To require that certain legislation relating to clean energy technologies not increase electricity or gasoline prices or increase the overall burden on consumers.

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR
2010--Resumed

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will proceed to the consideration of S. Con. Res. 13, which the
clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

A concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 13) setting forth the
congressional budget for the United States Government for
fiscal year 2010, revising the appropriate budgetary levels
for fiscal year 2009, and setting forth the appropriate
budgetary levels for fiscal years 2011 through 2014.

Pending:

Thune amendment No. 731, to amend the deficit-neutral
reserve fund for climate change legislation to require that
such legislation does not increase electricity or gasoline
prices.
Johanns amendment No. 735, to prohibit the use of
reconciliation in the Senate for climate change legislation
involving a cap-and-trade system.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, let me start this morning by commending
Chairman Kent Conrad for his leadership of our Budget Committee and
especially for the hundreds of hours he and his staff have dedicated to
getting this budget done and accommodating both the priorities and
concerns of so many of us in this body. Putting together a budget is
never an easy process, but I believe our chairman has achieved a good
balance that will set

[[Page S4010]]

us on a course to both reducing our deficit and investing in the areas
that we know will make us stronger in the future--energy, health care,
and education.
I know that in addition to his work on this budget, this is a
particularly difficult time for the State of North Dakota and the
families and businesses there. I want to say to Chairman Kent Conrad,
who will be on the floor shortly, that all of our hearts go out to him
and his State as they struggle with these horrific storms that are
going through his area.
A budget is a statement of priorities. Ours is very clear: We put the
middle class first, and we get our country back on track by investing
in our future.
To be clear, we have inherited some very great challenges. We now
face the worst economic crisis in generations. Since December 2007, we
have lost 4.4 million jobs, including 2.6 million of those in the past
4 months. So before we consider where we are going, it is important to
talk a little bit about where we have been.
For weeks now, my friends on the other side of the aisle have been
bemoaning deficits and debt with not a moment of consideration for
their own record on those issues. Back in 2001, Republicans controlled
the full power of our Government. Under the leadership of President
Bush and Republicans in Congress, record surpluses created under
President Clinton became record deficits. These Republican deficits
grew and grew and now today add up to trillions of dollars in new debt
that is going to be shouldered by future generations of Americans.
With this perspective, I hope our Republican friends will start
acknowledging and owning up to the fact that we now have two choices.
Choice 1 is to continue down the Republican deficit path, no
investments in our future, a widening gap between the rich and the
middle class, and more massive deficits. Choice 2 is represented in the
budget before us today: improve the economy by investing in energy,
education, and health reform so that we as a country are stronger in
the future; cut taxes for our middle class and address the deficit so
that our children do not bear the burden of bad decisions today.
After 8 years of the Bush administration's shortsighted budgets and
misplaced priorities, we are now working with President Obama to invest
in our needs and to chart a new course for America. We are choosing a
new path.
The American people deserve an economic plan that works for everyone
in this country. Our budget makes responsible choices that will help
get this country's economy rolling again. I came to the floor today to
talk about a few of those priorities and choices we have made.
We face pressing transportation needs across our country, and
maintaining and creating new infrastructure is key to this country's
economic strength.
Just a couple of months ago, the American Society of Civil Engineers
issued its annual report card on the condition of America's
infrastructure, and the results were very dismal. The leading experts
on the state of our Nation's infrastructure have reduced the grade
point average of our entire system of roads and bridges and mass
transit to a D--that is ``D'' as in dog. Our Nation's roads also got a
D-minus since a third of our major roads are considered to be in poor
and mediocre condition, and more than a third of our urban highways are
congested. American families today spend about 4.2 billion hours a year
stuck in traffic, and that is costing our economy almost $80 billion in
lost productivity each and every year. These roads are in every one of
our States. It is time to fix them.
As we are all aware, the available funding balance in the highway
trust fund is falling rapidly. Thankfully, in our budget the
transportation reserve fund will provide the mechanism that will allow
us to reform our transportation financing system and provide the kinds
of spending levels in the upcoming Transportation authorization bill
that are going to be necessary to maintain our highways and our transit
systems. Fixing our transportation is about getting our economy strong,
but it is about safety as well. I think all of us remember when that
Minnesota bridge went down. We do not want to see that again. It is
time to fix our roads and our transportation. This budget takes a major
step forward.
Second, education. We all know and we all say that education is the
key to our future strength. In this new global economy we exist in, a
good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity; it is a
requirement for success. We will not recover and be strong in the long
term unless we both create jobs and make sure America's workers have
the education and skills to fill those jobs we create. So this budget
invests strongly in education and in ensuring that American students do
not fall behind as they make their way into this global marketplace.
This budget helps retrain America's workers for careers in high-
growth and emerging industries such as health care or renewable energy
or energy-efficient construction so that those workers can stay in the
middle class. We increase Pell grants and make tax credits for tuition
permanent. We want all students to achieve a postsecondary education,
whether it is through a registered apprenticeship or through a
community college or university, and this budget helps take us in that
direction.
As a nation, we have to change the way we think about preparing young
people for careers today, starting with making education work better.
This current economic crisis has cost us dearly.
Every weekend I go home to Washington State, I hear about another
business closing, another family who has lost their job, another senior
citizen who does not know how they are going to make it. So we all know
that if we make changes and we make smart investments, that is how we
are going to move our country forward again and give confidence back to
the American people that we are a strong country. Investing in
education is one of those smart investments. We do that in this budget.
Our health care system--something we all talk about--is broken. We
know it needs real reform. Today, we have a historic opportunity to
finally tackle that challenge. These investments we make in health care
are not luxuries; they are essential to our future strength. That is
why we need to prioritize the health profession's workforce and access
to quality health care in our rural areas, and we have to ensure that
preventive measures are given priorities so that American families are
not left with giant bills for expensive care down the road.
Some critics of this budget argue that now is not the time to tackle
health care reform. I believe that is very shortsighted reasoning.
There is a direct connection between our Nation's long-term prosperity
and developing health care policies that stem the chronic bleeding in
business and in our State and national budgets across the country.
Mr. President, there was a recent editorial in the Everett Herald, a
hometown newspaper in my State, that made this point, and I want to
read it to you. It says:

Yes, the economy is the most urgent challenge. But our
broken health care system and addiction to oil threaten to
become our long-term undoing.
They're all intertwined. Failing to find solutions to our
long-term problems will likely stunt future economic
expansions, creating longer and deeper downturns.

That is not something any one of us wants to see, which brings me to
our next investment. As we are all aware, energy issues are some of the
most pressing facing our Nation today. Our dependence on foreign oil
has left us beholden to other nations as middle-class families have
paid the price at the pump. By making renewable energy a priority in
this budget, we can reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy
in the future and help create green jobs here at home and leave a
cleaner environment for future generations. These are smart investments
in this budget.
In an issue near and dear to my heart, I commend both the committee
and President Obama for finally making our veterans a priority in this
budget process. Our men and women in uniform and their families have
served and sacrificed for our Nation. After years of being underfunded
and overshadowed, this budget finally does right by them. I again
commend Senator Conrad, the budget chairman, and President Obama for
putting this issue forward.

[[Page S4011]]

This budget is finally honest with the American people about the cost
of war, not just by paying for veterans care but by paying for the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan, on budget, for the first time since they
started--over 6 years ago.
I also wish to note that this budget meets our commitment to nuclear
waste cleanup in my State and across the country. Workers at Hanford
Nuclear Reservation and residents of that community sacrificed many
years ago to help our Nation win World War II. Hanford and those other
sites are now home to millions of gallons of waste. Our Government
needs to live up to its promise to clean them up, and this budget
rightfully does that.
Let me talk a minute about agriculture because agricultural
production is the largest industry for many States across the country,
as it is in my State, with farming and ranching. Protecting our
agricultural sector is critical to our economy, to our environment, and
to our quality of life. We need to work to keep our rural communities
strong and to ensure a bright future for all our farm families.
Production agriculture--such as Washington State's wheat farming--is a
very volatile business and a workable safety net, such as in the farm
bill, is vital to the security of our family farms.
I have long supported the Market Access Program, which provides funds
for our producers to promote their products overseas and expanding
international markets. These are critical for our agricultural
communities today as they try to compete in a global economy.
Especially in these difficult economic times, when our foreign
competitors are trying to limit our market access with high tariffs,
the last thing we should be doing is cutting programs such as the
Market Access Program, which will help our growers in a competitive
global marketplace. As we work to get our country back on track, I am
going to continue to find ways to support one of the staples of our
economy and that is our agricultural community.
America has paid dearly for the Bush administration's failure over
the last 8 years to invest in our country and to invest in our people.
We don't have to tell that to the American people today. They are
waking up every single day and seeing rising health care costs, pink
slips, a crumbling infrastructure and bills and mortgages they can't
afford to pay. We tried it the other way for the last 8 years. Now it
is time to invest in America again. It is time to give our middle class
a break and it is time for honesty and it is time for bold decisions.
This budget that Senator Conrad and the Budget Committee have brought
to all of us to consider today isn't perfect, of course--no budget is--
but what it does do is extremely important. It invests in our future--
our future, America's future--and puts this country back on track.
I wish to thank Senator Conrad, again, and his committee for working
so hard to bring this budget forward to us, and I look forward to
supporting it when we pass it later this week.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader is
recognized.

Auto Bailout Plan

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the significance of the U.S. auto
industry as the symbol of American creativity, industriousness, and
prosperity is hard to overstate. So is the importance of its continued
survival to millions of American workers who design, build or sell our
cars here and around the world. This is precisely why many of us have
been insisting for years that management and labor take the tough but
necessary steps to keep these companies viable not only in a recession
but also in good times.
Unfortunately, many of these tough decisions have been put off time
and again, and the day of reckoning has come for two of the big three
automakers. Yesterday, the administration announced that GM and
Chrysler had failed to come up with viable plans for survival, despite
tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts aimed at avoiding this
very situation.
The immediate result of this failure on the part of the automakers
was the administration's decision to fire GM'S CEO and the promise of
even more bailout money if these companies take the same kinds of steps
Republicans have been demanding, literally, for years. Last fall, when
the recession took hold, Republicans said emergency support was
justifiable for entities whose failure threatened to paralyze the
Nation's entire economy. Taxpayer support for individual industries was
not. Our reasoning was, taxpayers should understand an effort to save
an entire credit system--literally the lifeblood of the Main Street
economy--but they wouldn't support the Government picking winners and
losers based on political or regional calculations.
While no one takes pleasure in the continued struggles of the
automakers, those warnings and that principle appear to have been
vindicated by recent events. If our proposal had prevailed last fall,
these two companies would have been forced to make the serious
structural changes that billions of dollars in taxpayer money since
then have not been able to produce. Republicans said the expectation of
bailouts disincentivizes reform, and it appears we were absolutely
right.
In early December, I said a tentative compromise between labor and
management didn't go nearly far enough; what was needed was a firm
commitment on the part of these companies to reform either in or out of
bankruptcy, get their benefit costs under control, make wages
competitive with foreign automobile makers immediately, and end the
practice of paying workers who don't work. I also said automakers had
to rationalize dealer networks in response to the market.
The previous administration took a different view. It said an
emergency infusion of taxpayer money would be enough to force these
companies and labor leaders to act. The current administration agreed
with that assessment, and last month, when the automakers came back
again for more money, the current administration complied with an
additional $5 billion infusion of taxpayer dollars. The latest infusion
appears to have had little or no effect.
Yesterday, we got the verdict: 4 months and $25 billion taxpayer
dollars after Republicans called for tough but needed reform, the
automakers are no further along than they were in December. As a
result, the current administration has decided the bailouts can't go on
forever, although they are still putting the cutoff date well into the
future. The taxpayer regret for this bailout is that it could have cost
a lot less than $25 billion. The answer to this problem was obvious
months ago.
Throughout this debate, some have tried to propagate the falsehood
that this is a regional issue; certain Senators oppose bailout because
domestic automakers don't operate in their States. If that were true, I
certainly wouldn't be standing here. Thousands of Kentuckians work at
Ford assembly plants in Louisville, thousands more work for domestic
suppliers throughout Kentucky, and for more than 30 years, every
Corvette in America has rolled off a production line in Bowling Green,
KY.
Those of us who oppose unlimited bailouts for struggling automakers
don't want these companies to fail. We want them to succeed. If our
proposals had been adopted, we believe they would be in a much better
position to do so.
Hard-working autoworkers at places such as Ford and GM in Kentucky
have suffered because of the past decisions of unions and management.
It is not their fault labor and management made the decisions that put
them in this mess. It is no coincidence that Ford--the only U.S.
automaker that has refused taxpayer bailout money to date--is also the
most viable, even after the financing arm of one of its bailed-out
competitors used taxpayer funds to provide its customers with better
financing deals. Companies that make the tough choices and steer their
own ship are better off in the short and the long term.
Everyone wants the domestic automakers to get through the current
troubles and to thrive. But it is going to take more than tough talk
after the fact or the firing of CEOs. It is encouraging to see the
administration is coming around to our point of view. It is a shame the
taxpayers had to put up $25 billion to get to this point.
Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly on two of the amendments
we will be considering today on the budget. One protects Americans from
a new

