White House Conference on Food and Nutrition

Is it my understanding the Democrats now have 30 minutes reserved? Is that correct?

Madam President, I was interested to hear my friend from Oklahoma, the ranking member on my Environment and Public Works Committee, talk about how much the Republicans care about gas prices after they just tanked our effort to deal with them. It is extraordinary what we are seeing here, right before the eyes of the American people.

Last week they said ``no'' to global warming legislation. Global warming is real. The Senator from Oklahoma reminds me of the people who kept saying: No, the Earth is flat. No, cigarettes don't cause cancer. He is lining up with those people.

The vast majority of scientists tell us global warming is real. He bragged

about how he beat us last week. Let me take a look at that. He said it was a wonderful thing that happened on Friday, when the Senate didn't get 60 votes to continue the debate on global warming and address it. He said it was a wonderful thing. I want to say to the 89 percent of the American people, who believe global warming must be addressed, because it is a moral issue that is facing us, because we have to protect this planet for our grandkids, because we need to get off foreign oil, have alternatives to foreign gas--and yes, in my State it is well over $4--we have to address it. He is celebrating the fact that we fell short.

Let me tell you we fell short by only six votes. We fell short by six votes. We had 46 Democrats for dealing with global warming now, plus 8 Republicans--54. We needed 60. He is celebrating.

We are going to be celebrating come November because we are going to have a President who is going to work with us on global warming legislation and we are going to have six more votes here in the Senate, I can predict. Because my friends on the other side of the aisle--with a few exceptions, very few--are fierce defenders of the status quo.

Let me repeat that. The leadership in the Republican Party and the vast majority of Republicans, save a handful, are fierce defenders of the status quo. They say no to global warming legislation which will get us off foreign oil, which will get us off big oil. They say no, today, to going after the speculators, going after big oil, making them disgorge some of that money so we can invest it in alternatives; going after OPEC and saying: If you are colluding, you are going to be held accountable.

They said: No, no, no. Yes, to the status quo; no to positive change for the American people.

They come down to the floor and they are happy about it. It is unbelievable to me.

The wonderful thing that did happen on Friday is we reached a high water mark. We reached 54 votes. The last vote on the global warming bill, it was 38.

The even more wonderful part is out of the people who were absent, who sent in letters who said they were with us, were the two Presidential candidates. So all that talk about celebrating the fact that we stopped global warming legislation is kind of a death rattle, in my opinion, for those people who do not believe they have to address this challenge of our generation.

I am looking at the young people here today, their beautiful faces. They deserve to have a good life in the future. I want to say to them today: You are here in an historic time because the window is closing for action. With global warming, if you don't act, you lose valuable time, because the carbon stays in the atmosphere for so long it becomes more difficult to get it out of the atmosphere.

Last week we came up six votes short even though we reached a high water mark on the bill. At the end of the day we now have a roadmap for change--46 Democrats voted yes to tackle global warming, 8 Republicans voted yes. What does that tell you about the two parties?

When I took the gavel in January after the Democrats took back this majority by only the slimmest of margins, I said I wanted to put global warming on the map because under the leadership of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle we did nothing to address it. The President has basically--and we know this for sure--interfered with the scientists in his own administration and not allowed the facts to be told. So we had 25 hearings.

The second thing I wanted to do is make it bipartisan. John Warner said, ``I am with you. I care about my grandkids. I care about national security.'' The Naval Academy did a very important study that this is going to be the No. 1 cause of wars in the future as we have desperate refugees running away from droughts and famine and flooding and all the rest, and rising sea levels. When John Warner came across, I knew I had accomplished that. He did it for me. He made it bipartisan.

Then we got the strong bill out of the committee, we improved it, we got it to the floor, and we knew it had a lot of work. We got a letter from 10 people who voted for it who said: Look, Senator, and Harry Reid, we need to work on it. We understand that is what we have to do when our next President says let's go, let's get a bill through. So I think it is appalling that my ranking member of the Environment Committee would come down here and celebrate the fact that we were not able to move forward on global warming legislation, and furthermore said it is not real. He brought that out again.

I do thank those who engaged in the debate, both pro and con. It was a landmark debate. I only regret that the Republicans filibustered and we had to take the bill off the floor because we could have gotten a very good bill. It was a very good bill to start with and we could have worked on it and made it even better.

But, come November, we will see whether I am right or wrong. I think I will be right. One of the reasons I am right, and I believe we will have Senators here who are going to be hospitable to global warming legislation, is because we also need Senators who are hospitable to doing something about gas prices.

This is an amazing chart. Since George Bush got into office--do we remember this? He and Dick Cheney were oil men. One of the reasons they urged for getting elected is: We know how to deal with the oil companies; leave it to us. We know how to deal with the Saudi Arabian princes; leave it to us. We will deal with it.

They dealt with it. There was a 250-percent increase in the price of gas--$3.94. This is old. It is now $4. This I used last week. It is already old; today it is $4. In my State it is about $4.40. You can't keep up with the increases in the price of gas. This is what we are facing.

