Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008

I have an amendment at the desk, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I know my colleague Senator DeMint is here to offer what will be the first amendment to this bill. I thank him, because I know he initially had several amendments. It looks as though he has boiled it down to one amendment. I know Senator Inhofe and I are glad about that. I thanked him previously for calling me and saying that he was pleased with the way we treated the transparency of this bill.

I have been given a copy of the amendment by the Senator from South Carolina. I will listen carefully to his presentation, and I will have remarks afterward. Senator Inhofe may also have some remarks prior to Senator DeMint being recognized.

Senator Inhofe and I are hopeful we can get this completed. This is a bill that overall creates not one more penny of new spending. It will unleash into our economy, however, a billion dollars already budgeted for. That is why so many people are supporting this in real life: Construction companies, workers, transit operators. All of them have written to us. I will put those names in the Record. We are hopeful, if everybody cooperates today, we can get this finished. This bill isn't rocket science. It is very simply making technical corrections to SAFETEA-LU and in places where some projects simply couldn't go forward, replacing those projects without adding a penny of new spending. There is full transparency.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, again, I thank the Senator for his kind comments about the way we have handled this legislation.

This amendment is, first, wrong on its face and, second, it is going to kill the bill. Of all times to try and kill what I consider a mini- economic stimulus plan, this is not one of them. We have a lot of people out of work. Many people have called Senator Inhofe and myself, and others, saying this is an important piece of legislation.

I will read the names of those people, because I believe it is important that we show the breadth of support. It is a very simple piece of legislation, but it will correct some errors. It will say, as an example, in Oklahoma--and we have them in California--and for all these 500 projects, one leg of a project might not have been ready. Let's put the funds where they can be used now, where they are ready to go. Unleashing up to a billion dollars of funds right now means tens of thousands of jobs, and we have to rebuild our infrastructure. We are doing it within the confines of the moneys that were already authorized.

Again I have said this so many times, I am sure it is boring people, but I think it is important to note who has written to Senator Inhofe and myself to move this bill: the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, whose members include the Departments of Transportation for all 50 States; the American Highway Users Alliance, whose members represent millions of highway users; the American Public Transit Association; the American Road and Transportation Builders Association; the Associated General Contractors; the Council of University Transportation Centers; the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association; the National Asphalt and Pavement Association.

This is not one of these bills that is a matter of some intellectual debate. This means real jobs for real people and real infrastructure improvements for all the people of this Nation who count on us to keep their highway and transit systems moving.

What does Senator DeMint do? He would send this bill back to the committee, in essence killing the bill. We passed this bill out of committee on a bipartisan voice vote on June of 2007. Here we are, moving toward June of 2008. Why on Earth would we want to stop the forward progress of this legislation? We can't afford further delay.

I am sorry my colleague has left the Chamber, but Senator DeMint had several projects that he asked for in SAFETEA-LU. I ask unanimous consent to print a list of those projects in the Record.

All of these will bring jobs and improve transportation in the State of South Carolina. That is why I supported it, as did Senator Inhofe. That is why we all supported it. There is a number of projects contained here, 13 projects, $110 million, Senator DeMint has in SAFETEA-LU. Fortunately for Senator DeMint, none of his projects required any technical corrections.

Let's take one: Construction of I-73 from Myrtle Beach, SC to I-95, ending

at the North Carolina State line. Suppose something had turned up in the engineering and they had to stop it further toward Myrtle Beach, but they couldn't go ahead with the project until they made that technical change. Then Senator DeMint would find that the project was stymied. He is fortunate. He didn't have this problem. But a lot of us weren't so fortunate. We did have issues in our States where we had to make changes.

This legislation fixes nearly 500 descriptions for highway and transit projects. Without the changes included in the legislation, many of these projects will continue to be stuck at red lights. This isn't the time to slow down job creation. This is the time to unleash job creation. This technical corrections bill provides a green light that could unleash up to $1 billion in transportation projects. The funding has been approved before, so we are not increasing spending. Given the current slowdown in our economy, we simply cannot afford to allow these funds to remain unused.

At the appropriate time, I am going to move to table the DeMint motion. I think we are working on an agreement to have a vote on that motion at around 2 o'clock.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:15 p.m. today the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the DeMint motion to recommit the bill, and that no further amendments be in order to the motion prior to the vote; that following the conclusion of the debate this morning with respect to the motion, it be set aside to recur at 2 p.m., with the time until 2:15 p.m. equally divided and controlled between Senators Boxer and DeMint or their designees; and that at 2:15, without further intervening action or debate, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the DeMint motion to recommit the bill.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, since we have a lull in the conversation about the technical corrections bill--and the reason for that is, frankly, it is a very straightforward bill. We know of two other amendments. We are working with Senator Coburn on his amendment dealing with an investigation into what occurred in the Coconut Road project in Florida. We know Senator Bond has an amendment which is really not a technical correction. It goes to overturning a law that was passed which protects consumers when they are defrauded by furniture moving companies. That is his amendment. We hope he can come down here so we can get going; we can start to debate that.

But in the meantime, I have asked Senator Inhofe if he had any objection if I rose to pay tribute to 19 young Americans who were killed in Iraq who were either from California or based in California, and he had no objection to that. I don't know if I need to ask to speak as in morning business. If that is the appropriate thing, I ask unanimous consent to do so.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask my friend from Iowa if he wants to speak in morning business.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my remarks, Senator Grassley be recognized for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. President, first of all, I make a plea to my friends on the other side of the aisle. There are a couple of amendments out there. Senator Inhofe and I are anxious to get done with the bill. The bill is a mini-economic stimulus. It would release a billion dollars worth of projects for important highway and transit programs. It is a technical corrections bill that stays within the limits we set in terms of spending. When Senator Inhofe and I agree on something, it usually covers the spectrum. So we hope we will have a good vote.

I wanted to say something before Senator Barrasso leaves because he mentioned the President's goals. The President says we should halt the growth of greenhouse gases by 2025--``halt the growth,'' which means 18 years of nothing. What a pathetic response to a crisis that has united evangelical groups, scientists, businesses, and much of the world.

So I am just here to say--I am not going to have a debate with my good friend, whom I really enjoy as a member of our Committee, but I want to say this gives new meaning to doing nothing. When we have a crisis such as we have now and we have a small window to act and we wait 18 years, this is not talking about leaving the problems to the new President, like he is doing in Iraq. It means we are following a recipe for gloom and doom instead of looking at this problem and seeing it for what it is--an amazing opportunity.

It is interesting that my friend, Senator Grassley, is here, who is so strong on ethanol. Well, this is the kind of thing we are going to do so we can get off of fossil fuel. We have other opportunities, such as cellulosic. We have new ways of making cars.

I happen to drive a hybrid. It is amazing. I get over 50 miles per gallon. I sort of wave at the gas stations because I don't have to go there that often. These cars are getting better and better.

We have so many ways, but it is not going to happen if we simply say, by 2025 we will halt the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. We have to halt the growth very soon. I view it as a great opportunity for an economic renaissance in this country. If you look at Great Britain, they have cut their carbon emissions by 15 percent over the last 10 years or so. Their GDP has grown by 45 percent, and they have added 500,000 new green jobs.

I think rather than being so frightened and meek as the President is about this, we should be leading the world to this new great economic renaissance. America should be in the front, inventing these products. I know the President says he wants to invest in new technology. Unless you have a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, unless your proposal involves a cap so we get down to what is necessary to prevent catastrophe, then you are part of

the problem. You are not part of the solution. You are just making believe you are part of the solution.

I don't want to do any more than is necessary. I want to do what is necessary to reverse a real, serious, horrific problem for the world. As our intelligence community tells us, as our Pentagon tells us, if we do nothing, the ravages of global warming will be the cause of wars, will be the cause of droughts, will be the cause of famine, will be the cause of unrest, and will be the cause of refugees wandering around starving to death.

That is why so many churches have joined us, many of the great religions have joined us in this effort. We have a great group working here. I was a little bit surprised when the President sort of took on the Lieberman-Warner bill in his way. He didn't mention it by name, but he basically referred to efforts in the Senate and the dangers. Mr. President, I have been trying to get to see you on this issue. I have wanted to talk to you on this issue. I know the former Prime Minister of England, Tony Blair, spoke to you about this issue. He is coming to speak to me again. We need to work together. This should not be partisan.

Unfortunately, it is. When I and my staff were in Great Britain, we were meeting to understand what steps they have taken and how about a cap-and-trade system and the rest. What we found out was most remarkable. Each party, Labor and Conservative, was staking claim to the issue of global warming and saying to the other party: You are not doing enough. I turned to my staff and said: Oh, if I have one prayer, it is that we have a situation where that happens at home instead of this horrible fight. And if I have another prayer, it is that the Presidential candidates, Republican and Democratic, will argue over who has the best plan. That may happen, and that would be exciting. But I do not want to wait until then. I do not want to do nothing. I do not want to be part of the problem. I do not want my grandkids to say: Where was my grandma? At the moment they had a window to do something, they slammed it shut.

I am glad my friend came to speak about global warming. I hope we can continue to work together to get him on board in a more aggressive way to do more, to do our job, to fulfill our responsibility. We would never take our grandchild, put him or her in an infant seat in the car, go to a parking lot at the supermarket and leave him or her inside with the windows closed and the Sun beating down. We would not do that because we adore our children and our grandchildren, and we want the world to be better. At least we want it to be as good as it was for us.

We are so lucky. We have lived through such golden years for ourselves and our families. We have the American dream. We saw Richard Nixon step to the plate and create the Environmental Protection Agency, and Presidents, Republican and Democratic, who have come after stand up--until now.

I say to my colleagues, we are going to have a moment come June. It is going to be a little bit different than today. Today Senator Inhofe and I are joined at the hip on this technical corrections highway bill. We are not going to be that way on global warming, but I hope we can have some bipartisanship, and John Warner has been leading the way. We need to do more instead of wait until 2025 to halt the growth of greenhouse emissions. That is too late. That is dangerously late. That is the equivalent of doing nothing.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I don't see the Senator from South Carolina here, and I don't want to presume to describe his amendment. That wouldn't be fair because he views his amendment as something that will help this bill and I view it as something that will kill this bill. Simply put, what he is saying is we need to recommit this bill to the Environment and Public Works Committee, and what he is basically saying is that we need to scrub out of this bill any changes that were made to projects.

Although Senator DeMint wasn't here at the time, I made the point earlier that in this SAFETEA-LU bill is $110 million worth of projects he requested. He was fortunate: all those projects seemed to be moving forward, and they do not need any technical correction. But many of us--many of us--don't have that experience. For example, Senator Inhofe explained a road project in Oklahoma where one portion of the project wasn't ready for funding and another was. So, yes, we make a technical correction. I have a similar project in my State where we have to make sure the project is changed a little bit or there are going to be some bad impacts on some of my people who live in those communities.