[[Page S4012]]

national energy tax in the form of an increase in electricity and
gasoline prices at a time when they can least afford it, and one brings
transparency to the budget process.
The first amendment we will consider, sponsored by the junior Senator
from South Dakota, says the reserve fund in the budget resolution for
climate change cannot be used for legislation that would increase
electricity or gasoline prices for American consumers.
An increase in electricity and gas prices would disproportionately
affect people at the lower end of the economic ladder, and American
families cannot afford a tax increase at a time when many are
struggling to make ends meet. Passing this amendment would protect them
from the additional burden of the new national energy tax included in
the administration's budget.
The second amendment, sponsored by the junior Senator from Nebraska,
bars the use of reconciliation when considering climate change
legislation, thus assuring an open, bipartisan debate on this job-
killing and far-reaching proposal.
Democratic budget writers who support reconciliation know their plans
for a new national energy tax are unpopular with both Republicans and
Democrats. That is why they are trying to fast-track this legislation
down the road and prevent its critics from having their say. The
strategy of the reconciliation advocates is clear: Lay the groundwork
for a new national energy tax that could cost American households up to
$3,100 a year, keep it quiet, then rush it through Congress, leaving
transparency and debate in its wake.
Americans deserve better. They expect a full and open debate,
particularly on a piece of legislation as far-reaching as this. The
proposal by the junior Senator from Nebraska would ensure that.
Here are two Republican ideas Americans support. I would urge my
colleagues to do the same by voting in favor of both the Johanns and
the Thune amendments.
I yield the floor.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GREGG. 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. GREGG. Mr. President, I understand I now have the right to offer
an amendment, but prior to offering the amendment, I wish to make a
couple comments.
I have watched this debate develop, and it develops with a certain
tempo every year. One of the comments that has been made in the paper
by the chairman--and it was also made by the President, interestingly
enough--is that if we disagree with the budget as brought forward by
the President, we should offer our own budget. Historically, the way
this has happened is that the party in the minority has not offered a
budget. Traditionally, the party in the minority has offered a series
of amendments to try to improve the majority's budget.
That is the tack we have taken this year. That seems like a more
logical tack to me because it is a more bipartisan approach. We are
simply trying to reach out to the majority and say: Hey, listen. If you
accept this amendment and this amendment and this amendment, your
product--the budget you have brought forward--is going to be a much
better product. For example, if you reduce the amount of spending in
your bill because your bill spends too much; if you reduce the amount
of taxes in your bill because your bill taxes too much; and if you
reduce the amount of borrowing in your bill because your bill
definitely borrows too much, then the amendments which we offer to
accomplish those three points would significantly improve your bill.
In addition, we are going to offer amendments which address positive
policy initiatives. For example, we will offer an amendment to try to
improve the energy policy of our Nation by allowing Americans to
produce more American energy rather than buy it overseas, and to
conserve more American energy--which is the approach we should take. We
will allow Americans to produce more American energy by allowing more
drilling in an environmentally safe way, by allowing more nuclear
plants, by allowing more wind and solar energy, at the same time
conserving. We will offer that amendment.
We will offer an amendment to improve the budget by offering a
positive policy on health care where every American could be insured
but where we do not add another $1 trillion in spending and don't step
off on the course of nationalizing our health care system. We will
offer amendments which will try to get under control the real threat we
have as a nation, from the fiscal policy standpoint, which is the out-
year debt, the fact we will be passing on to our children debts which
are not sustainable, debts of a trillion dollars a year as far as the
eye can see. That is not sustainable. So we will offer policies in that
area, relative to trying to have a more balanced approach toward
spending around here rather than a profligate approach toward spending.
That is the approach we take to improve this budget by amendment. It
is a bipartisan approach. We are not going to set up our budget versus
their budget and have a partisan debate. We are going to suggest they
change their budget and make it a more positive document and more
bipartisan document. Interestingly enough, this is exactly the same
approach taken by the chairman when he was in the minority and I
happened to be the chairman, and I respected that approach and I did,
on occasion, ask where is your budget and he came back with his
statements, which were eloquently and brilliantly presented, that said
he would do it by amendment. In fact, they were so eloquently and
brilliantly stated I brought some of the statements here so other
Members can see the eloquence of our chairman on the subject.
March 10, 2006, when I offered a budget and I asked: Where is your
budget, Senator? And he said:

We will offer a series of alternatives by amendment.

Concise. People are concise from North Dakota. Sort of like New
Hampshire. That is why we like each other. Then he made another
statement when I asked the question where is your budget, Mr. Chairman,
and said, on March 14--a more expansive statement:

Mr. President, the chairman says we have offered no budget.

I did say that.

The chairman well knows the majority has the responsibility
to offer a budget. Our responsibility is to critique that
budget.

We have great admiration for the chairman. I listened to his words
when I was chairman. We are following that course of action. So I hope
that as we move down the road with this discussion that we have no more
statements in the newspaper to the effect there is no budget being
offered by the Republican side.
On another subject, I heard--and I listened to what the President
said on the issue of this auto bailout issue. I have deep reservations
about this. I have been a strong supporter of the initiatives that this
administration has taken trying to stabilize our financial industry.
The financial industry is the core systemic element of our economic
well-being as a nation. The availability of credit at a reasonable
price, reasonably easy to obtain, is the essence of a strong and
vibrant capitalist system. It goes to the core question of Main Street
and how you make Main Street work.
If you think of us as a body, a nation as a body, the financial
system is the blood system, it is the arteries, it is what moves the
blood through the system. So it is critical that we have a viable
financial system. I have been very supportive of the administration's
initiatives in this area. I have been very supportive of Secretary
Geithner's initiatives and I have been very supportive of Secretary
Geithner. But this idea that we should step in to underwrite the
automobile industry is something with which I have real problems. I had
problems when the prior administration did it at the end, in the final
days, and I have problems with it now. It is an important industry--no
question. But, remember, cars are produced in this country that are not
necessarily produced by these two companies, GM and Chrysler. There are
also cars produced by Ford, Toyota, Honda, BMW. A

[[Page S4013]]

variety of companies have manufacturing facilities in this country, so
it is not as though the entire system is threatened relative to
employment of the people in the auto industry. It is these specific
companies that are having problems and they are important but they are
not systemic.
Equally significant is the fact that these companies have had
problems for a long time in the production of a product that is
competitive. Before we start putting tax dollars into these companies,
there has to be a very specific plan that shows they will be viable,
that these tax dollars will not be good dollars chasing bad dollars,
and that means there has to be a plan, No. 1, to produce products
people want to buy; and, No. 2, reduces significantly the debt so the
bondholders actually take a fairly significant haircut; and, No. 3,
brings their employment contracts in line with the employment contracts
of their competitors. None of that has happened so far. It is very hard
to justify putting money into this industry in this present climate and
under the failure of proposals to come forward to accomplish that.
Something else the President said has raised a question to me. That
is, he is saying that the Government is going to insure the warranties
of these automobile manufacturers, specifically GM. Because if Chrysler
affiliates with Fiat, that would not be necessary, I presume. That is a
fairly significant step for the U.S. Government to take, that we are
going to insure the warranties on cars. Is that the business of the
Government? Is that the purpose of the Government? Does that mean we
put a new telephone line in my office in Portsmouth for people who have
problems with their transmissions? That they are supposed to call me?
Let's be honest about this. This is probably not a course of action
that makes a whole lot of sense, that the Government is going to get
into the business of underwriting the warranties of a manufacturer.
I have deep reservations about the course of action here. I do hope
before we put any more money into this--in fact, I hope we will not put
anymore money into it, but if there is more money going into it, there
is at least a clear and defined plan that shows these companies will be
viable, which means they have to put on the table a plan that shows
they are going to make products we support, that people want to buy,
bondholders are taking a fairly significant hit, and their union
contract and the legacy contracts are adjusted to be more in line with
the competition.

Amendment No. 739

On the specifics of the amendment which I am offering at this point,
I ask the clerk to report my amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Gregg] proposes an
amendment numbered 739.

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be
dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To prohibit the consideration of any budget resolution, or
amendment thereto, or conference report thereon, that shows an increase
in the public debt, for the period of the current fiscal year through
the next 10 years, equal to or greater than the debt accumulated from
1789 to January 20, 2009)

On page 68, after line 4, insert the following:

SEC. ___. LIMITATION ON BUDGET RESOLUTIONS INCREASING THE
PUBLIC DEBT.

(a) Point of Order.--In the Senate, it shall not be in
order to consider any budget resolution, or amendment
thereto, or conference report thereon, that shows an increase
in the public debt, for the period of the current fiscal year
through the next 10 years, equal to or greater than the debt
accumulated from 1789 to January 20, 2009.
(b) Form of Point of Order.--A point of order under
subsection (a) may be raised by a Senator as provided in
section 313(e) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.
(c) Waiver.--This section may be waived or suspended only
by the affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members, duly
chosen and sworn.
(d) Appeals.--An affirmative vote of three-fifths of the
Members, duly chosen and sworn, shall be required to sustain
an appeal of the ruling of the Chair on a point of order
raised under this section.
(e) Determinations of Budget Levels.--For purposes of this
section, the levels of net direct spending shall be
determined on the basis of estimates provided by the
Committee on the Budget of the Senate.
(f) Sunset.--This section shall expire on September 30,
2010.

Mr. GREGG. This is a pretty simple amendment. It comes about as a
result of one of the elements that I see as the core of the problem
with the President's budget, and that is that we, under the budget as
proposed by the President, are going to pass on to our children an
unsustainable Government and a debt which will essentially put them in
a position where their quality of life will be dramatically reduced
because of the burden of the debt they have to pay relative to the
Federal deficits that have been run up. The President's budget
doubles--you have heard this before--doubles the national debt in 5
years, triples it in 10 years. These are massive expansions in debt. It
is hard to put these numbers into context, but they represent the fact
that every household in America, by the year 2019, will have $130,000
debt on its back added as a result of this Presidency, and $6,000 of
interest payments that they will bear as a result of this Presidency.
That means the debt added to their backs and the interest added to
their backs probably will exceed their mortgage payments--to pay for
the Federal Government. So it doubles it in 5 years, triples it in 10
years. The burden will be extraordinary on our children because they
are the ones who will have to pay the cost of this. It will lead to a
decrease in the quality of life of our Nation because the burden of
paying this will lead to one of two options: Either we inflate the
currency, thus reducing the value of the dollar--and inflation is a
dangerous thing for society to have happen to it; it makes everybody's
work less valuable and it makes the products they produce more
expensive--or, alternatively, the tax burden to pay for this will have
to go so high on all Americans--this is not just the wealthy; the
wealthy already are going to be taxed under this budget--it will go so
high on all Americans that their discretionary income which they might
use to buy a house, which they might use to send their children to
college, which they might use to buy a car, to live a better lifestyle,
will be eliminated or significantly reduced, anyway, because they will
have to go through the burden of paying taxes to cover the debt that we
are running up now. We are, our generation, running it up and we are
handing it on to the next generation. It is very wrong for one
generation to do this to another generation.
We will be creating under this budget, or the President is proposing
to create under his budget, a wall of debt which goes up and up, a wall
of debt which will be sitting on top of the American economy and the
people of this country. The American people are not going to be able to
get over this wall of debt. They will run right into it and the economy
is going to run right into it, and it is going to have a devastating
impact on us.
Other countries are going to be worried about this. Other countries
that buy our debt and support our ability to function as a nation are
going to be worried about the size of this debt. In fact, the Premier
of China has already said--and he is the largest holder of American
debt instruments outside of the United States--has already said that he
is concerned about this. If China or other nations start to get
concerned and are not willing to buy our debt, then that puts us in a
difficult position because if we are going to run up all this debt and
we have nobody who can buy the debt, that is when you hit inflation.
That is when serious things happen.
We do not have to look too far to see it already happening in other
nations. Ireland. Ireland got its debt so out of kilter it just had its
credit rating reduced. A whole nation, which is considered to be a
pretty vibrant nation and which for a period was considered to be the
most vibrant economy in Europe, had its credit rating reduced. That is
a huge event for Ireland and it reflects the fear that the Irish
economy will not be able to support the deficits and the debt that are
being run up.
How large was the Irish debt and deficit that led to this credit
rating--credit downgrade? Their deficit was 12.4 percent of GDP. You
say that is pretty darn high, no wonder the credit rating agencies said
the Irish debt may not be sound or as sound as other nations.

[[Page S4014]]

How high is our deficit going to be? Under this budget resolution,
this year it is already going to be 12.2 percent. We are closing in.
Under the President's budget proposal, it will exceed 13 percent this
year if the proposals in his budget are enacted. We are closing in on
the Irish situation. We are spending a lot of money we do not have and
we are running up a lot of debt we can not afford. In fact, stated
another way, if you look at all the debts, all the deficit and all the
debt run up on the United States since the beginning of our country--
1789, when we began running up debt, that is when George Washington was
President--this is a picture of all the Presidents here. If you look at
all the debt they ran up on our Nation from George Washington through
people such as Buchanan, Polk, Lincoln, of course, Grant, Garfield,
Wilson, Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, right up through George W.
Bush--all the debt run up by all these people, all these Presidents
throughout all their administrations, the President of the United
States, President Obama, is suggesting that he, under his budget, we
should double that--double this cumulative debt run up on our country
since 1789 in about the first 5 years of his Presidency.
That is incredible. That is an incredible explosion in debt. It gets
back to this chart I held up that says we are going to double the debt
in 5 years under this Obama proposal--President Obama's proposal--and
triple it in 10 years. It is incredible.
I do not think that is affordable. I don't think our Nation can do
that. So I have offered the amendment I call the 1789 amendment. We are
going to refer to it as the 1789 amendment. Actually it says there will
be a point of order against a budget that proposes that the debt of
this Nation should be doubled during the period of that budget--that if
that debt would double, that a budget which would propose that debt
would double the amount of debt run up since 1789 through January 20,
2009--if a budget comes to this floor which doubles the debt of the
United States, which has been run up since 1789, through 2009--run up
under all the Presidents of the United States prior to President Obama,
there would be a point of order against that budget.
Does a point of order mean the budget can't be passed? No. The budget
can be passed. It is just going to take 60 people to pass it rather
than 51. That seems reasonable, that if you are going to leave our
children with a doubling of the debt in 5 years and a tripling of the
debt in 10 years, that you ought to be willing to get 60 votes to do
that.
The reason for this, of course, is to highlight and make it clear to
the American public what we are doing to ourselves. I do not expect to
win the point of order very often--especially if my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle have 58 votes. But that point should be made so
the American people see in a very clear way what is happening to them.
That is what this is about--making it very clear to the American people
that if the deficits are going to go up in this way, that if a
President proposes to run a $1-trillion-a-year deficit for 10 straight
years on average--$1 trillion, think about that for a moment, a $1
trillion a year deficit for 10 straight years on average--wow. We used
to get concerned around here, and rightly so, whether we were running a
deficit in the range of $200 billion.
We are now talking about $1 trillion a year under this President's
budget, as the deficit that is proposed. Five to 6 percent of the gross
national product will be deficit spending, with the practical
implication that it adds to the debt almost $9.3 trillion, tripling the
debt, taking the debt as a percentage of GDP up past 80 percent, which
is an unsustainable number. It is so unsustainable, in fact, that we
wouldn't even be able to get into the European Union if we wanted to
because they don't allow countries in that have that amount of debt.
Can you imagine that? We are worse off than all the countries in Europe
that are part of the European Union because of the level of debt being
proposed in this budget.
Nobody wants to use Europe as an example, but that is a pretty
significant benchmark. We will be headed toward a situation where the
value of our currency is at risk, where our ability to sell debt will
be limited or affected, where we have a potential for massive
inflation, and where we essentially will pass on to our children a
country they cannot afford because the tax burden to support the
government will be so overwhelming. We should not do that. I don't
think we should do it.
The history of this Nation is that every generation passes to the
next generation a better and more prosperous country. The implications
of this budget are that we will be unable to pass to the next
generation a better and more prosperous country. This amendment, which
we call the 1789 amendment, says, if we want to pass a budget that
doubles the debt over all the debts that have been run up in this
Nation since 1789, we need to get 60 votes rather than 51. We have to
get nine more people to agree. That seems a reasonable threshold and,
hopefully, a transparent event that will make it clear as to what the
budget is doing to the next generation.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). Who yields time? The Senator
from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished ranking member
for his use of my previous quotes. I am delighted to see my name up
there on those wonderful charts.
Mr. GREGG. I was going to put them in lights, but they don't allow
that as part of the rules.
Mr. CONRAD. That would be an even nicer touch.
The one thing I would say that was left out was when there was a new
administration and a complete change in direction in 2001, I did offer
a complete alternative. My colleague is very unhappy with the
President's budget. This is their opportunity, if they are as unhappy
as they say, to offer an alternative. But they don't have one. They
don't have an alternative. They don't have an alternative budget. They
don't have an alternative vision. All they want to do is say no. They
want to say no to the President's budget. They want to say no to the
budget that has come from the Budget Committee. They say no to their
even offering an alternative.
When the situation was reversed, a new President in 2001, with a
radically different vision, we offered a full alternative. I am proud
we did.
When I hear the other side talk about the growth of debt, I have to
ask, where were they the last 8 years? Where were they? Where were they
when the previous administration doubled the debt of the country? In
fact, they more than doubled it. Where were they when the previous
administration tripled foreign holdings of U.S. debt?
As this chart shows, it took 224 years and 42 Presidents to run up $1
trillion of U.S. debt held abroad, and the previous President ran that
up by more than $2 trillion. He tripled the amount of U.S. debt held
abroad. We have become increasingly dependent on the kindness of
strangers.
Last year, under their administration, 68 percent of the new debt of
this country was financed by foreign entities. Where were they when
that was happening?
This President inherits the colossal mess left behind by the previous
administration, a debt that had more than doubled, foreign holdings of
U.S. debt more than tripled, and the worst economic slowdown since the
Great Depression. This President has been in office 3 months. Under the
terms of the amendment they are now offering, they act as though he is
responsible for debt runup during the previous administration. Please.
That has zero credibility. They are saying that debt runup in the last
quarter of the last administration is attributed to this
administration. They say the budget that this President is inheriting
for this year is the responsibility of this President. I don't think
so. That is not the way I ever did the calculations.
When their administration was in power, I always held their
administration harmless for the first year since they were inheriting
the budget of the previous administration and the economics of the
previous administration. Now they want to try to stick President Obama
with the failures of the last administration and say debt runup in the
previous administration is his debt. I don't think so. That is not
fair. That is not going to sell.
Here is what happened when they were in charge. We now have China as

