[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12525-12530]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    RENEWABLE ENERGY AND JOB CREATION ACT OF 2008--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 6049, 
which the clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to the Renewable Energy and Job Creation 
     Act of 2008, a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 
     1986 to provide incentives for energy production and 
     conservation to extend certain expiring provisions, to 
     provide individual income tax relief, and for other purposes.

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, for the record, it is my understanding the 
time between now and 5:30, when we vote on the motion to proceed to the 
tax extenders, has been evenly divided between the Republican and 
Democratic sides.
  I ask unanimous consent that all time--even time on the quorum 
calls--be credited to both sides equally during that period.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, in a couple of hours we are going to be 
voting again on cloture and we will be making a choice between two 
different points of view. We did this 2 weeks ago, a week ago last 
Thursday, and the result was that cloture was not invoked on the House-
passed so-called tax extenders package, and I think the same result 
will end up being the case this evening.
  It is essentially a choice between the Democratic leadership trying 
to do this in a partisan way by simply bringing up the House bill and 
trying to push that through, or getting together, as we have done in 
the past, in a bipartisan way, to ensure that the tax provisions we all 
support and we all want extended into law are done in a way that does 
not require that taxes be increased in some other part of the Tax Code.
  Republicans do not believe it makes sense to keep existing tax policy 
right where it is by having to raise taxes in another part of our 
economy, sometimes on the very same people who are paying the tax we 
are extending. Extending current tax policy is not a tax cut. Extending 
current tax policy is just that, it is maintaining the status quo, and 
we don't believe we should

[[Page 12526]]

