Rural America Preservation Act

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 20 minutes as if in morning business.

Thank you, Madam President.

Energy Independence

Madam President, I come to the floor to speak about an equally important issue to many of our States and follow up on the earlier comment by my colleague from Idaho on energy independence for the Nation, and the importance of that at this particular time to the Gulf of Mexico, America's only energy coast and an area that I need not have to explain again is in one of the most challenging situations of its entire history.

I want to associate myself with the remarks of the Senators from Nebraska and North Dakota regarding the drought.

We have had similar droughts, amazingly, in our State, even with the hurricanes. But as Senators who represent farm State communities, agriculture is very important to the State of Louisiana. We have been in a situation that they have been in. I know people think of us as a State with a lot of rain, and obviously a target for hurricanes, but we have also been stricken by serious drought.

The point of my comment about what was said is this: Sometimes things happen out of the ordinary, extraordinary situations, as they have just described, which deserve an unprecedented and extraordinary response.

I know we in Washington deal with that very well because we like everything that is sort of in the box, but we also don't like everything to kind of be one way. The fact is, when serious, extraordinary circumstances happen, we need to make a quick and appropriate response. It is most certainly appropriate for these Senators to come to the Senate and ask for a quick and immediate response to part of our Nation. This drought is not just, of course, in Nebraska and North Dakota. The pictures have shown pockets of severe and unprecedented drought, and whether it is because of global warming or whether it is just because of the severe weather patterns caused by something else, we can debate that until the cows come home. The fact is we have farming communities, rural communities, suffering right now. They need our best effort. I support seeing what we can do to help.

Natural Gas in the Gulf of Mexico

I will speak this morning for a few moments about an issue which is almost equal to the concern of farmers in America; that is, the price of natural gas. Farmers, like many industry groups, use natural gas. In their case, fertilizers are produced using a lot of natural gas, and fertilizers go into the farmers' fields.

Natural gas is also used as a raw material to create virtually 50 percent of the products created in American gas. And we have a great shortage. It is driving the price high, historically high--not the highest it has ever been but historically high prices.

The only way we can get the price of gas down--and we need to; that is what the Senator from Idaho spoke about, energy independence and stabilizing prices--is to increase the supply and to make the supply sources more diverse so industries, if the price of gas is high, can use coal, or if the price of coal is high, they can use oil, or if the price of oil is high, they can use alternative fuels or ethanol.

We have been in a mad dash against time to expand our source of fuels and to increase the supply, where we can, in the most environmentally sensitive way possible. It has been a debate which has gone on for decades. It will continue to go on for decades because some States produce gas, some produce oil, some produce coal, and some do not produce any of that and have nuclear powerplants and think that is the way to go. Some of us have more wind than others, some of us have more sun than others.

This is a debate which is natural in a democracy. Just because it is difficult does not mean we have to stop trying. We have to press forward on the issue of a greater supply and greater independence for America. We are dangerously dependent on foreign sources of oil and gas.

Madam President, 72 Senators--unprecedented in this day of partisanship, in this day of not even being able to agree on the time of day or the weather conditions outside--72 Senators came together under the leadership of Senator Domenici, the chairman of our Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The Presiding Officer serves on that committee and has been a wonderful voice of reason for the Senate. We passed a bill to open more supplies of gas in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Senator from Idaho showed a much larger and more colorful chart. I thought his looked terrific, and I will ask to borrow it one day, but I do not have it at this moment and this chart will suffice. It shows areas that are basically off of production. The white areas off the Atlantic coast, the coast of California, and around Florida have not been open to production for the last 35 years. There are many reasons-- some of them good and some of them not good--we can't drill in these areas.

We will continue to debate for decades to come what to do off the shores of Washington, Oregon, California, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. That debate will go on for the next many years. I will be on one side of that debate, and my colleagues will be on the other. I believe you can access resources appropriately. However, we are

not going to resolve that issue in the next week. We are not going to resolve that issue in the next month. I predict we will not resolve that issue for the next year. However, we have farmers in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Kansas who are desperate for gas now. They cannot wait 10 years or three decades until we figure out the politics of drilling on the Atlantic and Pacific coast. They need help now.

For Congress to be able to help them and not help them is a crime. For Congress to be able to help them and not help them is a crime, it is a shame. It should not stand.

We have the political support and the votes now--among Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate, today--to open more drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. We have not been able to open sections in the gulf because of disagreements between Florida and Alabama for decades. Because of the good work of the Senators from Alabama, Mr. Shelby and Mr. Sessions, and the good Senators from Florida, Mr. Martinez and Mr. Nelson--they worked for months in the most difficult of political situations to come up with a way to open more oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, a place that everyone agrees has tremendous reserves, that everyone agrees is where we should drill. There are no fights among Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Now Alabama and Florida have come to agreements. Their Governors have agreed. Their general political establishments have agreed--not unanimously but the vast majority.

We are here, a week until we leave, and we are going to do nothing-- that is what some people say--because it is not good enough. I don't know what school of politics or leadership they came from. All I know, as a leader, you take things a step at a time. You cannot change the world in 1 day. You have to change it a little bit at a time. It takes time to educate people and to talk to them about the benefits. I have taken as many Senators as will go with me out on the rigs. I took the Secretary of the Interior out there to show him. It takes a while to take a lot of people out there. They are busy. They have other things on their minds. We are doing the best we can to try to educate people all over the country about the benefits.

We started drilling offshore in the 1940s. The first well was a little town in southwest Louisiana called Creole. It was just basically washed away in the hurricane. The brave little town, Creole, LA, put the first well offshore about four decades ago. The industry has blossomed since then.

The purple spots on this chart represent pipelines of natural gas. But the purple spots represent more than pipelines; they represent jobs, economic hope, and economic strength of the greatest Nation on Earth. Without these pipelines, without this gas, we cannot produce hardly anything in the United States of America--from plastics, to manufacturing, to steel, to electricity. We keep the lights on in North America. We are proud of it. We want to do more of it. We can do more of it.

We have a bill and the political leadership to open the gulf, but some people around the Capitol do not want to do that until we figure out the politics of drilling off the coast of California--I suggest that is going to take a little more than a few weeks--or until we figure out the politics of drilling off the Atlantic coast. I suggest that is going to take a little bit more work. I am willing to do the work. I have done a lot of the work for the last 10 years. I am continuing to do the work. It is not going to happen in the next month.

Meanwhile, our manufacturing cannot stay competitive with China. With cheap oil and cheap gas coming in from other parts of the world, they are laying off workers, unable to make long-term capital decisions because this Congress can't figure out, this leadership can't figure out how to get a bill passed that opens gas and oil in the Gulf of Mexico. It would not be opened without a bill. It can't open without a bill.

Maybe in the ``plan''--lots of things are in a plan. I have plans for my house, to decorate. That is not to say it is going to get done because there is someone else in my house--my husband--who has ideas of his own about how this works. Just because you have something in a ``plan'' doesn't mean it is going to happen. Just because MMS has these things in their plan does not mean it will happen, but it could happen with a bill that we could pass. If our bill is law, obviously it will make it happen.

I will show the picture of the gulf here. This is what the Gulf of Mexico looks like. These are active wells. The bigger picture was white spaces with no one else drilling. These are all the drills, the yellow are the leases, and these are the active wells. We are producing 30 percent of the Nation's needs from here. We are proud to do it. We will keep doing it.

There is still a lot of white space we could open. That is what we are trying to do--open a little off the Alabama shore, give Florida the buffer they have asked for. Some people do not agree with that, but we had to come to terms with the situation in Florida. Their State is divided on this issue. Some people in Florida want to drill, some people don't want to drill. This was a compromise, as is everything here, and we figured out a way to give Florida a buffer, open up some more oil and gas drilling.

The next chart shows the area we came up with after a lot of work. This lease sale that we could open opens up 9 million new acres of oil and gas. This will not solve my colleagues' problem, Senators Kent Conrad and Ben Nelson, it will not solve their drought problem, but it will give relief to farmers everywhere when the gas prices come down and the oil and gas starts coming on line.

To put the 9 million acres in perspective--and the Presiding Officer will know this better than anyone--we have fought for 40 years over whether to open ANWR, and ANWR is 6,000 acres. And our debate for 40 years has been about whether to open 2,000 acres.