[[Page S4015]]

the No. 1 financier of U.S. debt. We owe them $740 billion. Japan is
not far behind. We owe them $635 billion. Where were they when this
debt was being run up? I will tell you where they were. They were in
full lockstep support of the previous administration. They voted for
every dollar of the debt that was run up.
One place I will agree with them is that it is dangerous to have run
up that debt. Unfortunately, with this economic slowdown, we are going
to have a lot more debt, a lot more deficits, until we are able to lift
out of this and then pivot and get back to a more sustainable course.
China is worried about the U.S. debt. They were worried about it
before this administration, they were worried about it in the previous
administration, and well they should be. If we look at any analysis of
the debt we have from 2001 to 2014, who is responsible for the debt
buildup?
This red bar is what the Bush administration will have been
responsible for. The green is the recession and interest on inherited
debt. The contribution of this budget is the small yellow piece because
we have the Titanic of debt coming at us. It is a result of the
policies inherited by this administration, the result of the economic
collapse inherited by this administration. That is the reason we have
the circumstance we face today.
Let me quote Senator Gregg. He was kind enough to quote me. I would
like to quote him. This is what he said on March 11. He was quoting me
from 2006. I stand by those quotes. This is March 11, Senator Gregg:

I'm willing to accept this [short-term debt deficit] number
and not debate it, because we are in a recession, and it's
necessary for the government to step in and be aggressive,
and the government is the last source of liquidity. And so
you can argue that this number, although horribly large, is
something we have to live with.

He was right on March 11--by the way, my daughter's birthday, and the
day before my birthday. Usually he gives me a gift on my birthday. No
gift this year. I am very hurt by this. I don't know why Senator Gregg
absolutely forgot my birthday. He remembers my quotes, but no
remembrance of my birthday. That is OK. I still like him very much. He
is a very nice person. But the place where he and I absolutely agree is
the second 5 years. We have to do a lot more to get the debt under
control under the President's budget, even my budget, which
dramatically reduces the deficit and debt. The truth is, we have to do
more. It is in the country's interest that we do.
Let's talk a minute about what we are accomplishing in the budget
before us. We are dramatically reducing the deficit, from $1.7 trillion
this year, an all-time record, because of the dramatic economic
slowdown. That means less revenue, more expenditure, exploding deficit,
and $1.3 trillion of this $1.7 trillion is exclusively the
responsibility of the previous President.
A new President walks into a situation. He didn't construct the
conditions for this year. That is the previous administration. So $1.3
trillion of this year's deficit reflects the policies of the previous
administration. We hold President Obama responsible for $400 billion of
the deficit this year because that is the effect of his stimulus
package and other legislation that passed.
So, yes, he has a responsibility for some of this deficit this year,
but it is about one-fourth of what we will experience this year. Then
we are dramatically reducing the deficit by $500 billion for the next
year. The next year we bring it down another $300 billion, the next
year another $300 billion, and, by 2014, we take it down to $508
billion, a more than two-thirds reduction in the 5 years of this budget
as a share of gross domestic product, which is what economists say
ought to be the comparison.
Why do they say it? Because if you look at it in dollar terms, that
does not take account of inflation. If you do it as a share of gross
domestic product, that takes account of inflation. You can see we are
even more dramatically reducing the deficit under that metric, from
12.2 percent of gross domestic product today down to less than 3
percent in the fifth year, which economists all say is what we need to
do to stabilize the growth of the debt. We need to get to 3 percent of
GDP or less. We do that in the fifth year and bring down the deficit as
a share of GDP each and every year of the 5 years of the budget.
My colleagues on the other side have offered an amendment that says--
and I hope colleagues are listening because we are going to vote on
this, and we will be voting pretty soon on this proposal--if the debt
is at a certain level, it will require 60 votes to write a budget
resolution.
Let's think about that. Let's think of the implications of what they
are offering. They say, if the debt is not below a certain level, you
cannot write a budget resolution unless you get a supermajority vote.
Do we want to do that? I would say to my colleagues, the budget
resolution is the vehicle that has all the budget disciplines in it,
all the supermajority points of order against spending, and they would
jeopardize those very disciplines that can help us hold down deficits
and debt.
What sense does that make? I ask my colleagues, does it make any
sense at all to be saying we are going to make it harder to write a
budget resolution that provides the disciplines to hold down spending,
that provides all those supermajority points of order against
additional spending? I say to my colleagues, the cure they are offering
is worse than the disease. Please, colleagues, let's not go with that
idea.
I will tell you, in the committee, they actually offered--which I
thought was the most bizarre; and I have been on the Budget Committee
22 years--in the committee they actually offered a proposal to tie our
standards on deficits and debt to Europe. So we are going to adopt the
European Union model under the amendment they offered in the committee.
Could you imagine?
Now the question of what our fiscal policy should be would be tied to
France, would be tied to Italy, would be tied to Spain, would be tied
to Germany, would be tied to Belgium.
This is America. This is an American budget for the American people.
We ought not to be tying ourselves to the French, the Italians. I love
the Italians. My wife is Italian. But, my goodness, they are talking
about tying our budget standards to the European Union? I do not think
so.
I say to my colleagues, this amendment they are offering--well
intended, absolutely well intended; I do not question their motivation
at all, but I do question very much the specifics of the proposal they
have offered.
Mr. President, I would ask to have an update on how much time remains
on the budget resolution and what is the time between the sides?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. At the beginning of consideration of the
pending amendment, the majority controlled 19 hours 47 minutes, the
minority controlled 19 hours 40 minutes.
Mr. CONRAD. And we are at just after 11 o'clock.
What is the order that was entered last night?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. After the consideration of the pending Gregg
amendment, Mrs. Boxer of California is to be recognized. She will be
offering an amendment. Then, Senator, you will be recognized to offer
an amendment or your designee to offer an amendment.
Mr. CONRAD. All right.
Mr. President, I say to Senator Sessions, are you seeking time on the
Gregg amendment?
Mr. SESSIONS. Yes.
Mr. CONRAD. We still have time remaining.
Mr. President, how much time remains on the Gregg amendment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The sponsor has 19 minutes, and the Senator
from North Dakota has 14 minutes.
Mr. CONRAD. I ask Senator Sessions, how much time would he seek?
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask for 5 minutes.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes off the time of the
minority to Senator Sessions.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, might I say, after Senator Sessions has
used that time, or whatever additional time he might require, our
intention would be to go to Senator Boxer. We cannot lock that in
because Senator Gregg is not here, and we have an agreement we do not
take advantage of each other in a procedural way. So I would not seek
to, in any way, alter the time that remains.

[[Page S4016]]

I yield to Senator Sessions.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I support the Gregg amendment because it
at least requires us to focus on the enormity of the wrong we are now
committing.
This chart I have in the Chamber--you have seen a lot of charts and a
lot of obfuscation and numbers thrown around--this chart is not
disputable. These numbers come directly from the Congressional Budget
Office's analysis of the Obama 10-year budget. That budget says that
today our debt is $5.8 trillion--$5,800 billion since the founding of
the Republic. It will double, in 5 years, to $11.8 trillion--$11,800
billion in 5 years. It will, in 5 more years, triple to $17 trillion of
debt. We all know that nothing comes from nothing.
We have to pay interest on that debt. CBO has calculated that. We are
currently paying $170 billion a year in interest--$170 billion. My home
State of Alabama's entire budget is under $10 billion. The federal
government spends $40 billion a year on highways. We spend $100 billion
on education. We are currently spending $170 billion just on interest
on our debt. When this budget gets through, in calculating the interest
rate, with some increases--because these debt levels are going to
require higher interest to get people to loan us money--it will be $800
billion in interest at the 10th year, which is bigger than the defense
budget, bigger than education, bigger than anything else in our
account.
I know the chairman has the budget on the floor and has said it is a
5-year budget, but the House has a 10-year budget. Director Orszag, the
President's Director of the Office of Management and Budget, has said
the Senate's budget is 98 percent of the President's budget. So it is
not a fundamental change. It is, essentially, the President's budget.
This is what the President's budget does. I would contend it is,
essentially, indisputable that this is what he calls for. He made
choices. He could have cut spending in some other places, but he
increased spending.
I will add this: He does not project these deficits arising from slow
economic growth. Under the President's budget, he projects robust
growth, good growth. The only negative year is this year. Next year, he
projects solid growth. The next year, I think, 4 percent; 3 years in a
row of over 4 percent growth, which is very robust. No recession is
projected in this 10-year period. So we have good years, fat times, and
all the while we are increasing our debt, tripling it.
Senator Gregg is saying, let's at least have a vote that requires 60
votes of the Senate, such as we do on any other important piece of
legislation, as to whether we will exceed doubling the debt.

Let me tell you the consequences of this. Last week we had difficulty
selling our debt. The Brits' debt auction failed. The British are
following our model of huge spending increases and surging debt. That
idea is being rejected by Central Europe, Germany, France, the Czech
Republic, and others. They reject that. They have refused the
mortifying request of our own Secretary of Treasury that they go
further into debt, spend more money as part of this wild plan to
stimulate the economy with unprecedented debt. They have said no. It is
irresponsible. In fact, the EU President said it is the road to hell.
The idea is, we have to pay this. This has a cost to the future. Yes,
it gets money into our economy today, and in the short run there has to
be some benefit, although Nobel Prize laureate Gary Becker says it is
so poorly drafted--this money we are spending--that we are not going to
get nearly as much financial stimulus as we should be getting from it.
And you would say: Well, we will soon begin to pay this debt down.
The President says he is worried about it. We are going to pay the debt
down. But the debt is not going down. The annual deficit, in the last 4
years, surges until CBO scores the 10th-year deficit, in 1 year, at
$1.2 trillion. The highest deficit we have ever had prior to this year
was $455 billion, and in good economic times, they are projecting a
$1.2 trillion deficit. That is the annual deficit, adding to these
numbers, as shown on the chart. That is why it triples. They keep going
up, up, up.
There is no constraint in spending whatsoever. There is no plan to
control the entitlement surge, no plan to control spending.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SESSIONS. In fact, the President's budget, this year, proposes to
increase domestic discretionary nondefense spending by 11.5 percent. We
passed, a few weeks ago, a stimulus plan to spend $800 billion--the
largest single appropriations in the history of America; $800 billion--
every penny of it going to the debt. Now we are going to have an 11-
percent increase this year in discretionary spending on top of that?
You know the rule of 7. It states that at 7-percent growth, your money
doubles in 10 years. At 11.5-percent growth, our spending would double
in 7 years. The entire spending of the discretionary account would
double in 7 years if we maintained this incredible, colossal spending
path we are on.
I think Senator Gregg is exactly right. Let's at least slow down and
let's at least have the 60 votes we would normally have to pass an
important piece of legislation if and when--and we certainly are
heading to a point where this debt doubles--so at least to go to
tripling, we ought to have another vote and slow down and ask
ourselves: What in the world are we doing to our children? They are
going to be carrying--at this year, as shown on the chart--$800 billion
in interest that year. That assumes the interest rate is mainstream.
But the truth is, with this much borrowing in these many countries
around the world, we could have interest rates higher than that. If the
interest rates go up, the $800 billion could become $1 trillion a year
easily, and above, if the debt continues to surge.
I support the amendment. I am very worried. The numbers we are
talking about on the floor are not a political dustup. This is about
the future of America. The financial integrity of our country is at
stake. We have never spent like this before, except in World War II
when we were in a life-and-death struggle. It is not the right thing to
do, and I support the amendment.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CONRAD. 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. CONRAD. Mr. President, it will be our intention, as I am able to
reach Senator Gregg, that we yield back the time on the Gregg
amendment--I have 13 minutes remaining, he has 11 minutes remaining--
and that we go to the Boxer amendment. I ask Senator Boxer, when she is
available, to come to the floor.
Let me very briefly respond to Senator Sessions. Let me first say
that I appreciate his concern about the long-term debt, but I have to
go back to the questions I was asking earlier. Where were they? Where
were they when the debt was deemed doubled in the previous
administration? Where were they? They were right there supporting every
policy which led to that explosion of debt and which ultimately led to
the sharp economic collapse we are still experiencing. This collapse is
responsible for record deficits. What happens when there is a collapse?
The revenue evaporates, the expenditures skyrocket, because you have
more people unemployed, you have more people who need food stamps, you
have more need for a stimulus package to try to give lift to the
economy.
So I would just say to my colleagues, I have been concerned about
debt for 22 years. I have been concerned about what it would mean to
the economic security of America for 22 years. I have led fight after
fight after fight on this floor, whether it was Democratic
administrations or Republican administrations, to keep deficits and
debt down because I believe they threaten the long-term economic
security of the country. Never is it more evident than now, when we
financed 68 percent of our increased debt last year through foreign
entities. Some say that is a sign of strength that they are willing

[[Page S4017]]

to loan us all this money. I don't think it is a sign of strength; I
think it is a vulnerability. When we are dependent on the Chinese to
bankroll us, the Japanese to bankroll us, that gives them an
extraordinary influence over us because if they decide to not show up
at the bond auction one week, what would we have to do? We would either
have to dramatically increase interest rates to attract capital or we
would have to radically cut spending or dramatically raise taxes. All
of those alternatives would be bad for the economic position of the
United States for the long term.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we preserve the time
remaining on the Gregg amendment--whatever time Senator Gregg still has
and the time I still have--and that we set that aside and go to the
Boxer amendment, and that it be in order to return to the Gregg
amendment after we complete the time on the Boxer amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CONRAD. With that, we will momentarily go to the Boxer amendment.
I thank the Chair, yield the floor, and note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CONRAD. 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. CONRAD. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess
today from 12:30 to 2:15, that the time during the recess count against
the time on the budget resolution, and that it be charged equally to
both sides.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I wish to make clear that we had that
agreement between the two sides. Although Senator Gregg is not present
on the floor, we had the understanding that this is how we would
proceed.
With that, I note that Senator Boxer is here now and prepared to
proceed on her amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California is recognized.

