Fuel Reduction using Electrons to End Dependence On the Mid-East (FREEDOM) Act of 2007

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the extraordinary impact of rising gasoline prices, the extraordinary impact it is having on all Americans, and the parliamentary games of those on the other side of the aisle.

The airline industry, truckers, ranchers, families who must travel to and from work and school, families going to buy groceries, all of them are experiencing dramatic increases in the cost of energy. These soaring gasoline prices offer a glimpse at the effect home heating costs will have on the American family budget this coming winter.

Today's energy crisis is focused on prices at the pump. But the Nation's energy concerns stretch well beyond the pump. In the coming weeks and months, rising energy prices will be seen in the monthly bills for home heating, natural gas, electricity, and heating oil. In fact, this month, in Washington, DC, right here in this Capitol Building, we are operating our own Senate offices under an electric brownout advisory. This is recent evidence that our electric grid is stressed. When it comes to energy, we need it all.

We need to develop domestic supplies of oil and gas. We need to develop nuclear energy. We need to develop renewable energy, such as wind and solar. We need to develop America's most affordable, secure, and abundant energy supply, and that is coal. In fact, coal to liquid offers great promise in reducing America's reliance on foreign oil imports.

We must also develop concerted policies to promote increased efficiencies, to promote increased conservation, and to reduce waste. In summary, we must find more and use less.

On the subject of soaring gasoline prices, I must ask my colleagues: When is enough enough? When will this body be willing to address the underlying issue of both supply and demand. Many are calling for change. Few are offering meaningful solutions. Here are a few examples.

Some on the other side of the aisle want to tax their way to lower oil prices. Increased taxes will result in higher prices and less oil and gas production, not more. Taxes will stifle our economic security. Taxes will not encourage economic security.

Many on the other side of the aisle think litigation is the way to bring down prices at the pump. The proposals I am cosponsoring choose innovation over litigation.

Some on the other side of the aisle claim we can regulate our way to lower prices at the pump. They want to do it by penalizing oil and gas leaseholders. This approach shows very little understanding of the energy development process. This approach offers no help, no help at all with the bureaucratic maze and roadblocks to finding more energy.

Some propose restrictions on price gouging by gas station owners, but those same individuals fail to show any actual evidence of price gouging. In fact, the margins for the gas station retailers in this country are being squeezed. Rather than increased regulation, I support proposals that invest in inspiration, in ingenuity, and in productivity gains. I support technology gains that unleash the power of the private sector to develop short- and long-term energy solutions.

Some want to impose heavy-handed Government mandates to nationalize the speed limit. Some are suggesting 55 miles an hour. I bring along a copy of a newspaper that hardly ever makes it to the streets of Wyoming. It is the New York Times, and this is this morning's paper. While the people of Wyoming do not read it, reporters from that paper actually went to Wyoming and covered Sheridan, WY.

There are five wonderful colored pictures of Wyoming and there is a nice map and it talks about Wyoming. On the front page of today's New York Times, it talks about the Kerns family, a wonderful family in the Sheridan, WY, area. They were at a town meeting I recently had and they were talking about ranching. This summarizes it. When I hear people propose a 55-mile-an-hour limit, talk about ranch families such as the Kerns--conservative, self-sufficient, and wanting mostly to be left alone.

That is what it is all about in Wyoming--conservative, self- sufficient, and wanting to be left alone. We do not need Washington telling us how to drive and how fast. We can make those decisions for ourselves.

I have the belief in the ability of Americans to choose for themselves. I am confident the people of America, not Washington, will make the right decisions. History has proven that American's self- reliance is an effective tool against rising energy prices.

American families right now are conserving in record numbers. They are carpooling, they are cutting back on the miles they drive, and they are purchasing more fuel-efficient vehicles. Statistics show that this year the year-over-year gasoline use is down roughly 2 percent. It is the steepest drop in demand in the last 17 years. American families are responding and they are responding without being told by the Federal Government to inflate their tires. Yes, that is what I heard yesterday in an Energy Committee hearing from an official: It is time to inflate your tires.

American families are conserving. They are doing so without far- reaching Government mandates. American families are demanding and purchasing more fuel-efficient cars regardless of any timeline for energy efficiency standards Congress may impose.

In fact, American families have done much more than simply conserve on energy in the past several months. Some have dealt with serious job losses. Many have struggled with housing deflation. We are all facing inflation at the grocery store.

You say: Is that happening everywhere? Wyoming has been in the news today. First, a front-page story in the New York Times and now a large story in the Wall Street Journal today; the headline: ``Want to See Inflation's Pressures? Try Wyoming, and Its $1.14 Bagels.''

There is a nice picture of a friend of mine, a bakery owner, Marsha Asbury, in Casper, and first it talks about this city. It talks about ``this wind-raked city on the plains.'' It tells you we are committed to renewable sources of energy because we have a lot of wind in Wyoming. But they talk about gasoline prices.

Gasoline prices, too, have risen sharply as they have

across the country. But it is the price of--

Actually it is what Ms. Asbury puts into her bagels that is causing her the trouble because it is causing the inflation. It says:

Most of her ingredients are shipped in from nearby states.

The prices have jumped dramatically this past year, as

suppliers struggle to recoup the high cost of trucking items

to Wyoming.

Heavy items have increased in price the most. The canned

jalapenos and pumpkin that Ms. Asbury uses for her specialty

bagels; the canned apples, for strudel; the sugar and flour--

all are up 35 percent in the past year. Butter and milk are

up 25 percent.

All because of the cost of energy and transportation fuels.

As it says:

Still, the rising cost at the pump hits hard, because

Wyoming drivers put an awful lot of miles on their pickups

and sport utility vehicles as they traverse this sparsely

populated state.

Yes, American families have moved beyond simply conserving. Now many are sacrificing. Despite the resilient response of the American people, there is still no meaningful action from this Congress to address the fundamental supply and demand for foreign oil. The Senate leadership on the other side of

the aisle will not allow a debate on bills that will actually increase American energy supplies. Each of the provisions to increase American energy offered by this side would be coupled with measures to improve conservation, to promote energy-efficient measures.

To be very clear, I agree with some of the components of the speculation bill before us. In fact, several of these provisions were included in legislation I have cosponsored. Yet, as a matter of principle, I believe the Senate must act on a set of solutions rather than pursue a piecemeal approach. It is not simply the soaring prices, but it is America's reliance, America's dependency on foreign imports. Congressional leadership is opposed to even debating increasing American exploration and production. With more American supply, there is a more secure energy future.

We have seen the same old responses from the other side of the aisle. They approach the current energy crisis, such as nearly every other policy challenge, with more taxation, with more regulation, and with more litigation. Rural States such as Wyoming are especially hit hard by soaring prices. Mass transit is not an option. Prices are high and the hundreds and hundreds of letters I received on this issue are a testament to the real pain. Wyoming does contribute greatly to America's energy needs. We are the largest producer of coal in the country; the largest producer of uranium; the second largest source of onshore natural gas; and we have world-class wind resources.

The citizens of Wyoming get it. We have been involved in domestic energy production and transmission for decades.

The other side of the aisle simply says no to domestic energy exploration; no to American energy. America faces an energy crisis and an economic crisis. Continuing to rely on increasing amounts of foreign oil leverages our country's future. It is time to focus on an American response: American energy efficiencies, American conservation, and, yes, American energy exploration. Our country deserves better and our children deserve better.

The massive transfer of wealth that is happening every day, from our country to overseas, is putting our children and our grandchildren's future at risk.

When is enough enough? I am asking those opposing American development, how much transfer of wealth is enough? How many hundreds of billions of American dollars must we send to foreign nations to buy their oil? How much of our Nation's great wealth must we transfer before it is acceptable to develop American resources? Is it $100 billion? Is it $200 billion? Is it $300 billion? Apparently not.

Some on the other side of the aisle do not want to allow American energy production through deep sea exploration, through oil shale development, through streamlined permitting. Their so-called responses leave America more and more reliant on foreign countries to provide for America's energy. We can do better and we can do so in an environmentally sensitive manner, as we have done for the 118 years we have been a State in Wyoming.

There have been extraordinary technological developments in oil and gas exploration and development. Provisions to address excess speculation must be coupled with added supply and added conservation. We must find more and use less. The rhetoric from the other side is all about change. I think those blocking American solutions to foreign energy dependence would do well to change their minds, change their policy prescriptions, and change their approach on energy policy; otherwise, this Congress will only be leaving American families with change in their pockets at the end of each month.

I believe Americans want meaningful solutions, not merely change.

There is a difference. American energy is the most important issue facing the American people today. American families are sacrificing. At a minimum, at an absolute minimum, those same families deserve real action from this Congress.

Most certainly it would be very important to turn that coal into liquid fuel for aviation. If you take a look at this morning's Politico, an issue of the Pentagon, the Department of Defense is the Nation's biggest oil consumer, burning 395,000 barrels per day, about as much as the country of Greece.

The Air Force's thirsty planes burn more than half the fuel supplied for the entire U.S. military. It did receive $1.5 billion in new relief from Congress for fuel and still has $400 million left to go.

When you look at that and say: What else could we do to help lower that cost, not just for the consumer who fills their tank at home but also for your military, it is converting coal to liquid. The technology is there. People ask: Is there enough coal and how would you do it?