have some rule, in effect, that says when we continue exactly what we 
have in tax rates, somehow or other we have to raise other taxes in 
order to pay for that. That doesn't make any sense.
  It is basically the difference between two philosophies. The 
Republican philosophy starts with the proposition that money belongs to 
the people--we the people--and we send a certain amount of that back to 
Washington and to our States to help run a government that we all 
understand we need to pay for. But originally the money belongs to the 
people. And the question is, How much can the people afford to give up? 
In times of economic downturn, such as we are facing today, it is not 
wise policy to take a lot of money from the private sector. In fact, we 
made a decision, the President and the Congress, to actually give back 
some of that money to the taxpayers. It was the tax rebate, the so-
called stimulus package. Some people have already received their $300 
or $600 checks. The idea is when we have an economic situation such as 
we do today, you don't take more money from the people. If anything, 
you try to help them keep what they have.
  There are those on the other side, however, the Democratic side, who 
have a different view. They start with the premise that the Federal 
Government and how much money it has and how much money presumably it 
needs--and if the Federal Government needs more money because Congress 
is spending more money--then where else are we going to get it? Well, 
we have to take it from the people. If the Federal Government has a tax 
rate or a tax policy, such as a research and development tax credit 
that expired last year and we want to continue to provide that for this 
year, these people believe we need to tax the private sector. We need 
to tax taxpayers more money in order to, in effect, make up for the 
extension of that research and development tax credit.
  Now, we don't think you have to make up for anything. You are keeping 
it exactly where it is today. You are not cutting taxes, you are 
keeping taxes right where they are. The other side says, no, we have a 
rule called pay-go, and it means even if we keep taxes exactly where 
they are today, we have to raise taxes to, in effect, pay for that. It 
is a nonsense policy. It hurts the private sector, it hurts businesses, 
it hurts American families, and it is the last thing you want to do in 
a time of economic downturn. That is why we have two different 
philosophies here. Our philosophy tonight says vote no on this cloture 
petition, because at the end of the day we all understand we are going 
to extend the current tax policy, we are going to extend the research 
and development tax credit and all of the other similar policies, but 
we don't have to raise taxes to do that. So we are not going to do 
that. There is an easy way and a hard way, in other words, to get this 
done.
  There are some other things wrong with the House bill. Even if that 
were the basic debate, there are some other reasons why we wouldn't 
want to take up the bill that is coming to us from the House in the 
first place. For one thing, it doesn't do something very important, and 
that is to extend the relief from the alternative minimum tax, or the 
so-called AMT. This was a tax originally designed to hit millionaires 
and it ended up, in effect, hitting everybody else.
  In fact, this year there are something like 23 million people--23 
million filers--who would be affected by the alternative minimum tax if 
we did not once again relieve them from that liability. So each year we 
pass a bill that says you don't have to worry about paying the AMT this 
year. Actually, last year it was 23 million and this year it is 25 
million more taxpayers who will face an unwelcome tax increase, 
averaging about $2,000 of tax liability. That, again, is absolutely the 
wrong policy in a time of economic downturn. Frankly, it is the wrong 
policy anytime.
  There is another thing wrong with the House bill. It includes a $45 
billion tax increase on certain businesses. We want people to be able 
to do business overseas as well as here in the United States. It is 
good for us when we have businesses competing abroad. About $45 billion 
of new tax increases will be piled on those businesses with two 
particular provisions of the House bill, in effect amounting to double 
taxation of the people working for those businesses when they are 
working abroad.
  Without getting into the details of that, we all understand what 
those two provisions are. They deal with deferred compensation from 
certain employers who would be treated less favorably than other 
employers in the United States, and delaying the implementation of some 
new tax rules that would allow worldwide interest for foreign tax 
credit purposes.
  Again, given the fact that we are in an economic downturn right now, 
why would we want to raise taxes, particularly on those industries we 
are encouraging to do business abroad to help bring more revenues into 
the United States? Again, these two provisions would make the United 
States less competitive, not more competitive.
  Incidentally, the administration has indicated it would veto the bill 
if these tax increases are in there. Obviously, we want to get these 
tax extenders done, and therefore don't need the delay of a 
Presidential veto, Congress sustaining the veto, and having to start 
all over again.
  Another thing wrong with the House tax package is it only extended 
the expiring provisions, such as the research and experimentation tax 
credit, for 1 year, notwithstanding that we prefer that be done for 2 
years--for the year in which they have already expired and for next 
year as well.
  It also included some new tax earmarks. What are some of these tax 
earmarks? One is it requires that projects financed with the so-called 
new clean renewable energy bonds be subject to the prevailing wages 
requirement of the Davis-Bacon Act. What this, in effect, says is if 
you have a Federal project here, you are going to have to pay a much 
higher wage rate to the people doing the work. The net result of the 
construction project is it is far more expensive than it would be if 
you could simply bid it out under normal bidding processes.
  Many reputable studies have estimated that Davis-Bacon inflates 
Federal construction costs by anywhere from 5 percent to 39 percent. I 
have seen that right in my own home State of Arizona. Rather than 
paying the Davis-Bacon wage rate for a small Federal facility in 
southern Arizona, they decided to use existing mobile homes--which was 
totally inadequate, but at least it saved money from having to do the 
Davis-Bacon construction add-ons. So if we are going to create an 
incentive to build more renewable energy production, I am not sure why 
at the very time you would want to intentionally increase the project's 
costs by subjecting it to Davis-Bacon.
  Another problem with the bill--a new tax earmark, in effect--is it 
creates a new standard deduction for property taxes, but it is 
essentially an indirect transfer because it does not prohibit local 
governments from raising their taxes, entirely offsetting any benefit 
to local taxpayers. In other words, it says you can offset certain 
State taxes. It doesn't prevent the States from increasing those taxes, 
so that in effect all of the taxpayers around the country are 
subsidizing the State that raised its taxes. The CBO suggests that, in 
general, the deduction for State and local taxes is a subsidy to 
wealthier communities. It deters States from financing local services 
with nondeductible things like user fees that are much more efficient.
  Another thing the House bill does, another one of its tax earmarks, 
is to include an unprecedented tax earmark for New York. Tax credits 
are, by design, intended for individuals and businesses that actually 
pay taxes, not cities that do not pay taxes. But in this bill, there is 
an explicit tax credit for the city of New York, which does not pay 
taxes. How does it work? What they propose to do is give a tax credit 
of $2 billion to build a new rail line from Lower Manhattan, even 
though New York has no Federal income tax liability. What they would do 
in effect is relieve the State from its payroll tax