Our bill--and we have 72 Senators, Democrats and Republicans, led by Senator Domenici--will open 9 million acres. But some people around the Capitol don't think that is a significant step. They do not think that 9 million acres makes a difference. They just think this is nothing and we should keep working until we can get everything opened, and they are sure that will happen next year.

I will share the national membership list of the Consumer Alliance for Energy Security. There are probably 100 or more organizations, led by corporations, nonprofit organizations, agriculture, chemical, consumers, manufacturers--the list goes on. It is a very broad-based list. It is not just an industry list; it is retailers, et cetera--the national Chambers of Commerce, the Forestry Association, environmental organizations that understand this country is at great risk unless we open access, that understand we need to do it a step at a time. We are making progress, but we have to take this a step at a time. We want to take this step now.

I ask unanimous consent to have this list printed in the Record to indicate that this group is on the record wanting greater access on the issues I am speaking about.

But I want to go back to this 9 million acres. This will not open without our bill. It may be in the plan, but it is under moratoria. This section is under moratoria. It cannot be lifted with a magic wand. The only way it can be lifted is if we pass a bill to lift it. If we do not pass a bill, it will stay closed, and the oil and gas companies that have pipelines in the gulf, that have the infrastructure in the gulf, that have the expertise in the gulf will not be allowed to drill there. Meanwhile, prices go high, we lose manufacturing, everybody loses jobs in their States, and we wring our hands here saying we cannot do anything.

Well, we can do something. Chevron did something pretty big last week or 2 weeks ago. Chevron and some of its partners discovered a major oil and gas find, as shown here on the map. Look how small this is. It is just one of these little dots, just one of them. It is so tiny on the map, but it is so huge. This one discovery of Chevron called the Jack Rig--the Jack find--and several right here in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico will double the reserves of the country's oil.

It is a significant find. It is as significant as finds in Saudi Arabia. It is surprising, in some sense, to some people who thought we drilled everything we could in America. But the fact is, Americans are a pretty smart group of people. And our partners around the world, with whom we make partnerships, can usually figure things out pretty well. With the right incentives and the right ingenuity and with necessity, we can find oil and gas in places we never thought we could.

This well is 28,000 feet deep. They found oil and gas here that is going to be a great help in the event we continue to have problems in the Mideast, if we continue to have problems in Venezuela. It does not look very promising there to me right now.

This is one small, little dot. It is probably not more than--I am not sure--maybe a couple hundred acres. So when people say to me: Senator, your bill or Senator Domenici's bill that opens 9 million acres does not do anything--and I look at what the Jack Rig did, which is right here--I have to tell them I don't buy their argument, and I don't think the American people do.

Opening more area in the Gulf of Mexico where the infrastructure is, where we have proven reserves--and because the information is proprietary--and you can understand why it is proprietary because this is a competitive business. All we can find out, according to the geologists who made this discovery, is that they think they have tapped into a ``fairway''--which is the way it was quoted in the newspaper--a ``fairway'' of oil and gas, ready reserves within our grasp in the area that is used for drilling, with people who know how to work on the rigs, in a political environment that is safe.

And we cannot, and will not, before we leave next week, take this step because we have to wait to open drilling all over America off the coast? I do not think that is a wise decision. I think we should take the steps now that we can take, establish revenue sharing, which is part of the bill for Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama and allow these States to be full and equal partners in sharing the benefits of these resources because we most certainly share the burdens of pipelines, that while we are proud of them, they most certainly have an erosion factor.

Our wetlands are being lost at an alarming rate--I have spoken about that many times--not just because of the impacts of oil and gas, which are somewhat contributory to this situation, but mostly because this mighty Mississippi River, which also serves the Nation's economy in a very significant way, has been leveed over the centuries, and it cannot overflow like it used to. So the land cannot replenish itself. And so it continues to subside. And with global warming, it is now exacerbated. But that is not the subject of this talk.

We will put our money to great use in Louisiana. Every environmentalist should be very happy to know that our money is going to be used to protect and preserve this great wetlands, which is an enormous treasure for the Nation, and one that gives so many benefits, and, most importantly, with the recent hurricane, it helps protect great cities, and not just Louisiana communities, but it also protects Mississippi. We are happy to protect our neighbors when we can.

This wetlands protects the gulf coast, and we need to get it restored for the benefit of both the States of Mississippi and Louisiana. And it creates some buffers, obviously, to Alabama, should the storm come this way. It will hit us first before hitting Mississippi or Alabama, and our wetlands reduce that surge. Having said that, we need to press on with a pro-production bill in the Gulf of Mexico, laying the foundation, as Senator Domenici has suggested, for revenue sharing.

Now, I would like to read into the Record statements that have been made by Republican Senators, not Democratic Senators, although I do have some of those I could read into the Record. But for the purposes of this debate, they are statements by Republican Senators who strongly support the Senate version, and why they support the Senate version, because I want to communicate that some people on the other side or some people in the Capitol and other people are saying it is just the Democrats who are stopping this broader drilling bill, and if Democrats would just get their act together, we could get it done.

Nothing could be further from the truth. There are some Democrats opposed to the broad drilling bill, but there are many Republicans here opposed to the broad drilling bill.

Let me read one of the statements. And I am sure Senator Graham from South Carolina would not mind me restating his own speech on the floor of the Senate. He said, on August, 2--this is Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican from South Carolina:

I do support passage of S. 3711, but I do not support the

bill passed by the House of Representatives earlier this

year. The careful compromise that is the Senate bill cannot

be found in the version passed by the House. I will not

support any legislation that opens South Carolina's coast to

drilling for oil. . . . I . . . encourage my colleagues in

the House that if they are truly serious [they will live to

the framework of the Senate bill].

Now, he said ``for oil.'' He may be willing to open it for gas. I will grant you that. And the House bill allows a choice between oil and gas. But, like I said, that debate is complicated. It is multistate. It will take much longer than the week we have, much longer probably than even next year. And the need is immediate and the need is great.

I know my colleagues have come to the floor, and I asked for 20 minutes, so I am going to wrap up my remarks in about 1 minute to give others an opportunity to speak.

Let me quote from Senator Martinez, a Republican Senator from Florida:

I will take a moment to thank [the House] for their

diligence and vigilance. [I will thank the House Members for

their good work. But at this time] I cannot support the House

version. I have had clear assurances from our leaders [here

in the Senate] that we are committed to working from the

framework of the Senate bill. That has been important to me,

and while I respect the hard work of our House colleagues [on

this subject]--

And we have some great leaders in the House, both Republicans and Democrats--those are my words. He goes on to say:

and their autonomy as a body of Congress--

He says he respects that, but we must prevail in the Senate version.

Senator Warner said:

Many of my colleagues have expressed concerns about the

Gulf of Mexico bill, and they stem from what is in the House

bill. They said they do not want to lift the moratorium as

the House bill would do.

So even Senator Warner, who supports drilling off the coast of Virginia and has made his position clear, understands there is still work to be done in order for that to happen.

Mr. President, in conclusion, let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good. Let's not tell our agricultural community, our manufacturing community, our utilities, our petrochemical industry to wait when we have a bill that will open 9 million acres of gas and oil, provide great companies such as Chevron and others the opportunity--both big oil and independents that create a lot of jobs--to explore more here safely off our coast.

It increases our economic strength. It produces jobs immediately. It lowers energy prices for all consumers. And it does make our Nation more secure.

I am going to close with this: I do not know how my colleagues feel about being beholden to the politics of the Mideast right now. I do not know how my colleagues feel about being beholden to the politics going on in Venezuela. I do not feel comfortable with it. I do feel comfortable about the politics of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas. They are Americans. And we have our deal together. We want to drill for all Americans, for the security of our Nation.

Please, allow us to give this country more oil and gas. Please allow us to lower prices. And let's take it a step at a time. I promise my colleagues--the Senator from Pennsylvania knows very well the people in Pennsylvania need relief. I say to the Senator, they cannot wait another year or two. They need it now. He knows that well. He has been a strong advocate for his people in Pennsylvania. But we have to open this up now. And we will come back and work offshore Alaska, offshore maybe some of these other States, when their Governors and when their legislators and when their political leadership can get their neighborhoods together.