There is an incredibly abundant supply of coal in this Nation. To me, coal is the most available, affordable, reliable, and secure source of energy we have in this Nation. Wyoming is the No. 1 coal producer in the United States. There is enough coal in Wyoming alone to help our Nation for centuries, for hundreds of years. Coal is there and the technology is there.

Right now under the law, the military is not allowed to make a contract long term to put that coal into liquid. But the technology is there. We have an exciting company in Wyoming, near Medicine Bow, building a plant to do this, to convert the coal to liquid. But it is not only Wyoming

As the Presiding Officer knows, and the Senator from Tennessee knows, there is coal all around the United States--coal in West Virginia, coal in Kentucky, coal in Pennsylvania, coal in Illinois, coal in Wyoming, coal in Montana. Everyplace we need energy we have coal.

Some folks are saying: What about the carbon dioxide? But the technology is there to get the carbon dioxide, to sequester it, and actually to use it for more oil development.

You take an old burned-out oil well where there is not a lot of oil coming out. There is a way to inject the carbon dioxide and get out more oil. So it is not only good because you can use the coal for the liquids, you can also use this carbon dioxide to get even more oil. By that, you are certainly finding more, with something we have here.

To me, this is so much about becoming, as a nation, energy self- sufficient. The only way we can do that is to rely on American sources of energy. We are sending hundreds of millions of dollars overseas to people who are not our friends--hundreds of billions of dollars.

This is America's treasure going overseas. Why? Because we are not energy self-sufficient. But with all the coal resources we have all across this country, and the technology, we can today start converting the coal to liquids to be used for aviation, to be used for our military. The No. 1 user is our military in terms of the largest user of our energy.

It seems to me, to the Senator from Tennessee, that when we have this discussion--and I hear Senator Isakson talking about nuclear, finding more energy that way, I hear Senator Hatch talking about the cars and using less energy that way--this is one more way in this whole portfolio of different ways to use energy as we find more and use less.

Because the American people are going to continue to use all the energy, we need all the sources of energy. That is the way we can keep down the price at the pump for people all across our country.

He can't yield the floor to the Senator. He either uses it or it is there made available for the Republicans to use. He can't yield to someone.

Mrs. McCASKILL addressed the Chair.

Mr. President, I have no objection to her speaking. I understand that the time is allocated specifically. Who has time?

I understand there is 3 minutes left for the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. President, I don't know where to begin. So many things are being said by the other side. In particular, the Senator from Illinois spoke for 10 minutes, and it is impossible for me to answer all of the falsities he indicated to the American people in his remarks.

I want to say that yesterday afternoon I got word from the floor of the Senate that the American people are not going to be permitted to have a vote by the Senate on an amendment that would open the offshore lands owned by the American people, because the majority leader has seen fit to use a parliamentary process--and I know the people are confused and tired of us talking about parliamentary processes around here, but the truth is that Senators are also getting fed up with it. The majority leader comes along--and we all understand he has the right to be recognized--and, when he was recognized, he offered amendments, so that yesterday evening, as I sat preparing for today, I was told to change your thoughts and your approach because you cannot offer any amendments. That is an undeniable fact.

The majority leader has cloaked this bill in amendments and that is called ``filling up the tree.'' I don't know where such an interesting concept came from. If it were Christmas time, filling up the tree would seem like a nice event. When you are here trying to get the Senate to vote on whether a giant asset that belongs to the American people can be open for drilling, it is not a very good-sounding series of words.

``Filling up the tree'' means that those who want to offer amendments, who want to let the Senate determine the future of that 85 percent of the offshore lands of America, cannot do so. Those Senators, on behalf of their people--every Senator represents people and all of the people have an interest in the ownership of this land; it is a huge piece of land. It is very valuable in terms of crude oil and natural gas. Americans should probably have woken up this morning to go to breakfast and to read in the paper: United States Senate permits drilling in the offshores of continental America so the price of gasoline can come down. That is what they should have read in the newspapers across the land. There is no question that more than 50 Senators--Democrats and Republicans--favor opening all of those lands to exploration; that is, drilling, and to let the Governors of the States participate in that process so the States can share in the royalty. That is a very simple proposition. That is the bill and that is the issue.

Now we have been told, for their own reasons, the Democrats have said you cannot do that, we have filled the tree. You will come to us and prayerfully ask for permission to do anything on this bill. You will have to seek our permission. So the Senator from Nevada can stand here and say you can do this or that, but the truth is, what he is saying is: If I want to let you do it, you can, because the rules of the Senate do not permit it.

So we are unable to get a vote. That doesn't mean we are going to quit. We are going to stay here on this floor. If, in fact, the majority leader tries to close off debate, he will lose, because we believe the biggest issue confronting the American people, bar none, today is the price of oil. We think the biggest opportunity to lower the pressure and bring down gasoline prices at the pump and cause us to import less is to open the offshore of the United States to drilling, plain and simple.

The majority started this issue with a bill they put in, which is supposed to have something to do with the price of oil. It has to do with speculation.

I send to the desk to be printed the statement of several prominent Americans, all of whom say the problem is not speculation; the problem is supply and demand. To affect supply and demand, you ought to be opening the offshores, which affects supply in a big way. I ask unanimous consent that this be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I have been here for 36 years. I chose this year to leave. When an energy bill came forth on the floor and we were going to be able to amend it, I thought we were going to be able to talk about all of the issues, get together with the Democrats and see how many would join us in a major piece of legislation, and I was rather excited. I thought the American people might be pleased with us again, because we were going to do something good.

Do you know what. This 9-percent approval rating of the Senate is not there for no good cause. We are, today, adding to that negative image when the American people try to understand what is going on. We were told--and we applauded when we heard it--that this great big piece of property we own--everything 3 miles out from the shoreline of America is owned by the people. There is oil and gas there. For some reason, we closed it down 27 years ago, and every year we put that moratorium on again. It is time to open that and say to the world that we don't have a total solution, but we have a lot of oil and gas we ought to put into the mix and let our companies get to work on, trying to drill and see how it will affect the price of oil.

Some people are saying, well, there are already a lot of oil and gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf; why don't we force those oil companies to do better at using it? Let me make that proposition clear. Eighty-five percent of the offshore land is tied up in the moratorium and 15 percent is being used. That 15 percent that is being used is all subject to leases which say that if you don't produce on time, you lose the lease. We don't need any further management in that regard. It is already managed by a ``use it or lose it'' clause in every lease that anyone has on any of the lands that are currently on lease to American companies, or a consortia of American companies and others. So that is a joke when we talk about the fact that we will get more by rearranging that. We need to open the portions that are closed. We need a thorough debate on a number of amendments, and our leaders have said there are at least five or six of them. We don't need a long period of time, but we need an open and free amendment process that we could use. We could go to the other side and get some bipartisan things going. I believe there are many Democrats who want to join us.

It serves the wishes of the majority leader to close off debate, because even Democrats cannot join in amendments to do anything now, because the tree is filled--and it is not with Christmas presents. It is filled with amendments so we cannot offer any more amendments. In other words, we are dead in the water in trying to offer what Americans expected--amendments that will open the offshore to drilling.

Mr. President, as I understand it, I have how much time, 3 minutes?

I think Senators understand that this Senator from New Mexico, as part of the last 6 years while serving on the Energy Committee, has been party to producing three major energy bills that have all been good for the country. They all have ended up being bipartisan. They all required a lot of time on the floor. I could not come down here and put in an amendment and say it is done. It took some time. We wanted to use this time to thoroughly debate the appropriate options to opening the offshore for drilling.

We thought Americans, who are watching the price of crude oil come down since the President lifted the Executive closures that existed, would like to see the job finished. We thought they would like to see it opened totally, taking off all of the congressional hangups, the congressional moratorium.

I think Americans deserve that. They deserve something positive. They are very worried. The economy is suffering because of the $700 billion a year that goes to foreign countries. It is taken from us for the crude oil we buy. While that foreign country grows, America dwindles. We get poorer; the world gets richer. I don't know how much longer we can stand it. We didn't want to stand it too much longer. We wanted to put in our offsets offshore and let them join in this war we are in, instead of letting us die by attrition as we send our money overseas.

It doesn't seem anybody in America should get confused. Democrats can make laundry lists of things that happened and put up a sign in the Senate saying we are the ones blocking this. How could we be blocking this when we are not in control? The majority leader stood up and locked this bill up with his amendments, so we cannot offer amendments without his approval. We don't intend to do that. That is not the way to do business.

The American people expect us to have debates and up-or-down votes on this issue, with every Senator expressing his or her will on what happens to this big asset. That is what we want.

I thank the Chair.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator. I will not use her

time, I will use mine. It has been a pleasure since I first met the Senator. I don't always remember all of the new names, but the Senator has the same name as one of my daughters. We have become friends. I admire the Senator from Missouri too, and say I do believe she is learning to be a Senator very fast. I am proud to be her friend. I thank her for her kind words.

Audit Report

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that during the 30-minute block of time for our side 5 minutes be allocated to me, 12\1/2\ to Senator Vitter, and 12\1/2\ to Senator Enzi.

Madam President, let me first ask that I be permitted to use 1 minute upfront that is not allocated to my 5 minutes.

I say to my good friend before he leaves the floor how good it is to see you in action again. I think you probably feel you are back being a Senator. Remember the days when we, together, passed that one piece of legislation where we overrode the veto of President Clinton, when you were the chairman of the Democratic Party and we had a bill going here? It was the right bill; class action. Do you remember that one? It started us moving where that whole process was cleaned up. I regret to say, with the lawyers we were fighting with in our committees, one of them ended up in jail, I noticed recently. That was the fate he had. I saw that coming as he was conducting his law practice in the days we were investigating class action litigation.