So there is really nothing nefarious going on here. We are just trying to get these projects moving. We are trying to give a green light to projects that are facing a red light. What that means is that about $1 billion worth of projects could actually get started--transit projects, road projects--and we think that, at this particular time when we are suffering a recession, the last thing we should do is try to bring this bill back to the committee because, effectively, that would kill it. So I have respect for my colleague's intention here, but, in essence, if he was being completely straightforward, he would admit this is going to kill this bill.

We know how hard it is to get bills up before the Senate. This bill actually passed when Senator Inhofe was chairman of the committee, but it has languished because we haven't had a chance to bring it to the floor. Senator Reid gave us time. It is a simple bill. I was hopeful it could be finished by now. I am grateful we are having a vote on at least one of the amendments--we know of another couple of amendments.

So that is really what I have to say. At the appropriate time, I am going to make a motion to table this motion, so I will return to do that, as I say, at the appropriate time.

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

Mr. President, I move to table the DeMint motion to recommit and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, when I learned about this whole issue of what went on in a very devious way related to a highway project, I was very glad Senator Coburn called it to our attention. Where we are right now is the best way to handle this, and this is where there is a bit of a disagreement.

I am concerned, as I look at the Senator's solution here. Essentially, what he has is the House and Senate selecting Members to go on this special committee, and I believe that injects politics into it right away. We can all say we are going to be objective, and so on and so forth, but I think people get the sense, oh, that is a Republican, and he may feel one way; or she is a Democrat, she may feel one way; or I saw that person going to dinner with another Senator or another House Member this way.

I am chair of the Ethics Committee, so I know it is very hard to be totally objective, and you must be in this circumstance. But I think the appearance of a conflict of interest in setting up this committee is something I would rather avoid. So I think that Senator Coburn has done everything in his power to set up a way to investigate this that is fair, but my feeling is there is a better way to go.

As a matter of fact, I am going to offer an amendment to the underlying substitute, and I would ask the Parliamentarian if I need to lay aside the pending amendment in order to do that.

I send an amendment to the underlying substitute to the desk.

Do I need to ask for its immediate consideration?

Madam President, I thank the clerk for reading. That is it in its entirety. We call attention to the exact problem that occurred in the bill, the exact project, without naming it. It is explained here. We know it is the Coconut Road project.

This is not a sense of the Senate. This is a very direct amendment that says the Department of Justice shall review these allegations and they shall ascertain if a violation of Federal criminal law has occurred.

So what we do, by taking it into this realm, we take it out of the realm of politics. Senators selected by the Senate to be on this investigation committee of something that happened over in the House; House Members selected by the House to investigate, to me it injects politics into the process.

Secondly, if you read the Constitution and you see the speech and debate clause, you understand that this raises constitutional issues-- the Coburn amendment--as to whether one part of Congress can investigate another. I don't want to see this whole thing collapse like a deck of cards because we did something unconstitutional. We know that the Justice Department, when there is an allegation of improper behavior, we know when there is a possibility here of laws being broken, they have the clear obligation and responsibility, and now we are, in essence, telling them they must review this.

In our conversations, one of the things Senator Coburn was worried about was that the Department of Justice could not use the subpoena power. I have looked at that and what I have found is that is not true. In the case of the Jefferson investigation, it was because there was no warrant. That was the problem. There was some narrow issue involving that. Clearly, this investigation would be appropriate.

Also, we don't give up anything here, I say to my colleague. Consistent with applicable standards and procedures, that is what we say. The Department of Justice shall review, consistent with applicable standards and procedures. No new rules, no new laws, no new ways, and very clearly done.

Frankly, if I might say, I am so angry about this. I am so upset about this. I am sick about this. I think it is very possible people ought to go to jail here. A Senate and House committee can't send anybody to jail. They simply can't. They could make a referral to Justice, but they can't do it.

I am saying I think what we are doing here, by requiring that the Justice Department--by saying, ``They shall review allegations,'' I think is a much better way to go. It keeps politics out of this, it keeps constitutional questions about the debate clause out of this, and it gets to the heart of this, which is, if there was a crime, the person ought to go to jail or the people ought to go to jail.

Let's get right to the point instead of setting up some political committee. They will call hearings and the press will come and people-- Senators will make speeches and make their careers. I can just see this thing. I can see this coming. I want to avoid a circus. I want to put somebody in jail if they did something wrong. That is why I think this particular amendment I am offering is the way to go.

I do respect my friend. I certainly am looking forward to having votes on both of these, but I do think this simple amendment we have here will get to the bottom of this, which is where my friend wants to go. He wants to punish the people who have done something wrong. That is what I think we do here.

I will be happy to yield the floor because I see my colleague would like to respond.

Is that a question to me?

Madam President, let me just say to my friend, I am the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee. I am not the chair of the Judiciary Committee. I just want to say for the record, in defense of my committee members all, that we fixed this problem in this bill. We fixed the problem in the bill. Do I support the Justice Department going after the evildoers and putting them in jail? You bet I do. But--I hate to say it--in Environment and Public Works, that is not our role. I support what the Senator is trying to do here. So let's get that clear.

On page 86, here it is fixed, in section 110. I want to make that clear, that our committee did the right thing and fixed this problem.

My friend is right, there was a committee to look at the rules. But if all he is doing is looking at rules--and I know he is not--then what is the point? I want to look at what happened. My friend himself talked about fraud. The fact is, we better get to the bottom of this, and all this committee is going to do is look at rules. Frankly, I don't think it is doing much. I would much rather put people in jail. The proper way to do that is to call on the Justice Department to look at these crimes because, to me, it is the crimes that concern me. I think what they did, on the face of it, going in the dead of night, is certainly not allowed in our rules--at least my interpretation of the rules. That, to me, is not.

I tell you right now, in our committee we are pretty tough on this. We are not allowing people to change things.

Everything that is in this technical corrections bill--and that is why Senator DeMint praised us--is on the Web site for all to see. We believe in transparency.

What this is about is getting to the bottom of allegations of serious crimes--bribery. Bribery. That is why I do believe at the end of the day let's keep politics out of this issue.

I can tell you right now, the Senators who get on this committee are going to have the flashbulbs going off in their faces, they are going to make a big to-do about this, and they are not going to talk about rules, they are going to talk about crimes. The sad thing is, even if they got to the bottom of it, at the end of the day the committee cannot put anybody in jail. The Justice Department can.

The speech and debate clause is really clear. I know my colleague in the chair is a very prominent attorney. If you look at section 6, article I, it clearly says:

. . . for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall

not be questioned in any other Place.

So our attorneys are saying the way this is set up, A, you have politics in it; B, you have a constitutional problem, probably; and C, it is a lot of hoopla, a lot of cameras, and at the end of the day we want to put people in jail. That is what we are talking about, really, at the end of the day.

Looking at the Senator's own document on page 5, he says the committee shall share its findings, share its documents, share its information, and so on, with various groups.

I just believe to be tough you have to get the Justice Department involved. When there is a knock on the door from the Justice Department, you will get to the bottom of this. That is what the Boxer amendment does.

I hope people who really want to be tough will do the tough thing, not set up some committee that is going to give Senators and House Members a chance to make political points, and the public will look at us and say this is just a great big show, but really get to the bottom of it and get the Justice Department into this now. There are reports that they are looking at some issues, but there is nothing to say that they are looking at this particular problem.

That is what I have to say. My friend is right to bring this up. I am glad. When the press said: What do you think? I said: Good for him for bringing this up. I am sorry we were not able to agree on the right approach, but I feel very good about the approach I have come up with here. I look forward to our colleagues voting on this at the appropriate time.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, if I might respond to my friend, No. 1, we do not cede a thing. We do not give up anything. As a matter of fact, we stay consistent with applicable standards and procedures, and this cannot be a fishing expedition. We say the Department of Justice shall review allegations of impropriety regarding item 462 in section 193(4)(C) of Public Law 109-

59, to ascertain if a violation of Federal criminal law has occurred.

The question is, to me: Will the people or persons who did something wrong be punished? At the end of the day, that is what I am about. I am not about big committee hearings and special committees and the rest. Listen, I am not about that. I am about: We have a lot of work to do for the American people. My friend used words--``fraud,'' he said. He said ``fraud.'' He already used it. And in his own resolution he says: If they find that there was such fraud, which he already thinks there was--which, by the way, I think it was worse than that, but that is what I think from what I know.

There needs to be proof here. I do not mean to leap ahead too far. He says he is going to refer it to the proper law enforcement. Why can't I say: Well, that is a bad precedent. I do not get it. The difference between what the Senator is doing and what I am doing is I am saying: It looks bad, as if there were a crime committed; we are not sure. Let's get right to the heart of it, and let's go after it.

Here, what my friend is doing, he says: Before we tell them to look at it, we are going to have these hearings. By the way, in his own words, he is going to put the findings on the Internet, he is going to publish them. I have been around here long enough to know what a circus is. I have been involved in a lot of investigations on a lot of committees, and what I want is justice done. I do not want political theatre. I want justice done. I will tell you why. When justice is done and someone goes to jail--we have seen a few people from the other side walk off to jail--that sends the best possible message.

I do not think it ought to be delayed by hearings. Sometimes what happens is, it holds up a Justice Department investigation when there are public hearings going on. I have been in that circumstance too. So I say, here we have two options. One sets up this elaborate committee, and the other one says: Let's get to the heart of this, go after these bad actors, put them in jail. I think that is the better way to go.

I guess I have said it a hundred ways to Sunday. I would stand on those remarks.

I yield the floor.

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

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schumer.) Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. President, the majority leader will be coming out shortly to let Members know what is happening. But I can tell everybody that this bill is being slow walked. This is a simple bill. This is a mini-economic stimulus bill. It would release $1 billion of highway trust fund moneys to build roads, to fix bridges, to run transit systems, and it got caught up in Presidential politics, investigations--everything you can think of--while the people wonder what we are doing.

This bill, simple as it is, would create about 50,000 new jobs at a time when we know--it is worse than a middle-class squeeze. It is really a middle-class struggle that is going on, and people are worried. They are worried about their homes, they are worried about everything, and this bill will create jobs.

So what we have is a classical slowdown, with Presidential politics being involved dealing with the gas tax that funds the highway trust fund. That is fine, but just let everybody know from where it is coming. The only amendments to this bill--the only amendments--come from the Republican side. I offered one as a side-by-side to Senator Coburn's, which I think is a good amendment. My amendment will not bring down this bill. Others will.

Here is where we are. We have a simple bill. It passed a year ago in the House. It passed, I believe it was June of 2007, under the leadership of Senator Inhofe. Actually, it was under my leadership but with the work of Senator Inhofe, both of us working together, bipartisan, bicameral.