Amendment No. 749

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I really take to the floor, first of all,
under the order to call up an amendment I have at the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from California [Mrs. Boxer] proposes an
amendment numbered 749.

Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment
be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To require that certain legislation relating to clean energy
technologies not increase electricity or gasoline prices or increase
the overall burden on consumers)

On page 33, line 21, after ``economy,'', insert ``without
increasing electricity or gasoline prices or increasing the
overall burden on consumers, through the use of revenues and
policies provided in such legislation,''.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, this is an amendment I have decided to
offer to our colleagues as a supplement to an amendment offered by
Senator Thune.
Senator Thune makes the point that global warming legislation should
not increase electricity prices. It is very interesting because I
didn't hear the concern from the other side of the aisle--it also
refers to gasoline prices--when gasoline prices hit almost $5 a gallon
in our home States. We didn't hear an outcry. There was no global
warming legislation. It had nothing to do with it; it had to do with
manipulation. We didn't hear any outcry about that.
I think Senator Thune doesn't go far enough because we believe that
revenues from a climate bill, should we pass one--and I certainly hope
we will--would be used to offset any kind of an increase in electricity
and gasoline prices, and we would have the revenues from a cap-and-
trade system to do just that. So I think Senator Thune's amendment
doesn't go far enough. We not only don't want to see an increase in
prices, we want to have the revenues coming in through cap-and-trade
legislation to make consumers whole.
In his argument for his very narrow legislation, which I will be
voting for--I don't have a problem with it--Senator Thune cited a study
by MIT to argue that climate legislation is a tax. In fact, the MIT
study actually shows why it is important to capture the overall picture
because the MIT study actually points out that the monetary value of
allowances under a cap-and-trade program is something that Congress
would have the option of using to give a family of four a tax rebate--a
tax rebate--that could be as high as $4,500 per year by the middle of
the next decade.
So I find it amazing that my Republican friends who oppose taking any
action on global warming suddenly have discovered the consumer and they
are worried that the consumer would pay high prices when we fight
global warming when, in fact, a well-designed program--and I say to the
Chair, as he is a proud member of our committee--a well-designed
program, as he knows, will give us the ability to refund money to
consumers and make sure they are healthy and kept whole.
So this legislation simply says that we will ensure that our
legislation relating to clean energy does not increase electricity or
gas prices or does not increase the overall burden on consumers, and
that is the key. So it is going to be a boon for consumers.
So we will be voting for the Thune legislation and hopefully for the
Boxer legislation so that we cover all of our bases and we know that
global warming legislation is not going to hurt consumers but actually
keep them whole and clean up their environment; it is going to create
green jobs and all the rest.
I wish to spend a couple of minutes talking about this budget, and I
wish to start off by thanking members of the Budget Committee. Again,
my colleague in the chair is a member of the Budget Committee. They
worked very hard under the leadership of Senator Conrad to come up with
a product that keeps President Obama's priorities intact, that does
more for deficit reduction, and I am very pleased about it.
I wish to say that I am very pleased the American people have not
fallen for the same old, same old policies of the Republicans as they
try to demolish this new President and they try to destroy his
reputation and try to bring him down. We don't have the charts that
talk about the same old policies, so if we could get those. There is a
series of charts.
I have taken to the floor before to talk about the comments of my
Republican friends during the debate on the Clinton budget, and we all
know--here is the message. We all know the Republicans repeat the same
old politics, the same old policies that got us into this crisis.
I wish to take you back to 1993. The Republicans came to this floor,
and they tried to demolish the Clinton budget. Not one of them voted
for it. The Democrats had taken over from George Bush's dad. Things
were in very bad shape.
This is what the Republicans said about the Clinton budget in 1993:
It is just a mockery. It is just a mockery, said Committee chairman
Pete Domenici.
Senator Hatch: Make no mistake. These higher rates will cost jobs.
Phil Gramm said: I believe hundreds of thousands of people are going
to lose their jobs as a result of this program--including Bill Clinton,
he predicted, would lose his reelection.
Connie Mack: This bill will cost American jobs.
What happened as a result of the Clinton budget? Twenty-three million
jobs were created. It was the best record ever in peacetime--the best
record ever in peacetime.
Senator Roth of the other side: It will flatten the economy. It is
bad policy.
And on and on and on.
Now here we have today--this is years later, more than 10 years
later--the same old politics, the same old policies. Just listen to my
Republican friends trashing Barack Obama's budget: disaster,
disastrous, terrible, deficits as far as the eye can see. That is what
they said about the Clinton budget too--deficits forever. Guess what.
Guess what. Not only did we have a balanced budget under Bill Clinton
by the end of his term, we had a surplus.

[[Page S4018]]

So as our Republican friends come to the microphone, I want my
colleagues to listen carefully to their words. I am proud of the
American people for seeing through this. They understand what got us
into this mess. Clearly, what we can see is the same old, same old,
same old; the party of nope: Nope, we can't change. Nope, nope. I,
frankly, would rather be in the party of hope than the party of nope,
and hope is what the American people want.
In this budget, we recover from the Republican deficit. It is true in
the short-term we are going to see deficits go up. But as shown to us
by Senator Conrad, who is the biggest deficit hawk in this Senate--I
challenge anyone to be more of a deficit hawk--we see we are beginning
to turn these deficits back down to sustainable numbers.
We know why the American people support President Obama and the
Congress right now--because they saw that George Bush took record
surpluses and turned them into record deficits. The national debt
increased by 85 percent. The foreign-held debt more than tripled. This
is the Republican deficit we are dealing with now, and we don't like
it. But we are going to fix it as we did under Bill Clinton. We fixed
it then, we will fix it now. The people are smart. When Republicans
come to the floor and they fight President Obama, the people in this
country--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike--are saying
give this new President a chance. He inherited this mess.

Let's look at the rest of the deficit that happened with our
families. Health insurance premiums have risen, energy prices
increased, college costs skyrocketed, and the gap between the wealthy
and the middle class widens. That is the part of the deficit this
President was left with. We are losing the middle class in this
country. That is very clear. It is very clear. All you have to do is
look at income levels. That is why when my Republican friends come to
the floor to trash the President and the budget, they understand what
has happened. It is not a mystery.
This is not a theoretical argument about who is right and who is
wrong. We now know what happened in the Clinton years: the best economy
in peacetime, 23 million jobs, surpluses, debt on the way down. We know
what happened. When George Bush took the keys to the Oval Office, he
turned it around into the Republican deficit. We know that happened.
The people are smart; they get it. That is why they support this.
Let's look further. I said before when George Bush took the keys to
the Oval Office, there was a surplus of $5.6 trillion. That was the
projected surplus. They turned it into a deficit of $10.6 trillion.
That is what happened under the Republicans. Why should we listen to
what they are saying now? They are saying the same old thing. GOP, SOP,
same old policies.
Now, what our President is saying is that we are going to have a road
to change. That road to change is going to be paved with a few simple
things. One is energy independence; two, making college affordable;
three, lowering health care costs; four, middle-class tax cuts; five,
cutting the deficit in half in the next several years. Let me repeat
them. Energy independence, making college affordable, lowering health
care costs, middle-class tax cuts, and deficit reduction.
What do my Republican friends stand for? The same old policies, the
same old thing--no investment, no imagination, no realization that
until we get off of foreign oil, and we lead the way on global warming,
and we lead the way on lowering health care costs, we are going to be
stuck in the same old place. That is why this budget is so crucial and
important, because it is a roadmap of our Nation's priorities.
The President ran on these issues. He is doing what he promised he
would do--everything. The American people are saying that we know times
are tough, but this President is trying, this Congress is trying. That
is better than the status quo. If you read anything about the years of
the Great Depression, you realize that what our people wanted then was
what our people want now; they want us to try. They want us to shake
things up, to invest in our people, and to create the jobs that will
come along with these important policies.
There are a lot of middle-class tax cuts in this budget. The
President extends the child tax credit, eliminates the marriage
penalty, and increases education benefits. These are important for our
people. So this budget, all told, makes a lot of sense for our country.
Senator Thune has offered an amendment in which he says electricity
and gas prices should not rise as we pass global warming legislation.
We agree with that. We don't think his amendment goes far enough,
because what we want to see is global warming legislation that passes
that uses the revenues to help consumers, that uses the revenues to
invest in new technologies, that uses the revenues to create jobs, to
build transportation systems, to make sure our forests continue to act
as carbon sinks, taking carbon out of the air.
Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining at this point?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Fourteen minutes.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask if the Chair will let me know when I
have 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will be notified.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I said before that when my Republicans
friends come to the floor, the American people should be wary. That is
because they trashed the Clinton budget, and they were wrong then. Now
they are trashing the Obama budget, and they are going to be wrong
again. Even more than that, let's see what they said about the Bush
budget--the Bush budget that led us into this mess.
Senator Gregg I have a lot of respect for, but he was wrong on the
Bush budget. He said the Bush budget would drive the deficit down and
produce a surplus in 2012. It is hard to believe that was the
prediction. We had deficits as far as the eye could see under George
Bush. The leader of the Republicans on this predicted there would be a
surplus under the Bush budget. As a matter of fact, we are in the
biggest economic mess since the Great Depression that this new
President has to lead us out of. We need to help him. We really need to
help him. It is very important that we do.
I thank the Budget Committee for including in the budget a reserve
fund that will be able to make global warming legislation a reality. In
other words, the committee is saying this may happen and they have set
aside a reserve fund. It is important. It sets the stage for
legislation. I guess the message I want to give to my colleagues who
oppose any legislation--and there are a lot of them--I have bad news
for them. Whether they support it or not, action on global warming has
already begun. The train has left the station. The Supreme Court--this
Supreme Court--voted 5 to 4 that the Clean Air Act actually does cover
carbon emissions, greenhouse gas emissions and, therefore, the EPA has
the power to say to our businesses: Clean up your act for the good of
society.
Frankly, as far as I am concerned, knowing what I know about the
consensus of scientists, I think it is urgent that the EPA act. But I
also know it would be far better if this Congress acted, because if we
acted, we could set up a cap-and-trade system. The EPA cannot do that
without legislation. That cap-and-trade system will bring in revenues
to help our businesses, help our consumers. I think at the end of the
day it will lead us to millions of green jobs, a new economy, and lead
us down the path of energy independence.
Let me say to my friends who will oppose the legislation when it
comes--and it is coming--here is your choice: You can fight it tooth
and nail and stop it any way you want. You can even say never use
reconciliation, even though you supported it 17 times in the past. If
that is what you want to say, say it. We already have the New England
States which have come together and they are doing a cap-and-trade
system. The western States have gotten together and they are doing a
cap-and-trade system. We have the Midwest involved with Canada doing a
cap-and-trade system. We have the EPA having to act because of the
Supreme Court. We have the California waiver out there.
So we are acting on global warming. The question is: Will we do it in
a way that turns this challenge into an enormous economic opportunity--
and, of course, that is what I want to do. That is why so many
businesses, and now

[[Page S4019]]

more and more labor unions, are supporting the passage of climate
change legislation. Look, we know, because our own scientists have told
us here at home, there are risks to public health if we don't act: more
heat-related deaths, water-borne diseases from degraded water quality,
more cases of respiratory disease, including lung disease, from
increased smog, and children and the elderly are vulnerable. We know
what the future will be like. We would never, ever, take our kids in an
automobile and park it in the sunlight next to a supermarket, lock all
the windows, and go inside and leave them alone. We would never do
that. Well, as legislators, we cannot do that to our constituents.
The fact is we know what is happening. The IPCC, Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, warned us that unchecked global warming would
lead to reduced snowpack in the western mountains, critically reducing
access to water. We are already seeing insect invasions damaging our
forests. We know that every State in this great Union will be impacted,
and some are already impacted. We know that. In New York, a report
predicts that northeastern cities could be hit the hardest as sea
levels rise, including flooding of their subway system. We know Florida
is another very vulnerable place. A huge population is exposed. New
Orleans and Virginia Beach are ranked in the top 20.
It doesn't matter where you are in this country, you are going to be
impacted. Your agricultural sector will be impacted, your tourism
sector will be impacted, your fishing industries will be impacted.
So here is the deal: Either we pass legislation that turns this
challenge into a great opportunity, gives us the resources to get us on
the path to energy independence, gives us resources to create millions
of green jobs, or we allow the States to do what they want to do, and
that is fine. I support that. There will be various States doing their
own cap-and-trade system. The whole world will do it. But Members of
the Senate will think, oh, if that is what they choose to do, that is
their choice. But we will fight global warming, and we already are. It
is just that we are not doing it in a way that is beneficial to our
working people, our families, and our children.
I have to tell you a story. We had yet another hearing in the
Environment Committee on the latest science on global warming. We heard
what we expected to hear--the predictions are getting more and more
dire. The Republicans invited a witness, and I think the occupant of
the chair will remember this. He was a very good witness. But at the
end of his remarks he lost his way. This is what he said:

I don't know why everybody is so worried about high levels
of CO<inf>2</inf>. We have had levels that have hit a
thousand parts per million before, and everything was just
fine.

I asked him:

Sir, you are an expert. When was it?

He said:

Eighty million years ago.

I said:

Who lived then?

He said:

The dinosaurs.