I wanted to say what a pleasure it was then. I know from what you are saying that you have had a lot of opportunity to debate, share ideas, work with other Senators, and I think that is what makes the Senate great. I compliment you for it.

Madam President, it is obvious I just finished telling the good Senator how we work together to make good laws when we have important issues. I also want to say, in the year 2005 we passed an Energy Policy Act. The Senate took 19 rollcall votes on amendments and agreed to 57 of them. Last year on the Energy Independence and Security Act we took 16 rollcall votes on amendments and agreed to 49.

We can look back further, if you would like to, to the successful legislation on the Clean Air Act of 1990. I was here. I was working on it. The Senate acted upon 131 amendments and took well over 3 weeks here on the floor of the Senate.

Let me say to my fellow Senators, that is not what is happening today. Today an issue just as important, as I view it, as important as any of the legislation I talked about--any legislation that my good friend from Connecticut talked about here on the floor, any legislation that we have considered in the field of energy--is before us today during a critical time, a time more critical than at any other time we were considering energy legislation that I have alluded to, and a couple of other times that are similar.

What did we do then? We had time for important legislation and we must have time for this, for the one who is saying: What are you going to do to the offshore inventories of American oil and gas that are locked up that we cannot use and have not used for 20 to 27 years and now they are there, ready to help the American people? The price of gasoline must come down and that is one way to do it. We have to open the reserves that belong to the people.

It is interesting the distinguished Senator from Connecticut could talk about working together and how that has taken place in this important housing bill. It is important that we understand how we did the previous Energy bills. But here today, let it be known that bill which the American people have been wanting us to vote on, wanting us to do something about--that is to open up these reserves that belong to the people and see how much that might affect the price of gasoline--we cannot get a vote unless we do what the majority leader wants us to do. One person, the majority leader, decides whether we can have an amendment, what it will say, what it will be about.

It is completely different than the way we have discussed here for the last

5 minutes, the way legislation takes place here in the Senate. Remember what has happened in this bill. You can throw away all the words and look at where are we today.

There is a bill pending that the Democratic leader brought to the floor on the subject matter of whether there is speculation going on that affects the price of crude oil in a bad way, with bad conduct on the part of those who are participating. He brought a bill down to cure that. We have been told that is a small part of the problem. But the big part of the problem is supply and demand. We, the Republicans-- joined by some Democrats, I am sure, if we ever had a chance to do it-- are addressing the issue of supply and demand. That is the big issue. That is the issue that might indeed make some Americans smile instead of being so worried about their future because of the price of gasoline and what it is doing to them and to the American economy. We must have the right to freely amend that bill until we come to a consensus. That is how we get things done. But, remember, plain and simple, no matter what is said, we cannot do that.

That is because the majority leader has precluded us procedurally from doing anything other than what he wants, what he will let us do. We cannot act the way the Senate should act on important issues.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I will speak as in morning business, so I am happy to yield now to the Senator from New Mexico. I am happy to do that.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I thank my friend from New Mexico. I know his service in this body is one that every American should admire. He is a good Senator for his State. He has been a warm and friendly senior Senator to this very junior Senator from Missouri. I appreciate his friendship very much.

Mr. President, yesterday there was an incredibly dark cloud that passed over Washington. I think the saddest thing about this very dark cloud is the fact that there wasn't an immediate outcry from every corner of this building and every office in the Pentagon. One of the most frustrating things about Washington is the attention span of so many in Washington and the search for the headline that is the most sensational. So it is no wonder that news about auditing doesn't bust out.

I come to the floor to try to emphasize the crisis we are facing right now in terms of the Pentagon and auditing of taxpayer dollars.

Let me briefly explain the two agencies involved. One is the Defense Contract Audit Agency. What is DCAA? That is part of the problem. Nobody knows what it is. Nobody knows what it does. DCAA is the auditing agency in the Department of Defense that is responsible for auditing the contractors. Think about that for a minute: 3,500 people are employed by this Agency, and they are our eyes and ears into contractor practices at the Department of Defense. We are talking serious money here. We are talking about hundreds and hundreds of billions--with a ``b''--of dollars.

One would think that if we have 3,500 people working full time to audit the contractors, we should all feel good about that and, frankly, before yesterday, I kind of felt good about it. As I learned about all of the auditors of the Department of Defense, I thought: I am glad we have an agency with the responsibility to get to the bottom of the prices that were charged by contractors, to get to the bottom of the money that comes out of our Treasury for contractors--until yesterday.

The other agency involved is the GAO. I know the initials ``GAO'' are thrown around all the time. Let me explain what GAO is. GAO is the Government Accountability Office. They are what I would call the papa bear of auditors in Government. They are the auditors who look at all parts of Government, many times in response to a request by Congress but many times in response to a hotline call they have gotten from people within Government.

They start getting hotline calls about the practices at DCAA. This is enough to worry an auditing agency, that they are getting hotline calls on an auditing agency. This is enough to get their attention. So GAO started this audit of the Defense Contract Audit Agency based on complaints to their fraud hotline.

Here is the allegation. Are you ready for this? Here is the allegation: that these audits were being changed with no factual basis at the direction of supervisors, without evidence to support the changes, to help the contractors. This is a wildly sensational claim within the world of auditing. This is the kind of claim that, frankly, most auditors would probably not take seriously because it is so outrageous. But because there had been so many calls to the hotline, GAO went to work, over 100 interviews, months and months of work, and yesterday they issued their report.

They looked at 13 different audits named in the complaints and found that in every single audit, favorable findings for the contractors had no backup in the workpapers. What does that mean? If you are an auditor, your job is to find the facts. Everything you put in an audit has to be backed up by what are called workpapers. That means that anybody at any time could go in and find the factual evidence to support every line in the audit. That is part of Government auditing standards.

What else did GAO find? You are not going to believe this. You are not going to believe how bad this is. They found that supervisors dropped findings and changed opinions without the evidence to support it. They found several instances where auditors were threatened if they did not change their findings to support what the supervisors wanted and if they did not change their findings to favor the contractors. GAO found this practice to be so pervasive at two of the three locations, they called it ``a pattern of frequent management actions that served to intimidate auditors and create an abusive environment.'' These auditors were intimidated by supervisors and made to tell them what they were telling GAO. So not only were the supervisors on the auditors to do findings favorable to the contractors, they got on them when they started talking to GAO. They intimidated them into telling them what they were telling the investigators, the auditors from GAO. Their supervisors made them feel their jobs were threatened.

At one location, auditors were sometimes given 20 days to finish an audit, and if it wasn't enough time to do the audit work, they said: Just do it; just do it with what you have.

Supervisors admitted to not reviewing the workpapers. That doesn't sound like a big deal, right? Who reviews workpapers? Let me tell you, in the world of auditing, it is a very big deal.

This is how an audit works. The field auditors gather the papers, the factual information, and then it goes through a series of reviews and checks. It is ultimate quality control in an audit. It is unheard of for an audit to be issued without review up the line. That review is how you cull the information that is incorrect and make sure everything in that audit is factual and objective.

Here is a very good example of how serious and systemic the problem is. DCAA actually agreed with a contractor, one of the five largest contractors in the country, ahead of time what items would be reviewed for the audit. It is like giving a kid the answers to the test. There is no point in doing an audit if you tell the auditee ahead of time: OK, we are going to test you on this.

Here is the amazing thing. Even with the inside information, the DCAA auditors found the process to be inadequate with the contractor. Did they issue an unfavorable opinion? Oh, no, they didn't issue an unfavorable opinion. Instead, the auditor was removed by a supervisor. The new auditor was threatened with personnel action if the audit was not changed to favor the contractor.

In every single one, all 13 audits that were reviewed, the GAO found that Government auditing standards were not followed.

There is a book in auditing called the Yellow Book. It is the bible of auditing. It is the generally accepted Government auditing standards, and every Government auditor is required to follow these standards. Once again, auditors have a lot of professional pride about the objectivity of their work and about the standards they follow. It would not be effective if you had auditors who were auditing the government in Michigan and auditors who were auditing the government in San Francisco and auditors who were auditing the Pentagon all using different methodology to do audits. So this standard is, in fact, revered within the Government auditing world.

Here is what is amazing. Thirteen audits were looked at. Did one of them not meet standards? No. Did two of them not meet standards? No. Every single audit failed Government auditing standards--13 of 13, 100 percent. This is mind-boggling, that we would have 3,500 people watching Defense Department contractors in this country and every audit that was looked at was failed by Government auditing standards. Nine of the thirteen had audit opinions changed without documentation and without workpapers to support the charges. Three had evidence that showed the DCAA auditor trying to perform his or her job and his independence impaired by his supervisors. Nine of the thirteen audits had conclusions that were not supported by the work performed by the auditors.

They got caught. They have gotten caught in what could be the biggest auditing scandal in the history of this town. And I am not exaggerating. I will guarantee you, as auditors around the country learn about this, they are going to have disbelief and raw anger that this agency has impugned the integrity of Government auditors everywhere by these kinds of irresponsible actions.

