. The Republicans have 
always favored that, saying that creates a competitive atmosphere. 
Medicare competes against private health insurance when it comes to 
basic Medicare coverage. As a footnote, it is ironic that they would 
welcome this kind of competition from Medicare, but fought us tooth and 
nail when we tried to bring the same competition when it came to 
prescription drugs. Nevertheless, we said this Medicare Advantage 
Program costs too much money for the services provided. We have had 
expert testimony that it is about 13 percent more expensive for private 
health insurance companies to offer the same benefits as the Medicare 
Program. We took savings from that program and paid for the increase in 
pay for doctors under Medicare.
  We didn't add to the deficit. I suppose that is why the Republicans, 
by and large, have turned on us. They don't want to pay for the actions 
they bring to the floor. They don't want to offset the costs of 
programs or tax cuts by actually balancing the books. They want to 
continue to add to our deficit.
  The vote came up today, and nine Republicans crossed the aisle to 
vote for us. Overwhelmingly, they represented Republican Senators who 
are afraid they are going to lose in the election in November. They 
came over to join us and vote for our position. The Republican 
leadership was careful not to let too many come over. So at the end of 
the day, we were unable to bring this Medicare bill to the floor for 
debate.
  So here we are at the end of a full week of the U.S. Senate, in 
Washington, DC, in our capital, on Capitol Hill, and we are beset by a 
world about us in turmoil, with the war in Iraq; we have a nation that 
is torn by energy prices, gasoline prices, and diesel prices; we have 
Americans concerned about their health care, and when we try three 
different times to bring to the floor of the Senate measures that 
address these challenges, each and every time the Republicans answered 
with a filibuster and stopped us from acting.
  The sad reality is that the GOP, the Grand Old Party, has become a 
``Graveyard of Progress.'' I am afraid that is what GOP stands for 
these days. They cannot face the possibility of change. They are 
frightened by it, determined to stop it. They have stopped it with 76 
filibusters, which is a recordbreaking number of filibusters in the 
Senate.
  Well, we could not come up with 60 votes to turn that around; there 
are not enough Democratic Senators. The final word will be in the hands 
of the voters in November, on November 4. They can decide whether they 
want change in Washington, change in the Senate, or more of the same. 
They are going to have that opportunity in a series of elections. I 
hope those who follow this debate and believe this Government, working 
in a constructive bipartisan way, can achieve good things, will 
remember that when they go to the polls in November.
  Let me say as well, Mr. President, that I have watched this 
Presidential campaign carefully because my colleague from Illinois, 
Senator Obama, is now, as they say, the ``presumptive Democratic 
nominee'' for the Presidential nomination. A long campaign awaits us, 
almost 5 months. Senator McCain is a substantial and formidable 
opponent in this election campaign. But make no mistake, the voters are 
going to have a clear choice in this election about who will represent 
them in the White House for the next 4 years.
  We are also initiating the first national dialog on health care 
reform in 15 years. For 7\1/2\ years, the Bush administration has 
summarily ignored the major problems facing America. When President 
Bush gets up in the morning and looks out the window of the White 
House, all he sees is Iraq. For 7\1/2\ years, that has been the focus 
of his attention and the centerpiece of his energy. I will tell you, 
there are many other things this President ignored at the peril of our 
great Nation. His economic policies have brought to us a sorry state.
  Last Friday, we had the terrible announcement about a dramatic 
increase in the price of crude oil, an increase in the price of 
gasoline, a substantial increase in unemployment, and a 350-point loss 
in the Dow Jones, in the stock market. It was a sad and gloomy Friday 
across America from an economic viewpoint. But even those large 
numbers--the big numbers that come to us at the lead of any newscast 
and on the front page of the paper don't tell the true and complete 
story.
  The Senator from Vermont invited his constituents to talk about 
challenges they face as families all across his State. He has told me 
and our colleagues--and has spoken on the floor about it--that he was 
overwhelmed by the response. Ordinary people in Vermont--and I am sure 
those in Illinois are having a tough time--are struggling to pay for 
gasoline, for the increased cost of food. They understand utility bills 
are going to be challenging this summer to cool their homes, as we face 
a brutal summer in most parts of the country. They are scared to death, 
I know, in New England--because I visited there--of dramatic increases 
in the cost of home heating oil this winter. Those realities are 
translating into economic insecurity for some of the hardest working 
families in America.
  If you just could consider what has happened under the Bush 
administration to the middle of the middle class in America. These are 
folks who are working hard every day, trying to raise families, are 
playing by the rules, and they are falling further and further behind. 
These are the ones, many times, who are losing their homes because of 
subprime mortgages and deceptions which led them to an indebtedness 
they could not handle, and now they face the loss of their home, one of 
their major assets, if not their only asset. They have transferred 
their debt onto credit cards as often as they can, but they reach a 
breaking point.
  A friend of mine is on the risk committee for a major bank in this 
country. He told me that the balances on credit cards are going down 
because people realize they cannot pay any more and they cannot buy 
things they need. But the default on credit cards is going up, leading 
to even more bankruptcies. That is the reality.
  President Bush doesn't understand that reality. His economic 
policies, which are supported by John McCain, are really based on one 
basic principle: cut tax rates for the wealthiest people in America. 
They continue to believe that if wealthy people have more money, 
somehow this will translate into a better quality of life for those 
working families and middle-class families who are struggling to 
survive. Well, 7\1/2\ years of that thinking led us to this point. 
These people, faced with the Bush economic policies, are struggling to 
get by.
  The President doesn't understand the energy picture. Every 6 months, 
he