I want to show you, Mr. President, who is strongly supporting this bill: the American Association of Highway and Transportation Officials, that is departments of transportation officials of all 50 States; the American Highway Users Alliance, millions of highway users throughout the country; the American Public Transit Association, transit systems from across the country; the American Road and Transportation Builders Associations, more than 5,000 members of the transportation construction industry; Associated General Contractors, more than 32,000 contractors, service providers, and suppliers; the Council of University Transportation Centers, more than 30 university transportation centers from across the country; the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, companies producing more than 92 percent of crushed stone and 75 percent of sand and gravel used in the U.S. annually; the National Asphalt and Pavement Association, more than 1,100 companies that produce and pave with asphalt.

These are real people who are willing, ready, and able to build and rebuild our infrastructure, to build and rebuild our transit systems. This bill is a no brainer. Instead, it is caught up in all of these negotiations right now. Whether we vote tonight or not, we are going to find out soon enough from Senator Reid. But, Mr. President, let me say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, Senator Inhofe and I really wanted to get them a good bill. Senator Inhofe and I really wanted to get this work done quickly. We did all our homework. We put everybody's name on the Web site, so we complied with the new ethical rules. Senator DeMint said he was very pleased with the standard we set for transparency.

These projects are ready to go. They are ready to go in Brooklyn, they are ready to go in Manhattan, they are ready to go in San Francisco, they are ready to go in Atlanta, and they are ready to go in Oklahoma. They are ready to go in every State of the Union. I say to all these good people who told us how much they want this bill to move: Please contact the Republican leadership and tell them to play Presidential politics another day with amendments that are not germane, with amendments that don't belong on this bill. Today pass this legislation.

There is too much talk around here and not enough action. We passed a stimulus bill. We did it in a bipartisan way, but we all know there is more to be done. This little bill will create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs in America, doing something that has to be done. But, no, we cannot finish it. We had one vote so far on an amendment by Senator DeMint. We defeated it, which was important because it was a killer amendment. It says to me people want this bill.

This is the status. We are waiting for some type of agreement. This whole thing is being slow walked. We look forward to hearing from the majority leader as to whether there will be any more votes this evening. But as far as this Senator is concerned--I know I speak for Senator Inhofe--we want to get this bill done. But people are slow walking this bill. We are going to do our best to see if we can get this logjam stopped. But at this point, we have not been able to do it.

Tens of thousands of jobs are in jeopardy, and 500 various transit projects already paid for are in jeopardy. What a shame we cannot go forward. What a shame we are in another slowdown by my friends from the other side of the aisle. It is very discouraging.

Again, as the eternal optimist, I will return to this place tonight, if we can continue working, or tomorrow after we come in after we pay our respects to the Pope.

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

I come to the floor this evening to talk about the energy crisis, the price of oil, and how consumers are seeing the impacts of high oil prices in their everyday lives. The high price of oil is impacting businesses and many consumers can't afford to take family vacations and trips, dragging down our economy over all, and dragging us further into an economic downturn.

What I have heard today on the Senate floor from many of my colleagues is accusations and claims about what is going on and what might have transpired on various issues that might have caused the high price of gasoline and certainly the price of crude oil, which is now well over $100 a barrel. I think it is important to think about what Congress has already done and to make sure we are telling consumers what needs to be accomplished to solve the problem.

What we are hearing from analysts on Wall Street is that this issue is going to continue to exacerbate, and that oil prices will continue to rise. When we think about oil futures all the way out to 2015, still being over $100 a barrel, and oil futures impacting the physical price, it raises a lot of concerns about how the economy can sustain such a high price of fuel.

Let's start with some basics about supply and demand because many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have talked about the fact that they think oil supply hasn't been there, that growth in the numbers of people in India, China, other countries, is exacerbating the problem.

While we have seen growth in demand from other countries, this chart--starting in 1980, going all the way to 2006, and showing some numbers until 2008; the orange line is demand, and the yellow line is supply--except for some anomalies here, shows that supply and demand have kept pace. So anybody who wants to say this is all about supply and demand hasn't looked at a chart such as this showing that these lines pretty much track each other. What it tells us is that we have to look at other fundamental things that are happening in the marketplace and not just make accusations about what is going on.

In fact, if you want to look at the high price of gasoline, you can't say it is just an increase in demand. During the summer season, motor gasoline consumption in the United States is actually projected to decline by four-tenths of a percent, and it is projected to decline by three-tenths for the whole year. We are actually seeing a decline in demand. Obviously, that is not a surprise. Given the high price of fuel, people are not able to afford to continue their normal habits. But the issue isn't that the price is being driven up simply because there is this increase in demand. The high price of gasoline also isn't about the fact that there are low inventories. Some people have wanted to say this issue is about low inventories. When you look at what the industry says, here is an oil analyst who basically says that gasoline inventories are higher than the historical average at this time of the year. So there is really no need to worry about tight supply. Here is an oil analyst saying that.

It points, again, to other questions about what is going on. Some people have said: Let's blame it on renewables. Many Democrats have been big supporters of renewable energy, big supporters of getting alternatives into the marketplace, because we believe if you get alternative fuel into the marketplace, it will lower the demand on normal fossil fuel and create some competitive advantages. I know there are some people--a Governor--basically saying: You ought to repeal the whole RFS. You ought to get rid of this issue as it relates to having a renewable fuels standard. Here is the Wall Street Journal report from Merrill Lynch saying that without biofuels, the price would be even higher, and that basically oil and gasoline prices would be 15 percent higher if biofuels weren't helping to increase the output. So it is wrong to say that somehow our focus on renewable fuels has exacerbated the situation when, in fact, it has done nothing but help the situation. In fact, I love that this Texas A&M study basically found that ethanol has increased in excess of what our renewable fuels standard was, indicating that relaxing the standard would not cause a contraction in the industry, nor would it cause a reduction in the price of corn.

The issue today is where do we go for solutions. Part of the issue is that many of my colleagues are saying it is all about more supply of fossil fuel for the United States. We have had this debate so many times in the Senate. We

have had a debate about whether the United States, with 3 percent of the world's oil reserve, really is going to make a dent in increasing supply and giving consumers a chance to get off fossil fuels. We are going to have a big debate about global warming and its impact and whether we should even keep our focus on fossil fuel or accelerate getting off of it.

Many times today, even down at the Rose Garden, we hear the word ``ANWR'' again, and how ANWR was the secret recipe for lowering gas prices in America. I obviously don't support opening up drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge because it is a wildlife refuge. But I certainly don't support it when even our own Energy Information Administration has said that drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge would only reduce gasoline prices by a penny per gallon and only 20 years after we got to peak production. So at a penny per gallon, if people use 400 to 500 gallons of fuel, we are talking about a few dollars of savings there over many, many months. So the notion that ANWR would be some way of solving our problems just isn't true.

I know a lot of people have talked about refinery capacity, and I think you need to talk to the oil companies about refinery capacity and why they have not expanded. I know my colleague Senator Boxer has been out here many times talking about how she had to stop consolidation in her State because they didn't want to keep a refinery open. But I know this: We know it is not environmental regulation. In fact, according to this CEO of an oil company:

We are not aware of any environmental regulations that

would prevent us from expanding our refinery capacity or

siting a new refinery.

So we know it is not about environmental regulations. That is not what is stopping them either.

Some people have said: Don't take the tax incentives away from the oil industry; don't do that because somehow that is what is keeping the industry afloat. The industry is making record profits. They are making so much profit they don't even know what to do with the profit. They are buying back their own stock.

We know this: We know the President of the United States, George W. Bush, said:

With $55 oil, we don't need incentives for oil and gas

companies to explore.

It is way above $55 a barrel. So I take him at his word that we don't need incentives to continue to explore at that level.

Let's talk about what is the issue. Let's talk about what is the problem we need to solve, for which we need to be responsible to consumers, to businesses, to the economy, and to make sure we continue to deal with this threatening crisis.

I know one oil analyst who looked at these markets. And maybe the man on the street, if you ask him, he thinks something is going on in the oil market. He doesn't think it is about supply and demand. He didn't happen to see that first chart I put up, but he knows something is going on because he sees the irregularity of prices. But this analyst said: Unless the U.S. Government steps in to rein in speculators' power in the market, prices will just keep going up. Basically he is saying that speculators have too much power in the market right now, and unless the Government does its job, the prices are going to keep going up. So it is time for us to act. It is time for us to get smart about this.

It reminds me of the debate we had when the Enron crisis hit the electricity markets. It probably took well into 2001, when many people said: Do you know what, this is all about environmental regulation, or, this is about not enough refineries, and it is about the fact that there is a supply shortage. They came up with all these things.

So as 2002 rolled around and as more and more investigation was done, we found out that, no, it was actually manipulative schemes by various individuals within a very large organization--actually several organizations--that purposely manipulated the electricity markets. They did this so they could short supply and drive up the price.

Now, Congress acted in 2005. We said--after we found out all the facts, we heard all the terms: Death Star, Get Shorty, all the various schemes that had been manipulated--we kept thinking: How could this happen when we had a Federal Power Act that said, on the wholesale rate of electricity and natural gas, you have to have just and reasonable pricing. We thought that is a clear enough message for people. But, in fact, it was not. It was not a clear enough message. It cost my State billions. It cost California's economy billions. So what did we do? Congress made it illegal to use manipulative devices or contrivances in the electricity or natural gas physical markets, and we greatly increased the penalties for market transparency violations.

Now, why did we go to the extent of doing this? We could not believe that such activities were in some way a gray area and that somehow people were still confused post-Enron that this kind of activity was OK. Some people said: Well, you already have the electricity and natural gas markets under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. What else do you need?

But I was very proud that Congress passed this legislation. Since that law has been on the books, since 2005, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, as it relates to electricity and natural gas markets, has been aggressive about pursuing this power and using it.

What have been the results? Well, the result has been making market manipulation illegal when it comes to oil and natural gas, so that they have had 64 investigations, 14 settlements, $48 million in civil penalties, two ongoing market manipulation cases that could net over $450 million in civil penalties, and a dramatic increase in self- reporting and self-policing. It is like one of my staffers said: If you want people to straighten up, let them know there is going to be a cop on the beat. Let them know there is going to be someone investigating these activities and we are not going to tolerate it, and people will start obeying the law. So we did that.

In 2007, we decided that if this kind of pervasive activity was still continuing in the natural gas and electricity markets--if that was still happening--maybe there was some correlation here with what was happening in the oil markets, because clearly, after looking at all those charts we just went through about supply and demand, and everything else, we could not understand what was happening. We have had oil company executives tell us that the price of oil today should be at somewhere between $50 and $60 a barrel given where supply and demand is. Oil company executives are throwing up their arms saying: We don't know why the price of oil is well over $100 a barrel. So we, in the Energy bill in 2007, passed a law saying it is time to make the same laws we have for natural gas and electricity apply to oil markets. We said that any person who uses, directly or indirectly, ``any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance'' in connection with the wholesale purchase of crude oil or petroleum distillates--that that was illegal and that Congress made violations subject to penalties of up to $1 million a day. That is $1 million a day because we believe, if you are doing these kinds of activities, every day that you have engaged in those activities you should pay a fine for that.