By the way, auditors are very conservative with other auditors. Every

auditing agency has peer review. By the way, GAO has always passed all of its peer review without any problem. But I know when we were getting peer reviewed when I was the State auditor in Missouri, it was a very nervous time because auditors come into your office from all over the country and they pore through your work. They go through your workpapers. They check all of your reviews. They, in fact, as an objective third party, look and make sure you are doing objective professional government auditing work. They are very conservative because it is peer to peer, right? It is hard to criticize your peers. It is hard to call out another auditor. That is why this is such a big deal. It is damning. This audit is damning of DCAA and the job it should be doing to protect Government taxpayers from the incredible waste and inefficiency in the contracting of the Department of Defense.

So when you get an audit, another part of the audit is you respond to the audit. The auditee gets an opportunity to speak in the audit. It is a very good thing because the auditee, if they firmly believe the audit is not justified, has an ability to give their side of the story. It also allows the opportunity to make sure you are exchanging information. So that response in the audit is also a part of Government auditing standards.

Let me tell you, when they got this audit, it was a dark day for them, and they had a choice. DCAA had a choice. They could have come forward and said: We have a big problem here and we have to clean house, and announced they were firing people in all of these offices and that supervisors were being fired and that they were going to clean up their act. That was one choice they had, to admit they had been caught in this scandal and to admit they would make it better. But what did they do? What did DCAA do as a result of this incredible audit report? They ``disagreed'' with the totality of the audit.

Here is what is so insulting about them disagreeing with the totality of the audit. They have no evidence to back it up. They have nothing to refute. The voluminous--this is not a small audit, this is page after page of documentation. They dispute the facts about the contractor being given prior notice that he would be audited in the above case even though there is clear evidence to support this conclusion in the DCAA workpapers.

They said, believe it or not--wait until you hear this:

They are currently operating at a satisfactory level of

compliance with Government auditing standards.

Satisfactory? Thirteen out of thirteen failing Government standards, and that is satisfactory? How dare they. How dare they say that is satisfactory. They flatly stated they don't believe any supervisors harassed or intimidated staff or willfully removed findings. The evidence is there. The fact they are denying the evidence is there shows the level of dysfunction in this auditing agency. They don't seem to be too concerned about zero percent of these audits meeting Government standards.

The Department of Defense has been on the high-risk list of this Government for more than a decade. Scandal after scandal has rolled out of the Department of Defense on contracting.

I took a trip to Iraq on contract oversight, and with an auditor's eye, meeting with the people who oversee the contracts in Iraq. And I will tell you conservatively--and auditors are very conservative-- conservatively, I think we have burned up more than $150 billion in pure contracting abuse.

We have had hearings where weapon system after weapon system comes in 100 percent more expensive, 3 or 4 years off time. And all this time we have been wasting hundreds and billions of dollars, the fox was in the chicken coop. The Defense Contracting Auditing Agency has been indicted in the strongest terms by their peers at GAO.

This situation demands hearings. And if somebody doesn't lose their job at DCAA before nightfall, the problem is more serious than anybody in this Chamber can possibly imagine. Because they think they can sweat it out. They think we are not going to pay attention. They think we are going to move on to the next headline, the next campaign stop. They think we are so worried about all the other problems that no one is going to notice this auditing agency has been disclosed and exposed as being fundamentally corrupt in the way they issue audits.

It calls into question every single audit done by this agency. And if we don't take it seriously, if we don't give it our attention, if we don't demand that the fox get out of the chicken coop, and we start taking care of taxpayer dollars, ultimately it is our national security. All of the needs we have for our men and women who fight for us, all the needs of our active military, all the technology we need to stay secure and safe, all of it is so important to our Nation. Yet what we have found out in the last 24 hours is no one is paying attention to the way we are spending that money. It makes me sick to my stomach.

I am angry. And I will tell you, this Senator is not going away on this issue. If I have to stand on this floor every day for the next 6 months, I will do it, to get someone fired at that agency and to get them to clean up their act.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I congratulate my colleague from Wyoming for his comments. His State of Wyoming and my State of South Dakota share a border. We have a lot of very similar ways of making a living. We share a commonality when it comes to the people we represent, their values. And he is exactly on point when he talks about the importance of energy to a State like Wyoming and a State like South Dakota and its impact on the economy and how families in our States are struggling and sacrificing with this extraordinary challenge that faces our Nation today, and that is the high cost of energy.

I want to speak to that subject today as well because on Tuesday, July 22, the Interagency Task Force on Commodity Markets released its Interim Report on Crude Oil. I think it is important and it bears on the debate we are having in the Senate today because the primary purpose of the bill that is before us, as put forward by the Democratic leadership as a solution to energy, is to focus on the very narrow issue of speculation in the marketplace.

Well, the task force is chaired by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and includes staff members from the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, and the Treasury, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Although its final report is not expected until September, I think the interim report provides some valuable insight on the energy markets and the record increase that we are seeing in oil prices. The report concludes that record oil prices are caused by the simple economic laws of supply and demand.

The report states:

Current oil prices and the increase in oil prices between

January of 2003 and June of 2008 are largely due to

fundamental supply and demand factors.

The report describes that worldwide demand for petroleum has greatly increased over recent years due to population growth and rising incomes.

Specifically, the report states:

World economic activity has expanded to close to 5 percent

per year since the year 2004, marking the strongest

performance in two decades. Between 2004 and 2007, global oil

consumption grew by 3.9 percent, driven largely by rising

demand in emerging markets that are both growing rapidly and

shifting toward oil-intensive activities.

It continues to say:

China, India, and the Middle East are among the fastest

growing in the world; together they have accounted for nearly

two-thirds of the rise in world oil consumption since 2004.

The report also states:

Since 2003, world oil consumption growth has averaged 1.8

percent per year, representing an estimated 1 million barrels

per day in 2008.

On the supply side, on the other side of the equation, the report also details how the worldwide supply of oil is inadequate. Both non- OPEC and OPEC supplies are failing to keep pace with increasing demand.

The report states:

In the past 3 years, non-OPEC production growth has slowed

to levels well below historical averages, and world surplus

capacity has fallen below historical norms. Preliminary

inventory data also shows that the Organization for Economic

Cooperation and Development (OECD) stocks have fallen below

1996-2002 levels.

The report continues:

World oil consumption growth has simply outpaced non-OPEC

production growth every year since 2003. OPEC production is

also falling behind.

The report describes the failure to meet what they call the ``call on OPEC,'' which is the difference between global demand for oil and oil produced by non-OPEC countries.

Since 2003, OPEC oil production has grown by only 2.4

million barrels per day while the ``call on OPEC'' has

increased by 4.4 million barrels per day. As a result, the

world oil market balance has tightened significantly.

Recently, the President's Working Group on Financial Markets reinforced the Interagency Task Force's conclusion. This working group consists of the Secretary of the Treasury, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, U.S. Security and Exchange Commission, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

In a recent letter to congressional leadership, the Working Group on Financial Markets stated:

Prices appear to be reflecting tight global supplies and

the growing world demand for oil, particularly in emerging

economies.

The Interagency Task Force and the President's Financial Working Group

have concluded what several Members of Congress and, I think, what the majority of the American people have known for a long time: we have a supply and demand problem. The solution to that problem is to find more energy, to produce more and to use less.

Now, with regard to the supply solution, we have lots of solutions that are out there. We have talked about the North Slope of Alaska. We know there are about 10 billion barrels of oil on the North Slope of Alaska. We have had numerous votes since I have been in the Senate, and prior to that in my service in the House, on opening the North Slope of Alaska to more production. Every time, it gets defeated by the opponents.

In fact, in 1995, it was actually passed by Congress, and it was at the time vetoed by President Clinton. If it had not been vetoed back then, we would have an additional 1 million barrels of oil in the United States each and every single day.

Ironically, we hear the same arguments against that today that we heard back then: that it will take 5 to 10 years to develop it. Well, that is exactly the argument that was used in the debate 10 years ago. If we had acted then, now, 10 years later, we would have that extra 1 million barrels of oil a day available to us, which is the equivalent of about what we get from Venezuela.

The Outer Continental Shelf is home to about 18 billion barrels of oil, and that, too, is off-limits. Some of the Outer Continental Shelf data is almost 30 years old. There are estimates that there are 86 billion barrels of undiscovered reserves that exist right off our very own coasts.

Oil shale--there are estimates of 2 trillion barrels of oil shale that is currently off-limits; 800 billion barrels of that, of the U.S. oil shale, could be economically recoverable.

Now, Saudi Arabia has the world's largest proven reserves of oil in the world; that is, 263 billion barrels. The next largest is Iran with 133 billion barrels, followed by Iraq with 115 billion barrels. Kuwait and Venezuela bring up the next, with 100 billion and 77 billion barrels, respectively.

But the point very simply is that Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado may have more oil than Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and Venezuela combined. Right now, U.S. energy companies are ready to invest billions of dollars in developing this domestic research. They are not asking for Government funding. They are not asking for Federal financing. They are not asking for environmental exemptions or any kind of special treatment.

All they are asking for is for the U.S. Government to govern. They simply want consistent regulation that will allow them to move forward with their research. Unfortunately, this Congress has said no--no to ANWR, no to the Outer Continental Shelf, no to oil shale, no to coal to liquid, no to nuclear, no to all of the things that could lessen our dependence on foreign sources of energy.