[[Page 12437]]

makes a trip to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and is seen holding hands with 
the sheiks of Saudi Arabia, begging them to release more oil into the 
United States and bring prices down. But they give him a pat on the 
back and send him off with the very curt answer of ``no.'' They tell 
him time and again that they are not going to release more oil. They 
have plenty of customers around the world and they don't need the 
United States. That is the reality and totality of the Bush energy 
policy.
  This President has yet to call in the CEOs of the major oil 
companies. In this country, these companies are reporting 
recordbreaking profits at the expense of families, businesses, farmers, 
and truckers. This President has yet to call them in and hold them 
accountable for what I consider to be pure greed when it comes to 
profit-taking. He won't call them in because, apparently, he believes 
that is the natural course of events, that some who are in a virtual 
monopoly position, providing energy and oil to this country, ought to 
have whatever profits they can reap at whatever cost to America's 
families and our future. I think the President is wrong.
  There is another issue, the issue of health care. We know that under 
this President, more people have lost health insurance than ever in our 
history. People who had health insurance lost it because they lost a 
job or they could no longer afford it. Now they are completely 
vulnerable to any illness or diagnosis that could bring them down 
tomorrow and virtually destroy all of the savings they have. The status 
quo in health care in America isn't satisfactory. The American people 
know that. Despite President Bush's inaction, they want change.
  Premiums for health insurance have been rising more than twice as 
fast as employees' wages, while this administration has been in power. 
The number of uninsured Americans has been increasing by more than a 
million people a year under President Bush. Each year, the United 
States spends about twice as much for health care per person as other 
developed nations. The closest nation in spending for health care to 
the United States per person, per capita, annually, is Luxembourg, 
which spends less than half of what we do. We spend about $7,000 per 
year on health care per person. The United States, despite all the 
money being spent, continues to score poorly on measures of the 
public's health, such as life expectancy and infant mortality.
  The challenge for this country and for the American people is making 
quality health coverage available and affordable for all Americans. We 
must take steps to improve quality and make our health care system more 
efficient so that we can get the greatest value for every health care 
dollar we spend. We have to put our health care ideas on the table and 
start the real debate about change.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have put forward some 
ideas on health care reform. I applaud them for acknowledging the need 
to change, but I am concerned with the direction in which they want to 
take us.
  One of their ideas is to create incentives for more people to buy 
health insurance in the individual insurance market. Those who support 
this idea talk about it in glowing terms. Think about it. They say you 
could choose your own health plan and keep your health plan when you 
change jobs. But they ignore the most important implication of that 
idea: You are on your own. Remember President Bush's famous ownership 
society, the ownership society that wants to privatize Social Security? 
Thank goodness that was rejected on a bipartisan basis. The model of 
the ownership society of President Bush and the philosophy behind this 
thinking is very basic: Just remember, we are all in this alone. That 
is their notion. It doesn't work. It doesn't work in life. It doesn't 
work in your family, in your community, or when it comes to health 
insurance. Anybody in a less-than-perfect health care situation doesn't 
want to be on their own. It is a place you end up when you have no 
option.
  In most States, insurers are free to tell a person they won't cover 
them for a particular medical condition. To the cancer survivor, they 
can say: Congratulations for surviving cancer; we will cover you for 