I have to say that is not an answer I am going to give to my
grandkids--that in order for them to live in the future, they are going
to have to become dinosaurs or they won't make it. This is ridiculous.
The Senate is the last place to get the message. We are going to do
everything we can to bring legislation later. I know what the Budget
Committee did was a sound decision. They said we are not getting into
it, but if the committees do act, we will set aside a reserve fund, so
they can make sure there will be an order when they do act.
I am very happy to say that my House colleagues are working on
legislation. The prospects are looking very good over there. We will be
ready to go. But let me say this: The choice is between a livable world
and one that is not livable. If my colleagues cannot understand this,
then I am very sorry. But in any case, we are going to fight global
warming. We will do it in the right way.
We are going to have an amendment that goes beyond what Senator Thune
has done. I am going to tell my colleagues to support the Thune
amendment and the Boxer amendment so that we make sure our consumers
are kept whole as we move forward with legislation.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I see the chairman.
Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator yield for just a moment?
Mr. SESSIONS. I will be delighted to.
Mr. CONRAD. If I might inquire of the Parliamentarian, how much time
remains on the Boxer amendment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The sponsor has 3 minutes 49 seconds. The time
has just begun for the opposition.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I say to Senator Sessions, does he wish to
use time in opposition to this amendment?
Mr. SESSIONS. Yes.
Mr. CONRAD. We will yield whatever time the Senator might consume in
opposition on this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, as we get into this debate----
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, if the Senator will withhold, I can see
there is a little consternation. We are yielding off Senator Gregg's
time to Senator Sessions.
Mr. SESSIONS. And, Mr. President, how much time is left on the Boxer
amendment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The opposition has 28\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, first, I want to repeat the situation in
which we find ourselves. My colleagues are quick to say President Bush
spent us into bankruptcy, that he did all this reckless spending and
that is the problem we have today. President Bush, in my opinion, did
spend too much money and the debt was too high during his 8 years in
office.
Last spring, I voted against sending out $160 billion in checks. I
didn't think that was a good policy. The Democratic majority here
supported that steadfastly, overwhelmingly. Spend, spend, spend is what
we have been seeing over there over the years and, in fact, with this
big majority they have, and on the budget, Republicans are not able to
take the heat, Republicans are not able to say to my colleagues, they
have the votes, they can pass whatever budget they want.
What I do want to say is that these are some accurate figures about
the Bush budget: His worst deficit in 2003 was after 9/11, after he
inherited an economic slowdown. The tech bubble had burst. When he took
office, the day he took office, the Nasdaq had already collapsed and
lost half its value. We were in a recession. Then we were attacked 9
months later, and the money got spent. At one point we ended up with a
$412 billion deficit. We thought it was horrible. But in 3 years, that
deficit was reduced until fiscal year 2007, when we had a deficit of
$161 billion. We worked it down and were heading in the right
direction. Then last year he sent out those checks and we had an
economic slowdown and both Houses, controlled by the Democrats, voted
overwhelmingly to spend another $160 billion to stimulate the economy.
It didn't work, and we ended up with a $455 billion deficit.
In the third year of the Democratic majority in the Congress and in
the Presidency of Barack Obama and not all of this money can be traced
to him, but much of it can--our deficit this year will not be $455
billion. It will not be $800 billion. It will not be $1 trillion. It
will not be $1.4 trillion. It will be $1.8 trillion this year. Nothing
has ever been seen like this before, ever. Next year, it will be over
$1 trillion. In the outyears of the President's 10-year budget, it will
be increasing the annual deficit $1 trillion. In fact, in the 10th year
of his budget, according to our own Congressional Budget Office,
basically hired by the Democratic majority here, they are scoring the
deficit that year to be $1.2 trillion, added to the other. That is why
this irrefutable chart shows that the debt goes from $5 trillion to $11
trillion, doubling, and then tripling in 10 years. That is not
sustainable, as our Budget chairman has said.
Mr. President, I see my colleagues are on the floor. I will be
pleased to have a discussion with them about the reconciliation
process. Let me just say this: In a time of economic hardship, when
families are struggling to pay

[[Page S4020]]

their bills and businesses are laying off people in order to survive,
the last thing we need are major tax increases. Raising taxes hurts the
family budget and kills jobs. Yet the President's budget contains the
largest tax increase in American history, $1.5 trillion over the next
10 years.
Again, I note that the deficit is not because we are not increasing
taxes. We are increasing taxes. The spending is so great it still
triples the debt.
Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. SESSIONS. I will be pleased to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. ENSIGN. Was the Senator aware that the President's budget
proposes a new national energy tax that will be paid by every person
who turns on a light switch, heats their home, or puts gasoline in
their car?
Mr. SESSIONS. That is correct. Under the President's plan, the
average American family will see their energy bills increase up to
$3,128 each year. Not over 10 years, but each year. That is how much it
will go up.
In a candid moment when he was still a candidate, President Obama
admitted:

Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electric rates
would necessarily skyrocket.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, will the Senator from Alabama yield for a
further question?
Mr. SESSIONS. I will be pleased to yield to Senator Thune from South
Dakota.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, is the Senator from Alabama aware that the
President's Director of the Office of Management and Budget admitted
the same thing last year when he was the Director of the Congressional
Budget Office? Peter Orszag said:

Under a cap-and-trade program, firms would not ultimately
bear most of the costs . . . but instead would pass them
along to their customers in the form of higher prices . . .
price increases would be essential to the success of a cap-
and-trade program.

Mr. SESSIONS. Not only did he say that, last Wednesday OMB Director
Orszag said that jamming a new national energy tax through the Senate
with very limited debate and ability to amend under the reconciliation
is, and I quote--

not off the table.

In fact, the House of Representatives is very clear about this plan.
Section 202 of the House of Representatives budget resolution states:

reconciliation in the Senate. (Senate reconciliation
instructions to be supplied by the Senate.)

Since the House has a Rules Committee, which allows them to pass
bills with minimal debate, this is clearly intended, not to affect
their procedures, but to make sure that the conference on the budget
adds this provision so it can be jammed through the Senate.
Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, will the Senator from Alabama yield for a
further question?
Mr. SESSIONS. I will be pleased to yield to Senator Ensign from
Nevada.
Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, is the Senator aware of what one of the
authors of the Budget Act, the esteemed Senator from West Virginia, has
to say about this? He said:

Americans have an inalienable right to a careful
examination of proposals that dramatically affect their
lives. I was one of the authors of the legislation that
created the budget reconciliation process in 1974, and I am
certain that putting health care reform and climate change
legislation on a freight train through Congress is an outrage
that must be resisted.

Does the Senator agree with this view?
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I fully agree, I say to Senator Ensign,
with Senator Byrd's view. Senator Byrd wrote this legislation. He also
wrote the book, literally, on Senate rules. He is our conscience of the
Senate in terms of the great historic role of the American Senate.
Senator Byrd has also said this:

Using the reconciliation process to enact major legislation
prevents an open debate about critical issues in the full
view of the public. Health reform and climate change are
issues that, in one way or another, touch every American
family. Their resolution carries serious economic and
emotional consequences. The misuse of the arcane process of
reconciliation . . . to enact substantive policy changes is
an undemocratic disservice to our people and to the Senate's
institutional role.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it not be in order in the
Senate to consider any conference report or House amendment on the
fiscal year 2010 budget resolution which contains reconciliation
instructions for the Senate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mrs. BOXER. Reserving the right to object, what I am concerned about
is, according to MIT, if we did a cap-and-trade system and we did it
right, a family of four would get a tax rebate of $4,500. What is
happening here is they are trying to make it more difficult for us to
get a cap-and-trade system, get the revenues, and return $4,500 per
family. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, do I still have the floor?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama does still have the
floor.
Mr. SESSIONS. I will be glad to yield for a question. I have another
request to offer.
Mr. CONRAD. I am happy to have the Senator proceed.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I say to Senator Boxer, we will have
more in-depth discussion of the cost of this program, but it is not
without cost. The President and the Director of the Office of
Management and Budget have admitted clearly there will be costs of very
large amounts passed forward to our constituents.
No. 2, and since it is such an incredibly monumental, colossal
intervention and tax on the American economy, it certainly needs more
debate than the limited hours that would be given under the budget
process. That is what we were asking, that it be treated in the normal
order of business and not expedited with a simple majority vote and a
limited number of hours of debate. That is what the objection is to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. SESSIONS. I will yield to the Senator, our chairman.
Mr. CONRAD. In the budget resolution that is before us that came out
of the committee, the committee on which the Senator serves, are there
any reconciliation instructions for any purpose?
Mr. SESSIONS. That is a good question, and I will be pleased to
answer our chairman. No, it did not, and I think that was the
chairman's preference, his stated preference, and other Democrats on
the committee did not want this reconciliation language in the Senate
budget. But the language is in the House budget.
Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, has said it is not off the
table, as you know, that this might be included in the final conference
package. And as you know, since it is in the House language, Senator
Reid will appoint the conferees, a majority of the conferees. And if he
so says, the language will be in the final package that could come
before the Senate, which terrifies people who believe in the great
historic role of the Senate. That is what our concern is today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, if I could further inquire of my
colleague--and I thank him for his response--has not the Speaker of the
House indicated there is no intention of including a reconciliation
instruction with respect to climate change in the House provisions?
Mr. SESSIONS. I am not aware of that. Maybe some of my colleagues
might have heard that, but my understanding is that our leader says it
might be included. In fact, he went so far as to say the revenue that
would surge into the Treasury from the cap-and-trade could be used to
finance health care. So that is a matter that is important to us.
If the Senator shares my concern, I find it odd that he would
object--or Senator Boxer would object to language in this resolution
calling on us not to accept it.
Mr. CONRAD. Might I further inquire, Mr. President, of my colleague:
Wouldn't it be logical for me to object if my conclusion is that there
is not going to be any reconciliation instruction with respect to cap
and trade?
We don't have it in the Senate resolution before us. The Speaker of
the

[[Page S4021]]

House has made clear they are not going to have a reconciliation
instruction to be used in the House with respect to climate change
legislation. I must say, I understand the concern, but I don't think
there is a basis for it. I don't think there is a prospect that there
is going to be the use of reconciliation for the purpose of climate
change resolution coming back from the conference committee. It is not
in the Senate, the Speaker has made clear they do not intend to use it
on the House side, so I would just say to my colleagues that I
understand the concern, I understand making the point--that is fully
legitimate--but I don't think it is a concern that is based on what is
going to happen.
There are plans on the House side to use reconciliation for health
care and for education. That clearly is part of their resolution. Not
part of ours; but part of theirs. So I have to say to my colleagues, I
don't think there is a basis for concern that the reconciliation
process is going to be used for climate change legislation.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I have the floor, and I would be pleased
to yield for a question from the Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, is it not true that under the rules of
reconciliation, an instruction to the House Energy and Commerce
committee that is contemplated for purposes of health care, for
example, would not prevent that committee's ability to use the
reconciliation process for the purposes of climate change legislation
because a reconciliation instruction cannot specifically state which
matters within its jurisdiction a committee should address to comply
with its reconciliation instruction, which is only a dollar number?
Mr. SESSIONS. I think the distinguished ranking member of the Budget
Committee is correct. Having read the House language on reconciliation,
it appears to me, quite clearly, that if it is accepted in final
passage of the bill, after conference, it would give the Senate the
power to enact cap-and-trade or health care legislation without the
normal processes of the Senate.
Would the ranking member not agree?
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I would agree, and I am wondering why we
would need reconciliation instructions. I ask the Senator this
question: Why would the House need reconciliation instructions? Do they
not have a Rules Committee? Would not the only purpose of
reconciliation instructions in a House bill be to have a conference
report approve a reconciliation instruction, which would tie the hands
of the Senate? It certainly wouldn't tie the hands of the House, would
it? In tying the hands of the Senate, it would allow Senate committees
to reconcile the issue of a cap-and-trade bill and create a carbon
tax--or a national sales tax--every time somebody turns on a light
switch in America; and there would be no way to limit that once there
is a reconciliation instruction in a conference report.
Mr. SESSIONS. I believe the Senator is absolutely correct. In other
words, the House can pass anything on a simple majority, and Speaker
Pelosi has a pretty good machine over there. They can pass whatever
they want to pass. They do not need reconciliation. Why did they put
reconciliation in their bill? They put it in there because it could be
accepted in the final conference report and give the power to the
Senate to use it to deny the historic debate rules of our Senate.
Wouldn't that be a logical conclusion?
Mr. GREGG. I think the Senator from Alabama is absolutely right; that
could be the only conclusion. Is there any other conclusion that can be
reached? I don't believe there is. The only purpose of a reconciliation
instruction in a House bill is for the purposes of controlling the
floor of the Senate--not the floor of the House--and set up the
possibility of passing it in a conference report.
Mr. SESSIONS. I would agree.
Mr. THUNE. Would the Senator from Alabama yield for a further
question?
Mr. SESSIONS. I would be pleased to yield to the Senator from South
Dakota.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I appreciate very much the observation that
was made about the purpose of reconciliation and the Rules Committee in
the House. The House very clearly has the power to regulate what comes
to the floor and what amendments are made in order. Reconciliation
instructions in the House bill are clearly directed at a House-Senate
conference and reserving the opportunity--the option--to actually do
something with respect to these other issues.
I wish to point out, too--and I wish to ask a question of the Senator
from Alabama regarding the conference committee--even though I believe
the best intentions of the Senator from North Dakota and I believe he
is sincere when he says he doesn't want to use reconciliation to do cap
and trade and to do other types of policy through the budget process--
there is a statement from the majority leader talking about the novel
proposal for redoing the Nation's health care system, suggesting that
using $646 billion that would be collected under a controversial Obama
proposal to auction off greenhouse gas pollution allowances. The exact
quote is: ``That's exactly how much we need for the first phase of
health care reform.''
My question to my colleague from Alabama is: If, in fact, you get
into a conference setting and you want to do health care reform--which
clearly they have indicated they would like to do through
reconciliation--it has to be paid for somehow, does it not? It is
suggested here, I think from at least the majority leader, that the
revenues available through cap and trade might, in fact, be used for
that.
Would it not be possible in a conference committee setting--despite
the best intentions of the Senator from North Dakota--for the members
of that conference to decide to use that reconciliation process to
create revenues through a cap-and-trade program that might be used to
accomplish the financing of health care reform through that bill?
Mr. SESSIONS. I agree with my colleague, Senator Thune.
Look, we are all grownups here. We know how the Senate works. We know
how things are handled. We offered an amendment to put E-Verify in the
stimulus bill in order to check the citizenship of people before they
get jobs under the stimulus package. It was in the House bill, but we
were not able not to have a vote in the Senate. The majority party knew
exactly what they intended to do. When it went to conference, they took
out the language, but everybody in the House could say they voted for
it.
This is the same kind of situation. The language is now in the House
bill, which they do not need. They do not need that language to pass
anything in the House. But if it were to be accepted by the Senate, and
Senator Reid has indicated he might do that, if they accept it in
conference, then cap-and-trade or health care reform could be passed
without the classical historic debate this Senate is used to having.
That is why our conscience of the Senate, Senator Robert Byrd, has said
this is bad, it should not happen, and it demeans the Senate. He used
very clear language.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, would my friend yield for a unanimous
consent request?
Mr. SESSIONS. Reserving the right to retain the floor, I yield to the
majority leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:30 p.m.
today, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the following
amendments in the order listed; and that no intervening amendments be
in order to any of the amendments covered in this agreement; that prior
to each vote, there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided and
controlled in the following form; that after the first vote in this
sequence, the vote time be limited to 10 minutes each; and that all
time utilized during the votes count against the time on the budget
resolution: Boxer No. 749, Thune No. 731, and Gregg No. 739.
Those are the three amendments.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Hearing no objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I extend my appreciation to my friend from
Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we know this is a big deal--a very,
very, very big deal that we are discussing. If my friend, Senator
Conrad, is correct, and he didn't put it in his committee