But the neighborhood of the gulf is together. Our Governors are together. Our Senators are together. And our people are together. We want to do this for America. Please let's do it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about the pending bill before S. 6061, the Secure Fence Act of 2006. This bill, which was approved the House of Representatives last week, would require the Department of Homeland Security to build a 700-mile wall on the United States-Mexican border.

The bill goes further. The bill also provides that we shall start a study as to whether to build a similar wall on our borders with Canada. That, of course, is a much longer border and a challenge which has not really been thought through. The northern border study is part of the bill, along with this new 700-mile wall, or fence, being discussed.

Earlier this year, the Senate spent the better part of 3 months debating immigration. The process began in the Judiciary Committee, on which I serve, in early May. We had a series of substantive debates in which we considered dozens of amendments, including several maritime committee meetings on very contentious issues. At the end of the process, we approved a tough, comprehensive bill with a strong bipartisan vote. There was a similar process on the floor of the Senate.

We debated the immigration bill for 1 month. We had over 30 rollcall votes on amendments. It is rare for Congress to devote that much time and energy to one bill. I think that was reflected in the bipartisan bill that we approved. It is far from perfect. It was a compromise. There are sections in that bill I don't support. I voted for it because I thought it was the best effort we could make at that moment to move this process forward.

The Senate bill takes a comprehensive approach that is tuff but fair.

First, we deal with enforcement by improving our border security by increasing manpower and increasing new technology and devising new means to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into America. We would crack down, as well, on employers.

Understand that the magnet which draws those who illegally immigrate to the United States is the opportunity for a better life through work. For most of these people, they come here to take jobs all across our country. I have seen them in my home State of Illinois and Chicago. It is hard to visit a restaurant or hotel without seeing many people there who are working very hard for long hours at low pay, and many of them are undocumented.

We believe that if you are really going to have enforcement work, it isn't just a matter of stopping them at the border; it is a matter of drying up the magnet that draws them: the employment, those who would employ undocumented people. Our bill speaks to that.

The President has said that he supports this concept. I agree with him. We need a tamper-proof ID so that those presenting themselves for employment are clearly identified. Currently, a person shows up with a name, a phony Social Security number, and goes to work. That day has to end.

If you are talking about enforcement, it is not just a matter of what happens on that border--it is a matter of what happens in the workplace in New York, in Chicago, in Los Angeles, and all across America.

This bill which was sent to us by the House does not address the employer sanctions. We know what has happened under the Bush administration. It is rare if ever that an employer is held accountable for hiring illegal aliens. Unless and until we can engage the employment issue with the border security issue, we are going to have a difficult time controlling the flow of illegal immigration.

This bill talks about a fence. It is not the first time it has been brought up. In the comprehensive immigration bill which we passed, there was a provision for constructing a 370-mile, triple-layered fence and 500 miles of vehicle barriers along the southwest border. I question whether this is going to work. I have my doubts.

Consider just the obvious. Our southern border is more than 2,000 miles long, and we are building 700 miles of fencing or barriers. I have to say that leaves a lot of area uncovered. I guess it is not a leap of imagination to believe that people will find a way to go around this wall, around this fence, or under it. It is going to happen. I think to place all of our confidence in this sort of basic barrier may go too far.

But the provision was in our bill. It was an enforcement provision for the border which included 370 miles of tripled-layered fence and 500 miles of vehicle barriers.

Then, on August 2, the Senate appropriated the money to build it, $1.8 billion for fencing and barriers authorized by the Senate bill. The measure was approved on a strong bipartisan vote of 94 to 3.

Despite my scepticism about the fence, my belief was that this moves us forward. If this fence moves us forward in the debate about comprehensive immigration, I am going to join in that effort even though I start with scepticism about whether this is really going to do everything we are told.

So we are dealing with a fence and barrier that has already been authorized and funds have been appropriated by the Senate. Instead of going to conference with the House and Senate and sitting down and working out their differences between the two bills, the House of Representatives held hearings around the United States, hearings which were designed, I am afraid, to move this issue to the public forefront in not a very positive way; in some respects, a very negative way. In that effort, they came up with the inspiration for a new bill. In other words, they walked away from their earlier bill which dealt with immigration enforcement in very harsh terms, saying that those who were here illegally would be deemed felons, aggravated felons under Federal law, and anyone who helped them would also been charged with the crime.

Now they are off on a new approach--this so-called 700-mile fence approach. It is hard to keep track of what is going on in the House of Representatives when it comes to immigration. It changes almost on daily or weekly bases.

Before they will consider sitting down with the Senate and working out an agreement on a bill, they send us a new bill.

That is what has happened here. I wonder why at a time when we are facing so many serious issues in this country we are engaged in such political posturing when it comes to an issue of this importance.

Wouldn't it have been better for us to spend this week, instead of wasting and burning off the hours on the secure fence bill--the second House immigration bill--focus on a national energy policy, talk about ways that we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil so that Americans can have some security knowing that this economy will grow with good, reliable energy sources, and that we would not be subsidizing those who send oil to the United States and then turn around and use the hundreds of millions of dollars we send to finance our enemies and terrorism?

This is not really about immigration. It is about something else. This is about an effort by the Republican leadership to find just the right issue for an election that is just a few weeks away.

This morning, the New York Times tells us that the American people, when asked, have a new low opinion of Congress. It has been 12 years or more since so few people had a positive view of their Congress. This morning, they reported that 25 percent of the American people have positive feelings about the Congress. When asked why, they said Congress is dominated by special interests; it is dominated by an agenda that has no importance to the lives of most American people; and it seems like all they are doing is political posturing for the next campaign.

Many of those criticisms are sadly true.

This bill has been tied up for the last week and fits right into the category of political posturing.

The earlier immigration bill of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which would have made felons out of many hard-working people and would also have made felons out of many nurses and social workers and clergymen who were trying to help those who are here undocumented--that bill has been abandoned. Now they are trying to find a new bill, a new wedge issue for the November 7 election.

I believe we need stronger enforcement, but we need to be smart in the way we do it.

Let me give you some numbers which will give you an indication of what a smart approach might include.

In the last decade, we have doubled the number of Border Patrol agents that are at our southern border and other borders where people might cross, and they have spent eight times as many hours patrolling the border in the last 10 years and an 800-percent increase in the manhours spent patrolling our borders.

During the same period of time that this dramatic increase in manpower at the border has occurred, the number of undocumented immigrants coming into the United States has doubled.

As Attorney General Gonzales recently noted, ``Some believe we should be focusing solely on border security.'' He said, ``I don't think you can have true security without taking into account the 11 to 12 million who are already here.'' We need to know who they are . . . and take them out of the shadows.

Our bill, our comprehensive bill, sought to deal with this immigration issue in a sensible, smart, tough approach that will deal with enforcement as well as dealing with the reality of those who are here.

Now the House of Representatives, under the control of the President's party, has refused to sit down with the Senate and negotiate in a conference committee. They apparently prefer tough talk to solutions.

Now we have a 700-mile wall that is now being proposed. It keeps going up in the bidding from 300 to 700. Who knows what the next bill will be in preparation for this next election? That is what the bidding war is all about--who can come up with the longest wall.

If we want to solve the problem of illegal immigration, we have to secure our border, strengthen enforcement of our immigration laws, and address the situation of approximately 12 million undocumented people in our country. That is a comprehensive approach.

I hope we will have a chance, though I am doubtful, to offer amendments to this bill. It would be good to return to some of the elements of the earlier bill which had widespread support. Sixty-four Senators voted for the bill, the McCain-Kennedy comprehensive immigration bill. I was one of them. We believe this was a good, bipartisan effort to deal with a very tough problem. We need that kind of comprehensive approach.

That bill included a provision which I will offer as an amendment to this bill, if given an opportunity. It is called the DREAM Act. This is a narrowly tailored, bipartisan measure I have introduced with Senators Hagel and Lugar, both Republican colleagues, who have joined me and many Democratic Senators in this bipartisan effort. This gives undocumented students the chance to become permanent residents if they came here as children, are long-term U.S. residents, have good moral character, no criminal record, will attend college or enlist in the military for at least 2 years.