[[Page 12527]]

liability. All employers have to pay a payroll tax. What this would do 
is, when the city of New York pays payroll taxes for people on its 
payroll, the Federal Government would pay back the city. That is a very 
bad precedent, and it should not be included in this legislation.
  But my favorite of all--we have not done enough for trial lawyers. It 
seems we need to help the poor, struggling trial lawyers, whose faces 
we have seen frequently, recently, in publications such as the Wall 
Street Journal, because they have been indicted and are going off to 
jail. But we need to help these trial lawyers because it seems it costs 
them a lot of money when they prosecute these class actions, on which 
they make hundreds of millions of dollars. They have to hire witnesses. 
They have to put out other money as expenses. That used to be a 
violation of ethics. When I went to law school, it was called champerty 
and maintenance. You couldn't do it. It was unethical for lawyers to 
pay the upfront expenses of these lawsuits because lawyers were 
explicitly not deemed to be businesses but, rather, professions. I do 
not know when the law profession failed to be a profession, but 
apparently it has because now the trial lawyers want a usual and 
ordinary business expense deduction for the expenses of these 
contingent-fee lawsuits. It is $1.6 billion. I don't think the American 
taxpayers need to be subsidizing trial lawyers to the extent of $1.6 
billion, but it is in this bill, and it is another reason we should not 
agree to take up this bill--that is to say we should deny cloture on 
this bill.
  There is a perfectly good alternative here; that is, bipartisan 
negotiation that would do similar to what we did last year, to provide 
the expiring tax relief here another year or two of extension, to 
extend the alternative minimum tax, to do these things without raising 
taxes either on the same taxpayers or on other taxpayers. We could 
provide tax relief for members of the military and veterans, incentives 
for charitable giving, a deduction for higher education expenditures 
and teacher classroom expenses, do the subpart F active financing and 
look-through exceptions. These are provisions that are very important 
for American businesses to be competitive.
  All these things are in the Republican alternative. I believe that 
because they represent good tax policy, they would be agreed to on a 
bipartisan basis. Certainly, the chairman of the Finance Committee has 
been supportive of, I think, all of these provisions as well. It would 
also extend and improve the expiring energy tax incentives for 
alternative energy production and solar power that Senators Cantwell 
and Ensign added to the housing bill. It would do all of these things 
without raising taxes.
  These are provisions that I suggest we could negotiate as soon as 
cloture is rejected on this bill.
  Let me conclude by making the point that delaying further is costly 
to taxpayers. Enacting the bill solely last year prevented more than 13 
million taxpayers from being able to file their returns and delayed 
their refunds for several weeks into the filing session. We need to get 
on with this. We need to get to the bipartisan discussions. We can 
negotiate a bill, and we can get it passed in a matter of days if we do 
that.
  Businesses need to be able to tell those with whom they do business, 
their stockholders and the people they get money from, whether they can 
take advantage of these important tax benefits such as the R&D tax 
credit. The fact that this tax credit has already expired should be 
enough to convince us that we need to do this as soon as possible. This 
helps keep American businesses competitive. It is one of the key things 
we can do. For example, France has a 50-percent R&D tax credit, and 
China offers a 150-percent deduction for R&D expenditures. Clearly, the 
United States needs to get back in this game.
  As I said before, we need to provide the AMT relief. The bickering 
between the two Houses on this is doing nothing but hurting American 
taxpayers. I think we should recognize right now it is not going to be 
subjected to pay-go. There are not going to be new taxes raised in 
order to provide relief from the AMT. I think everybody knows that.
  We might as well get to the job of negotiating a bill and getting it 
done. We have already voted three times in support of this policy, once 
at the end of last year--that vote was 88 to 5. Last month, we extended 
the energy tax extenders, 88 to 8. And last week in the cloture vote 
that I indicated, that failed 50 to 46. I think it is clear we can get 
to the end of this. Everybody agrees we need to do so. It is just a 
question of how and a question of time. We can do it the easy way. We 
can do it the hard way. We can either get it done now or we can take a 
lot of time. I think most of us and most of our taxpaying constituents 
agree it would be better if we can get it done now, if we can do it the 
easy way, and they can begin planning for their futures.
  I urge all our colleagues at our 5:30 vote to vote no again. We took 
this vote before. The vote should not be any different. Once that is 
done, we can get down to the bipartisan negotiations that will actually 
result in legislation that we can pass and the President can sign and 
that will be to the advantage of American taxpayers.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Webb pertaining to the introduction of S. 3140 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. WEBB. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 20 
minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator is recognized.