Meanwhile, I think the American family is asking, why? Why will Congress not work to lower gas prices? Why is Congress standing in the way of American ingenuity? Why is Congress limiting access to our resources while we send, Americans send, $1.6 billion each and every single day outside the United States for imported oil to petro dictators around the world, where we are propping up and enriching people in places such as Iran and Venezuela who have nothing but hostile intentions toward our country?

Well, it is past time for Congress to act on a supply solution. It is time for us to deal with this issue of our supply, and it is also important that we deal with the issue of demand because, as I mentioned earlier, when you are talking about impacting supply and demand, you can do one of two things. You can affect supply by increasing domestic production or you can affect the demand side by using less energy. I think the solution consists of both, but neither are getting a vote in the Senate.

Congress must invest in advanced technology, batteries and hydrogen fuel cells. Those are new technologies that we have to support, and we need to continue to invest in renewable fuels. There has not been a bigger advocate in the Senate than I am of renewable energy. It is already reducing domestic demand for traditional petroleum by about 130,000 gallons per day.

We also need to address America's fleet of vehicles. Last year, Congress raised the vehicle efficiency standards by 40 percent to 35 miles per gallon for cars and light trucks. I think we can and we must do more. We should extend the tax credits for fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles.

I believe Congress should create a new tax credit for next-generation electric plug-in hybrid vehicles which can go 20 to 40 miles before using an internal combustion engine.

In addition to tax credits, Congress should require the production of flex-fuel vehicles. This week, a tripartisan group of Senators, led by Senator Brownback, introduced a bill that would dramatically change our transportation sector. Senators Brownback, Lieberman, Salazar, Collins, and I have introduced the Open Fuel Standard Act, which essentially requires that starting in 2012, 50 percent of new vehicles be flex-fuel vehicles that are warranted to operate on gasoline, on ethanol, on methanol, or on biodiesel.

This requirement increases 10 percent each year until 2015 when 80 percent of new vehicles would be required to operate on renewable fuel.

We will never break OPEC's monopoly over our fuel supply without enacting bold policies. And the one I just mentioned is an example of such a policy. That bill would give consumers a choice at the pump and give all consumers the option of purchasing cheaper, homegrown fuel such as ethanol and biodiesel when it comes to addressing their energy needs.

But the fact is, as I noted in the study that I cited, we cannot solve America's energy problem by simply dealing with a narrow solution, a minimalist solution such as that which has been put on the floor by the Democratic leadership in the Senate. What they have attempted to do is to block the consideration of amendments that would address those other issues that I think are so important to this debate. There is not anything in this bill that was put forward by the Democratic leadership that reduces the dangerous dependence that we have on foreign energy. Now 60 percent of our energy is coming from outside the United States. There is not one thing in this bill that affects that.

They can talk about lawsuits. They can talk about taxing oil companies. You can talk about regulating, further regulating the commodities markets. I am all for some of the things that are being proposed with regard to speculation and the commodities market. I, frankly, think there are things in the bill that are good.

But the bottom line is, it does nothing. It does nothing to affect the fundamental rule of supply and demand, which, as I just noted, is what is driving energy prices higher in this country. And if we try to do something in the Senate or in Congress to address energy in this country and the tremendous economic impact it is having on American families and businesses without going at this fundamental basic issue of increasing our domestic supply or domestic production and reducing our demand, we will not have done anything meaningful for the American people to address the issue that is impacting their pocketbooks more than anything else today; and that is, the high price of gasoline.

If you are serious about getting the commodities futures market to reflect or to bring down the futures price for energy stocks and all this trading that is going on, the way to do that is to send a clear, unequivocal signal to the energy markets that America is serious, that American ingenuity and hard work and our entrepreneurship in this country--that we are serious about increasing the domestic supply of energy that we have, about increasing domestic production because the market will interpret that.

The market looks down the road and says: OK, in the future, what is the price of oil going to be based upon the current supply of oil and the current demand?

If we are serious about increasing supply and reducing demand, the market will reflect that. We will see lower prices per barrel of oil, per gallon of gasoline, and some relief for hard-working American families and small businesses taking on tremendous water in their personal households and in the

needs they have to meet for families because they are spending all their money, literally, to fill their cars with gasoline and to pay for the high cost of energy. It is affecting literally every sector of the economy.

South Dakota, as my colleague from Wyoming spoke to earlier, is a vastly rural State and sparsely populated, heavily dependent upon transportation. The energy issue impacts in a dramatic way our ability to grow our economy and create jobs. I hope the debate today will include more than only a narrow issue and will get to the fundamental issue of supply and demand, that we can have an open debate in which we may offer amendments so this issue will be addressed.

Madam President, I am disappointed to be here and to have to give this speech today. I am disappointed because I am, once again, on the Senate floor discussing the fact that the majority leader has decided to use the Senate parliamentary tactic to stop members from offering amendments and to close off debate.

We are going to spend until tomorrow morning or whatever time tomorrow we decide to have another vote on another cloture motion doing nothing. While we can raise issues, we cannot get any votes on any issues. This is all valuable time that we could be voting on issues for the American people, issues that would actually solve some of the gas price problems I hear about all over Wyoming and all over the country. It is the No. 1 concern in this country right now.

The majority leader has a rain delay that has put a halt to this match, but this game will get played. We will debate alternative energy, finding more oil on American soil, deep sea exploration, nuclear energy, oil shale. You cannot stop us forever because the American people have told us the most important issue on their mind is the issue of energy.

The majority leader has told the world's most deliberative body we cannot have a real debate about this issue. But the American people are telling him something else. Hopefully, soon he will listen. It is no wonder Congress has an approval rating that is less than 10 percent.

Rather than working on the issues that are important to our constituents, we continue to play ``gotcha'' politics. It is not getting us anywhere. It is certainly not improving our Nation's energy situation. This brand of nonlegislating that the majority continues to peddle is not making a gallon of gas cheaper.

When will the leaders let us put real proposals on the table? This body will take some and this body will leave some, but we should be taking action. What we have now is not action, it is acting, acting in the dramatic sense. We evidently think that if we can place blame on speculators and get a vote on that and be done, we can check that box off and say that we took care of energy for America. Americans are smarter than that.

The majority leader is preventing a vote on an amendment that would increase production on the Outer Continental Shelf. We cannot vote on an amendment that will allow for more production of diesel fuel from our Nation's most abundant energy source, coal. We cannot vote on extending the wind production tax credit. We cannot vote on extending tax credits for solar energy.

The majority leader has said we need to get an agreement on amendments. Our side has agreed we need to work on energy amendments because this is an energy debate. We have been willing to put aside all the other kinds of amendments. But, no, that is not enough. We want to be able to read each of them and decide whether they are meritorious before they are put on the table.

I am not sure why that is the case. It does not match up with our historical energy debates or, for that matter, any of our debates.

The Senate considered the Energy Independence and Security Act last year. At that time, gas was $3.06 a gallon. I talked a little bit about that bill because I called it the anti-energy bill and said there was not anything in that that was going to bring down the price of gas. Obviously, I was right. The price is up another dollar from that. But even on that one, there were 331 amendments that were filed. Of those, 49 amendments were agreed to, and 16 amendments received rollcall votes.

The Senate considered the Energy Policy Act of 2005, that is the previous bill to the anti-energy bill. Gas was $2.26 a gallon then. There were 235 amendments that were filed and, of those, 57 amendments were agreed to and 19 amendments received rollcall votes.

The crisis is even greater now. So there ought to be amendments being debated, considered. We should not have the parliamentary tactic that keeps us from doing amendments.

Anytime a bill comes in here, and it is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, this body leaves it. So if you want to get something done, want to be able to check off the box, we need to be able to do some amendments.

Now, not only were both those bills fully amendable but both received significant floor consideration. We spent 15 days on the floor on one of them and 10 days on the other. Why? Because they are serious issues that deserve serious debate. We wanted to make sure ideas from both sides were considered.

As I recall, both sides lost some. But that is how it works. I have an amendment that relates to State mineral royalties. That amendment would encourage States to allow for energy production on their land by giving them their fair share of mineral royalties. We are not going to get to consider that. There are a number of other amendments that I would support relating to energy development on the Outer Continental Shelf in the States that want energy production and only those States that want it.

I would support an amendment to improve our Nation's energy situation by accelerating the development of coal-to-liquid fuels. That could be coal to diesel and coal to jet fuel. Those are the most expensive fuels in the United States right now. Those are the ones that have some great potential for decreased costs using our most abundant energy source.

We have more Btu's in coal--in fact, we have more Btu's in the clean coal in northeastern Wyoming than Saudi Arabia has in oil. It is an old technique from World War II, from converting that to, say, diesel, and also to convert it to jet fuel. Our military needs jet fuel. It can be done from coal.

Unfortunately, the majority leader has stopped me from doing so by using parliamentarian tactics to cut off the debate. He has also stopped me from

voting against a number of bad ideas I am sure we would see. I will not have a chance to vote against lowering the speed limit to 55 miles an hour. Why is that a bad idea? It actually led to higher traffic fatalities.

When we were talking about eliminating the 55-mile-speed limit, the argument was, if we do that, the number of fatalities in the United States would go up. Well, we raised the speed limit. We went back to where it was before.

Do you know what. Traffic fatalities went down. In Wyoming, the reason they went down is we eliminated a lot of those single-car accidents from driving the huge distances across our State at very slow speeds.