Currently, our immigration laws prevent thousands of young people from pursuing their dreams and fully contributing to the Nation's future. They are honor roll students, star athletes, talented artists, valedictorians, aspiring teachers, doctors, scientists, and engineers. These young people have lived in this country for most of their lives. Their parents brought them here. It is the only home they know. They are assimilated and acculturated into American society. They are American in every sense of the word except for their technical legal status.

They have beaten the odds in their young lives. The high school dropout rate among undocumented immigrants is 50 percent, compared to 21 percent for legal immigrants and 11 percent for native-born Americans. So the odds are against these kids ever graduating from high school. These children we are talking about in this bill, the DREAM Act, have demonstrated the kind of determination and commitment that makes them successful students and points the way to the significant contributions they can make in their lives. These students are tomorrow's teachers, nurses, doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs. They have the opportunity to make America in the 21st century a success story if their talents can be part of that success.

The DREAM Act would help them. It is not an amnesty. It does not say automatically that they are going to be citizens. It is designed to assist only a select group of them, the very best of the best, young people who have done nothing wrong in their lives, good moral character, finished high school, who then enlist in our military for at least 2 years or pursue a college education. That gives them the chance to earn their way toward citizenship. This offers no incentive for undocumented immigrants to enter the country and requires the beneficiaries to have been in the country for at least 5 years when the bill is signed.

It would repeal a provision of Federal law that prevents individual States from granting instate tuition rates to these students. It would not create any new tuition breaks. It would not force

States to offer instate tuition to these students. It is a State decision. Each State decides. It would simply return to States the authority to make that decision.

It is not just the right thing to do, it is a good thing for America. It will allow a generation of immigrant students with great potential and ambition to contribute fully to America.

According to the Census Bureau, the average college graduate earns $1 million more in her or his lifetime than the average high school dropout. This translates into increased taxes and reduced social welfare and criminal justice costs.

There is another way our country would benefit from these thousands of highly qualified, well-educated young people who are eager to be part of America. They want to serve, many of them, in our military. At a time when our military is lowering its standards due to serious recruiting shortfalls, we should not underestimate the significance of these young people as a national security asset.

The Department of Defense has shown increased interest in this bill, understanding that there is a talent pool of these young people who are technically undocumented but want to live in the United States and serve our country. They need that talent. We need that talent as a nation.

On July 10, the Senate Committee on Armed Services held a hearing on the contributions of immigrants to the military. David Chu, the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, said the following:

There are an estimated 50,000 to 65,000 undocumented alien

young adults who enter the United States at an early age and

graduate from high school each year, many of whom are bright,

energetic and potentially interested in military service.

They include many who have participated in high school Junior

ROTC programs. Under current law, these people are not

eligible to enlist in the military. If their parents are

undocumented or in immigration limbo, most of these young

people have no mechanism to obtain legal residency even if

they have lived most of their lives here. Yet many of these

young people may wish to join the military, and have the

attributes needed--education, aptitude, fitness and moral

qualifications. In fact, many are High School Diploma

Graduates, and may have fluent language skills--both in

English and their native language . . . the DREAM Act would

provide these young people the opportunity of serving the

United States in uniform.

If we are talking about making America more secure safe, why would we turn our backs on the opportunity for these young people who came to America at an early age, who have beaten the odds by graduating from high school, who have good moral character and want to be part of our future, why would we turn down their opportunity to serve in our military?

The DREAM Act is supported by a broad coalition of the Senate, by religious leaders, advocates across the country, and educators across the political spectrum. Any real and comprehensive solution to the problem of illegal immigration must include the DREAM Act.

The last point I make is this: We are asked regularly here to expand something called an H-1B visa. An H-1B visa is a special visa given to foreigners to come to the United States to work because we understand that in many businesses and many places where people work--hospitals and schools and the like--there are specialties which we need more of.

I can recall Bill Gates coming to meet me in my office. Of course, his success at Microsoft is legendary. He talked about the need for computer engineers and how we had to import these engineers from foreign countries to meet the need in the United States. He challenged me. He said: If you will not allow me to bring the computer engineers in, I may have to move my production offshore, and I don't want to do that.

That is an interesting dilemma. Now put it in the context of this conversation. Why would we tell these young people, who have beaten the odds and shown such great potential, to leave America at this moment and then turn around in the next breath and say we are going to open the gates of America for other foreigners to come in and make our economy stronger? Why aren't we using these young people as a resource for our future? They have been here. They have lived here for a long period of time. They understand America. They are acculturated to America, and they want to make America better.

Instead of looking overseas at how we can lure more people in to strengthen our economy, we need only look right here at home. As Mr. Chu, from the Department of Defense, said there are 50,000 to 65,000 of these students each year. Why would we give up on them when they can be not only tomorrow's soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen, but they can be tomorrow's doctors, scientists, and engineers?

If given the opportunity, and I certainly hope I will on this bill, I will offer the DREAM Act. I want my colleagues to join me on a bipartisan basis.

I walk around in the city of Chicago and other places in my State, and a number of young people who would be benefited by this bill come up to me. They tell me stories which are inspiring in one respect and heartbreaking in another--inspiring because some of them, with no help, no financial aid, have made it through college. One of them, a young man I continue to follow with great anticipation, is now working on a master's degree. He wants to go into medical research. He is good. He is a great scientist, a young scientist who wants to make this a better world. He is one of these undocumented kids, now a young man. Why would we give up on him?

These high school students who have worked so hard in neighborhoods and communities where it is very tough to succeed, they turn their backs on crime, drugs, and all the temptations out there and are graduating at the top of their class, they come to me and say: Senator, I want to be an American; I want to have a chance to make this a better country. This is my home. They ask me: When are you going to pass the DREAM Act? I come back here and think: What have I done lately to help these young people?

We can do something. It is not for me; it is not for the Senate; it is for this country. Let's take this great resource and let's use it for our benefit as a nation. We will be a stronger and better nation if we do.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I would like to make some comments regarding the pending business, H.R. 6061, the act that came to us from the House of Representatives which is titled the Secure Fence Act of 2006, the essence of which would provide the authority for the United States to construct a variety of features across large portions of our border with Mexico to prevent illegal immigration.

The point of this legislation is, of course, to follow through with a series of appropriations that we have now provided for to enhance our ability to put National Guard troops at the border, construct more fencing, construct more roads, more vehicle barriers,

more sensors, more lights, more cameras, and provide more Border Patrol to patrol this large area of our border.

The combination of all of these, personnel and infrastructure and technology enhancements, will enable us to gain effective control of our border. I am pleased that as a result of the appropriations we have passed over the last couple of years, we are now beginning to see our efforts pay off. In many areas of the border, the enhanced security is paying off. It is noticeable. I will cite some of the statistics to point that out.

I express support for this legislation because it provides a roadmap. It makes it very clear where we are going. It establishes principles by which the Department of Homeland Security can operate with the funding we have been providing and will provide in the future.

The essence of the legislation, as I said, is to provide more reinforced fencing, more physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors. The Secretary of Homeland Security obviously will determine the appropriate sequencing of when these things are constructed and the appropriate mix as to where you put the fencing, where you put the vehicle barriers, the sensors, and so forth. The bill itself, for example, recognizes that in mountainous areas, you would be exempt from providing some of the fencing. But the bottom line is to provide a combination of things which, in concert with personnel, will make it much more difficult for illegal entry into the United States. The net result will be that it will be much more difficult for smugglers and illegal aliens to gain entry into the country, it will significantly reduce crime rates in border towns, it will clearly improve the quality of life for Arizona and for the constituents I represent, and it will preserve the fragile desert lands and archeological resources which are being destroyed by the illegal pedestrian and vehicular traffic, again particularly along the area of the border between the State of Arizona and the area of Senora in northern Mexico.

Let me talk for just a moment about the environmental impact because that has been a matter of some concern to those who view this legislation as simply involving the creation of some kind of a wall. Now, let me make it clear. This is not a wall. Fencing, per se, is not a wall. In fact, part of what we would be doing here is replacing the so-called landing mat fencing, which does look like a wall, with chain link-type fencing that you can see through. There are two reasons for this. The landing mat fencing is the steel landing mats that are left over from primarily World War II that can be stood on end and welded together, embedded in concrete pilings, and represent a barrier to entry into the country. They are high and it is hard to get over them but not at all impossible. All you need is a ladder on the other side of the fence and a willingness to fall down and maybe break an arm on this side, and a lot of people do that.