Now, where are we today with this authority? Because some people say: Well, you passed a law. Is it working? This law does not really go into effect until the Federal Trade Commission adopts rules and puts them into action. That is what we are waiting for now. My colleagues on the Commerce Committee have urged the FTC to hurry about this task, that it is so important to our economy and to consumers to hurry about this task. I know Senator Reid has encouraged them, Speaker Pelosi has encouraged them. So we are in the process now of hoping that the FTC will implement this rule and give proper notice but start the process because once the marketplace knows--just as they did in natural gas and electricity--that these kinds of activities will not be tolerated, we might be able to make a dent in what is happening with this excessive speculation in the energy markets.

Well, let's look at what exactly the market manipulation behavior is that we are concerned about. We basically have said we are interested in whether companies have manipulated the supply, whether they have given false reporting, whether they have cornered

the market, and whether they have engaged in any kind of rogue trading. Those are the things we are concerned about.

Well, let's talk about supply manipulation for a second because that is something for which people might say: Well, it is just about supply and demand, and how do you pass a law about supply and supply manipulation? Believe it or not, there are good Federal statutes on the books starting with a lot of case law and a lot of history. What we are saying is, we do not want any artificial influencing of supply in the energy markets. We do not want someone creating something that is not a normal part of business but is artificially used to create a shortage-- for example, diverting or exporting marginal supply in tight markets. That is, we know the market is tight on oil. You can go back to that chart on supply and demand. They pretty much track very closely. So it is a tight market. When you have an event like Katrina, it is even tighter.

Our question is, Did somebody export supply outside the country just to create a shortage in the United States and drive up the price? Have we had hedge funds holding crude oil ships off the coast just so the price will go up for a few more days?

That is the second point: holding supply deliveries temporarily to boost prices. We have people now who are major players in the oil market who really are not the end users of crude oil supply. They are just big financial movers in the marketplace. They are not taking the delivery of oil because they are out there delivering it to various jobbers or what have you. They are there for a financial investment.

In fact, we want to know if some of these inventory management strategies that have basically reduced physical supply--and basically everybody just trades their reserves on paper, and everybody just trades the paper around, where that, in fact, does not have much transparency to it. So we do not know how much that creates that management system in and of itself. Where we used to have 30 days of crude oil supply, thereby, the market was not so tight. Now we have this paper inventory system. We do not know what that really means. We do not know how much supply is really in reserve. Is that being used to manipulate supply?

Then, obviously, what we saw--I just think back to the Enron days when people said: Oh, no, no one would ever shut down a powerplant just to short supply. They would never do something like that. It must all be about the fact that really something was wrong. Well, we found out that there were purposeful shutdowns of various powerplants to short the market and to drive up the price. So we want to know if there are unnecessary and untimely ``maintenance'' shutdowns just to impact supply in the marketplace of oil.

We also want to know whether there is false reporting because false reporting can lead to misleading or inaccurate statements that also can hinder the marketplace.

Part of this legislation we passed in this bill is to say, in 2007, that if you gave false information, that was also subject to civil penalties of up to $1 million a day because part of this--the same in the Enron case--is it was very hard to understand these schemes. If it was not for videotapes that were put together, we would have never known exactly how these schemes would have worked just by looking at the books. So we want the Government to look at some of this information and if there are manipulative schemes. But if they provide false information, we believe that also should be a penalty.

Now, we know that in one case of natural gas--El Paso Merchant Energy--they reported nonexistent trades to reporting firms while at the same time failing to maintain certain records. They basically created false information about the trades that were going on. The result was six traders were convicted for false reporting and attempting to manipulate the energy market.

Now, the reason why this is so important to the subject we are debating today is that manipulation has happened in natural gas, and why this is so important now is because in the oil markets, and particularly in the oil futures market, we do not even have the same transparency in reporting requirements that we do with other commodities like natural gas. We have given them an exemption in the Enron loophole that was done in 2000 as part of the Commodity Exchange Act, so they do not have those reporting requirements. So we cannot even go and get some of this information to know that something like what was happening with El Paso Energy is transpiring in the oil markets, as it did in the natural gas markets.

So it is one of the reasons why we want to close the Enron loophole and to say that the trading of energy futures, which definitely impacts the price of oil today--and we will get to that on another day out here on the floor, about how the energy futures price impacts oil today, we will get to that, but for today we just know that if you do not have reporting, then there is no way--whether it is the SEC or the CFTC or FERC or the FTC--no one has any ability to get access to the information.

We also know that we want cornering the market to be illegal. Cornering the market would be exploiting the market power through excessive mergers like natural monopolies or blocking new entrants to basically corner the marketplace. We know this is something about which we have a great deal of concern. We know British Petroleum attempted to do this. Basically, they purchased excess propane in Texas, within the pipelines, to hold it from the market and then sell it high. We know they did that in trying to corner the market. The end result was that the Department of Justice and the CFTC ended up with a settlement case against them in the number of $303 million. So we know these things are happening in other energy markets, and we know they are a problem in the--potentially a problem--in the oil markets today.

We also know rogue trading is potentially a problem as well.

Mr. President, I am not going to take much more time on this issue as it relates to the high price of gasoline. I plan to continue to come out to the floor to talk about this issue about the need for the CFTC to promulgate this rule and get on about investigating the oil markets and to make sure consumers are protected.

I talked about what I think the rule needs to do. It needs to prohibit the manipulation of supply and to have a strong statute and penalty for falsifying information. It has to have a prohibition on cornering the market.

I believe that rogue trading is something else we are seeing in the marketplace. We need to have a prohibition on that. People might ask: What is that? It is employing manipulative trading schemes such as buying or selling large volumes of stock or futures contracts with the intention of influencing prices.

You can imagine, if somebody has a large position in one of these energy supplies or stocks, that basically ends up impacting the marketplace. We actually found this with the Amaranth case, in the area of natural gas. Amaranth sold large volumes of what is called next month natural gas delivery in the last 30 minutes of the market. What they did is basically crashed the close of the market. By selling large amounts of futures contracts for delivery of natural gas at the close of the market they manipulated the price and benefitted their large positions in other financial derivatives, and that ended up impacting the physical price of natural gas. The good news is the FERC, because of the 2005 law we passed, was on the beat, doing its job. Unfortunately, consumers paid something akin to $9 billion in increased natural gas costs before the FERC could get this situation under control. Now they are in the enforcement phase of a $291 million civil penalty against Amaranth. We know these situations are happening with rogue trading.

We know of another case that is similar to rogue trading and price manipulation, where Marathon Oil allegedly attempted to sell oil delivery contracts below the market prices in order to basically lower the market price, benefitting them as a net purchaser of foreign crude oil. So there ended up being an investigation by the CFTC, and today they are in a $1 million settlement with the CFTC on that issue.

All these issues, I believe, need to be investigated in the oil markets. They need to have a strong statute passed by the CFTC, similar to in 2005 for electricity and natural gas, where we can

see the results of the investigation, we can see that a Federal agency is doing its job; we need to do the same thing with the oil market.

In fact, there are five things I think we need to do that would help protect consumers from high prices of gasoline. Our economy and consumers cannot afford much more.

We need to close the Enron loophole, in which that 2000 law said that online trading promulgated by Enron, they said, they don't have the same transparency, don't have to open their books or allow people to see what they are doing. We know for other commodities the Securities and Exchange Commission and CFTC look at those things to make sure there is not a manipulation in the marketplace. We cannot even get these because we gave them an exemption. That needs to be repealed. We need to require oversight of all oil futures markets. That is, as I said, the oil futures price affects the physical price of oil. If people are going to buy oil futures well into 2015 at over $100 a barrel, it is going to impact the physical price of oil today. If you can buy oil at over $116 in the oil futures, it is hard to believe that oil is going to drop much below that in the physical market. But these are markets--unlike, again, our commodities in the United States, on NYMEX or the mercantile exchange, such as corn or soybean futures, this is an exchange the United States doesn't have any regulatory impact on. We don't have the ability to look at those books, any enforcement mechanisms. We don't have the ability to protect consumers on that kind of speculation if there is manipulative activity going on.

As I said, we need to get the CFTC to finish their work. This is so important that I think the Department of Justice should coordinate all these agencies because there are futures activities, there is a physical market, and there is the falsification of information. What happened with Enron is the Department of Justice created a task force, called the Enron Task Force. It coordinated these agencies and got to the bottom of what was happening with the electricity markets and the manipulation. I think the Department of Justice should create an Oil Market Fraud Task Force to do the same thing.

Lastly, I know my colleagues will talk about this on the floor--to make price gouging a Federal crime. There are 28 States in our country that have the ability, in an emergency, to make a declaration in the event of a natural disaster, or huge anomalies in the market, and help stabilize the situation with executive power. I am willing to give that same executive power to the President of the United States. I hope he would use it.

In conclusion, there is a lack of transparency in energy trading markets. We need to fix that. This is one of the CFTC Commissioners who said:

I am generally concerned about a lack of transparency and

the need for greater oversight and enforcement of the

derivatives industry.

He is basically talking about this offshore exchange, where we don't have the same kind of oversight that we do. In fact, I said earlier that we have more regulation of hamburger and the future of beef than we have of oil. I will tell you that oil is critically important to our economy, and it needs to have the same kind of transparency and oversight as other futures commodities.

Last, I will reiterate that even on Wall Street, even the analysts who know what is going on in the marketplace, who know these prices are outrageous, not based on supply and demand, are saying:

Unless the U.S. Government steps in to rein in speculators'

power in the market, prices will just keep going up.

An energy analyst said that this month.

It is clear the marketplace even thinks there is too much speculative power, and the answer is for us to do our jobs--for the FTC to do their job, to get the help of DOJ, and for us to make sure we are doing our job on oversight in giving consumers protection. But I think there are very few people in America who do not think these prices are out of control, that it is not normal market forces, it is not normal supply and demand, and if it keeps careening out of control, it is going to wreck our economy. It is certainly wrecking consumers' pocketbooks right now.

I hope we will take action. I hope the Federal agencies will get on their feet and be aggressive about protecting consumers on this important issue. I know we will continue to talk about this on the floor as we continue to pass legislation that does protect America from these out-of-control gasoline prices.

I yield the floor.

Three or four minutes.

Mr. President, I say to the majority leader, I appreciate what he said on behalf of women. Washington State has one of the highest rates of breast cancer in the Nation. We have a very good detection program and good survival rates. We don't know the cause of it, but we know it is very important to continue the research.

I know that in 1992, the so-called year of the woman, when we had one of the largest classes of women elected to the Congress, we saw an increase in women's health research. Why? Because women were in the Congress to say it was important to us to not have the research directed in a way that favored some of the particular programs that were about men's health.

So I thank my colleague. The majority leader is right to say we have to respond to our constituents who are concerned about this issue and want to give attention to it. Clearly, women's health research hasn't gotten all the attention it deserves in the past.