My dad traveled on the road. He said: At 55 miles an hour, you could watch a flower come up, grow, bloom, and wither before you got by it. So he started reading while he drove. But it kept him awake. So he did not have one of those single-car accidents where you roll your car.

Now, believe it or not, I agree with the majority party on some steps we could make to help this country be more energy independent. Wind tax credits are one example. By restricting Senators' participation, stopping them from representing those who put them in office is not going to get us any further than an empty gas tank, and that is what this bill in its current form is.

The bill before us blames speculators for our energy situation. It might be worth taking a moment to discuss exactly what speculators do. We have turned that into a cuss word. Oil speculation is two people or companies or organizations guessing what the price will be in the months to come. One of those entities thinks the price will be higher in the months to come, and so they buy the commodity now. Another entity thinks the price will be lower, so they sell the commodity now. The one who is right will make money; the one who is wrong will not. You can't have this kind of a transaction without two people who believe the exact opposite. Both are speculators. Both think they can make money based on their knowledge of the world and the gas supply at the current time.

What kind of entities do this? An airline might think the price of oil will be higher in the months to come, and, to stabilize their fuel costs, they will purchase oil futures for the next couple of months. If the prices go up, they will have stabilized their fuel costs and saved money. If they go down, of course, it will cost them what they bid it at, and they will lose money compared to what they could have gotten it for. But in order for them to have that market, there has to be somebody willing to bet against them, willing to say: Yes, I think the price is going to go down, and I am going to make that differential. Those are speculators. Without the speculator part of the deal, the airline doesn't have a deal. The airline cannot lock in a price for what they are willing to pay to make sure they will know in the future what their costs are going to be. That is speculation.

The market is a place where you anticipate what the cost will be in the months to come so that you can have certainty for what you are going to pay. Sometimes you guess right and you are paying below market value. Sometimes your guess is wrong, and you end up paying more than market value. What is commonly ignored in the debate about oil speculators is that for every dollar made, a dollar is lost by someone who would be called a speculator but without whom the market doesn't work.

Oil is not the only commodity that is traded. We speculate on the price of wheat, pork bellies, gold and silver, cattle--a number of other things. Speculation allows producers and consumers of these products the opportunity to manage the risk they have on buying and selling products that don't have a set price. This helps prevent wild fluctuations of price each and every day. That keeps major market failures from happening.

Earlier this week, I spoke about how the majority leader's energy speculation bill could have significant unintended consequences for institutional investors accessing commodities, futures, and capital markets. Today, America's largest pension funds wrote to me stating their concern.

The American Benefits Council wrote:

The Council is very concerned that the serious implications

of S. 3268 on retirement plan participants have not been

sufficiently evaluated. We are concerned that legislation

relating to energy policy could unintentionally harm the

long-term security of American workers and families.

I ask unanimous consent to have the letter printed in the Record.

I also ask unanimous consent to have an article on statistics on the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit printed in the Record.

I also have heard from other pension fund and institutional investor representatives that the provisions in the majority leader's bill have not been sufficiently vetted. Rather than pass a flawed bill on energy speculation, we should wait until we read the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's and the Interagency Task Force on Commodity Markets' report due out later this year. This issue is too important for us to act without all of the facts.

Few serious economists believe that this bill will do anything substantial to decrease energy prices. Warren Buffett, the Nation's wealthiest Democrat, doesn't think that it will make a difference. Neither does oilman T. Boone Pickens. Even the Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, believes that this bill will have little impact on the price of gasoline. And yet we are still prohibited from offering amendments. We are still prohibited from voting on amendments that will have a real impact on the price of gasoline.

It is unfortunate that the debate is turning out this way, because I agree that there should be more transparency in the market. That is why I am the cosponsor of a bill that allows for more oversight by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. But in addition to that, the bill does something more. The Gas Price Reduction Act includes a provision to open up coastal waters in States where they want energy production. It ends the ban on the development of promising oil shale in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. At the same time it encourages increases in supply, it promotes the development of better technology so that we use less energy.

We should have the opportunity to vote on these proposals. We should have the opportunity to have a real debate on energy. Instead, we are going wrap up this debate and begin playing the blame game. It is disappointing that the Senate is working this way, and I hope we can stop playing politics and have a real debate in the near future. This issue is too important for the Senate to ignore.

Mr. President, the motto of the Republicans in the Senate is: Talk more, produce less. Do you know what we offered them this week? We said to the Republicans: Here is the opportunity of a lifetime. Do you have a position on speculation? Do you think it is an issue? If you do, put your proposal on the floor and we will put our proposal on the floor. We will have an equal vote requirement, equal debate time. We will go at it and we will let the Senate decide. We are not going to write your version of the speculation, you would not write ours, but you have every right to do that. The Republican response was: No, we are not interested in that. We don't think speculation is a problem.

Well, they ought to meet with the CEOs of the major airlines. They ought to spend a minute talking to them about what they feel because they are paying the jet fuel costs and they are cutting back on service and they are cutting back on employment. That is the reality of what they face today. Speculation, manipulation is a major concern. We have a responsible approach to it. The Republicans refuse to offer an alternative. OK. That is their decision.

Then we said to them: Why don't you present your energy bill? The Republican leader came to the floor with a litany of things the Republicans believe in. For over a week we have said to them: Put it in a bill offered on the floor. They have said: No, no. We would rather come to the floor and complain, rather than come to the floor and debate our approach.

I listened to the Republican leader as he came to the floor, and it is very clear to me. They don't want a debate and a vote. They want this issue to drag out forever and ever, amen. That is not what the American people want. They want us to tackle this thing, offer alternatives on the floor, debate them up or down, go forward.

It troubles me when the Republican leader repeatedly says-- incorrectly--that when it comes to energy, from the Democratic view, we want to deal with speculation and, in his words, ``do nothing else.'' He forgets the whole second part of this--the Energy bill we are proposing on the Democratic side and they are going to propose on the Republican side. We offered them that. They turned us down.

I might also say there is no idea how many amendments the Republicans are going to offer. Two days ago, Senator Kyl and I were on the floor, and he said there were 25 amendments. Senator Specter walked up and said: I have 2, so make that 27. Then Senator Kyl said: Come to think of it, I have one too. We are up to 28. That was 2 days ago. This is growing similar to bacteria in a petri dish as the Republicans meet in their conference and dream up more amendments. That is good. It shows a creative mind at work, and it is a great exercise, but it isn't what the American people are asking for.

If you have a good set of ideas, offer them. You want to bring up more nuclear power, Senator Domenici? Put that in your package. You want to have more offshore drilling, put it in your package. You want to have coal to oil, put it in your package. If you believe in it, stand and fight for it. But they will not. They will not fight for it. They want to run. Run to the press and

explain that they are not being given enough time on the floor, if they could have a little more time, as days burn off the calendar as they stand and complain. They can't come up with a plan, and that is the unfortunate reality.

Then, they quote T. Boone Pickens. Mr. Pickens, I am sure, is a gifted man. I have never met him. I have seen him on TV. He has spent a lot of money to make sure we all get to see him. They have misquoted him on the floor so often. I have watched that ad he is paying millions of dollars for America to see, and I do remember the part of the ad where he says: ``We can't drill our way out of this problem.'' Mr. T. Boone Pickens said that.

You don't hear that from the Republican side. Their idea is we can drill our way out of this. They forget the reality. Of all the oil in the world, if you look at the vast quantity, we have 3 percent of it under our control--3 percent. We use 25 percent of the oil. You can't drill your way out of it. We know we are going to need exploration and production, but we know we need a lot more, including conservation, renewables, sustainable energy sources. That is the reality of what we face.

We have made this offer to them time and again. They will not accept it. They would rather come to the floor and complain.

When you go through the list, you see first drilling offshore. Democrats support that. There are 34 million acres currently under lease to oil companies for drilling they are not using. Why don't they start drilling there since they paid for this land?

Oil shale. That is in our bill. Even though that is 15 years away, we want to take a look at oil shale as an opportunity.

Incentives for batteries, of course we support that. There is no debate there.

Untapped American oil. We think there is untapped American oil in Alaska--23 million acres' worth that the oil companies aren't touching. They should go in there and take a look, drill for it, bring it forward.

Nuclear energy. I don't understand how Senator McConnell could come to the floor and say we could bring gasoline prices down with more nuclear energy. Could you picture a car being powered by nuclear energy? I can't. If he is talking about plug-in hybrids, he ought to clarify the example he is using.

There are plenty of things we can do. It should have started with a good-faith offer which we made to the Republicans and, frankly, they should have accepted.

I yield the floor to the Senator from Missouri.

How much time remains?

I will use it after the Senator speaks.

Will the Senator, through the Chair, yield for a question?

Is it not only true that we have 68 million acres of land we have leased to the oil companies, which they are paying us money to lease in order to find oil and gas, but they are not doing anything with it--some 34 million offshore, on the Outer Continental Shelf and some 33 million onshore that they are now leasing?

The Republican side of the aisle has become a one-trick pony--keep drilling, keep drilling, keep drilling. We know if we decided today to drill on any acreage here, it would be 8 to 14 years before we would see any oil coming from it. So this notion not only flies in the face of the 68 million acres they currently have, but it doesn't solve the problem.

As the Senator from Washington said, it makes the problem worse because we don't face the realities of what we need to do to have a national energy policy.