The fencing is deteriorating. It is very difficult to repair because of its age. And for the Border Patrol, they can't see through it, so it represents a disadvantage to them because they can't see who is amassing on the other side of the border. They can't see where rocks are being thrown from, and now rock-throwing has been a highly dangerous problem for members of the Border Patrol. So they would prefer to have either single or, even better, double fencing which they could see through and which is a more modern design than this landing mat fencing. So far from being a wall, what is contemplated in this legislation is exactly the opposite. It involves a fence which you can see through combined with other kinds of technology such as vehicle barriers, cameras with which we can see illegal entry, sensors with which we can detect it, and lights which help us to see.

Now, we are not going to put the fencing along the entire border, obviously. In some parts of the border, particularly near urban communities, we will extend the fencing. In other areas, the legislation contemplates vehicle barriers. This is important because in certain flat areas of the desert, a lot of vehicles are being brought across now. Ordinarily they are stolen in the United States, taken across the border, filled with some kind of contraband, be it illegal drugs or the human cargo the Coyotes pick up, and then they bring that across the border. Frequently, those vehicles are abandoned on our side of the border, representing an environmental hazard.

But what the Border Patrol has discovered is that as they have begun to get more operational control or jurisdiction over the border area because of the increased number of Border Patrol agents and vehicles and fencing and so on that we have already provided, the Coyotes and the cartels--the drug smugglers, the gangs--are fighting for this operational control of territory, and they are using weapons. What the Border Patrol tells me is that whenever they see a vehicle, they know it is a problem because it has a more valuable cargo and is likely to be defended with weapons. That is one reason they are so insistent on putting vehicle barriers in some areas of the border.

In some areas, fencing will not be appropriate, and cameras will do the job. I have been in the control rooms where we have one person able to monitor many different TV screens that represent the views of many different cameras, some of which are infrared, so you can see at night. This way, you don't have to have fencing all along the border; you have cameras which can show you what is happening. When you see groups of illegal immigrants massing on the other side of the border, preparing to cross, the person in the control area calls the Border Patrol, and they are able to get to the location in time to stop the entry or to pick up the people and return them if they have already entered.

Again, you don't need fencing across the entire border. It is not a wall. It is not solid fencing. It is a combination of things which, working together, will enable us to secure the border.

I mentioned the environment because I think it is important for us to recognize that more fencing and these other techniques can actually help improve our environment. It does not degrade the environment. The illegal border crossing traffic has created thousands of new trails and roads on Federal lands in Arizona. I am going to submit for the Record the documentation of each of the things I am saying here rather than provide them orally, but for each of these comments I am making, there is documentation through hearings that have been held, through reports that have been issued, through stories that have appeared in newspapers and so on.

For example, the Defenders of Wildlife notes that since 2002, 180 miles of illegal roads have been created in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge alone. This is a wildlife refuge we have set aside for the pronghorn antelope and bighorn sheep and other species we want to protect, and the entry of all of these vehicles, illegally creating these new roads, is substantially disrupting the habitat, for example, for the bighorn sheep. The illegal roads divert the normal flow of water, and they rob native plant cover of the moisture it needs to survive. The proliferation of trails and roads damages the flora and fauna--the cactus, for example, and other sensitive vegetation--and disrupts and even prevents the revegetation of the area. You can see tracks in the desert that were created over 50 or 60 years ago, and it takes that long for the fragile desert to recover. That is one of the unfortunate results of all of this illegal immigration, which could be prevented with more vehicle barriers and fencing along the border.

The trails obviously create soil compacts and then erosion which, in other areas, results in damage. I have seen with my own eyes the tons of trash that is left behind. If you can imagine millions of people over the course of time trying to cross the border and leaving behind hundreds of thousands of plastic water jugs and items of clothing and elements in backpacks and the like, it is just incredible, what you see, and it creates all kinds of problems. This proliferation of trash and, by the way, concentrations of human waste, I would also note, impacts wildlife and vegetation and water quality. It detracts from the scenic qualities, obviously, and can affect human and animal health from the spread of bacteria and disease. Trash is also ingested by wildlife and livestock, which sometimes results in illness or even death of the livestock and wildlife.

In the early 1990s, over 300 wildfires were caused by campfires of illegal immigrants, which additionally poses a threat both to the environment and to human safety in these areas.

The damage is not limited to the compaction, and so on, by human traffic. As I noted, vehicles coming across create their own special set of problems. Abandoned vehicles are often left in place, and the burden of removing them falls to the Government, which has to very carefully try to get to the vehicles without creating new roads and trails and get them removed without causing even more environmental damage. If they are not removed quickly, they are often set on fire by vandals. They have fluids that leak into the watershed and into water courses. As I said, further removal causes additional damage as the tow trucks are forced to navigate previously unspoiled areas of the desert.

Interestingly, the illegal immigrants frequently take vegetation from the environment to build shelters, and by taking a lot of the ocotillo cactus, for example, they are removing a very important species from the desert to build these camouflages, drug stashes, and temporary shelters.

Also, interestingly, when illegal aliens fill water bottles in the wetland locations, it has been determined that they have actually infected these protected Federal wetlands with invasive parasites and diseases which have been carried with them in the water levels which have harmed native fish and wildlife. In fact, in a report to the House of Representatives committee, according to this report, new tapeworms and fungi have already impacted populations of endangered fish and frogs.

So when we talk about the potential damage to the environment from the fences, it is easy to see that there is far more of a benefit than a cost to creating impediments to illegal entry which is creating the kind of environmental impacts I am talking about.

Just to give one summary impact, Coronado National Forest, which is on the border in the area of Tucson, experienced the following environmental degradation from the period 1996 to 2006: 298 abandoned motor vehicles, 300 miles of significant damage to environmental resources caused by off-road vehicle use, 120 human-caused wildfires.

There is an interesting parallel with the fence which was built in the San Diego area. There was concern about the environment there as well. But not only has the construction of that triple fence in the area of San Diego virtually stopped illegal immigration in that area, it has significantly reduced crime on both sides of the border because the criminals who used to congregate in the area are no longer congregating in the area because they can't get across. The result is the San Diego fence has significantly improved the environment in the area, with grasslands coming back and the return of protected species that hadn't been reported in the area for years. I believe all of this is an important element in that debate, demonstrating that the additional fencing and other border technology can help to prevent environmental damage.

But what of the primary purpose of the fencing to prevent illegal entry? This is important for a variety of reasons. Due to the close proximity of the border to a number of major highways in the State of Arizona, illegal immigrant and drug trafficking is often intense. When smugglers can manage to reach the roads, they often resort to excessive speed, driving without lights, and driving down the wrong side of the road to escape law enforcement. There have been a lot of injuries and deaths and attacks on Border Patrol that have resulted. We had an actual shoot-out on the freeway between Tucson and Phoenix between two rival gangs who were contesting to see who could own the illegal immigrants in the van at issue. Frequently, these vans are wrecked, overturned, and a lot of illegal immigrants are killed or injured.

In the one unfortunate case, in the town of Sierra Vista near the border, an elderly couple in the community had just gotten married--I believe it was the week before--and they were simply driving through an intersection, minding their own business, when, with excessive speed in order to avoid apprehension, a load of illegal immigrants came crashing through, hit their vehicle, and killed them both. You can imagine the sorrow as well as the anger in this small community when these wonderful people, who were known to many of the residents of the community, when their lives were extinguished right after they were married and looking forward to some very happy years because of this illegal activity. This has real impacts on people's lives in the United States, and that is another reason to end it.

We had testimony in the subcommittee which I chair--of the Judiciary Committee--Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, about the number of illegal immigrants who cross who are criminals or who are wanted for crimes. It isn't just a matter of keeping people from entering the United States to work. The testimony was, by the head of the Border Patrol, that now over 10 percent of the illegal immigrants apprehended coming into this country are criminals. I am not talking about immigration violations; I am talking about serious crimes such as homicide, rape, assault, kidnapping, serious drug crimes. It is not only overloading our law enforcement and court systems, but it is also creating a huge problem at the border.