                                 Energy

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I was on one of the Sunday weekend shows 
and was joined by one of my colleagues on the Republican side. The 
discussion on that program was about oil and gas prices and energy 
development. My colleague on the Republican side quite predictably 
said: Well, the problem is the Democrats do not want to produce any 
more oil. They stand in the way of producing oil.
  It is such a canard. I wanted to come to the floor to talk about that 
a bit and also to talk about the fact that we are going to vote at 5:30 
today on energy tax credits for renewables. Then we will see who in 
this Chamber does want to produce some energy, because we have had 
chances before, and the Republican side of the aisle, the minority 
side, has blocked our ability to produce.
  I want to talk a little bit about that. I know they tend to think 
that unless you are sinking a hole in the ground someplace and sucking 
oil out someplace on the planet, you are not producing. Well, I happen 
to believe there are plenty of places to begin producing additional oil 
in this country. But drilling alone is not going to solve our problem. 
There are other things we must do that represent change that my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle simply cannot embrace; that 
is, being aggressive on renewable forms of energy, wind energy, solar 
energy, biomass, and biofuels. It goes on and on. They do not consider 
that additional production, I guess.
  Let me talk first about this issue of the alternative and renewable 
forms of energy. In 1916 this country put in place robust, permanent 
tax incentives to say to people: If you go looking for oil and gas, 
good for you, we want you

[[Page 12528]]