everything else that might affect you but not for cancer. Or they can 
deny coverage altogether. Many of us in this Chamber would have trouble 
finding health insurance in the individual market, if it were 
available, and it might be too expensive. This would be a health 
insurance system the Republicans support that is a great idea for the 
young, healthy, and the wealthy but not for the rest of America. It 
would move our health insurance system in the wrong direction.
  Those on the other side of the aisle are having trouble responding to 
these criticisms. They appear unwilling to require insurers to cover 
everybody, regardless of their health condition, or to require greater 
sharing of health costs between the young and the old and between the 
healthy and the sick. That would require Government regulation. They 
don't like to have the Government involved. They want the market to 
reach the conclusion. The market has already reached a conclusion when 
it comes to health care, which is that the cost of health care and 
coverage will increase every year, and it will cover less every year. 
That is what the market says, and that is what they accept.
  They are caught in a dilemma because the free market insurance 
system, without reasonable regulation, means allowing health insurers 
to enroll the healthy and exclude the sick. To get out of this 
ideological quandary, they have proposed an idea: creating high-risk 
pools for everybody insurers don't want to cover. Insurers would 
probably like that idea, to take the people for whom it is most 
expensive and put them in a separate pool.
  Today, high-risk pools exist on a small scale in 34 States. These 
State high-risk pools can serve as a life preserver for people who have 
nowhere else to turn in the current health insurance system, but they 
should not serve as a foundation of a reformed health system.
  State high-risk pools have many shortcomings. They are not often able 
to cover everybody who can't find affordable health insurance. Premiums 
are way too high. In Illinois's high-risk pool, a 50-year-old woman 
would have to pay more than $800 a month in premiums for a policy with 
a $500 deductible. Benefits are often limited. With these shortcomings, 
I cannot understand how these high-risk pools could be the bedrock of 
the Republican position when it comes to health care reform.
  Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle also want to 
allow insurers to choose which State insurance regulations they want to 
live by. Proponents say this is a way to let all insurers sell 
insurance nationwide. But if you follow this, you know that doesn't 
work. Without State regulation and basic State requirements on 
coverage, there is no guarantee of solvency and no guarantee of 
coverage when you get sick.
  If enacted, these changes would move our system in the wrong 
direction. Instead of pooling people together, those who are well and 
those who are sick, to spread the risk, Republicans would have us 
separate the healthy from those who are not healthy. Instead of helping 
people with chronic diseases, they are pushed over into high-risk pools 
with high premiums.
  The whole point of expanding health coverage is to make sure you have 
access to quality, affordable insurance. Changes to our health 
insurance system that make health insurance cheaper for some but more 
expensive for others is hardly a solution. We need to create large 
purchasing pools and offer a wide range of plans. Change the rules for 
setting premiums so that health costs are shared more broadly between 
the healthy and the sick. We need to provide a tax credit to businesses 
that step up and say: We believe the health of our employees is as 
important as the money we pay them. We are going to make a sacrifice in 
our profit taking so that our coverage extends to not only the owners 
of the company but the employees. That kind of good, responsible civic 
conduct should be rewarded in our Tax Code.

[[Page 12438]]

  I am glad we are starting to discuss health care reform again. 
Nothing is going to happen under this President. We are going to have 
to just count the days until January 20, 2009, when this President 
leaves office and another President comes to office, and the American 
people will then have a real chance for real change.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.