The U.S. attorney for Arizona, Paul Charlton, testified that last year assaults at the border were up 108 percent. Why? Because, as I said before, the Border Patrol and law enforcement is now contesting the territory that before the cartels and the coyotes had some degree of control over, and they are fighting back. They are fighting back with weapons, and they are also fighting back with things like rocks, which you may not think is a threat until you get hit in the head with one and are severely injured and maimed, really, for the rest of your life.

There is a lot to protect with more fencing, more vehicle barriers, more cameras, more sensors, and the like at our border. It is interesting that vehicle barriers, which are important because, as I said, whenever the Border Patrol sees a vehicle, they know they have a problem because of an important value in the load. Vehicle barriers have worked in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife area, for example, where there has been a 90-percent reduction. In the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument there has been a 95 percent reduction in vehicle traffic. It can work. But we have to do it.

People say we have tried it and it doesn't work. We have barely started. In fact, there are almost four times as many New York City police officers as there are members of the Border Patrol. So our effort now to build up the Border Patrol, add this fencing, add the vehicle barriers, add the cameras, and all these things to the border is beginning to have an impact. It can work. We simply have to do more. That is what this legislation would provide.

I will not cite the statistics, but there is great evidence that the fencing in the San Diego area has substantially reduced the amount of illegal traffic across the border. It used to represent about half of the border crossings. It is now down to 10 percent. In the area of the triple fence, it is practically zero, I am told.

The bottom line is that we can make a substantial difference by not only appropriating the money--I saw, just a moment ago, the chairman of the Budget Committee here, and the subcommittee in charge of appropriations for this effort. The Senator from New Hampshire was on the Senate floor a moment ago. I commend him again for his efforts, primarily in the last couple of years, to make funds available to do all these things.

As I said, we are moving forward with this at the border, and it is beginning to make a difference. What the legislation passed in the House of Representatives will enable us to do is to have a clear path, a clear guideline of exactly what we are going to do. It provides discretion to the Department of Homeland Security about what exactly to do in what areas. It is not a fence along the entire border, it is a combination of these different things as the Department of Homeland Security deems appropriate. But we believe, in consultation with the Border Patrol, with local officials, that they can determine where best to put each of these assets and how to sequence their construction in such a way as to eventually gain control of the border, and that should be our first goal here: to

establish control of the border, to secure the border so we can move on with the other elements of comprehensive immigration reform which, incidentally, I support very strongly. But I think most of us agree a first step must be to secure the border.

I commend this bill to my colleagues. I hope we will be able to get cloture on Monday and we can proceed to its adoption. For those constituents in my home State of Arizona, this would be a very big benefit since over half of the illegal immigrants now entering the United States come through my State of Arizona. This is critically important for my State, but it is also important for the United States, and I hope my colleagues will join together to support this important legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record some background materials on this subject.

Mr. President, I would just like to add to what my colleague from Arizona has said about the importance of border security. One of the clear priorities in the debate about immigration is what are we going to do to take steps to ensure that we stem the flow of illegal immigration in this country. The Senator from Arizona has been a great leader on this issue. I commend him for that. Of course his State is right down there on the border. But, ironically, even in my State, the State of South Dakota, which is somewhat removed from the border, we are experiencing the effects, some of the negative effects of immigration.

In fact, I had a meeting not long ago with law enforcement personnel in my State--State, Federal, local law enforcement--to talk about the methamphetamine issue which has become a real epidemic in my State like it has in many other places. In fact, methamphetamine arrests were up 45 percent last year in Sioux Falls, which is

our biggest city. There is what is known as the I-29 corridor, from Sioux City to Sioux Falls, beyond to South Dakota, and up into North Dakota. It has become afflicted with the methamphetamine crisis.

As I met with them, one of the things that became very clear is that much of what is driving the methamphetamine scourge in our area of the country is people who have come here illegally. It is illegal immigrants who come in and set up these distribution systems in this country, and they are targeting the Indian reservations. There have been a number of stories about how the methamphetamine--if you want to call them cartels or whatever--have looked for places in the United States where they have wide open space, which we have on our reservations in South Dakota and we do not have sufficient law enforcement to necessarily keep up with some of those problems. They are targeting Indian reservations.

I talked to one law enforcement individual from one of the reservations who said they had just sent back somebody who had come into this country, broken the law on the reservation, for the ninth time. That is how easy it has become to get in and out of this country illegally. That is why it is important this issue be addressed.

I understand there are differences of opinion in the Senate about how to address this; whether or not we ought to have a comprehensive approach or how we deal with those who are already here illegally. I think those are all points of debate and issues we need to continue to discuss and resolve. But we have to start fundamentally with stopping the problem now. The people of this country expect us to act. It is a matter of national security.

We have the possibility of terrorist organizations using our open, porous border as an opportunity to get a foothold in this country. As I have said, we have a lot of law enforcement issues related to people who come here illegally and then commit illegal acts--the methamphetamine incidents I talked about in South Dakota being one example. But, clearly, we need to start sealing, securing this southern border to make sure the people of this country have confidence that we are taking the steps necessary to stem the flow of illegal immigration and to get this issue under control.

I appreciate the work the chairman of the Budget Committee and others have done to put more resources and funds toward that because I think it has made a profound difference already. But, frankly, this legislation we are considering today is important because it will send a loud, clear message to the people in this country that we are serious about this issue of illegal immigration, starting with securing the border.

The other issues that follow from that we can debate. There is an agreement on that. I think the one thing there is agreement on, the one thing people in this country want to see action on now is let's get this border secure. So this border security bill that has come over from the House and is being debated in the Senate, I hope we will get a vote on it and be able to pass it through the Senate and put something on the President's desk that will move us in the right direction, a direction that will discourage people from coming here illegally. The thing we want to do is discourage people from coming here illegally.

I say that as a person one generation removed from immigrant status. My grandfather and great-uncle came here from Norway in 1906. We are a nation of immigrants. People come for the same reason they did: they want to experience the American dream.

We are a welcoming nation, and we are also a nation of laws. We need to enforce those laws, and this legislation moves us in that direction. It deals with what is the first priority in this debate, and that is securing the American border so that not only from a national security standpoint, a law enforcement standpoint but, frankly, just so people in this country know and people in other countries in the world who want to come here illegally know that we are a nation of laws, and we are going to enforce those laws.

That is where this debate should start. This will give us an opportunity to do something about which I think there is broad agreement. We can address the other issues in due time, but right now, in the time we have left in the Senate before we adjourn, it is important we address this issue.

I want to speak to one other matter. I came to the floor yesterday, and I want to follow up on something I said.

For anybody who watched the comments at the United Nations made by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, it should have removed any doubt about the importance of American energy independence. We need to become energy independent. We get a million barrels of oil a day from Venezuela. This is a country whose leader was spewing hatred at the United States; someone who, in the past, has said that the President and his administration were responsible and behind the 9/11 attacks.

This is a country, and many of the other countries like that one, where we get the majority of our energy. They are countries that are hostile to the United States. They want to use the leverage they have as a political weapon against the United States.

The way we avoid that from happening is America becomes energy independent. We need more sources of American energy. We need to take steps so that we have the supply in this country that will enable us to meet the needs that we have in our economy, without having to get energy from the Middle East or from Venezuela, OPEC, other countries that have very hostile intentions toward the United States.

Yesterday, I came down here to talk about a bill that will move us in that direction. I have legislation that is pending in the Senate. It has passed the House. As a matter of fact, it passed the House by a huge margin, 355 to 9, broad bipartisan support coming from the House. It comes here from the Senate. Senator Salazar and I have a substitute amendment to that which has been cleared by the Republicans in the Senate. The House has said as soon as we send it back to them they will pass it and it will be put on the President's desk. But we have a series of secret holds on the Democratic side in the Senate.

I know that is part of the tradition of the Senate. I don't happen to think it is a good part of the tradition of the Senate, that people can put a secret hold on a bill and you don't have any idea who has a hold on it, what their issues are. I have my suspicions, since this is an even-numbered year, about why some of these holds are being placed on this bill. Nevertheless, it has the relevant committee's blessing. It has been approved by the committees here.