to do it. We are going to give you some big tax breaks. That was put in 
place almost a century ago.
  Here is what this country has done for renewable energy. In 1992 they 
put in place a production tax credit, a short-term, fairly shallow tax 
incentive if you want to produce renewable energy. It has been extended 
five times since 1992, short term. It has been allowed to expire three 
times. So we have had the stutter-stop, stutter-start approach to 
dealing with the production tax credit for renewable energy.
  This chart shows what happens every single time it has not been 
extended. The investment falls off the shelf. Last year, last June, we 
had a bill on the floor of the Senate that said, let us extend this for 
a long period.
  I have a bill I introduced that said, I think the Congress and this 
country should say here is where we are headed. For 10 years we have 
been so dependent on the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the Iraqis, the 
Venezuelans, and others for oil. Sixty percent of our oil comes from 
off our shores. We need to be less dependent, and one way to do that is 
to produce renewable energy right here at home.
  So last June we put a bill on the floor of the Senate that said, for 
5 years you can count on the production tax credit to pursue incentives 
for wind and solar and all of those kinds of renewable energies that 
are available to us. Here is the tax incentive for you for the next 
half of a decade.
  Guess what. Thirty-four Republicans voted against it and killed it. 
They did not want to do that. Now they are talking about how much they 
want to produce energy. Well, let me talk about this production of 
energy. I happen to think, one voice here, we ought to produce in the 
eastern Gulf of Mexico.
  If you take a look at where the oil is, the hood ornament for their 
discussion is always ``ANWR,'' one of the most pristine areas in 
America, set aside in legislation signed by Dwight D. Eisenhower. The 
other side always says, well, ANWR, we have got to produce in ANWR.
  Even John McCain votes against producing in ANWR. John McCain said, I 
do not think you ought to produce in the Everglades, in the Grand 
Canyon, I do not think you ought to drill in ANWR. So enough about 
that.
  If you take a look at where the oil is, on the outer continental 
shelf in the Gulf of Mexico, off the west coast, off of Alaska, by far 
the most significant reserves of oil are in the Gulf of Mexico, both 
the western gulf and the eastern gulf.
  The area off of Florida in the eastern gulf ought to be open, in my 
judgment. But even more interesting are the Cuban waters just south of 
Florida. Many countries have leases to drill off Cuba's coast, 
including Spain, Canada, India. China is actually drilling onshore in 
Cuba, but we expect China to be wanting to drill offshore also. Our oil 
companies want to drill there. There is estimated to be half a million 
barrels a day production off Cuba. But we cannot produce there. Our 
companies cannot go in because we have this embargo with respect to 
Cuba, and the Bush administration is insistent on tightening the 
embargo rather than loosening the embargo. So there are half a million 
barrels a day of production there that our companies cannot go get.
  Now, my colleagues introduced a piece of legislation on the 
Republican side for additional production, but it does not include 
producing in the eastern Gulf or off of Cuba. They do not want to 
produce there. So are they for production? Is that what they are 
talking about, or is this a big sham? We know they do not want to 
produce sustainable amounts of renewable energy because they have voted 
against it. They say they are voting against it because the bill 
increases taxes.
  Let me tell you what it increases. It says to big hedge fund managers 
that they should invest in renewable energy because the government is 
going to invest in them over the long-term. By the way, the person who 
runs hedge funds and made the most income last year made $3.7 billion. 
If you are wondering, that is going home to say: Honey, I had a pretty 
good month, I made $308 million this month. That is making enough so 
that 4 minutes of work equals the average working man's salary for an 
entire year.
  By the way, they get to pay a 15-percent income tax rate, which I 
think is an outrage. But even more than that, they have a game in which 
they defer a portion of their income tax by moving it offshore.
  This legislation shuts that down and thereby raises the money to pay 
for some of our investment in renewable energy. The other side is upset 
about that. We are shutting down a tax scam for the wealthiest 
individuals. It is pretty unbelievable. I don't want to hear any more 
noise, deep sounds from the chest masquerading as thoughtful symbols 
from the brain, about production. The fact is, I believe in production. 
That is one part of addressing the issue. One part of it is producing 
oil. But a much more important part is renewable energy because we need 
to change the way we have been doing things.
  We are so unbelievably dependent on Saudi oil and oil coming from 
troubled parts of the world. It makes no sense. We have an enormous 
appetite for oil. We sink little straws in this planet every single day 
and suck oil out. We suck out 85 million barrels a day, and we use one-
fourth of it in a little place called the United States. Sixty percent 
of what we use comes from off our shores, much of it from troubled 
parts of the world, and almost 70 percent of that we use in vehicles.
  We need to do a lot of things here, and we need to do a lot of things 
right to make us less dependent on foreign sources of oil. We need to 
make our vehicles more efficient, to conserve energy in every single 
way, to make all of our appliances more efficient. There is so much we 
have to do right, including produce more renewable energy.
  We will have a chance in an hour and 15 minutes to vote once again on 
funding renewable energy. Most of my colleagues voted against it just 
days ago. I hope they have had some kind of epiphany recently and will 
decide that was the wrong vote and today they will cast the right vote.
  Let me talk for a moment about what people are doing today as they 
drive up to the gas pump with their vehicles. They are driving their 
car up to the pump trying to figure out: How much can I afford? I have 
to stop at the grocery store on the way home. Or: I just bought 
medicine. How much can I afford to put in the gas tank?
  They put whatever they can in that tank. And by the way, the OPEC 
nations smile all the way to the bank as they deposit our money. The 
big oil companies smile all the way to the bank as they deposit the 
rest of our money. But there is no justification for the current price 
of gas and oil. None. This market system is broken. It doesn't work.
  There are three things that are making oil more expensive: No. 1, we 
have OPEC which is a cartel. That would be illegal in our country. But 
a bunch of oil ministers get together in a closed room and make 
judgments as a cartel. No. 2, we have big oil companies--much bigger 
because they were all given the green light to merge in recent years. 
They all now have two names--ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips. They are 
bigger and stronger.
  Finally, what I want to talk about is the issue of the futures 
market, which is the third piece that is simply broken. The futures 
market is an unbelievable carnival of speculation. It is supposed to be 
an orderly market by which people can hedge who are involved in the oil 
business. Now we have hedge funds, investment banks. We have all kinds 
of speculators, who will never be interested in ever taking delivery of 
oil, engaged in the futures market and driving up the price of oil and 
gas in a way that makes it at least 20 to 30 percent higher priced than 
a normal supply-demand market would justify.
  In every month but one since January of this year, our crude oil 
stocks have increased. Let me say that again. In every month but one 
since January of this year, our inventory of crude oil stocks has 
increased. So supply is increasing.