                               Oil Prices

  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, within the span of 1 week, the Senate 
missed three opportunities to engage in productive debate on how we can 
combat the rising price of oil, and alleviate the dangerous emission of 
greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change. It is highly 
regrettable that we have missed these opportunities, especially when it 
comes at the expense of improving the Nation's welfare.
  Americans are working harder, yet finding that their paychecks are 
not keeping up with inflation. Many are finding it difficult to pay 
their mortgages, health care expenses, and other daily needs. While 
relief, for some, is expected this July from an increase in the 
national minimum wage, more must be done to improve the lives of 
working families. Unfortunately, it has been difficult to work with 
this administration to make any meaningful changes that would assist 
working families.
  On June 10, the Senate was blocked in its attempt to further debate 
two bills offering legislative solutions to rising oil prices and our 
reliance on foreign oil. One of them, the Consumer-First Energy Act of 
2008, would have put consumers' concerns before those of the oil 
companies, by holding the companies accountable for price gouging and 
profit taking.
  Families do not need to be reminded that rising oil prices contribute 
heavily to their rising bills for energy, transportation, shopping and 
groceries. These families, for the most part, have not had a 
corresponding increase in their wages. They find themselves in 
difficult financial positions, and having to make tough choices on what 
necessities to spend their money on. This strain is even more evident 
in my home State of Hawaii.
  Hawaii depends on imported oil to supply more than 90 percent of our 
energy needs. The record-high crude oil prices cause higher processing 
charges for food and other manufactured items. The increase in cost for 
Hawaii's foods is due in large part to the higher cost of transporting 
the goods to the islands--80 percent of Hawaii's food products are 
imported via ship or airplane. Grocery prices have seen their biggest 
increase in nearly two decades.
  Furthermore, the high cost of jet fuel results in higher airfare 
prices and reduction in flights significantly limit travel for Hawaii 
residents and tourists. The reduction in visitors traveling to Hawaii 
could hurt our economy. While the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau 
is proactively working to aggressively resuscitate the market, the 
hotel occupancy in April hit a 5-year low. The city of Honolulu is 
considering raising taxi meter fares in light of record gas prices and 
the downturn in tourism.
  The administration must work with us to help our families and our 
communities by finding a way to decrease fuel prices. In addition, we 
must search for ways to reduce our dependence on oil. It is necessary 
that we continue to debate our energy future and enact appropriate 
reforms.
  Meaningful debates on three significant bills were unfortunately 
curtailed, despite the agreement of many members that we must do 
something about increasing oil prices, our reliance on foreign oil, and 
the need for cleaner energy. The aforementioned Consumer-First Energy 
Act of 2008, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008, and the 
Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008, would have helped the 
Nation move forward by continuing to invest in renewable and 
sustainable energy. Finding a solution should not be a partisan issue. 
Encouraging the development of renewable energy technologies will play 
a critical role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and our Nation's 
reliance on fossil fuels. In Hawaii, we are mindful of preserving 
natural and cultural resources. We are also aware of the powerful 
potential of nature to provide sustainable sources of energy.
  I am proud that we had bipartisan support for the Marine and 
Hydrokinetic Renewable Energy Promotion Act of 2007, which I 
introduced, and was later enacted into law as part of the Energy 
Independence and Security Act of 2007. This measure recognized that 
ocean and wave energy are viable sources of sustainable energy. We need 
to support marine renewable energy research and development of 
technologies to produce electric power from ocean waves. However, like 
many other tax credits for renewable energy, the incentives put in 
place to ensure robust investments will expire at the end of 2008. The 
Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 would have extended these 
valuable credits.
  By harnessing the Sun, wind, ocean, and geothermal power to generate 
electricity, Hawaii is trying to reduce our heavy reliance imported 
fuel and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. The vast ocean, Sun, 
wind, and land are natural elements that we, as a nation, share and 
enjoy. We must do all that we can to encourage the development and 
production of renewable and sustainable energy technologies from these 
natural resources. Achieving our goals will only be possible if we 
approach the problem as responsible stewards of our environment. 
Together, we will make an impact.
  I am committed to finding legislative solutions to ease the burden of 
increasing oil prices and to reduce greenhouse gases. As responsible 
stewards, we must do what we can to uphold the welfare of our 
environment and our Nation for the generations to come. An investment 
in the development and implementation of renewable energies is a 
significant part of the solution. I stand ready to work with others to 
enact legislation to address these concerns.

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