If the Senator from Washington will yield for another observation, she noted that when we elected President Bush and Vice President Cheney we brought two people in from the oil industry, and coincidentally, during this two-term administration, profits of the oil companies in America have reached historic high levels at the expense of our economy and families. The Republicans, the President's party, want to end this administration by giving them the biggest farewell gift anyone could ever wish for in the oil industry--millions and millions more acres so that they can, at their pace and in their time, decide to drill on.

It would seem to me, if you are honest about the oil companies and what they have done to this economy, this is the last thing we should be doing. We should be holding them accountable for the prices they charge, the profits they are reporting, and what they have done to the American economy. So I ask the Senator from Washington: The alternatives we have talked about over the years--fuel efficiency for cars, more efficiency in the appliances we use, the buildings we build, all of this is part of the big energy picture, is it not? It isn't just about keeping oil companies happy.

I would respond to the Senator from Washington, through the Chair, and say that I think America understands this. Sure, we are going to be drilling oil in America--we need to, for exploration and for production--but we know we only have 3 percent of the world's supply of oil--3 percent--and we use 25 percent of the oil. So we can't drill our way out of this.

Whether it is T. Boone Pickens or some friend of mine in central Illinois, it is obvious: You have to look for other solutions, and those solutions mean the oil companies are not going to be the answer to every question. Unfortunately, the Republican side of the aisle, time and time and time again, all they have to suggest is drill more oil and make more money for the oil companies.

That isn't the answer to America's energy problem. If it were the answer, we would have seen, as the Senator said, gasoline prices coming down as we made more acreage available for drilling over the last several years. It has not happened. They have gone up dramatically.

Mr. President, I ask the Senator from North Dakota to yield.

I wish to ask him a question because he has been a leader in the Senate on the question of speculation. I want to say that many of our Republican colleagues have come to the floor over the last several days saying virtually speculation is not the problem, not speculation. I know the Senator from North Dakota has ample evidence and many experts behind his position. He and I have joined with the leadership in coming up with an approach which will try to dampen the fires of speculation which may be driving up oil prices and creating volatility not reflected in the market.

I want to make sure the Senator from North Dakota is aware of what happened today with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. They have charged an oil trading firm with manipulating oil prices, the first complaint to be announced since regulators began a new investigation into wrongdoing.

The CFTC accused Optiver Holding, two of its subsidiaries, and three employees with manipulation and attempted manipulation of crude oil, heating oil, and gasoline futures of the New York Mercantile Exchange, which is a regulated exchange, I might add.

``Optiver traders amassed large trading positions, then

conducted trades in such a way to bully and hammer the

markets,'' CFTC Acting Chairman Walter Lukken said at a press

conference. ``These charges go to the heart of the CFTC's

core mission of detecting and rooting out illegal

manipulation of the markets.''

I say to the Senator from North Dakota that his leadership on this issue and coming to the floor repeatedly to tell us about the possibility this was occurring I think has sparked this commission to come to life, at least today in terms of making these charges.

I am going to leave this story with the Senator because I want him to be able to put it in the Record every time our Republican colleagues come to the floor and say speculation is not an issue. It is enough of an issue that there was a civil action filed today against a company for hammering and bullying the market.

I know this is not in the nature of a question, but I wish to ask the Senator if he feels this action by the CFTC is an indication of what he has been saying over the last several months.

Mr. President, as the Senate debates a bill that will stop out-of-control speculation in the energy commodity markets, I would like to make a brief statement on this legislation and why it is essential that we act on it.

For weeks now, the Senate has heard testimony from experts, even oil executives, who attribute the shocking increase in oil prices to the influence of oil speculators.

Here are a few examples:

The [oil] fundamentals are no problem. They are the same as

they were when oil was selling for $60 a barrel, which is in

itself quite a unique phenomenon.

That was from Jeroen van der Veer, Chief Executive Officer, Royal Dutch Shell, Washington Post Apr. 11, 2008.

$100 oil isn't justified by the physical demand in the

market. It has to be speculation on the futures market that

is fueling this.

That was from Clarence Cazalot Jr., Chief Executive Officer, Marathon Oil, October 2007.

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

That is from Stephen Simon, Exxon Mobil Senior Vice President, Senate Judiciary Committee April 1, 2008.

What has happened in our markets? Clearly, we are not suffering from a supply and demand problem. Something else is happening.

In 2000, about 37 percent of the oil futures market was comprised of speculators who include investment companies and investment banks as well as institutional investors, like pension funds. Eight years ago, 63 percent of the oil futures market was represented by companies that were hedging the price of oil because they need oil to function, for example, the airlines.

How has the market changed in the past 8 years? Seventy-one percent of the oil futures market is in the hands of speculators who rarely take control of the oil they are bidding on, and only 29 percent represent companies that use it for the purpose that most of us would agree it should be intended.

So we know speculation is growing when it comes to oil, and we know the transactions have gone up 600 percent in the last 8 or 10 years.

What allowed this to happen? The infamous ``Enron Loophole,'' which was slipped into must-pass legislation in late December of 2000.

This loophole allowed energy futures to be traded without Federal oversight. Various investigations of the Enron collapse have pointed to this loophole

as crucial to Enron's manipulation of the California energy market which provoked an energy crisis in the State in 2000 and 2001.

Last month, with passage of the farm bill, the Congress finally succeeded in bringing a measure of oversight and transparency to this market, requiring the Commodities Future Trading Commission, CFTC, to review all contracts to determine which ones should be regulated as though traded on a major public exchange.

While this was a step in the right direction, and the result of much thoughtful discussion and debate, the farm bill provision can be improved upon and strengthened. That is why I introduced a bill to shut down the unregulated oil futures markets created by the now-infamous ``Enron loophole.'' It also removes energy from the list of exempt commodities; requires energy to be traded on a regulated market; and creates a new definition of what constitutes an energy commodity.

Senator Reid has introduced a leadership bill that reins in speculation by imposing position limits ensure that legitimate speculation doesn't get out of hand. It is a more complicated approach that leaves the door open for unregulated trading, but if it is done right, the approach taken by Senator Reid can get us where we need to be. And I am interested in working with Senator Reid to ensure that his bill gets at the problem.

I believe that some small but significant changes can significantly improve the bill. If our approach to dealing with excessive speculation is to impose speculation limits, then we must ensure that those limits actually operate as limits, not as loopholes.

U.S. speculators should not be able to circumvent speculation limits by trading on foreign exchanges, by setting up a subsidiary that would not be subject to the limits, or by trading both on and off regulated exchanges without aggregating the number of contracts so they count against the overall speculation limit set by the CFTC.

If we pass a bill that allows speculators to evade these limits, the bill's promise will remain unfulfilled, and we will have the worst of all worlds--a bill that purports to tamp down on speculation but fails to do so, and a bill that lets those who would dismiss the effect of excessive speculation on the price of oil say ``I told you so.''

My friends on the other side of the aisle, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and Wall Street financiers, call the effort to shut down excessive speculation misguided and say that the spiking price of the barrel of oil is just the market telling us that demand exceeds supply.

But ask yourself whether this makes sense. When the Saudis agreed to increase production, there was no drop in the price of oil. But the price of oil keeps spiraling, and while there is no evidence of dramatically increased demand, there is plenty of evidence that speculative money is pouring into the energy futures market.

The airlines, which hedge against increases in the price of jet fuel by participating in the energy futures market, are suffering. They are the legitimate hedgers who actually use the futures, and they are calling on us to take action against excessive speculation.

Meantime, the oil companies loudly will be claiming they need to drill in new areas off the coasts of Florida and California. They have a well financed campaign that says: Drill here; drill now; pay less. This is cruelly misleading and deceitful. Drilling everything we have in the waters below our coasts will do nothing to lower the price of gas.

If we open all our shores and give away billions in tourism, fishing, and all the economies of all the coastal States to boost oil production, the first drop of oil wouldn't be seen until the year 2017, and oil production would peak in the year 2030.

What could we get in the year 2030? We would get 200,000 barrels a day.

To put that number another way, as expressed by my colleague, Senator Menendez yesterday, ``the amount of gas we could get from offshore drilling is equivalent to a few tablespoons per car per day.''

It is simply wrong to think that opening offshore drilling will lower gas prices.

Yet the public relations machine of big oil continues to churn out falsehoods. They insist they are trying to find new oil that might help bring down gas prices, but the money they spend on exploration is nothing compared with what they spend on stock buybacks and dividends.

This is good news for shareholders but offers no help to drivers to offset the high cost of fuel.

Yesterday the Associated Press reported the 5 biggest international oil companies plowed about 55 percent of the cash they made from their businesses into stock buybacks and dividends last year, up from 30 percent in 2000 and just 1 percent in 1993, according to Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

The percentage they spend to find new deposits of fossil fuels has remained flat for years, in the mid-single digits.

In the first 3 months of this year, ExxonMobil Corp., the world's biggest publicly traded oil company, shelled out $8.8 billion on stock buybacks alone, compared with $5.5 billion on exploration and other capital projects.

ConocoPhillips has already told investors that its stock buybacks for April to June of this year will come to about $2.5 billion, 9 times what it spent on exploration.

This leads me to the conclusion of one oil expert who said, ``If you're not spending your money finding and developing new oil, then there's no new oil.''