[[Page 12529]]

  On the other hand, people are driving slightly less, and there is a 
decrease in demand. So since January, you have both an increase in 
supply and a decrease in demand. What has happened to the price of oil 
and gas? It has gone up like a Roman candle. That means the market is 
broken.
  Let me talk a little bit about what I think is happening in this 
market. Let me put up a picture of NYMEX. This is where they trade some 
of these oil commodity stocks. Some of it is what I call dark money, 
traded on exchanges that are not regulated or over the counter and 
can't be seen. This is the way it looks.
  Let me quote Clarence Cazalot, CEO of Marathon Oil. He said last 
year:

       $100 oil is not justified by the physical demand in the 
     market.

  Stephen Simon, senior vice president of Exxon said:

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

  Right now oil is flirting with $140 a barrel.
  Let me say, when Exxon is going to the bank with our money to make a 
deposit, they have to be happy. But they are not using that money to 
invest in new production. In 2007, they used $31 billion of profit to 
buy back their stock and only $15 billion to invest in new drilling. 
They used twice as much money to buy back their stock in the stock 
market as they did to explore for new oil.
  From the New Jersey Star Ledger:

       Experts, including the former head of Exxon Mobil, say 
     financial speculation in the energy markets has grown so much 
     over the last 30 years it now adds 20 to 30 percent or more 
     to the price of a barrel of oil.

  A man named Fidel Gheit, who testified before the Energy Committee, 
has worked for 30 years with Oppenheimer Company. He is the senior 
energy person at Oppenheimer. He says:

       There is absolutely no shortage of oil. I'm absolutely 
     convinced that oil prices shouldn't be a dime above $55 a 
     barrel. I call it the world's largest gambling hall . . . 
     It's open 24/7.