Yes.

That is what we found in the 1990s, in that we didn't have enough representation to ask the hard questions, to say our constituents were not being heard on this issue and to raise this in various committees. Frankly, that was the time period when, for the first time, we had a woman on every committee in the House of Representatives. Once we got women on every committee, we asked the hard questions and increased the percentage of women's health research.

I think it is a very poignant point to the fact that, while NIH does good work, we have to respond to our constituency and, certainly, there can be discrepancies and issues that the larger public should have a say in as to health research.

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

Madam President, I ask that the pending amendment be set aside and at the appropriate place amendment No. 4538 be inserted into the Boxer substitute.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Madam President, I am on the floor this afternoon because a few years ago something happened in Congress that should never have happened. What happened is a bill passed the House and a bill passed the Senate. A bill that both Houses agreed to was changed before it went to the President. We do not know where it was changed or who changed it. We do not know the details of it. There has been speculation in the press, but we do not have any real knowledge of how this happened. But there is a principle, and the principle is, if we cannot trust what we agree to in both bodies of Congress will be sent to the President, then everything we pass has to be suspect.

This is a hard amendment to offer because there is a lot of angst around looking at ourselves and looking at the problems. But the one thing we do know is the American people expect the process to be one that is open, one that is accurate, and that when the President gets a bill, it truly represents what the Congress intended.

What actually happened? On the highway bill conference report passed by Congress, item 461, there were widening improvements for the I-75 corridor in Collier and Lee Counties in Florida. What actually went to the President was different. This was changed to Lee County only and for an interchange. Somehow that got changed. This money has been rejected three times by the citizens and their elected representatives in that area because they do not want an interchange. What they wanted was to widen I-75 in terms of hurricane evacuations.

As I said, we do not know how this happened. There is press speculation. We don't know if it occurred in the Senate. We don't know if it occurred in the House. What we do know is it did occur, and nobody can dispute the fact. And this bill, thanks to Chairman Boxer, corrects that and puts it back to what the original intent of Congress was, what Congress intended originally.

Some will say: Now that we fixed it, we don't need to do anything about it.

But the problem the American public has in terms of confidence in us is that we will do the right thing, and the right thing is to figure out how something such as this happened and make sure it never happens again and put in the safeguards so we know it will not happen again. I believe it is time for Congress to look at this issue and fix it.

Many of my colleagues say we are treading on dangerous water because if this occurred in the House, we are forcing the House to look at something, one body telling the other body to do something. We don't know where it occurred.

The amendment I am offering creates a committee of Members, four from the House, four from the Senate, that will look at this issue and make appropriate recommendations to the appropriate bodies; that is, the House Committee on Official Conduct and the Senate Ethics Committee or any law enforcement officers.

I understand that there will possibly be a second-degree amendment, and this ought to be offered and made, that the Justice Department look at this. That can certainly happen in due time, but there is this little issue of separation of powers. We have the responsibility in Congress to do what is right.

It is very interesting the debates we have had, especially in this Congress, about separation of powers and not wanting the executive branch to take power away from us. However, we are thinking about offering a second-degree amendment that would do that.

I believe in the people in this body. I believe we all do not like that this happened. I believe we all want to see that it never happens again. The best way to do this is to have an investigation, two Members appointed by the Speaker and two Members appointed by the minority leader in the House, two Members appointed by the majority leader in the Senate and two Members appointed by the minority leader in the Senate. So we have eight Members reporting back to us what happened and making recommendations to the appropriate committees, not necessarily to us.

As we all know, Senate ethics investigations, as well as House investigations in terms of official conduct, are not public. We don't know if something is going on regarding this issue now. But what we do know is something happened, and we ought to be about fixing it.

My worry is if we modify this amendment or we do not agree to this amendment, this is going to be the feeling of the American public: Is this political? Can we not control the rules of our own body in terms of enrollment?

It is interesting what Jefferson said when he talked about this in his manual. He described what should and shouldn't be done when a bill has passed both Houses of Congress.

The House last acting on it, notifies its passage to the other and delivers the bill to the Joint Committee on Enrollment, who sees it is truly enrolled in parchment. When the bill is enrolled, it is not to be written in paragraphs but solidly, all in one piece, that the blanks between the paragraphs may not give room for forgery.

That is, in essence, what happened in this case. Now, that is not a case for the Justice Department to investigate at this time. That is a case for us to investigate and look at our own rules. The fact is, something went terribly wrong on the way of a bill going to the President that was different than both Houses of Congress passed.

I understand the angst of someone coming from the Senate and saying this ought to happen, and I understand we don't want to get in a fingerpointing mode. But if the House agrees with this in conference, it will happen; and if they do not agree with this in conference, it won't happen. But what should happen in the Senate should be that we look at this so we can create the confidence that the American people deserve to have in this body to know that when we pass a bill out, that the bill we passed is actually the bill the President signs.

I am thankful to the Transportation Committee and Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member Inhofe for clarifying this and fixing it. It is right that it should be done. It is right that the original intention of it should be done. But that is not good enough. That is not good enough for the American public. I understand the desire of the chairman of the committee to move this out of our hands and into the Justice Department's hands, but I have some problems with that. One is this idea of separation of powers. What other powers are we going to give up when we can't handle a simple investigation into what went wrong during the process of enrollment?

The second thing is, my legal staff tells me we cannot mandate to the executive branch what they will and will not investigate. So should they choose not to investigate this, we will have been no further down the road. But the 100-percent guarantee that it will get investigated is if we have Members of both bodies investigate this and come to a resolution so it does not happen again.

It doesn't matter whose bill it is, and it doesn't matter which party's bill it is. If a bill, no matter whose bill it is, is changed, it affects the whole country, and it affects the confidence in this body. This is an ethical issue for us, if in fact it involved the Senate.

The easy thing would be not to offer this. That is easy; you don't make other Senators uncomfortable with you; you don't have the chance that the House could be upset at what we are suggesting in a conference, if they agree to us jointly in investigating this. We could sweep it under the rug as if it never happened because we corrected it. But it did happen. And by not investigating it, it means it can happen again.

This is not without precedent. I believe in 1982 or 1992, this same thing happened and it didn't get investigated. It just got changed. So here we have it happening again, and only because of some very good work in the press were we made aware of it. Consequently, we ought to be the ones to fix it. We ought to take responsibility for our actions and we ought to correct the problem that happened with this, wherever it may be. If it happened in the House, the House should correct it. If it happened in the Senate, the Senate should correct it. But at least we ought to know the details of how and why, and then, if appropriate, a referral, if in fact that is justified. If it was a simple clerical error, we will know that. If it was more than that, we will know that.

The fact is, by not doing this, what we are saying to the American people is, oops, we had a mistake that is paramount to the quality and the clarity of how this body functions, and we believe it is not a grave error. Well, I happen to disagree. It is an entirely egregious error because it impacts every other piece of legislation.

If I as a Senator can no longer trust that the bills we pass in Congress, after they are enrolled, are exactly what we pass, then I now have to spend the time looking at every bill after it has been enrolled to make sure it matches. None of us has the time to do that. That is what we entrust the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House for.

So somewhere along the way, something changed. We need to know that. We don't need to play the same political games. We don't need to play a partisan game with it, because nobody knows for sure who did what. What we do need to do is to do the hard work of looking at what went wrong and making the appropriate changes.

I note there are several cosponsors, and the Presiding Officer is one. She has been a great addition to our body because she seeks clarity and transparency in what we do here; also Senator McCain and Senator Obama, as well as Senator Martinez and Senator Nelson of Florida. They are the two Senators where this had the most impact.

I don't come to the floor lightly saying we want to poke at people, but I do think it is important for the integrity of our body that we, along with the House, get to the bottom of it. It was my hope we could work this out without trying to refer it to the Justice Department. If in fact it needs to get there, it will get there after appropriate investigation.

To bypass us and give up our power to correct things that are wrong with our rules--not laws, our rules--seems to me to be the antithesis of what we have debated so many times in this Senate over the past 9 to 15 months about the executive power encroaching on the Senate. Now we are ready to give that power away for something that is duly ours and set a precedent

that we are going to ask the Justice Department to investigate us? We ought to be investigating ourselves.

We have the integrity, we have the quality, we have the people, and we have the goodwill of all the Senators of this body and all the Members of the House to do that. Because the institution is more important than any one of us. What we do for the American people has to be more important than any one of us. So it is my hope--I will not take much more time--the Senate will concur.

This is done with all sincerity. I am pointing a finger at no one. But I think if we do not do this, by a second amendment that takes it away, what we will have done is to abrogate our responsibility in terms of the clarity of our purpose and the quality of our work. And if we choose to do that, here is what we will find. We will find another notch down the confidence in Congress by the American people, if we refuse to look under our own bedsheets for our own bedbugs and give that responsibility away.

I appreciate the help of the staff of the committee. They have been very forthright in working with us. As I have said before, I appreciate Senator Boxer's cooperative attitude on this. We disagree on how best to handle this, and I understand her right as the chairman and as a Member of this body, but my hope is we don't give away powers that are ours. The separation of powers is a very important concept in this body, and to abrogate our responsibility and appoint it somewhere else, when we don't have the facts--that can always happen afterwards.

In fact, this amendment states that appropriate referrals will be made to both Ethics Committees of the House and Senate and to law enforcement, if necessary. So my hope would be that we could vote this eventually and look at it. I think it is paramount for the quality of our work.

Madam President, I reserve any time I may have, and I look forward to the comments of the chairman.

Madam President, first of all, I thank the chair for her words. I stated that this amendment language is based on a very big precedent established in 1992 in this body with a joint committee of Members of Congress to look at the rules in both Houses, to look at the processes in both Houses. There is a precedent. There is not a

problem with the debate clause. I think that is not a prudent argument to be against this.

The Justice Department will eventually get this if, in fact, we find out there was a crime. I also make the point that nobody knows right now where this occurred. At least I don't. Nobody knows what the facts are, so the assumption we are making that we would be involved in investigating the House is--we do not know that. At least I certainly do not know it, and I have kind of been looking at this for quite some time. So it is an assumption that we are going to have, necessarily, an investigation of the House. We may be having an investigation of the Senate.

The fact is, we have a good precedent for this. This was a Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, H. Con. Res. 192, in the 102nd, and it looked at everything. It didn't just look at one specific thing. So there is precedent for it.

More important is the separation of powers issue. What we are saying to the American public is we do not have the power to control our own body and that we have to ask the Justice Department to come in and do it. If there is a criminal violation, they certainly ought to be involved in that, but we do not know that yet.

First of all, these are the rules of the Senate. They are not law. We are asking them to investigate the rules of the Senate, not a law; therefore, we are giving power to the executive branch, we are asking the executive branch to come in. My great worry--there is no question, Senator Boxer's amendment will do this. It will get an investigation, if they will come and do it--there is no way we can force them to come and do it--and we will get to the bottom of it.