As I said, we have cleared all the traps on the Republican side of the aisle in the Senate. So the legislation is ready to be passed, sent back to the House, sent to the President, and signed into law. But we have a series of secret holds on the Democratic side in the Senate. That is wrong. Whatever the motivations are, this is policy that is important to the country.

I just mentioned the issue of energy security, of energy independence. This is an issue that strikes at the very heart and core of almost every issue we are debating in the country today, whether it is the economy and the cost of energy, whether it is national security, foreign policy--energy, the fact that we depend upon foreign sources for our energy supply in this country, is a very serious and vexing problem. We have to address it. We need to put policies in place that will create more supply here in America.

This legislation, again, very briefly--to explain it because I explained a little bit yesterday--fills the distribution gap that we have in the area of renewable energy. We passed an energy policy last summer. Part of our policy is a renewable fuels standard which guarantees a market for ethanol and other types of bioenergy. We now have a lot of plants around the country that are operating at full capacity, producing ethanol. We have plants under construction. My State of South Dakota has been at the forefront of that movement, but we will very shortly be at a billion gallons a year production of ethanol.

The problem we have is we do not have a way of getting it to the consumer in this country because we don't have enough refueling stations, gas stations, and convenience stores that have installed the pumps that are necessary to deliver E85 to consumers in this country.

This was an ad that was run in one of the local publications here, Congress

Daily. I saw it a few days ago. I saw it again today in that same publication. It is put out by the Auto Alliance. The Auto Alliance in this country, which represents the major car manufacturers, is very much supporting this legislation. What this ad says is that there are 9 million alternative fuel autos in this country today--and counting: 9 million cars in America today that are what we call flex-fuel vehicles; that is, they are capable of running either on traditional gasoline or E85 ethanol. Nine million vehicles--they are ramping up, building, and manufacturing more flex-fuel vehicles. If you watch the television advertisements today and you see the auto manufacturers run their advertising, they are talking more and more about flex-fuel vehicles. This is an important priority for the auto industry. They have the cars that are out there that are capable of using E85. The problem is, there are not enough filling stations that have it available.

In their letter that they sent in support of this bill, the Alliance of Auto Manufacturers says--and I used the number yesterday. This is a slightly different number, but it is in the ballpark. I said there were 600 gas stations in this country that offer E85 out of a total of 18,000. In their letter they say 830 gas stations, so maybe it has gone up a little bit, out of the total number of gas stations in the country that have E85 ability.

There are 9 million vehicles and counting that can run on flex fuel using E85 or other bioenergy--only using the high number of 830 refueling stations where they can get that.

In the Midwest where I am from, in South Dakota, we have a number of filling stations that make E85 available. But that is the exception and not the rule.

Our bill provides an incentive for these refuelers to install E85 pumps, not just E85. This isn't just an ethanol issue; other alternative energy types of fuels can be used. But it provides an incentive for them to install pumps to make renewable energy and alternative sources of energy more readily available to consumers in this country. It does it very simply by providing grants up to $30,000 per pump at the gas station. Because they can install more than one, they can take advantage of the incentive more than once. If they install an E85 pump, they can get up to $30,000 to do that. The cost of installing one of those pumps, depending on where you are in the country, is between $40,000 and $200,000.

The simple fact is, this incentive will go a long way. As has been noted, and as I said, the auto manufacturers sent a letter supporting the bill, as has the National Association of Convenience Stores which represents all of the gas stations around the country. They are supporting this; the auto manufacturers are supporting this.

It does not affect the budget because we paid for it. The way we paid for it is by using the fines that are paid by foreign auto manufacturers for violations of fuel efficiency standards. Take a fine which has been paid and apply those dollars toward a program that provides incentives for fuel retailers to install five pumps and other pumps that offer other forms of alternative energy.

But, frankly, as I said before, it is an important priority. We have auto manufacturers making the cars, ethanol producers that are producing the ethanol, you have consumers in this country who want this product, and you have a requirement now, because of the renewable fuels standard that we passed last year and put into law in the Energy bill, that States meet those standards. You have all of these things clicking. And Hugo Chavez comes to the United States and at the U.N. in a vitriolic way attacks our country and our leaders. Here we are getting a million barrels of oil a day from that country.

We need American energy. We need to be energy independent. We need to move America in a direction toward the future and take us away from relying on the traditional sources of energy.

We get almost 55 percent of our energy from outside the United States--and that has to change.

This legislation is broadly supported. It came out of the House by a vote of 355 to 9. It is broadly supported.

I have had Senators from both sides of the aisle come up to me--and, of course, I said it is cleared on the Republican side. I have had Democratic Senators say they really support the legislation. This is a good thing.

Again, I am at a loss--it is a mystery to me--to try to explain why anyone would be opposed to this. The only thing I can suggest is there are perhaps some election year motivations. I don't know the answer to that. I hope that is not the case.

This is the right thing to do for the country. It is the right policy to put in place for America's future. I call on my colleagues on the Democratic side who have these anonymous, secret holds--we don't know who is holding it up. I wish I knew the answer to that. I would love to have them come down here and defend their position because there is absolutely no logical reason anybody would object to this piece of legislation which implements policy, consistent with the energy policy that we adopted last summer, the renewable fuels standard, and make available for people in this country E85 ethanol.

There are 9 million automobiles in this country and counting that can run on E85. If you use the generous estimate, there are 850 refueling stations. That is a terrible gap. We need to fill that gap in the distribution system in this country. This legislation would do that.

It is ready for action in the House, and it is ready to go to the President for his signature.

But we have, as I said, some anonymous and secret holds on the Democrat side preventing this legislation from moving forward.

I ask my colleagues--I urge my colleagues--on the other side of the aisle to release those holds and allow this bipartisan legislation, this important legislation, to get to the President's desk so we can begin to lessen our dependence on foreign sources of energy, on dictators, and countries like Venezuela and Iran, and have American- grown energy that will make America independent as we head into the future.

I yield the floor.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I understand I have 14 minutes with respect to postcloture debate. I ask unanimous consent to speak beyond those 14 minutes.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss my deep concerns about the Medicare Part D Program. The ``D'' was supposed to stand for a new prescription drug benefit, but now seniors are finding that ``D'' really stands for doughnut hole. Unlike most other types of health insurance, the Medicare drug benefit was intentionally designed with a coverage gap or doughnut hole that requires beneficiaries to pay for all yearly prescription drug spending between $2,250 and $5,100.

Let me explain. It is baffling to most people that the Part D Program was designed so that beneficiaries paying premiums each month receive support for their drug costs until they have spent $2,250, and suddenly the insurance goes away. The premium stays, but the insurance goes away until you reach $5,100. That is an unusual insurance program, to say the least. Seniors will experience this lapse in coverage once their drug costs have exceeded $2,250. When they are in the doughnut hole, they have to pay for all the drugs out of pocket, as well as paying the monthly premium. That does not sound like a sensible insurance program. That is, in effect, what this Part D Program involves.

According to one estimate published in the journal Health Affairs, the average Part D beneficiary will spend almost $3,100 this year on prescription drugs. So the President's idea of cost containment is not to drive pharmaceutical manufacturers to rein in prices but to just cut off seniors' benefits when they most need the coverage.

Many Medicare beneficiaries with high drug expenses already have begun to fall into the doughnut hole and are struggling to pay for their medications or are unable to fill their prescriptions at all. It has been reported that average Medicare Part D beneficiaries will also begin falling into the doughnut hole this week. It almost sounds like ``Alice in Wonderland,'' where suddenly you are swept into a new world as you go through the hole. A world that requires seniors to come up with their the resources to pay for these premiums as well as their prescription drugs.

I am hearing from many seniors in my State facing problems with Medicare Part D. I know I am not alone. I think every Member of this Senate, when they go home and talk to seniors, is hearing it. We will hear it with more frequency as their expenses increase and their experience with the doughnut hole increases.

In one case, an individual sent a letter to the Rhode Island attorney general and copied me on it because they thought a crime was being committed. They literally thought they were being robbed because one day they got help with the prescriptions, and the next day there is no help at all.

Now ``D,'' besides standing for doughnut hole, stands for dire circumstances. These are the circumstances in which seniors will find themselves unless we do something to fix this problem because the doughnut hole will only get bigger and bigger year after year.