  Unfortunately, it's totally unregulated. This is like a highway with 
no cops and no speed limit and everybody is going 120 miles an hour.
  With that backdrop, here is what has happened to the amount of 
speculation in the commodities market. It has gone up, up, and up just 
exactly like the price of oil and gas.
  The question is, should the Congress do nothing about this or should 
the Congress do something? If the answer is the Congress should do 
something, then what? My belief is we have a responsibility to do 
something. Many of my colleagues believe it as well. There is nothing 
wrong with speculation. Markets often work with speculators. But when 
speculation becomes excessive, there is something wrong because the 
market then doesn't work.
  Will Rogers described this sort of thing 80 years ago. He described 
people buying things they will never get from people who never had it 
and making money on both sides of the transaction. I guess that is all 
right if the speculation is not doing something that damages the 
American economy or injures most American consumers. But these are not 
free markets. There is no free market. I hear all these folks talking 
about: You have a free market. What you really need is more production. 
Sink a few wells here and there.
  But they are not even genuine about that, as I just described to you. 
They are not very interested in sinking wells off the coast of Florida, 
for example. Let me show that chart again. I know why, when the 
minority party put up their proposal, they didn't want to sink wells in 
the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, which offers a significant opportunity. One 
of their Members, one of their Senators, is concerned about drilling 
off of Florida, so they leave that off their list. I know why they 
don't want to suggest that we should be able to drill for oil off of 
Cuba. Spain has a lease to drill off of Cuba. Canada also has a lease. 
India has a lease to drill off of Cuba. I know why the minority isn't 
pushing to allow American companies to drill off of Cuba. President 
George W. Bush is the one who says we can't do that. So they don't want 
to talk about subjects that are uncomfortable. They just want to bleat 
about the issue of ``production'' from their standpoint.
  Production means a number of things. Production means, yes, producing 
some more oil. The largest assessment in history of the lower 48 States 
of recoverable oil was made 2 months ago by the U.S. Geological Survey 
at my request. They studied what is called the Bakken shale in Montana 
and North Dakota. There is dramatic new drilling and a lot of 
additional production there right now. They concluded that 3.6 to 4.3 
billion barrels of recoverable oil, using today's technology, exists. I 
support drilling in the Bakken. We are drilling. We have some 70 to 80 
drilling rigs active in the Bakken shale right now. But we are going to 
vote at 5:30 on another question of production. Then I want to see who 
comes to the floor to talk about production in the future.
  Do they really want to produce enough renewable energy to help us 
reduce our dependence on Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Iraq and 
Venezuela? I hope so.
  We have to get over this notion that the only kind of production that 
matters is sinking a well someplace. We could produce, and have been 
producing, billions of gallons of fuel for vehicles in farm fields. We 
are now up very close to 9 billion gallons, and we are headed much 
higher than that. We also can produce substantial electricity from 
wind, except that when we try to do anything other than increase the 
production tax credit by 12 months, the other side objects. Again, 
whether it is a production tax credit for wind or solar energy or other 
renewable energy sources, this Congress and this country ought to not 
just talk about 12 months. We ought to say: Here is where America is 
headed. We understand this is a serious problem. We believe we are 
going to produce substantial amounts of renewable energy. Other 
countries have done it.
  Brazil is an example. We are going to do this in a way that allows 
all of us to understand we must be less dependent on foreign sources of 
oil.
  We can do that. We went to the Moon in 9 years. Do you think we can't 
find a way to be less dependent on foreign oil? I believe we can. But 
we can't do it, if at 5:30 today the minority still objects to having 
hedge fund managers who make billions pay their fair share of taxes and 
objects to what we would use that money to pay for, and that is 
extending the renewable energy tax credits so that we become less 
dependent on foreign oil and produce more energy from renewable forms 
of energy. That is just a fact.
  At 5:30 today we will have plenty of opportunity to see who really 
supports additional production. I hope, on a bipartisan basis, we might 
be joined by the minority and see if we can't put this country on a 
track to produce much more energy from renewable sources.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.


                              Trade Policy

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, the goal of trade policy is to lift up 
workers at home and abroad. Americans support trade, plenty of it, but 
trade that allows small businesses and manufacturers to thrive. Wrong-
headed trade pacts following the failed NAFTA model have too often 
betrayed middle-class families from Lima to Zaynesville, from New York 
to California, and destroyed communities in rural and urban areas. In 
my State, more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared since 
2001. Many of them, most of them, have gone overseas. Across the 
country, more than 3 million manufacturing jobs since President Bush 
took the oath of office have been eliminated. Trade policy hurts 
communities such as Ashtebula and Middletown, Toledo and Findlay, and 
Mansfield and Tiffin. That is why voters in Ohio have sent a message 
loudly and clearly demanding a new direction, a very different 
direction for our Nation's trade policy.
  Over the last 8 years, we have had, at best, a fractured approach to 
trade. In the last 2 years, since voters elected candidates who support 
smart, fair trade--not this orthodox free trade