But I am worried about the integrity of the body, saying to the American public that we cannot police ourselves; we cannot do it; we do not want to take the heavy lifting it is going to take. And I do not believe a four-by-four panel of two Democratic Senators, two Republican Senators, two Democratic Congressmen, and two Republican Congressmen-- and this committee has the right to not do any of this in public if they do not want to. The committee totally gets to do this. Nobody wants a circus. I am even reticent that I am actually here making this point. I think it is a pox on our body that this happened, but I think it needs to be addressed.

My hope is that people will not take a partisan viewpoint on how they vote. My hope is they will think about the institution of Congress, they will think about the separation of powers, they will think about the difference between laws and rules of the Senate and rules of the Congress. Then, if a referral needs to be made to the Justice Department, we would do that, but that would most appropriately come from our Ethics Committees, not from this committee--after a referral from this committee to the Ethics Committee.

The chair of the Ethics Committee cannot say whether they are looking at this right now. They may be. They may not be. We do not know. The Justice Department cannot say whether they are or not. So we do not know what is happening.

The point is, something needs to happen. I worry that when we tell the American public we are not capable of looking into our own dysfunction, that, in fact, what it says is that we give up power to the Justice Department to look at how we enroll bills and whether we violated the rules under how we do it. I have a real concern with that. I have tremendous concern with that, especially since we made such a large issue of separation of powers in this Congress.

I will make one other point, and it is not to demean the Senator from California. If this were important to the committee, why was your amendment not part of the committee mark? If, in fact, the committee was enraged over this, why was this not a part of the original committee mark?

Why have we not addressed this in the original committee mark or the substitute? We corrected it--and I said, while the Senator was out, I was thankful that the problem was corrected. But the issue of how it got changed is not in the committee mark.

This amendment, this second-degree amendment, comes on the fact that we are trying to offer what I think is a cogent way that has precedent in both the House and Senate for solving this. That is probably just an oversight because I know the Senator cares deeply about this. I know she was upset about it. With everything they had to do to bring this bill to the floor as quickly as they did, that is probably what happened. But the fact is, we are at this point. If the body wants the Justice Department--if we want to give up that power to the Justice Department, the body will vote that, and that is fine.

The last point I will make, and I will not continue on a lot further, is this does not force the House to do anything. Let me tell you why. This bill will go to a conference committee, I believe, of which Chairman Boxer will be the head, and all the House has to say is: We disagree with this; we do not want to do this; we do not want to have a committee look into this. The House has that option, and if it does not agree to it, it will not come out of the conference committee and we will not do anything on it.

The same is true of her amendment in terms of the Department of Justice. But it is important for the American people to know whether something happens on it and whether we do it in a way that emboldens and strengthens the institution of Congress or weakens it.

Amendment No. 4540 to Amendment No. 4539

Before I yield the floor, I have a second-degree amendment at the desk. I ask for its immediate consideration.

I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Madam President, I will just make one comment.

First of all, the chair of the EPW Committee is very gracious. I appreciate her words, and I intended no disrespect for her in terms of her effort. I know she supports this effort to get to the bottom of it. But I would make a correction. We only say we should share with three people: the appropriate law authorities and the appropriate ethics committees of both the House and the Senate.

We did not envision a show. I would envision that the people who might be on this committee would take this very seriously; that, in fact, it probably would not be open hearings but, rather, closed, and that, in fact, we would get to the bottom of the problem.

But either way we get to the bottom of the problem, I am happy we are going to get there. I think it is important that we get there. As I outlined, I think the integrity of what we pass, no matter how we get there, as long as we can ensure the integrity, I will be satisfied we have done that. I am not sure we will get that.

The final point I would make is we will be setting a precedent. Let us not forget, we will be setting a precedent that the Congress says the Justice Department should investigate us. That is a big precedent. That is a big precedent. I am not a lawyer. I do not know if it has happened before, but I do not like that precedent. I don't like it at all. Because I think the integrity of this body is far greater than that. I think Members of this body are far above that, that we do not need the Justice Department to investigate us. I think we can investigate ourselves and we need to demonstrate to the American public that we do have the will and courage to do the disciplined thing and do the right thing and to solve the problem.

Then if a referral is needed to the Justice Department, we should give it. But I have great qualms, great worries about ceding to the Justice Department the power to investigate us. My own personal experience is, we do not know where they will go. We do not know that they will stick on us. The point is, this is a big precedent I would worry about setting.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, today we debate the FAA reauthorization, and it is a debate that probably should have been joined a long time ago. This is a piece of legislation that has been kicking around here for a long time. I serve on the Senate Commerce Committee. I know both the House and the Senate reported bills out many months ago. We are finally now getting a bill on to the floor for debate. It is important we do this.

This is legislation that is critical to the infrastructure that supports our aviation industry, which is a critical industry to America's competitiveness, and if we look at what is happening in the airlines these days, obviously, we need to do everything we can to make sure we have a viable and effective aviation industry and commercial airlines are able to operate and provide the services to travelers who need to get, every single day, to places both here at home and around the world to conduct business and to recreate.

In the course of this debate, I cannot help but be struck by the fact that I do not see there is anything we can do in the FAA reauthorization that addresses what fundamentally is probably plaguing the airline industry more than anything else, and that is the high cost of energy.

I am looking at some information, graphs, some data. We can look at this graph for January of 2004 and see where the cost of crude oil and the cost of fuel for the airlines, for the aviation industry, was then and where it is today. Follow the red line, the way it tracks up. That spikes up. That is almost a straight vertical line.

If we take another graph which shows what the consumption of fuels is in the airline industry, the green line--you probably, Mr. President, cannot see this; it is too far away, but the green line shows consumption has been fairly static in terms of the amount of fuel that is used. But if we look at the expense or the cost of the fuel, it has increased at a sharp and dramatic rate.

My point very simply is that we cannot affect, I do not think, in a very substantial way, what is plaguing and ailing the airline industry and a lot of other industries in this country absent addressing the fundamental cost issue of energy independence.

If we look at where we are as a nation today and where we were 30 years ago, not much has changed. I remember as someone growing up during the oil embargoes and what we were experiencing in the late 1970s and a real concern at the time about our dependence, overdependence, dangerous dependence on foreign sources of energy. At that time it was 55, 60 percent. Here we are 30 years later and we are more than ever dependent on foreign sources of energy. Mr. President, 60 to 65 percent of our petroleum comes from outside the United States. We have very little control over the supply. The only way we fix that, the only way we can impact energy costs in this country in a meaningful way is to increase supply.

We can talk a lot about a lot of issues with regard to this problem, this challenge we face as a country. There are some things we can do to impact the demand side, too, and we did that in the Energy bill last year. We increased for the first time in a very long time fuel economy standards so now automobiles are going to be built to standards that will require more miles per gallon than they currently get. That will help control, to some degree, the demand side. Obviously, I think individual consumers in this country, drivers in this country, are going to begin to take steps to reduce the amount of fuel they consume because it is impacting so adversely their pocketbooks on a daily basis.

But there is not anything we can do totally on the demand side to get us out of this mess we are in. We have to do some things to impact supply. I can't help but think that if we had taken some of these steps years ago, back in 1995 or thereabouts when President Clinton vetoed legislation that would have allowed oil exploration on the North Slope of Alaska--at the time it was argued, oh, it will take 5 to 10 years for us to develop this resource and when we do, it will not be that much anyway. It is only 1 million or 1\1/2\ million barrels a day, and that is not that significant in the overall scheme of things. Here we are 10 years

later. If we had done that then, this would be fully developed, we would have the barrels of oil on a daily basis, the daily equivalent of what we get from Saudi Arabia, available to meet our demand in this country.

It has probably been, since that time, half a dozen times we voted on that. In the House of Representatives, I don't know how many votes we had over there that would have allowed authorized exploration for oil on the North Slope of Alaska. We have had that vote in the Senate, since I have been here, on at least one occasion, maybe two times, where we were a couple votes short of reaching that magic 60-vote threshold that would allow us to move forward and explore some of these opportunities that we have to grow our supply, our domestic supply of energy.

Because he had listened to this debate for some time--I have been in the Congress, now, for the better part of 10 years and always was interested when the debate would come to the floor of the House or the Senate and you would hear both sides come to the floor and make their arguments--I actually went up to Alaska and visited the section 1002 area where it is proposed we develop this oil resource. We landed in Barrow, AK, in February, a couple years ago. It was 38 below. We visited a couple of the existing sites at Prudhoe Bay and then we went over to section 1002, which is the vast area we are talking about for development. What struck me is we are talking about a 2,000-acre footprint that would be used to access the oil below the surface, and with modern technology, you can actually get to those reserves below the surface with horizontal or directional drilling, with a minimal footprint on the surface, and it would be done during certain parts of the year where it wouldn't impact wildlife or anything.

Incidentally, there were caribou everywhere. Anybody who is worried about the caribou on the North Slope of Alaska, they have nothing to worry about because, if anything, it has been increased since the activity that has taken place up there.

But this particular area is a very isolated, remote area on the North Slope of Alaska. The estimates run from somewhere between 6 billion and 16 billion barrels of oil beneath the surface or, as I said, the daily equivalent of about 1.5 million barrels a day, which is comparable to what we get from Saudi Arabia.

To put it in perspective, a 2,000-acre footprint, for those who come from my part of the country who have an agricultural background, that is the equivalent of three sections of farm ground. That in an area of some 19.2 million acres in what they call ANWR, this refuge area. But if you look at the State of Alaska in its totality, Alaska, believe it or not, is 7.5 times the size of the State of South Dakota. You could put South Dakota geographically into Alaska 7.5 times. That is how vast this area is up there. It is part of our country, part of an area that has enormous resources below the surface that could be very meaningful in terms of addressing America's energy needs.

When you visit that area, you cannot help but be struck with, No. 1, how supportive the governmental leadership is in that area--the Governor, the State legislature, in many respects most of the local citizens. There are always those who are opposed to this type of development. We heard from them as well. But overwhelmingly, the majority of people in that area want to see this development.

Here we are again facing a crisis as we head into the summer driving season, travel season, vacation season. Families are looking, making plans. In my State of South Dakota, farmers are getting into the field, and they are having to deal with the input costs associated with high fuel costs, diesel costs. This is an economic issue that affects literally every American but particularly those middle-income Americans and those who this summer are looking at making plans to travel. They are going to be facing $3.50 gasoline, perhaps higher than that. Who knows how high that is going to go?

My point very simply is we should have been taking these steps many years ago. We are now paying a price for inaction on the part of this Congress when it comes to the things we can do to add to supply in this country, to make sure we are taking full advantage of the domestic resources we have right here at home so we do not have to continue to allow other countries around the world to hold us over a barrel when it comes to our energy needs.