[[Page S4022]]

report, when we try to make it a clear statement that the Senate would
not accept this language if it came out of conference, why would
Senator Boxer object? We have seen these maneuvers before.
Without this language, we would be in a position in which the
leadership of the Senate could move forward with legislation that would
use reconciliation to pass other bills. So I would make another
unanimous consent request, Mr. President.
I ask unanimous consent that it not be in order in the Senate to
consider any conference report or House amendment on the fiscal year
2010 budget resolution which reconciles any of the following Senate
committees: The Committee on Environment and Public Works, the
Committee on Finance, and the Committee on Energy.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mrs. BOXER. Reserving the right to object. It is hard for me to
believe that three or four Senators come to the floor to try to control
the agenda of the various committees, which we are very proud to serve
on.
I also wish to say that 19 times since 1980 has reconciliation been
used, and by far and away more times by the Republicans--namely, 13
times they used it. They never came here and complained. They used it.
I have the record.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
the number of times Republicans have used reconciliation.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Reconciliation Measures Enacted Into Law, 1980 to the Present

1. Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1980

P.L. 96-499 (December 5, 1980)
This act, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, was
the first reconciliation bill to pass the House and Senate.
It was estimated to reduce the FY 1981 deficit by $8.276
billion, including $4.631 billion in outlay reductions and
$3.645 billion in revenue increases.
Major spending changes affected such areas as child
nutrition subsidies; interest rates for student loans; ``look
back'' COLA benefit provisions for retiring federal
employees; highway obligational authority; railroad
rehabilitation, airport development, planning, and noise
control grants; veterans' burial allowances; disaster loans;
Medicare and Medicaid; unemployment compensation; and Social
Security.
Major revenue changes affected such areas as mortgage
subsidy bonds; payment of estimated corporate taxes; capital
gains on foreign real estate investments; payroll taxes paid
by employers; telephone excise taxes; and the alcohol import
duty.
[1980 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, pp. 124-130]

2. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981

P.L. 97-35 (August 13, 1981)
President Ronald Reagan used this act, along with a non-
reconciliation bill, the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981
(P.L. 97-34), to advance much of his agenda in his first year
in office. OBRA of 1981 was estimated to reduce the deficit
by $130.6 billion over three years, covering FY1982-FY1984.
Major spending changes affected such areas as health
program block grants; Medicaid; television and radio
licenses; Food Stamps; dairy price supports; energy
assistance; Conrail; education program block grants; Impact
Aid and the Title I compensatory education program for
disadvantaged children; student loans; and the Social
Security minimum benefit.
[1981 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, pp. 256-266]

3. Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982

P.L. 97-248 (September 3, 1982)
This act, one of two reconciliation measures signed by
President Reagan in 1982, was estimated to increase revenues
by $98.3 billion and reduce outlays by $17.5 billion over
three years, covering FY1983-FY1985.
Major spending changes affected such areas as Medicare,
Medicaid, aid to families with dependent children (AFDC),
child support enforcement (CSE), supplemental security income
(SSI), unemployment compensation, and interest payments on
U.S. savings bonds.
Major revenue changes affected such areas as the
alternative minimum tax, medical and casualty deductions,
pension contribution deductions, federal employee payment of
the FICA tax for Medicare coverage, accelerated depreciation
and investment tax credits, corporate tax payments, foreign
oil and gas income, corporate tax preferences, construction
deductions, insurance tax breaks, ``safe-harbor leasing,''
corporate mergers, withholding on interest and dividends,
aviation excise taxes, unemployment insurance, telephone and
cigarette excise taxes, and industrial development bonds.
[1982 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, pp. 29-39 and 199-
204]

4. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1982

P.L. 97-253 (September 8, 1982)
This act, the second of two reconciliation measures signed
by President Reagan in 1982, was estimated to reduce outlays
by $13.3 billion over three years, covering FY1983-FY1985.
Major spending changes affected such areas as payments to
farmers, dairy price supports, Food Stamps, inflation
adjustments for federal retirees, lump-sum premiums for FHA
housing insurance, user fees on Veterans Administration-
backed home loans, veterans' compensation and benefits, and
reduction in the membership of the Federal. Communications
Commission and the Interstate Commerce Commission.
[1982 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, pp. 199-204]

5. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1983

P.L. 98-270 (April 18, 1984)
Initial consideration of this act occurred in 1983, but
final action did not occur until 1984. It was estimated to
reduce the deficit by $8.2 billion over four years, covering
FY1984-FY1987.
Major spending changes affected such areas as limitation
and delay of federal civilian employee pay raises, delay of
federal civilian and military retirement and disability
COLAs, delay of veterans' compensation COLAs, and disaster
loans for farmers.
[1983 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, pp. 231-239, and
1984 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, p. 160]

6. Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985

P.L. 99-272 (April 7, 1986)
Initial consideration of this act occurred in 1985, but
final action did not occur until 1986. The act was estimated
to reduce the deficit by $18.2 billion over three years,
covering FY1986-FY1988.
Major spending changes affected such areas as student
loans, highway spending, veterans' medical care, Medicare,
Medicaid, and trade adjustment assistance.
Major revenue changes affected such areas as the cigarette
tax, excise taxes supporting the Black Lung Trust Fund,
unemployment tax exemptions, taxation of railroad retirement
benefits, airline employee income subject to taxation, and
the deduction of research expenses of multinational firms.
[1986 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, p. 521 and pp. 555-
559]

7. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986

P.L. 99-509 (October 21, 1986)
The act was a three-year reconciliation measure, covering
FY1987-FY1989. An estimated $11.7 billion in deficit
reduction contributed to the avoidance of a sequester (i.e.,
across-the-board spending cuts in non-exempt programs to
eliminate a violation of the applicable deficit target under
the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act) for FY 1987.
Major spending changes affected such areas as Medicare,
Medicaid, agricultural income support payments, loan asset
sales, federal employee retirement programs, federal subsidy
for reduced-rate postage, federal financing for fishing
vessels or facilities, retirement age limits, and elimination
of the trigger for Social Security COLAs.
Major revenue changes affected such areas as the tax
treatment of the sale of the federal share of Conrail,
commercial merchandise import fee, increased penalty for
untimely payment of withheld taxes, denial of certain foreign
tax credits, and the oil-spill liability trust fund.
[1986 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, pp. 559-576]

8. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987

P.L. 100-203 (December 22, 1987)
The act, a three-year reconciliation measure, covering
FY1988-FY1990, was the final reconciliation measure signed by
President Reagan. Together with an omnibus appropriations act
(P.L. 100-202), the reconciliation act implemented the $76
billion in deficit reduction over FY1988 and FY1989 called
for in a budget summit agreement reached after a sharp
decline in the stock market in October.
Major spending changes affected such areas as Medicare,
Medicaid, agricultural target prices, farm income support
payments, deferral of lump-sum retirement payments to federal
employees, Postal Service payments into retirement and health
benefit funds, the Guaranteed Student Loan program, Nuclear
Regulatory Committee license fees, and National Park user
fees.
Major revenue changes affected such areas as home mortgage
interest deduction, deduction of mutual fund expenses,
``completed contract'' method of accounting, repeal of
installment-sales accounting, ``master-limited''
partnerships, and accelerated payments of corporate estimated
taxes.
[1987 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, pp. 615-627]

9. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1989

P.L. 101-239 (December 19, 1989)
The act, signed into law by President George H.W. Bush,
reflected one-year reconciliation directives in the Senate
(for FY1990) and two-year directives in the House (for FY1990
and FY1991). It was estimated to contain $14.7 billion in
deficit reduction, which represented about half of the
deficit reduction envisioned in a budget summit agreement
reached earlier in the year (the remaining savings were
expected to occur largely in annual appropriations acts).
Major spending changes affected such areas as Medicare,
Medicaid, veterans' housing

[[Page S4023]]

loans, agricultural deficiency payments and dairy price
supports, the Supplemental Loans for Students (SLS) program,
Federal Communications Commission and Nuclear Regulatory
Commission fees, vaccine injury compensation amendments, and
the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant program.
Major revenue changes affected such areas as the exclusion
for employer-provided education assistance, targeted-jobs tax
credit, mortgage revenue bonds, self-employed health
insurance, low-income housing credit, treatment of junk
bonds, and research and experimentation credits.
[1989 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, pp. 92-113]

10. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990

P.L. 101-508 (November 5, 1990)
This five-year reconciliation act, covering FY1991-FY1995,
implemented a large portion of the deficit reduction required
by an agreement reached during a lengthy budget summit held
at Andrews Air Force Base. According to the Senate Budget
Committee, the act was estimated to reduce the deficit by
$482 billion over 5 years, including $158 billion in revenue
increases and $324 billion in spending cuts and debt service
savings.
Major spending changes affected such areas as Medicare,
Medicaid, agricultural loans, acreage reduction, deposit
insurance premiums, mortgage insurance premiums, collection
of delinquent student loans, OSHA penalties, aid to families
with dependent children (AFDC), child support enforcement
(CSE), supplemental security income (SST), unemployment
compensation, child welfare and foster care, Social Security,
abandoned mines, Environmental Protection Agency, federal
employee retirement and health benefits, veterans'
compensation and disability payments, airport ticket fees,
customs user fees, and tonnage duties.
Major revenue changes affected such areas as individual
income tax rates, the alternative minimum tax, limitation on
itemized deductions, excise taxes on alcoholic beverages and
tobacco products, motor fuel excise taxes, and Superfund tax
extension.
The public debt limit was increased from $3.123 trillion to
$4.145 trillion.
[1990 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, pp. 138-173]

11. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993

P.L. 103-66 (August 10, 1993)
This five-year reconciliation act, covering FY1994-FY1998,
was signed by President Bill Clinton in the first year of his
Administration. According to the Senate Budget Committee, the
act reduced the deficit by $496 billion over five years,
including $241 billion in revenue increases and $255 billion
in spending cuts and debt service savings.
Major spending changes affected such areas as Medicare,
Medicaid, Food Stamps, auction of the radio spectrum, student
loan programs, veterans' benefits, agricultural price
supports, crop insurance, liabilities of the Postal Service,
and Nuclear Regulatory Commission fees.
Major revenue changes affected such areas as a fuels tax
increase, maximum individual income tax rates, maximum
corporate income tax rate, small business tax incentives,
empowerment zones, and unemployment insurance surtax.
The public debt limit was increased from $4.145 trillion to
$4.9 trillion.
[1993 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, pp. 107-139]

12. Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of
1996

P.L. 104-193 (August 22, 1996)
This six-year reconciliation act, covering FY1997-FY2002,
was estimated to reduce the deficit by $54.6 billion over
that period.
Major spending changes affected such areas as temporary
assistance for needy families (TANF), work requirements,
supplemental security income (SSI), child support enforcement
(CSE), restrictions on benefits for illegal aliens, Child
Care and Development Block Grant, child nutrition, Food
Stamps, teenage pregnancies, and abstinence education.
[1996 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, pp. 6-3 through 6-
24]

13. Balanced Budget Act of 1997

P.L. 105-33 (August 5, 1997)
This five-year reconciliation act, covering FY1998-FY2002,
was one of two reconciliation acts signed by President
Clinton in 1997 and largely contained spending provisions.
According to the Senate Budget Committee, the two acts
together reduced the deficit by $118 billion over five years,
including spending cuts and debt service savings of $198
billion and $80 billion in revenue reductions.
Major spending changes affected such areas as Medicare,
Medicaid, children's health initiative, electromagnetic
spectrum auction, Food Stamps, temporary assistance to needy
families (TANF), supplemental security income (SSI),
increased contributions to the Civil Service Retirement
System, subsidized housing, and veterans' housing.
The public debt limit was increased from $5.5 trillion to
$5.95 trillion.
[1997 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, pp. 2-27 through 2-
30 and pp. 2-47 through 2-61]

14. Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997

P.L. 105-34 (August 5, 1997)
The second of the two reconciliation measures enacted in
1997, this five-year reconciliation act, covering FY1998-
FY2002, largely included revenue provisions.
Major revenue changes affected such areas as a child tax
credit, education tax incentives (including the HOPE tax
credit, the lifetime learning credit, and education savings
accounts), home office deductions, capital gains tax cut, the
``Roth IRA,'' gift and estate tax exemptions, corporate
alternative minimum tax repeal, renewal of the work
opportunity tax credit, and the airline ticket tax.
[1997 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, pp. 2-27 through 2-
46]

15. Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001

P.L. 107-16 (June 7, 2001)
This 11-year reconciliation act, covering FY2001-2011,
advanced President George W. Bush's tax-cut agenda during the
first year of his Administration. According to the Senate
Budget Committee, revenue reductions, together with outlay
increases for refundable tax credits, reduced the projected
surplus by $1.349 trillion over FY2001-FY2011. The tax cuts
were scheduled to sunset in ten years in order to comply with
the Senate's ``Byrd rule'' against extraneous matter in
reconciliation legislation (Section 313 of the Congressional
Budget Act of 1974).
Major revenue changes affected such areas as individual
income tax rates, the ``marriage penalty,'' child tax credit,
estate and gift taxes, individual retirement accounts and
pensions, charitable contributions, education incentives,
health insurance tax credit, flexible spending accounts,
research and experimentation tax credit, and adoption tax
credit and employer adoption assistance programs.
[CRS Report RL30973, 2001 Tax Cut: Description, Analysis,
and Background, by David L. Brumbaugh, Bob Lyke, Jane G.
Gravelle, Louis Alan Talley, and Steven Maguire]

16. Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003

P.L. 108-27 (May 28, 2003)
This 11-year reconciliation act, covering FY2003-2013, was
estimated to reduce revenues by $349.667 billion over that
period.
Major revenue changes affected such areas as the
acceleration of certain previously-enacted tax reductions
(including expansion of the child tax credit and the 10%
bracket), increased bonus depreciation and section 179
expensing, taxes on dividends and capital gains, the
Temporary State Fiscal Relief Fund, and special estimated tax
rules for certain corporate estimated tax payments.
[Joint Committee on Taxation, Estimated Budget Effects of
the Conference Agreement for H.R. 2, The ``Jobs and Growth
Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003,'' JCX-55-03, May 22,
2003]

17. Deficit Reduction Act of 2005

P.L. 109-171 (February 8, 2006)
This five-year reconciliation act, covering FY2006-FY2010,
was one of two reconciliation acts signed by President George
W. Bush in 2006 (initial consideration of both measures
occurred in 2005). This act, the spending reconciliation
bill, was estimated to reduce the deficit over the five-year
period by $38.810 billion.
Major spending changes affected such areas as Medicare,
Medicaid, State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP),
student loan interest rates and lenders' yields,
electromagnetic spectrum auction, digital television
conversion, grants for interoperable radios for first
responders, low-income home energy assistance program
(LIHEAP), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation premium
collections, agricultural conservation programs, Katrina
health care relief, and Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation
(PBGC) premiums.
[CRS Report RL33132, Budget Reconciliation Legislation in
2005-2006 Under the FY2006 Budget Resolution, by Robert
Keith]

18. Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005

P.L. 109-222 (May 17, 2006)
This act, the second of two reconciliation bills enacted in
2006, was the revenue reconciliation bill. It was estimated
to increase the deficit over the five-year period covering
FY2006-FY2010 by $69.960 billion.
Major revenue changes affected such areas as tax rates on
dividends and capital gains, the alternative minimum tax for
individuals, delay in payment date for corporate estimated
taxes, controlled foreign corporations, FSC/ETI binding
contract relief, elimination of the income limitations on
Roth IRA conversions, and withholding on government payments
for property and services.
[CRS Report RL33132, Budget Reconciliation Legislation in
2005-2006 Under the FY2006 Budget Resolution, by Robert
Keith]

19. College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007

P.L. 110-84 (September 27, 2007)
This six-year reconciliation act, covering FY2007-FY2012,
was estimated to reduce the deficit over that period by $752
million.
Major spending changes affected provisions relating to
lenders and borrowers involved with the Federal Family
Education Loan program and the William D. Ford Direct Loan
program.
[CRS Report RL34077, Student Loans, Student Aid, and FY2008
Budget Reconciliation, by Adam Stoll, David P. Smole, and
Charmaine Mercer]

Mrs. BOXER. I object to the Senator's unanimous consent request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.