[[Page 12530]]

which clearly has not worked--Congress has reasserted itself in trade 
policymaking with some--I underscore ``some''--improvements to proposed 
deals with Peru, Panama, Colombia, and South Korea. We have also chosen 
on behalf of workers not to grant President Bush a renewal of fast 
track, of trade promotion authority so the President can continue his 
failed trade policy.
  The American public said no in 2006. This Congress--the Senate and 
across the building in the House--said no to this continued failed 
trade policy. Yet these improvements we have made have not rebuilt a 
consensus on good trade policy. We have opposed bad trade policy. We 
need to build a consensus on a different direction.
  Now more than ever Americans reject the current model. It is time to 
learn from our mistakes, to make plans to fix them in future 
agreements. The Trade Reform, Accountability, Development, and 
Employment Act--the TRADE Act--which Senator Dorgan, Senator Feingold, 
Senator Casey, Senator Whitehouse, and I introduced this month--is a 
step toward that change.
  This legislation serves as a template for how to craft a trade 
agreement that works for workers, for business owners, for our 
neighborhoods, for our communities, and for our country.
  This legislation mandates a Government Accountability Office review 
of existing trade agreements and will require the President to submit 
renegotiation plans for those agreements before negotiating any new 
agreements--basically a timeout before we pass more of these NAFTA-
style, NAFTA-modeled trade agreements.
  The TRADE Act will create a committee comprised of House and Senate 
leaders who will review the President's plan for renegotiation. The 
bill spells out standards for future trade agreements and will protect 
developing nations from exploitation by drug companies, energy 
companies, and financial institutions.
  The TRADE Act also sets out criteria for a new negotiating process--
one that would do away with the fundamentally flawed fast-track trade 
promotion process and return power to Congress, which is what our 
Constitution says, when considering our Nation's trade pacts.
  No more charging the President, if you will, with negotiating these 
trade agreements behind closed doors, with lobbyists for financial 
interests and banks and insurance companies and oil companies and 
pharmaceutical companies standing outside the door, passing notes to 
these trade negotiators.
  We take for granted our clean air, safe food, and safe drinking 
water. But these blessings are not by chance. They result from rules 
and laws about wages, about health, about the environment. Flawed trade 
policy, as we now know, accelerates the importation of toxic toys, 
contaminated toothpaste, and poisonous pet food--ingredients that kill 
people in drugs such as heparin.
  It does not have to be this way. We have a choice. We can continue a 
race to the bottom in wages, worker safety, and environmental and 
health standards. We know what that race to the bottom means. It means 
lost manufacturing jobs. It means the stagnation of wages. It means 
importing toxic toys from China. It means importing the ingredients 
that come to us in heparin and other drugs that have literally killed 
Americans. Or we can use trade agreements to lift up standards abroad 
and in this country--not threaten workers and consumers.
  We can continue down the path of the failed NAFTA model or we can 
negotiate trade agreements that result in the creation of manufacturing 
jobs, increased wages, and a reduction of the trade deficit by 
providing fair and transparent market access.
  We can use our trade laws as a chit in negotiations or we can 
preserve the ability of the United States to enforce domestic trade 
laws to address the negative impacts of currency manipulation, 
financial instability, and high debt burdens on U.S. trade 
relationships.
  We can continue to use trade deals to lock in--to lock in--
protections for Wall Street, the drug companies, and the oil companies 
or we can create a predictable structure for international trade 
without providing corporations with overreaching privileges and rights 
of private enforcement that undermine our laws.
  Middle-class families, American manufacturers, farmers, and community 
leaders across this country know we need a very different direction in 
trade. The TRADE Act is supported by more than a dozen labor unions, 
both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win. It is supported by the Sierra Club, 
the National Farmers Union, and the National Family Farm Coalition.
  We know a different direction in trade policy in this country is 
supported by a coalition of religious leaders, human rights activists, 
advocates for children and families, environmental groups, family farm 
groups, and labor groups.
  I am going to ask my leadership and my caucus to work with me on this 
legislation. I look forward to working with my allies on the other side 
of the aisle to work with me in restoring our trade policy--fair trade, 
smart trade, a very different direction for our country.

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