The other thing we ought to have been doing--again this is something that is long overdue--is developing more refinery capacity. We are pretty much maxed out. We have not built a new refinery since 1976. They will tell you they have added or expanded existing refineries, and all that is true, but at the end of the day we have not done very much in terms of addressing the refinery shortage we have in this country either. So when it comes to raw resources such as the oil, petroleum resources below the surface on the North Slope of Alaska, when it comes to the ability to refine that into gasoline, we have some deficiencies that are of our own making. I regret the fact that we were not able to find the votes in this body to do these types of things many years ago, when today it would make a big difference in the challenge we face.

The other issue, the other point I will make--because I think it gets back at this issue of how doing some of these things, although at the time they may have seemed to be not that substantial, could make a difference at the margin--is what has happened with renewable energy in this country. We are now generating about 7.5, almost 8 billion gallons of renewable fuel or ethanol in America today. One would think perhaps, when you use 140 billion gallons of gasoline on an annual basis, that that is not that big of a dent. But there was a study done by Merrill Lynch, it was reported in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks back, that were it not for ethanol, the price per barrel of oil and the price per gallon of gasoline would actually be 15 percent higher than it is today. So even though it is 7.5 billion gallons out of a 140-billion- gallon annual demand for gasoline, it is affecting the price because it is impacting supply in a positive way.

In the same way, if we had opened the North Slope of Alaska when we had an opportunity to do so, we would have that 1\1/2\ million barrels a day coming into this country, which also would significantly impact the supply in a way that would begin to bring down prices. The only way we are going to bring downward pressure on prices is to increase supply. That is why I have been such a big advocate for renewable energy.

We are at 7.5 billion gallons today. The Energy bill that passed last year calls for 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel by the year 2022. I think we can reach that. We are not going to reach it with corn-based ethanol. We have to diversify the production of ethanol in this country with other forms of biomass, whether that is by woodchips out of our forests, whether it is by switchgrass, which we have an abundance of on the prairies of South Dakota--but there are a lot of opportunities for what we call the next generation, for cellulosics, to meet the demands for energy in this country. I think we should be moving full steam ahead when it comes to support for renewables so we can lessen the demand on foreign energy and we can become more energy efficient here at home and develop the supplies of fuel we have.

That being said, even if we get to 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels, we still will be way short of what we need. We are going to need a mix of fuels. We are going to rely on some of those traditional sources of fuel such as petroleum. Coal-to-liquid holds great promise in terms of being able to be used as a fuel, and coal is something we have in infinite amounts. We ought to be developing these types of resources. I think we also ought to be allowing States that want to, particularly some States in the upper Midwest, where ethanol is produced, to go to higher blends. We are at 10 percent ethanol today. There are States I think would like to go to higher blends. We ought to allow them, particularly when the studies are concluded by the Department of Energy and the EPA, which are determining the impact on drivability, materials compatibility, emissions--all those sorts of things. When they come back, which I believe they will, and conclusively determine that going to higher blends would not in any way adversely impact any of those metrics I mentioned, we ought to be moving to higher blends of ethanol because I think that also will help take pressure off oil prices as we continue to use more and more renewable energy.

These are all parts of a solution. We need supply. But we have not taken the necessary steps to add to supply. If not now, I don't know when. When we get prices such as we are seeing, and the impact that is having on transportation industries such as aviation, such as trucking, such as agriculture, these are impacts on our economy that are only going to bring great economic strain to many industries and a loss of jobs.

We can do something about it. We ought to be doing something about it. We need to now authorize, even though we have had many opportunities to do it in the past--we ought to do it on the North Slope of Alaska and offshore and other places where we have these reserves. We ought to allow refineries to be built. We tried to get legislation through that would allow refineries to be built on BRAC bases; in other words, bases that were closed through the BRAC process, and it was blocked by the Democrats on the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Even when it came to the renewable fuel standard last year, that passed through the Senate and House and ultimately was signed into law, there is a deficiency there as well which has come to light now and a change that was made at the very 11th hour by the Speaker of the House that prevents biomass, residual types of biomass such as slash piles that are generated in our national forests, to be used to make cellulosic ethanol.

That makes absolutely no sense. We have waste products in our forests that add to fuel loads that create fire hazards. All we are simply saying is these types of products could be used to make next-generation biofuels and help grow our supply of renewable energy, and that was stripped out, at the 11th hour, by the House in the conference.

That is very unfortunate because it is steps such as that, it is steps such as blocking legislation that would allow for expedited permitting of refineries on BRAC bases, it is things such as blocking a vote on opening the North Slope of Alaska to oil exploration--those are the types of things that are stopping us. Those are the types of steps and maneuvers in the Senate and the House that are stopping us from adding to the supply of energy so we can do something about it, so we can impact, in a meaningful and positive way, the high prices that are affecting consumers across this country.

I wish to make one observation as well with regard to renewable energy because ethanol has come under a lot of criticism of late, much of it I think inspired by opponents of ethanol, such as oil companies. People are talking about the high cost of food, and food prices have gone up in this country. But if you think about it, the amount of corn that goes into a box of corn flakes, for example, it is about a nickel. If you think about what impacts the cost of the things we buy at the grocery store, transportation has a profound impact on the cost because you have transportation, you have packaging, processing--all those things which are very energy intensive. So when you have high energy prices, high fuel prices such as we are facing today, that has more to do with the costs of food than the cost for a bushel of corn is ever going to have, when it comes to corn flakes or when it comes to popcorn or many of the other things that are being mentioned now by some of these groups opposing ethanol.

I also would point out what I mentioned earlier and that is that were it not for ethanol--this again was reported upon by the Wall Street Journal a few weeks back, a study done by Merrill Lynch--oil prices, per-barrel oil prices and per-gallon gasoline prices would be about 15 percent higher. Couple that with the fact that a high commodity price means the Federal taxpayers under our farm programs are not making payments to producers to the tune of a savings of about $8 billion last year, according to the USDA, and there are lots of impacts that are not being mentioned by those who are specifically singling out ethanol and criticizing ethanol for the increase and runup in food costs.

Add to that or couple that with this piece of data that comes out of the USDA, that $8 billion in savings in taxpayer payments would be made under farm programs that were not made, that didn't go out this last year because of high product prices. That is a substantial savings to the taxpayers of this country. Again, couple that with the fact that ethanol has contributed 15 percent reduction in the overall costs of fuel in this country, ethanol is having the impact we hoped it would by increasing supply and taking pressure off the price at the pump in this country.

High fuel costs, high food costs, all these things are impacting consumers across this country. We cannot solve that problem. We cannot solve the problem of the airlines until we do something to develop our domestic resources right here at home.

We have some supplies, some reserves underground even in places that previously had not been contemplated as a source of energy, in places such as the Dakotas where we are now finding there are some reserves down there, that with prices being what they are may be economically recoverable. We should be doing everything we can to develop domestic resources, whether it is on the North Slope of Alaska, whether it is offshore, whether it is in the Dakotas, in the form of oil below the surface, or corn that grows above the surface that is renewable that we can use every single year. We need to be developing resources right here at home that will lessen our dependence upon foreign sources of energy and do something to take the pressure off these high gas prices we are seeing today that are affecting every single American.

I hope we will pass a comprehensive energy bill, one that includes increasing our supply, one that finally, once and for all, will allow us to get to that 6 to 16 billion barrels of oil beneath the surface on the North Slope of Alaska, which is widely supported by the political leadership in Alaska, the local citizenry there, that increases the amount of renewable energy we use in this country by allowing States that choose to increase and go to higher blends, perhaps to 20 percent or 30 percent ethanol. These are all things we could and should be doing today--allowing refineries to be built on bases that have been closed, and allowing for expedited permitting when it comes to constructing those refineries. These are all things that ought to be part of this energy solution. I think people are going to hold this Congress accountable if we do not take steps in that direction. My hope would be that before we move out of here before the next break--we have got a break coming up in a couple of weeks--we will take some action that will do something meaningful to lower energy prices for people in this country, increase our supply to build new refineries, to support the increased use of renewables. Those are all things that will happen and provide solutions and meaningful relief to the hard-working people in this country who are now faced with much higher gasoline prices.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, yesterday, the Secretary of Defense announced the 2008 Commander in Chief's Awards for Installation Excellence. These awards honor the best installation for each service. For the first time in the 23-year history of the award, the Air Force winner is a mobility base, Dover Air Force Base. Out of 117 Air Force installations, Dover AFB was chosen as the absolute best.

I cannot say that I was surprised. I believe they won because of the tradition of excellence imbued in each man and woman working at Dover.

It started in 1941, when the 112th Observation Squadron of the Ohio National Guard arrived to set up antisubmarine operations at the new Dover airfield. That mission and the others that helped America and her allies win World War II began an enduring tradition of excellence. In 1948, the airfield was officially named Dover Air Force Base and the Nation moved into its Cold War posture. Some may not know this, but for 7 years, 1951-1958, Dover was home to fighter squadrons defending American airspace.

In 1955, one of Dover's best known missions came to the base, the Aerial Port Mortuary. For over 70 years, the Dover team has given fallen Americans an honorable and compassionate homecoming. While it is only one mission on the base, every generation of air men and women stationed at Dover has taken pride in honoring America's heroes and ensuring the grace and dignity of their return to our Nation and their families.

By the late 1950s, Dover was transformed into a mobility base, under the Military Air Transport Service, which became Military Airlift Command, and eventually became Air Mobility Command. Since 1973, Dover has been home to America's largest military transport aircraft, the C- 5. Just last year, the Nation's second largest military transport aircraft, the C-17, was added to the base. As home to the Nation's great airlifters, Dover has always been busy--supporting American forces in every military engagement from Vietnam to Grenada to Panama to the first gulf war to the Balkans to Afghanistan and Iraq; supporting our Israeli allies with critical supplies during the Yom Kippur War; evacuating Americans from Iran in 1978; assisting with clean-up from the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill; assisting Central American nations, Turkey, and Taiwan that have experienced devastating earthquakes; providing humanitarian aid around the globe after major natural disasters; and supporting Presidential travel around the world. This dual mission, to provide lethal force and vital humanitarian aid, makes Dover critical to America's use of both hard and soft power and has made it all the more important that every generation serving at Dover carry on the tradition of excellence.

This year, Dover's tradition of excellence and the entire Dover team have been recognized with the Commander in Chief's Award. What does it mean to be the best base in the Air Force? It means that the entire Dover team has found innovative ways to make the absolute most of the resources they have. They have not only saved the taxpayers money, they have also given the warfighter more capability.

They have also been unstinting in giving back to the local community and the larger Delaware community. The Dover team is not just the air men and women serving on the base. It is also their families, civilians working on base, the businesses that support base operations and life, the State and local government that support base needs, and the entire Delaware military community working together to give the State and the Nation the very best.

Let me give you some examples from the seven categories that were considered in the competition. Keep in mind that all of these accomplishments occurred in 1 year. They were only possible because the people at Dover, despite full-time, 365/24/7 operations in support of Iraq and Afghanistan, constantly challenged themselves to do more and to do it better.