Today, over 38 million Americans on Medicare have some form of prescription drug coverage. Of these beneficiaries, 10 million have coverage through a standard Part D prescription drug plan, and up to 7 million could be subject to the doughnut hole between now and the end of the year. The numbers will only grow in the coming years if the administration allows drug prices to continue to escalate. What trips seniors into the doughnut hole is the cumulative spending on drugs. If drug prices go up, seniors very quickly reach that threshold where the doughnut hole kicks in. Tragically, many beneficiaries are unaware that this coverage gap exists and only learn about this lapse after they have fallen into the hole. To add insult to injury, these beneficiaries are expected to continue paying monthly premiums through their drug plans even though they receive absolutely no coverage in return. This is a very unusual health care plan, to be paying a monthly premium but not be eligible for coverage.

When we pay health care premiums, we hope we don't have to use any of the coverage, that we are healthy and well, but we all have in the back of our minds the knowledge: If something happens that month, I am eligible, I can get the help. Not so in the doughnut hole. Seniors keep paying the monthly premium, and then they pay, out of pocket, the full cost of the prescription.

I didn't support the Medicare Modernization Act which created Part D because I believed the benefit was insufficient and the emphasis on a privately administered program made it excessively complex. By relying on over 40 private plans in each region, each with a different benefit structure, many beneficiaries are confused about the plan offerings and which plan may suit them best. Moreover, a recent General Accounting Office report finds an alarming number of private Part D plans are providing inaccurate or incomplete information to Medicare beneficiaries about the coverage and benefits provided under the various plans.

No doubt, there are some people who have benefited from this new program, but for too many Part D enrollees with complex medical conditions, the benefit has largely been a source of great confusion and concern. We could have done it differently. We could have done it more simply. We could have done it more efficiently.

Many of the problems we are seeing today could have been averted if the

Administration had not made the program needlessly complicated and if they had done a better job of preparing the public. Despite all of the serious shortcomings of Medicare Part D, the program has taken effect. It is now incumbent upon us to work together to turn things around and improve the situation.

In an effort to provide some modest short-term relief to seniors, I am working with Senators Dorgan and Bingaman on the Prescription Fairness Act. This bill has a simple premise: beneficiaries should not have to continue paying monthly premiums when they have no drug coverage. The bill waives the Medicare Part D premium for any month that a senior falls into the doughnut hole. During this time, the Secretary of Health and Human Services would be responsible for offsetting these monthly premium costs. It seems only fair to me. We are making seniors pay premiums, yet they do not qualify for the benefit. If they don't qualify for the benefit, let's absolve them of the premiums until they do, once again, qualify for the coverage.

There is another aspect of the doughnut hole that needs to be addressed. That is the fact that expenditures by other drug subsidiary programs do not count against beneficiaries' true out-of-pocket costs-- this is an acronym, TrOOP: true out-of-pocket costs--during this lapse in Part D coverage.

Medicare beneficiaries on fixed incomes should not be penalized for seeking assistance from other programs that provide prescription drugs or drug assistance.

Here is the problem: You go into the doughnut hole. You are desperate for your prescriptions. The expenditures have to come out of your pocket to qualify again. You cannot go to a State agency, perhaps, that has a program because that spending will not be counted. I think that is another problem we have to address.

The Helping Fill the Prescription Gap Act--another proposal which I have cosponsored--would allow costs incurred by federally qualified health centers and patient assistance programs to count toward a beneficiary's annual out-of-pocket threshold. If they can get the help, qualify for the help, it should be counted, as they try to extricate themselves from the doughnut hole.

While these two bills are designed to help ease the burden of Medicare beneficiaries in the doughnut hole, serious structural problems of the program must also be addressed.

``D'' also stands for--besides ``doughnut hole,'' ``dire circumstances''--for the dubious claims the Administration has made about the plan's costs and the savings they would deliver for consumers.

The Administration's original cost estimates for the program were woefully inaccurate, and the benefit is now expected to top $700 billion in the first decade--$300 billion more than was originally advertised.

The fundamental premise behind the Medicare Part D benefit--that vigorous competition among private insurers would lead to lower drug prices--simply has not proven to be true.

``D'' also stands for the do-nothing Republican Congress that during this year's budget debate failed to pass a Democratic amendment that would give the Secretary of Health and Human Services the authority to negotiate the best deal for Medicare prescription drugs.

Instead of harnessing the purchasing power of over 40 million Medicare beneficiaries, the Administration plan called on private insurance plans to administer the program and to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies on drug prices.

Here I think is the structural flaw in this overall program. In order to pull together the bargaining power of the largest number of seniors, the Government should be able to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies. The pharmaceutical companies have market power. Many of their drugs are patented and cannot be produced by anyone else. They can drive the price up.

The only way in a market you counter that type of monopolistic pricing power is by banding together as consumers so you have one entity negotiating for the consumers against one entity who controls the product. You will get a better price.

That is what we do in the VA system. The VA system has the legal authority to negotiate prices with drug companies. They have thousands and thousands of clients in their hospitals and in their outpatient settings, and they simply go and say: If you would like to sell us this significant volume of drugs, give us your best price. That is the way I believe we can get drug prices if not down, at least lower the escalation in costs. If we do not rein in price growth, the estimate of $700 billion over 10 years, I believe in a year or two, could be even higher.

Families USA conducted a survey that compared the lowest Part D prices with those the Veterans' Administration negotiated for the five most commonly prescribed drugs to seniors, and the variation in price is staggering. The VA can negotiate on behalf of our Nation's veterans while Medicare is barred from doing so--legally barred. It is part of this legislation: a rather large benefit to the pharmaceutical industry, to the detriment of taxpayers and seniors.

We can save money, and we can pass these savings on to seniors, we hope, but we cannot tie our hands. We have to be able to, as a large entity, as Medicare, negotiate these prices.

I want to work with the President and my colleagues in the Congress to strengthen Medicare for the long term. But the Administration has failed so far in their approach to Medicare reform.

Under the current Part D Program, drug companies hold all the cards. A recent New York Times article revealed that the shift of dual- eligible beneficiaries from Medicaid drug coverage over to the Part D Program has been a financial boon to drug manufacturers.

Previously, under Medicaid--a separate program which is a joint State-Federal program--seniors could qualify in certain cases for drug assistance. In the States, the Medicaid programs were negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies for prices. But with the passage of Part D, these dual-eligibles were automatically enrolled into the Medicare Part D Program. And what happened to drug prices? They zoomed out of sight. That, to me, is evidence that we can do much better, not only to protect seniors but to protect taxpayers.

Now, I believe the pharmaceutical companies deserve a fair return on their investment. They have invested in drug research and development. But allowing them to dictate prices for millions of elderly and disabled Medicare beneficiaries is a bad deal for the Federal Government and a bad deal for the American public.

These are just some of problems with Medicare Part D that must be addressed.

And while Part D is receiving most of the attention lately, seniors also face a 5.6-percent increase in Part B premiums for doctor visits and outpatient services in 2007, which will absorb a disproportionate amount of their Social Security cost-of-living adjustments--their COLAs. In fact, Part B premiums have almost doubled since President Bush took office, so seniors living on fixed incomes will now pay almost $1,200 just for these premiums alone.

This is another example of the growing squeeze, economically, on middle-income Americans. When you look at working Americans, young Americans with families, you have seen tuition costs go up extraordinarily so. You have seen health care costs go up, and many of these families do not have the benefits of the Medicare Program at all. Their costs are going up significantly. And gasoline prices are high. But incomes are not keeping up.

In fact, in real terms, inflation-adjusted terms, from 2000 to 2005, the median income of American families has fallen by $1,300. So you have falling income and increasing prices. It is this vice that is squeezing middle-income Americans.

And then, when you go to seniors, they are looking at some relief in Medicare Part D, but they are falling in the doughnut hole and finding that relief is elusive. They are also finding their Part B premiums going up. They are being squeezed hard also.

Now, through all of this, the Administration has proposed no substantive changes to the Medicare Program to help these beneficiaries. We have to take action. I hope in this Congress-- although the days are dwindling down

to a precious few--but certainly in the next Congress we have to start looking seriously at reforming Medicare Part D, at making it more affordable for seniors and more affordable for taxpayers.

Let's make the ``D'' stand for what it should stand for: doing right by our seniors.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.