[[Page S4024]]

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, that clearly states where we are headed.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. SESSIONS. I yield to the Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I would ask the Senator from Alabama this:
The Senator from California has correctly stated that reconciliation
has been used often in this body before. It was used by President
Clinton, since I have been here. It was used by President Bush. I voted
for most of the different reconciliation bills. But is it not true that
reconciliation, when it has been used before--even though used for
significant events--has always been used for already existing policy;
whether it is changing the rates of taxes, whether it is changing the
way the welfare system was adjusted relative to who was covered or
whether it was changing the way we deal with student loans?
It was always used on existing policy that had been pretty well aired
on the floor of the Senate. It has never been used for the purpose of
creating, ab initio, a brand new major tax, which would essentially tax
every American every time they turn on their light switch--a national
sales tax--which would introduce industrial policy and which would
affect virtually every American as to their jobs--sending many of them
overseas--and as to the ability to be competitive. Has it ever been
used for such a broad, extensive public policy event of creating
massive new taxes that don't exist today--a national sales tax--and
massive new industrial policy?
It would mean that policy and those taxes would come across this
floor without amendment, with 20 hours of debate, and an up-or-down
vote. Has it ever been used in that context in the Senate?
Mr. SESSIONS. No. In fact, few pieces of legislation this Senate has
ever considered will have as much broad-based complexity and impact on
our economy as a cap-and-trade system, period. That is why Senator
Byrd, the conscience of the rules of the Senate, said:

Using the reconciliation process to enact major legislation
prevents an open debate about the critical issues in full
view of the public. Health reform and climate change are
issues that in one way or another touch every American
family. Their resolution carries serious economic and
emotional consequences. The misuse of the arcane process of
reconciliation . . . to enact substantive policy change is an
undemocratic disservice to our people and to the Senate's
institutional role.

That is what Senator Byrd, the Democratic Senator who wrote the
reconciliation bill and who has written a book on the rules of the
Senate, has stated.
Mr. President, I have one more unanimous consent request. I ask
unanimous consent that it shall not be in order to consider any
reconciliation bill in the Senate that raises energy prices.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mrs. BOXER. Reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California is recognized.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, the problem with this--and I could support
it if it were made clearer--is it doesn't take into account that we
could have some very important new programs that actually result in
consumers getting rebate checks. So you may have an increase
temporarily, before we get free of foreign oil, in an energy cost that
is totally offset by a refund and a rebate. So this would hamper the
committees from doing what MIT says we should do, which is, when we do
tackle this issue of energy independence, make sure we have the
revenues to rebate funds back to the American people.
I do not want to block the possibility of that so I am going to
object in a moment. But I have to respond to Senator Gregg. This is the
first time I saw the Reagan revolution be so downplayed by my
Republican friends. ``Oh, nothing new was done by reconciliation.''
It was the Reagan revolution. It was Bill Clinton changing welfare as
we know it. I have it all here. So let's not say now, oh, the 13 times
the Republicans supported reconciliation it wasn't anything major; it
was little minor things.
The record is replete with what reconciliation did. Why are they so
afraid of reconciliation? They embraced it time after time. Don't be so
fearful of the rules of the Senate. Reconciliation is a rule allowed by
the Senate. Let's not say we could never do it again, never look at it
again. It doesn't make any sense.
I am going to object to this because I think in the end it could cost
consumers more.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. The time of the opposition
has expired.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I believe I still have the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time in opposition has expired.
Mr. CONRAD. The time on both sides has expired.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Two minutes is remaining under Senator Boxer's
time on Senator Boxer's amendment.
The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
Mr. CONRAD. I must say when the assertion is made reconciliation has
not been used for significant things in the past, that is not so.
Welfare reform----
Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield on that point?
Mr. CONRAD. No, I am going to complete my thought and then I will be
happy to yield. Welfare reform was not a significant policy change?
Absolutely it was. That was during the Clinton administration.
The tax changes that were made during the Bush administration were
made under reconciliation. That to me was an absolute, total abuse of
reconciliation. Reconciliation was designed for deficit reduction. The
place where I would agree with the Senator is, I don't believe
reconciliation was ever intended to write major substantive
legislation. But to suggest that has not been done in the past is not
so.
Our Republican friends were leading the way in abusing what
reconciliation is about. That is a fact. To suggest it has not been
used for major changes is not so.
I want to say something else. I have said repeatedly, publicly and
privately, that I do not think reconciliation is the appropriate way to
do climate change legislation or to do health care reform or other
major substantive legislation if it is not deficit reduction. That is
the position I have taken.
The fact is, in this resolution before us, there is no use of
reconciliation for any purpose. I want the public to be very clear. In
this resolution there is no reconciliation instruction for any purpose.
In the House, the Speaker has made very clear reconciliation would
not be used for climate change legislation.
Is it technically possible in conference that there could be an
instruction that would allow cap-and-trade revenue? Yes, it is. It is
possible. But let me say again, there is no reconciliation instruction
in the Senate budget resolution. I have argued against it for the
purposes that have been talked about and I have argued against it
publicly and privately.
On the House side, with respect to climate change, the Speaker has
said reconciliation would not be used for climate change legislation. I
take the Speaker at her word. In the conference committee I will say to
my colleagues: I will strongly resist--strongly resist--any attempt to
report out of the conference committee a reconciliation instruction for
the purpose of climate change legislation. I don't know how I could be
more clear on that point.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, first I appreciate the Senator arguing for
our case, which is that we should not use reconciliation in the Senate
for the purposes of pursuing a vehicle such as a massive new sales tax
on all Americans on their electric bills, and specifically whenever
they turn on their light switch they are going to get hit with this
tax. I would point out as an aside, he may have misrepresented what I
said. I didn't say we hadn't used it for significant things; we have
used it for significant things. But we have never used it for creating,
ab initio, a national sales tax or any tax, for that matter, ab initio,
and that is where the rubber meets the road.
I do believe strongly, listening to the Senator, that he has
basically admitted a conference report could carry in it reconciliation
instructions which

[[Page S4025]]

would allow for reconciliation to be used to create a new national
sales tax on everybody's electric bill. So it seems perfectly
reasonable that what the Senator from Alabama has requested should be
agreed to here. Because he essentially is asking for what the Senator
from North Dakota has suggested he supports, which is that
reconciliation will not be used that way after the Senator from North
Dakota has said the reconciliation may be able to be used that way.
There is no reason for the House of Representatives to put
reconciliation in their bill. It is a touch cynical for the other side
to represent that, because the bill before us today doesn't have
reconciliation in it, that reconciliation is not being considered as a
vehicle before this body because the only reason the House of
Representatives has put reconciliation in their vehicle--because they
don't need it, they have a Rules Committee--is because they can bring
it out of conference and stick it to the Senate and put it into the
Senate procedure here.
It means, on a purely procedural event, that the House of
Representatives is actually going to be controlling the floor of the
Senate. How outrageous is that? But independent of that there is a
procedural point--which affronts me as a Senator and I think would
affront the tradition and history of the Senate--there is the more
substantive issue that reconciliation should never be used to create a
brand new national sales tax. And that, of course, is what the Senator
from North Dakota has said is true, it should not be used in that way.
So why do they object to the fairly benign request here of the
Senator from Alabama, which is to ask unanimous consent that we not use
reconciliation on the floor of the Senate for the purposes of creating
a national sales tax, or what is euphemistically called a carbon tax? I
don't understand the opposition myself. It seems very strange. Under
the bill----
Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. GREGG. I yield for a question.
Mr. SESSIONS. The unanimous consent request would be in harmony with
the budget resolution that came out of committee and in harmony with
Senator Conrad's expressed personal views, would it not?
Mr. GREGG. It seems as though the Senator from Alabama is expressing
through his unanimous consent request the exact thought process of the
chairman of the committee as stated here on the floor.
Mr. President, I know Senator Thune wishes to speak off the bill. I
see the assistant leader is here. I wish to sort of line up time so
everybody gets time before we go into adjournment.
Mr. DURBIN. Six minutes.
Mr. THUNE. If I might ask the Chair how much time do we have before
we break?
Mr. GREGG. We can go until you finish.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is scheduled to recess at 12:30.
Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent to change that. How much time does
the Senator need?
Mr. THUNE. If I could have 5 minutes?
Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent the Senate continue to debate this
issue under the bill until 12:40, and that the 10 minutes from 12:30 to
12:40 be allocated to the Senator from South Dakota and the Senator
from Oklahoma, and the time from now until 12:30 be for the Senator
from Michigan.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. CONRAD. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, do I not control the floor?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire has the floor.
Mr. GREGG. I yield my time off the bill to the Senator.
Mr. CONRAD. There was a unanimous consent. Mr. President,
parliamentary inquiry: There was a unanimous consent request that was
objected to.
Mr. GREGG. I have the right, do I not?
Mr. CONRAD. In terms of division of time. Look, we can sort this out.
Mr. GREGG. Let's sort it out. That is a better approach.
Mr. CONRAD. Let's do it amicably so we sort it out. I ask unanimous
consent that the time from 12:35 to 12:40--no--12:25 to 12:30 be for
Senator Durbin. Then we come back to this side. How much time did
Senator Thune ask for?
Mr. THUNE. I say to the Senator from North Dakota that the Senator
from California has offered a side-by-side amendment to the amendment I
laid down yesterday. She spoke to that this morning. I wish to at least
make some remarks with regard to my amendment. So 5 or 10 minutes would
be what I would need to do that.
Mr. CONRAD. Would it be acceptable to the Senator to go from 12:30 to
12:35 or 12:36?
Mr. THUNE. That would be fine.
Mr. CONRAD. And then would Senator Boxer like to have time?
Mrs. BOXER. About 3 minutes, if I could.
Mr. CONRAD. From 12:36 to 12:39. Then to come back to Senator Inhofe?
Would the Senator like time?
Mr. INHOFE. I would like the same time my chairman has. I am ranking
member on the committee and I have some specific thoughts.
Mr. CONRAD. We could go from 12:39 to 12:42 with Senator Inhofe.
Would that be acceptable? I ask unanimous consent: Senator Durbin from
12:25 to 12:30; Senator Thune from 12:30 to 12:36; Senator Boxer 12:36
to 12:39; Senator Inhofe from 12:39 to 12:42.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, your
wonderful construction here has eaten into the 5 minutes. I think there
is 3 minutes left.
Mr. CONRAD. Five minutes----
Mr. GREGG. Give 5 minutes to everybody in sequence until they finish.
Mr. CONRAD. Five minutes for each Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I may be expressing a minority point of
view, but I want to express it on the floor of the Senate. I happen to
disagree with both sides on this. Do you think climate change is a
problem? Do you think global warming is changing the planet we live on?
Do you think there is a chance when our kids, 20 or 30 years from now,
take a look at it, they are going to say: Where were you, Senator, in
2009, when you had a chance to do something about it, when you had a
chance to try to take control of the mess that is being created in this
environment? What happened to you that day, Senator?
Some Senators will be able to say: Oh, I was embroiled in a
procedural fight on the floor of the Senate where we used words such as
reconciliation and conference instructions, and at the end of the day
we did nothing. Nothing--the same thing that has been done over and
over again when we tackled big issues on the floor of the Senate. We
find a way to twist ourselves in knots, we throw up scare tactics of
sales taxes that are going to be unmanageable, and guess what. Another
year under our belt, we will come back and see you next year, we will
have another debate. In the meantime all of these Senators will be
going to schoolchildren and people around America saying: We have to do
something about global warming. We have to do something about climate
change. I wish the Senate had the will. That is what this talk was all
about.
These Republican Senators came to the floor, objecting to using a
procedure that would bring us to a debate on global warming. They don't
want to talk about it because there are a lot of people who will have
to come up to the counter and be honest about whether we have a problem
not just in this Nation but in this world. They don't want to face it
honestly. They want to ignore it, and they want to scare the living
blazes out of the people across America about the possibilities: We
could have a national sales tax here and a tax here and a tax there.
That is how you inject fear into the debate. That is what it is all
about.
I think it is sad. Were we elected to do this, to find another excuse
for another year to go by with doing nothing for my grandson, for kids
across America and around the world, that this Nation will do nothing?
Last November 4 we had an election and a big change in this town, and a
majority of the American people said they are tired of a

[[Page S4026]]

Congress that does nothing. They want us to tackle health care. They
want us to tackle energy issues. They want us to face global warming.
They want us to create schools for the 21st century.
There is always an excuse: Maybe we can get to it later in the year,
maybe next year, maybe after the next election.
That is what this was all about. It is whether we are going to
honestly address this issue. The budget resolution before the Senate
doesn't take us to that debate. That has been pretty clearly stated.
But we could get to that debate, if the House says they want us to,
through what is called reconciliation. But we saw these Republican
Senators, many of whom think they are green and environmentally
sensitive, stand up and try to put every blockade in the road to stop
us from debating and passing legislation to deal with climate change
and global warming. Shame on the Senate. Shame on the Senate for
finding some reason, some excuse not to tackle this tough issue.
Will it be easy? Will it be popular? No way. It is going to be hard.
But isn't that why we were elected, on both sides of the aisle, to face
these hard and difficult issues? Somebody may lose an election over it,
but isn't that what the democratic process is all about?
Republican Senators who got up, one after another, objecting to
considering global warming as an issue under reconciliation, know that
lessens the chances that any bill is going to be passed. They know this
issue will be kicked down the road for the next year, for the next
Congress, for the next generation. Can America afford to wait? Can this
world afford to wait? Can't we see the ominous elements coming at us
under the circumstances, the change in climate, the change in global
warming that is bringing to this planet?
We know the reality. Unfortunately, we are going to ignore it today.
But we better face it. We better face it, if we want to face our
children.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Inouye.) The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent that when we return at 2:15, after
Senators who have the right to speak have completed their statements,
the time between 2:15 and 2:30 be divided between the Senator from
South Dakota and the Senator from California.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from South Dakota.