First, improvements to the infrastructure of the base and the working environment were considered.

Dover opened a state-of-the-art, $77.5 million Air Freight Terminal that increased cargo capacity and efficiency through Dover by 50 percent. The base also invested $53 million in a major runway improvement project and another $3.5 million to repair 183,000 square feet of taxiway, improving both the efficiency and safety of airfield operations. After a close analysis of their budget, the Dover team found $32 million to use for base improvements, including a $5 million renovation of a squadron operations building, C-5 recapitalization, and projects needed for the C-17 squadron setup. Thoughtful planning allowed Dover to keep the bed down of a new C-17 squadron on schedule because base personnel proactively made $780,000 necessary basic infrastructure improvements. In addition, they installed solar lights on the runways and reinforced the taxiway so that C-17 aircrews could do navigation training and combat off-load training.

Dover also improved security operations by installing over 450 removable bollards on the base, including some at the gate in a ``Lazy S'' curve to prevent reverse entry threats. The bollard installation reduced the force protection squadron's time spent on contracting by 50 percent, freeing them for security missions. Security was further enhanced by the installation of a $450,000 crash-rated airfield gate, U.S. Transportation Command's No. 1 priority for force protection, and by the use of radiological detection equipment to screen over 91,000 trucks in 1 year alone. This valuable equipment, valued at $150,000, was obtained by base personnel at no cost. In addition, by renovating the Security Forces firing range at a cost of $4.8 million, the base was able to increase the range's capacity by 15 percent and save 1,000 manhours per year.

Second, improvements to the quality of life on the base were considered.

Dover has pioneered Air Mobility Command's privatization effort for base housing. Dover built 240 homes in 2007 and was named the 2007 Outstanding Housing Installation Team-Privatized Location for the Air Force. The $250 million housing project is the benchmark for the command and will ultimately increase the housing standards for 980 families when complete in 2009. Dover's Services Squadron was recognized as Air Mobility Command's 2007 Youth Program of the Year and the Outdoor Recreation Program earned the Air Force's 5-Star Program Award. Quality of life for airmen was further enhanced by finalizing the design of a $13 million, 144-room dormitory that exceeds command standards and will be a model for other bases.

Keeping the Dover team, including families, healthy is critical to a high quality of life. Dover is the only base in the command with 100 percent of its pharmacy technicians nationally certified. In addition, the base was first in the command and third in the Air Force for flu immunization rates, at over 99 percent.

Third, efforts to enhance the productivity of the workforce were considered.

Dover has taken the lead role in reducing the time needed for Isochronal, ISO, inspections and, as a result, was made the regional center for all east coast C-5 Isochronal inspections in July of 2007. This is the first such regional facility in the Air Force. Historically, an ISO inspection took up to 38 days to complete. The 436th Maintenance Team reviewed the entire process to increase velocity while maintaining quality. This led the team to one record-breaking effort in which an ISO inspection was completed in only 13.2 days. These initiatives were also a key reason the 436th Maintenance Squadron won the 2006 Air Force Maintenance Effectiveness Award.

In order to reduce the time planes are on the ground, the 436th Maintenance Squadron did a complete review of how they maintained ground equipment. As a result, they were able to reduce the steps each mechanic takes from 763 to 73, saving 29.7 minutes per inspection, while reducing wait time by 34 minutes. They also saved 63.7 minutes per inspection or 26.54 manhours per year and vacated 17,660 square feet of floor space to be designated for other use. The cellular work design they came up with is considered the benchmark for such designs in the command and is a model of how the Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st century initiative and use of Lean Six Sigma, a process improvement approach first used in the private sector, can make better use of existing resources.

The Dover Operations Group improved throughput for aircraft by creating the only C-5 one-stop/jet-side service system in the Air Force. The Required Flight Manual, Flight Information Publications, weapons and tools needed by an aircrew for a mission are delivered directly to the aircraft. This reduces travel time by 20 minutes, allowing a 12-percent reduction in the C-5 launch sequence and providing more duty days for the crews to complete their missions.

Dover was able to reduce the amount of time needed to overhaul and rebuild C-5 jet engines, TF39, by 12 days, going from 75 to 63 days. The process improvement also allowed two production crews to be reassigned to other sections, regained five critical manning positions, and saved 36 manpower positions and $3.8 million in operating costs. On the whole, by reducing wasted motion for support equipment and tools, the 436th Maintenance Group has saved 73.3 annual man-days and expedited engine repairs so that they are done 5 days faster than the original standard and freeing 1,944 square feet of floor space for other work.

Another key initiative was the effort to ensure that Basic Post Flight inspections be done within 10 hours of mission completion. This initiative was begun in 2005 by the Dover Maintenance Group Commander and brought completion time down to 6 hours, a 40-percent improvement. The complete process review improved Home Station Logistics Reliability rate by 40 percent and overtime man hours were reduced by 75 percent. Overall, this means the team saved 23,000 labor-hours and $1.168 million. The mission benefits included the following: a reduced number of tail swaps, increased number of aircraft ready for flight, reduced number of late take-offs, and dramatically improved efficiency in the launch sequence of events.

The Dover team also ensured a seamless transition for the new C-17 squadron, ensuring that Dover's first C-17 was able to fly its first combat mission within 36 days of arrival. In the squadron's first month, they had a 100-percent on-time departure rate and a 99-percent mission capable rate.

In addition, once investigators were done with the 2007 C-5 crash scene, Dover personnel took the initiative to save and recover parts. Their efforts ensured that 127 parts were recovered, inspected, and restocked into the Air Force supply system, saving $7 million.

Fourth, increases in customer satisfaction or improvements in customer service were considered.

Today, Dover's key mission, or customer service, is to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Twenty-seven percent of the entire Department of Defense airlift requirement last year went from Dover. The 3rd and 9th Airlift Squadrons flew more than 8,000 hours, with more than 2,000 combat hours and 460 combat missions. The two squadrons combined airlifted 59.4 million pounds of cargo and more than 12,000 passengers.

Dover is the second busiest en route airfield in the Department of Defense. It supported 3,000 en route missions in 2007 with a 95-percent departure reliability rate.

In addition, Dover assisted America's diplomatic efforts and the State Department by supporting foreign military sales to 32 countries, handling 85 missions and 950 tons of cargo.

The Dover team also made sure that it provided the best possible services to military personnel and their families on base. Access to mental health care was increased by 35 percent, despite a 40-percent decrease in manning. This exceeded the command's goal for access by 20 percent. In order to keep basic operations functioning, the Communications Squadron answered 99 percent of their 2,700 assistance requests within 2 days. That is 4 percent better than the Air Force standard.

In an effort to improve safety and provide instantaneous responses to emergencies with existing resources, the Civil Engineer Fire Department teamed with the Medical Group to provide 24/7 ambulance service. The Medical Group Airmen who provide ambulance response are now co-located at the emergency call center at the base Fire Department.

Fifth, efforts to encourage bottom-to-top communication and team problem solving were considered.

Dover has been a true leader in implementing Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st century. The key to the success of this initiative to make operations more streamlined and ``lean'' has been clear communication and a team approach. In recognition of this excellence, Dover has hosted numerous training sessions for units from five major commands, Air Force senior leaders, and for the Royal Air Force. Dover instructors have trained 4,200 students in Basic Lean Awareness including a program at the First Term Airmen Center.

Dover is the first base in the command to have two fully qualified level-2 facilitators. These facilitators certified seven level-1 facilitators and trained another 20 level-1 students. They have successfully made operations more efficient in over 50 areas in just 1 year. In addition, Dover's trainers ensured that 210 future Ramstein Air Force Base and Charleston Air Force Base facilitators understood the basics of lean initiatives. These efforts won the Dover team praise from the Logistics Director at Air Mobility Command Headquarters.

Sixth, the promotion of unit cohesiveness and the recognition of outstanding individual effort was considered.

The Dover team won two Department of Defense, one Secretary of the Air Force, 12 Air Force, and 93 Air Mobility Command Awards in 2006. In addition, they won the 2007 U.S. Small Business Administration Award for the State of Delaware. One critical example of why these awards were won is in antiterrorism, where they won command honors for the ninth consecutive year for best

antiterrorism and force protection programs. Dover was able to obtain $1.2 million in Combating Terrorism Readiness Initiative Funds that it used to resolve installation vulnerabilities, resulting in winning the Department of Defense's Best Antiterrorism Operational Unit in 2006 and the Department of Defense's Best Antiterrorism Program Manager Awards for 2007. The Dover team won these awards by completing over 20 antiterrorism and force protection initiatives that created a hard target security signature. These efforts paid off by deterring Fort Dix terrorists from attacking Dover AFB. This event permeated Air Force culture and is commonly referred to as the ``Dover Effect.''

Seventh, the promotion of energy conservation and environmental safety, including compliance, remediation, and stewardship, was considered.

The maintenance squadron at Dover was able to dramatically improve the process for cleaning ground equipment while also making it more environmentally sound. Formerly all ground equipment had to be moved to a separate wash facility primarily used for aircraft. Through careful research, a completely self-contained wash system with zero environmental impact was selected, designed, and installed in the ground equipment facility. This decreased travel time from 190 hours to 12 hours a year, a 94-percent savings. This increased the capability and availability for ground equipment, alleviated contractual issues that had arisen with the old cleaning system, and reduced the chance for aircraft delays. The new process is environmentally friendly and captures, filters, and recycles all waste water.

Dover also received the 2006 Secretary of Defense Environmental Restoration Award for Best Environmental Restoration Program for its restoration of natural resources used to support the base's warfighting mission. Dover reached the Defense Department's environmental goals 4 to 8 years ahead of schedule. Activities at Dover Air Force Base which earned this award include, but are not limited to: obtaining regulator signatures on six Records of Decision for 39 sites in 6 months; achieving Response Complete status at 27 of Dover's 59 sites; opening up 54 acres of formerly restricted land for use in supporting the base's mission; and completing Remedial Designs and Work Plans for 17 sites in only 3 months.

In addition, Dover won the 2006 Air Force General Thomas D. White Environmental Award which recognizes the efforts of installations and individuals to improve environmental quality, restoration, pollution prevention, recycling, and conservation of natural and cultural resources. Dover is 6 years ahead of schedule in its environmental remediation program.

These are the areas that the selection committee looked at when it decided which base was the best in the Air Force this past year. It is obvious that in every area, the Dover team took seriously the challenge to improve base operations and the quality of life wherever possible. From the smallest process improvements to the largest investments in critical infrastructure, Dover personnel found ways to do more. The result is not just that they upheld the base's long tradition of excellence, they surpassed it. In so doing, they have truly given our Nation their best and have made me and every Delawarean proud. We have always known Dover is the best in the Air Force. It is time the rest of the Nation knew about your excellence.

Congratulations, Dover Air Force Base!