Senator Reid has introduced a leadership bill that will rein in speculation. Over and over, the Congress has heard testimony that the question of supply and demand is not what is causing oil to be up at $130 a barrel, as I referred to earlier, statements by oil company executives that the price of a barrel of oil would be much less, given the normal vagaries of the market of supply and demand, even though there is a lot of demand out there in the world market. But as Senator Reid pointed out, in the underlying bill that is before the Senate, it is the speculators, unregulated after the law was changed to deregulate the markets, where there are no controls on how much oil they can buy on futures contracts or whether they have to use that oil, who continue to speculate and drive up the price. That is what this underlying bill is trying to address. They should not be able to circumvent speculation limits by trading, for example, on foreign exchanges if those oil contracts are for America.

I see my colleague from Pennsylvania is here, and I want him to have the time to which he is entitled.

What is confronting us is an effort to get us off focusing on the problem with this mindless statement that is out there, put out by the oil companies--look at who is sponsoring the advertisements on TV and in the newspapers; it is the only companies--and it is that statement: Drill here, drill now, pay less.

Now, if we are going to solve this problem, we have to do a bunch of things. But just drilling is not going to solve it because if you do just that, it is going to be years and years before the fruits of that effort come in. In fact, it has been said over and over, there are 68 million acres under lease that have not been drilled. There are plenty more acres out in the Gulf of Mexico, without getting close to Florida, without getting over the line into the military mission area, where the largest testing and training area of the U.S. military in the world is, off the coast of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. There is plenty. So we ought to drill.

But at the same time, let's go after what is causing these prices to go through the roof. Speculation is a big part of it. If you want to get down to it, let's strengthen the U.S. dollar against the world's other currencies, by getting our fiscal house in order and starting to balance the Federal budget. That would help a lot too.

So it is an extremely complicated issue that a simple slogan is not going to solve. That is what this debate is trying to bring into focus. The American people can see through the simplified slogans of ``drill here, drill now.'' We need to get to a real solution.

Mr. President, I see my colleague from Pennsylvania is in the Chamber, and I wish to yield the floor so we can hear from him.

Mr. President, I wish to speak on the bill.

We are in an energy crisis. Don't let a 10 percent drop in oil prices fool you. We are in for a long battle with energy costs and America will need to step up if we want to keep driving our cars, flying our jets, and fueling our economy.

But this bill before us today isn't about lowering prices. it is about finding someone to blame so Americans don't blame the Democrats for failing to act in Congress.

Democrats need a scapegoat because under their watch America has become more addicted to oil than ever and gas prices have more than doubled. They don't want to solve your problems. They don't want to face the environmental lobbyists who don't care how much Americans pay for energy as long as it doesn't come from oil and coal. They want to find someone to blame. They have blamed oil companies, Republicans, the Middle East, and the military. Today it is energy speculators.

I say the time for scapegoats and politics is over. Americans don't want excuses or even someone to blame--Americans want solutions.

They want to be able to afford to drive their truck to work every day. They don't want to worry about turning on the air conditioner or how much it is going to cost to heat their homes this winter.

Back home in my State of Kentucky I have seen how much these prices are hurting families. I know many people who moved farther out into the suburbs to get a bigger yard and more for their real estate investment. Now those same people are stuck using $4.50 gasoline for their workday commute. Another community in eastern Kentucky is fighting to keep local bus service running to their senior center.

Many older Americans rely on bus and shuttle services to get out of their homes and are being cut off from their community services because of high prices. There are even places that have gone to a four-day school week to cut back on the cost of busing students.

These people want solutions for energy prices, not more politics.

The best way to address high prices is to get more fuel on the market. America has domestic energy resources that we only need to open up.

I have supported bills and amendments that would expand offshore drilling, start coal-to-liquid fuel production, encourage alternative sources of jet fuel, expand cellulosic biomass fuels, and many other issues. Facing these issues is what Congress should be working on.

For example, I think one part of our solution should be more offshore drilling. More domestic oil means less we have to buy from the Middle East, lower transportation costs, a more stable supply, and therefore lower prices. So why have the Democrats in Congress stopped us from acting on this one issue?

If it is because of the environment, I say we will make sure any new drilling is the cleanest and safest in the world. If it is because we are not sure what to do with the Federal revenue, I am ready to discuss it and develop a compromise. What is the problem with letting individual States choose whether or not to drill offshore? Even if it takes a decade to get to full production, we have to start somewhere.

Congress should at least have the debate and vote on the issue. But every time we try to address even one energy production issue, we are stopped in our tracks and blocked from offering amendments.

I am tired of watching this Democrat-led Congress do nothing. The energy crisis has gone on long enough. We can talk all day about who to blame and make up excuses, but that won't bring down energy prices.

Instead, we find ourselves discussing another bill that tries to blame someone rather than address the problems of domestic production and supply.

The other side is selling you a bill of goods when they say this legislation would impact energy prices. I hear they have a great deal for you on a bridge in Brooklyn too.

This bill will undermine legitimate hedging activities and threatens the liquidity of the commodities marketplace. Futures markets make it possible to buy and sell things at a specific price and date in the future. These markets allow participants to offset risk of price changes to those willing to take risks.

This legislation would also make us citizens subject to foreign rules and regulations related to energy trading. Understanding U.S. laws will not be enough, as energy traders will be required to consult with foreign boards of trade and will be subject to the regulations made by foreign governments.

This bill would also encourage traders to use foreign markets that do not

have as many regulations and take American jobs and business activity with them. But my principal concern with this bill is that it asks a Federal regulator, the CFTC, to wade into the marketplace and make a determination of what is and what is not legitimate trading activity.

Let me explain how this works. How many Americans stock up on an item when they see a good sale at the grocery store? I know I do. Or maybe some people wait to buy in bulk with buy one get one free coupons.

While we don't resell our groceries to someone else, this simple act of timing our purchases or varying how much and when we buy is similar to what traders do in the commodities markets.

Now imagine the Government used this same legislation to regulate grocery shopping that has been proposed for the energy markets. It would mean the Government would keep track of all your purchases and determine whether you were a legitimate or non legitimate grocery shopper. Do you want the government penalizing you if they feel you are overbuying a certain product?

Buy too many hot dogs in 1 month and the Government could impose limits on your purchases or keep you out of grocery stores altogether.

While this legislation isn't going to regulate grocery stores, this bill is the beginning of more government regulations that will limit your options. Maybe next Congress will regulate the precious metals market and determine that buying gold jewelry is a non legitimate purchase, penalizing Americans who want to buy jewelry. Or will the government say that collecting shotguns is a non legitimate purchase that increases the cost of shotguns, allowing it to limit sales to gun collectors?

Allowing the Government to over regulate any market is a recipe for disaster that puts Americans' freedom at risk.

In America, we are proud of our open markets and lack of government interference. We need the already established rules to stop illegal activities such as price manipulation and cornering markets, but we do not need new regulations that prohibit normal market activities, such as buying and selling commodities as an investment or as a price hedge.

I will support efforts to make the markets as transparent as possible. Information allows traders to most efficiently allocate resources and make sure prices actually reflect supply and demand. But I find it unreasonable to on the one hand say the market needs to be more transparent so it can work efficiently, and then on the other mandate new requirements and regulations that will clog the market and prevent it from working normally.

The bottom line is that this legislation will not bring down energy prices.

However, there is something Congress and America can do about prices--we can produce more of own energy. I strongly believe that America should use every resource it has to produce energy. Our dependence on Middle Eastern oil is worse than simply paying too much at the pump; it is a threat to national security. Every gallon of fuel we make from biomass, domestic oil and gas, and coal is a gallon of fuel we don't have to buy from the Middle East. It is just that simple.

We need a Manhattan Project for energy in America.

The greatest minds we have should be working on ways to produce alternative fuel, capture and use carbon emissions, produce clean electricity, and improve oil and gas production.

We should agree to take politics out of clean energy and ensure that government programs are technology and feedstock neutral. Too often I see tax incentives and programs that pick and choose what technology or process America should use.

To support all these alternative technologies, we need to change the way government spends money.

I think we should pick performance-based goals--like zero emission alternatives to oil--and let the marketplace decide the most efficient way to achieve it. If you can produce an environmentally sound transportation fuel, we should not care whether it comes from coal or switch grass.

If you can produce a megawatt of clean energy, we should not care if it comes from waste heat on a paper mill or from underground geothermal. By opening up our options, we will get more for the Government dollar and America will see results faster.

I believe the most important alternative fuel technology is coal-to- liquids. We are sitting on a huge coal reserve that we can turn into diesel for our trucks and aviation fuel for our planes. And our military can no longer rely on imported oil from the Middle East. The Air Force has tested this fuel, and it burns cooler and cleaner than conventional fuel. It has less pollution as well. And I know that with the right government incentives and carbon capture technology, we can make coal-to-liquid fuel with less greenhouse gases than oil-based fuels.

Kentucky coal can help bring down the price of oil, provide a secure fuel for our military, reduce pollution, and create jobs.

While new domestic production will go a long way to bring down prices, we should also think about conservation efforts. There are the simple things like turning off lights we don't use and more important measures like the increased fuel economy standards Congress passed. But there are other ways to reduce fuel use using technology. For example, we have a company in Kentucky that produces retrofit kits to reduce diesel fuel use while trucks are idling.

The answer to America's energy problems is more domestic production, clean technologies, and conservation. We have the resources and know- how to make clean energy, but for the last few decades our government regulations have held us back. We should not find more ways to over regulate our markets--we should vote now to open up domestic production and pursue promising alternative fuel technologies that will actually bring down the prices of oil and gas at the pump for the American people.