Amendment No. 731

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I would like to speak to an amendment I
laid down yesterday on which there has been a side-by-side amendment
offered by the Senator from California. In response to the comments of
my colleague from Illinois, there aren't any Republicans who aren't
prepared to debate the issue of climate change or energy policy. We
just think it ought to be debated in regular order; that when the
Senate does take on big consequential items such as this, it ought to
be handled in the normal routine, in the way the Senate deals with big
consequential issues such as the issue of climate change because it
would have a profound impact on the American economy and on American
households and families.
There isn't any resistance on this side to that. All we are saying
is, it should not be used as a part of the budget process where you
expedite this and sort of circumvent the normal rules and procedures of
the Senate that would apply to big pieces of legislation. We want to
debate that.
Frankly, there are lots of Republicans who are happy to have the
debate on climate change, on cap and trade, but also want to make a
part of the debate the cost. It is very easy to talk about throwing out
different solutions to this issue or talking about the general issue of
climate change, but when you start reducing the argument on cap and
trade, it has profound economic consequences on the American economy.
That is a part of the debate.
If we look at the question of whether climate change is occurring, if
one answers that yes, and if human activity is contributing to it, and
one answers that yes, we still have to get to the question, if those
two points are true: What do we do about it and at what cost? We think
that ought to be part of the debate.
The Senator from California has offered a side-by-side amendment to
mine. I assume she concedes the point that it would increase
electricity and gasoline prices. She adds to that the language ``or
increasing the overall burden on consumers through the use of revenues
and policies provided in such legislation,'' suggesting there would be
some offsets that families who are affected by higher energy costs
would benefit from.
If there are going to be additional revenues, they are coming from
somewhere. This isn't an imaginary world. This stuff just doesn't
appear. We are talking about real costs, real revenues.
I want to point out what the President himself said over a year ago
about his cap-and-trade plan:

Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates
would necessarily skyrocket.

We cannot assume for a minute that there are not going to be enormous
costs associated with the proposal of the Senator from California and
the cap-and-trade proposal she put forward in the last Congress, of
which the President was a cosponsor.
She referred earlier to MIT. Researchers there scored it at $366
billion a year or a cost of $3,128 to the average household. This has
an economic cost. It has an impact on our broader economy, an impact
specifically on American families and households and American small
businesses.
I used data yesterday I had received from utility companies in my
State about how this would affect their cost of doing business with
regard to residential customers, small business customers, and large
industrial users. We would see costs go up as much as 65 percent in
some cases.
They used a typical school district. It would on an annual basis
double their cost for electricity. These things have costs. That needs
to be part of the debate because the American people deserve to know
these things have costs.
We need to have a debate about climate change, but we ought to do it
in a way that is in regular order, that allows committees to do their
work and that contemplates what the costs and consequences of these
policies are going to entail for the average person.
This is an amendment provided to give something for the Senator from
California and Members on the other side to vote for. The fact is, a
cap-and-trade policy will increase electricity and gasoline prices.
Nobody disputes that. The question is how much. I happen to believe--as
do many others--that the President understates it in his budget, $646
billion in revenue. There are those who believe it would be two or
three times that amount. The President himself has said:

Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates
would necessarily skyrocket.

His OMB Director, Peter Orszag, has said this would all be passed on
to consumers. Utility companies will not bear the cost. Corporate
America will not. It will be passed on to customers in places such as
South Dakota where a higher energy cost is the thing they can least
afford these days when we have a bad economy to start with.
I hope when Senators come to vote on these amendments, they will bear
in mind these votes have consequences. If they vote against my
amendment, they are essentially saying that we are open to, and OK
with, a reserve fund created under the budget, a climate change reserve
fund that would lead to a lot higher electricity and gasoline prices.
All my amendment says is, those gas and electricity prices cannot go up
under a cap-and-trade proposal that might be adopted by the Congress
and might be included in some reconciliation instruction that comes
from a conference committee with the House.
Mr. INHOFE. Parliamentary inquiry.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. State your inquiry.
Mr. INHOFE. There was some confusion with the last unanimous consent
request. I know I get 3 minutes. I ask the Chair, is that correct, and
when will that happen?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 5 minutes.
Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am so pleased to have these 5 minutes to
correct the record. First, Senator Gregg takes the floor and says he
opposes a national sales tax; that is what cap and

[[Page S4027]]

trade is. I defy Senator Gregg to show me where there is a national
sales tax.
This is what is so interesting. A cap-and-trade system was invented
in America to fight acid rain. It has been one of the most successful
programs. For acid rain, we used the cap-and-trade system, and it has
worked. By the way, it has worked in the State of Senator Gregg.
The other thing I want to put in the record is, Senator Gregg made a
statement to my committee in January 2007. He said:

I believe Congress must take action to limit the emissions
of greenhouse gases from a variety of sources. The
overwhelming scientific data and other evidence about climate
change cannot be ignored. It is for this reason I have been a
strong advocate for mandatory limits on greenhouse gases.

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

Full Committee: ``Senators' Perspectives on Global Warming''

(By Senator Judd Gregg (submitted written testimony, Jan. 30, 2007))

Climate change is one of the most serious environmental
problems facing our planet. It touches nearly everything we
do. Our climate is inextricably linked to our economy and
heritage of our nation. Climate change affects where we live,
where our food is grown, the severity and frequency of storms
and disease, and many of our industries, including tourism,
forestry, and agriculture. In New Hampshire, folks are
already concerned with its impact on skiing, forestry, maple
production, tourism, and outdoor recreation. In fact, the
state was the first in the nation to pass a law in 2002
requiring carbon dioxide emissions reductions from power
plants. Today, approximately 50 towns in New Hampshire are
poised to vote in March on a resolution seeking the
establishment of a national greenhouse gas reduction program
and additional research into sustainable energy technologies.
States alone can not solve this problem. I believe Congress
must take action to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases
from a variety of sources. The overwhelming scientific data
and other evidence about climate change cannot be ignored. It
is for this reason that I have been a strong advocate for
mandatory limits on greenhouse gases, and I will continue
working with my Senate colleagues on legislation.
For the last four years, I have worked with Senators Carper
and Alexander and others, on legislation which would reduce
carbon dioxide and other emissions from power plants. The
Clean Air Planning Act, which I have cosponsored, would
address our nation's critical air pollution problems in a way
that curbs greenhouse gas emissions, enhances air quality,
protects human health, and facilitates a growing economy.
This legislation reduces the four primary emissions from
power plants: sulfur dioxide (a contributing factor in lung
and heart disease) by 80 percent; nitrogen oxide (associated
with acid rain and regional haze) by 69 percent; mercury
emissions (associated with fish contamination and birth
defects) by 80 percent; and carbon dioxide emissions (linked
to climate change) by establishing mandatory caps. This bill
would protect the quality of air we breathe and the climate
we live in, while simultaneously stimulating the economy and
protecting human health. I hope to reintroduce this bill with
my colleagues in the coming weeks.
However, power plants are just part of the solution. That
is why I have supported economy-wide, market-based
approaches, such as the Climate Stewardship Act's ``cap and
trade'' system, as reasonable ways to rein in carbon dioxide
without undue harm to the U.S. economy. I also believe we
need to re-examine the issue of vehicle emissions, a
substantial contributor to the global carbon budget, and
consider increasing the corporate average fuel economy
standards for motor vehicles.
I appreciate the Committee's attention to this issue and I
look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of
the aisle to draft climate change legislation which protects
our environment and stimulates our economy.

Mrs. BOXER. Now he is here trying to do everything he can to block us
from taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Then we have Senator Thune arguing that we are going to see taxpayers
take a huge hit, consumers take a huge hit, if we pass global warming
legislation. Where was Senator Thune when gasoline prices in my State
reached almost $5 a gallon? That wasn't because there was cap and
trade. We had no cap and trade. What happened? We saw gas prices go
from $1.50 to $5. We saw the biggest increase in history under George
Bush as President on gas prices.
Was it about cap and trade? Obviously not. We had no cap and trade.
It was speculation in the market. Where was my friend Senator Thune
with all kinds of amendments? He wasn't here. Where was my friend
Senator Thune and my friends on the Republican side when Enron was
speculating and price fixing and saying they didn't care if old ladies
went broke? Nowhere. That had nothing to do with cap and trade.
I am going to list some of the corporations that support a cap-and-
trade system: Alcoa, BP America, Caterpillar, Chrysler, Conoco, Deere,
Dow, Duke Energy, DuPont, Ford Motors, General Electric, Johnson &
Johnson, PepisoCo, and so on. Even Shell Oil understands if we want to
have a future, we better stand up and be counted.
Here is the point: My colleagues are doing everything they can to
narrow our options on how we deal with climate change. As chairman of
the Environment Committee, I want all the options at my fingertips. If
colleagues don't want to do it, I understand it because, guess what.
Game over. We are already fighting back. EPA is getting ready because
the Supreme Court told them they had to make sure greenhouse gas
emissions were reduced under the Clean Air Act. They were sued. The
Bush administration said: No, greenhouse gases aren't covered under the
Clean Air Act. Wrong. So the EPA is off and running. They have to be or
they will be sued again. They are already working to see that
greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.
Are States? A majority of States are involved. A lot of States have
their own cap-and-trade system. The Northeast corridor, the west coast,
they are working with Canada, Europe, and everybody else.
If my Republican friends want to put their head in the sand and have
the Senate be the only place in the world that isn't taking action on
global warming, be my guest. The train has left the station. The EPA is
doing its work. California and 19 other States are working to get a
waiver so they can cut back on greenhouse gases in terms of motor
vehicles. In New England, they have their own cap-and-trade system. The
Midwest is working with Canada.
If my friends want to stand around and listen to the minority witness
who said: Don't worry about it. There were times in history when carbon
was 1,000 parts per million, and everything was fine. But when we
pressed him, he admitted the only life on Earth then was dinosaurs. I
knew the people who are against this were looking backward, but I
didn't realize they were going back that many years when only dinosaurs
roamed the Earth.
I will fight hard to keep all our options on the table. We are
fighting back, and we will eventually be victorious because mankind is
depending on us.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, I appreciate the fact that I
will have 5 minutes. However, I have to say, after listening to my
counterpart, the chairman of the Environment and Public Works
Committee, I have rewritten my speech.
First of all, let me make a couple comments about her comments. When
gasoline was $5 a gallon, or approaching that, out in California, there
was a reason for that, a reasonable justification at that time. It is
that old thing most of us who are in earshot right now learned years
ago; it is called supply and demand. Our problem is, the Democrats have
restricted our ability to exploit our own natural resources. We have a
moratorium on offshore drilling to make it more and more difficult. So
as they restrict our ability to produce oil and gas, obviously, it is a
supply and demand thing, and the demand is going to go up and the price
is going to go up. It is a very simple principle.
I think it is also interesting to talk a little bit about the cap-
and-trade thing. We keep hearing that for acid rain, cap and trade
worked. For acid rain, there were two differences. First of all, there
was a technology that was workable at that time. We had a technology
that said: We know how we can restrict it. Of course, there is no
technology in terms of greenhouse gases in using cap and trade. The
second thing is, in the acid rain situation, there were about
approximately, at most, 1,000 sources. Here, there are literally
millions of sources. So there is no way we can actually get involved in
this and understand just how many sources there are out there. It would
be life-

[[Page S4028]]

changing for virtually everyone in our country.
The third thing, when the Senator from California was talking about
the national sales tax, that it is not a national sales tax, we hang
around Washington so long that we lose sight of the fact that if you
are a poor person out there and you are spending half of your
expendable income on driving your car and heating your home, and all of
a sudden they double the cost of that, that is a tax increase; when you
increase the cost of energy in America, it is not only an increase in a
tax, but it is also regressive because those who have the least income
are going to be spending a greater amount of their income on the
purchase of energy.
The Senator from Illinois talked about global warming and all this
and about the science. I will not get into the science thing because
even though the science is mixed on this, even though there are quite a
number of scientists who say there is not that relationship, that
anthropogenic gases, CO<inf>2</inf>, methane, are not the major cause
of global warming--or if global warming really exists--explain that to
the people in Oklahoma. We had the largest snowstorm in the history of
March 3 days ago. But nonetheless, we will go ahead and say: Well, for
the sake of the debate on global warming, we could concede the science,
even though the science is not there. The reason we can do that is we
want people not to be distracted from the economics of this thing, what
it really costs. This is one of the problems I have now.
The administration has talked about all the expenditures that are
going on. We talked about the $700 billion bailout. We talked about the
$787 billion stimulus plan. One thing about that is those are one-shot
deals. The problem with this is, once you impose this cap-and-trade tax
on the American people, this is every year. This is something that is
not going to be just one time. I can remember arguing against the $700
billion bailout. I said: If you take the number of families who file a
tax return and do your math, it comes to $5,000 a family. That is huge.
But at least it is only once. This would be, as the Senator from South
Dakota said, $3,000 a family every year. That is what we are talking
about now.
When the administration came out and said it was $646 billion, that
is probably understated about 1 to 4. The amount of money we know it is
going to be in terms of all the studying that has taken place is around
$6.7 trillion between now and 2050--$6.7 trillion. We had the other two
bills up--when we had the McCain-Lieberman bill, that range was
somewhere around $300 billion a year. When we had the Lieberman-Warner
bill, that was a little bit more. When we had the Sanders-Boxer bill,
that was about $366 billion a year. So the price tag goes up and up.
If we were to allow this to happen, this would be the largest single
tax increase in the history of America. We cannot let that happen
without going through the procedures, the normal procedures the Senate
has provided.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.

____________________