So in the Senate today we said: All right, they said no to global warming legislation--which was a long-term answer to big oil.

What we would have done is we would have had a cap-and-trade system that would have put a price on carbon, gone between the free marketplace, and that would have led to trillions of dollars, I say to my friend, trillions of dollars in investments by the private sector, cellulosic fuel, automobiles that get 150 miles per gallon, electric cars, all the rest. That is the long-term solution pushing down demand. We all know that. Pushing down demand.

Now, the other side will say if you drill in a wildlife refuge it will solve your problems. No, it is false. Put aside that Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican President, set aside the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge and said this is a precious gift from God; set it aside. What are you going to do to God's creatures by drilling over there? Forget it.

Put it aside for the moment and talk about what you get. You get 6 months' worth of oil. You cannot drill your way out of this. Someone said--I think it was Senator Menendez who made a great analogy. He said: Everybody says we are addicted to oil. Even our own President says we are addicted to oil. Let's say someone was addicted to drugs. Is the way to get them off drugs to give them 6 months' more worth of drugs? Does that help? No. No. No.

We need to figure out a way to get off of foreign oil, get away from big oil, because we know the developing nations are gobbling it up. And we also know we have done so little, so little to address the issue of energy efficiency, fuel technology. It is a sad thing. We have lost so much time.

Today at gas stations across the Nation, the American people are suffering. They are facing sticker shock. They are having to choose, choose between something they might buy at the store for dinner and filling up the tank. That is a fact. That is a fact.

I will never forget when Vice President Cheney first sat down for his closed-door meetings with oil executives and energy industry lobbyists, and we said: We want to know what you are talking about, Mr. Vice President. What is going on behind those closed doors?

And he said: Oh, I am working to make energy affordable.

You know what gas was? It was $1.50. That is when he sat down with his friends in oil companies. We cannot find out what they talked about, but I can tell you this: Whatever they talked about was good for them, was good for the oil companies, was good for big oil. Gas is $4.40 a gallon in many California locations. I have seen gas prices as high as $5 in my State. So we have secret meetings with Dick Cheney with

the energy people, and gas went up 250 percent.

Again, these are old numbers. It is even worse. Gas went up 82 cents since January--82 cents since January. Again, it is even more than that now. It is way more than that, close to 90 cents.

In every case, you see the Bush administration saying they are going to do something. They never did anything. A lot of talk, a lot of yack, a lot of visits with Saudi Arabia, a lot of kissing on the cheek with the princes, holding hands. We saw the picture. What happened? This. Straight up. Two oil men in the White House. Is it any wonder?

Many of us said at the time, other people said: It is terrific, two oil men at the White House. They will know how to deal with the oil companies. Well, they sure knew how to deal with the oil companies. The oil companies never had it so good. And my Republican friends right here, with few exceptions, have fallen all over themselves to give those very same companies huge tax breaks, even as they are making record profits.

Listen to this: Last year the oil companies pocketed $124 billion in profits, up from $29 billion in 2002. That means they have quadrupled their profits since 2002, four times. Let's think about it, America. What happened to your salary? Did your salary quadruple? I think we know the answer to that.

We know Americans are losing ground. The average family is losing ground, thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Their salaries are not keeping up with inflation. The price of gas is out of sight. It is hard for them to get health care. Health care costs are out of sight. Food prices are going up. Everything is going up--tuition.

But what do my friends on the other side say? They want to give oil companies these great big tax breaks. They did in 2004 and 2005. Believe it or not, they gave them tax breaks worth over $17 billion over the next decade. And these tax breaks are free and clear. We did not even say--they did not say in the legislation oil companies have to invest in renewables, improving infrastructure, increasing capacity. No. You know what they did with the money? They spent $185 billion on stock buybacks instead of investing in clean, alternative fuels or new refinery utilization.

And as my friend in the chair said today, they are spending more on public relations than the average family spends in a lifetime because they know, when the American people really understand this, what the American people will think. Have you seen those beautiful commercials by the oil companies? We really care. We are doing so much.

Do you think they are doing all of these wonderful things? No, most of the money is spent on buying back their stock.

Unchecked speculation. I have heard some experts say that about one- third of the price of oil a barrel is due to speculation. We tried to pass a bill today that, first of all, said to the oil companies: That is the end of your break. You need to either invest your profits in the future, in other technologies, or give it back to us, and we will do it on behalf of the American people.

They said no. They will protect big oil until they have to pay the political price. Protect big oil, protect foreign oil. They protect foreign oil, OPEC. We said the Attorney General should be able to sue a foreign company or foreign country if they colluded on the price of oil. Oh, no, they could not do that to big oil either. They are in love with big oil over there. They are in love with foreign oil.

My people are saying: Enough is enough is enough is enough. It is no wonder that the American people want change, and they are going to get change. They are going to get it in November. They are going to bring it to us. They are going to bring us change.

The former oil men in the Bush administration have been uninterested in taking on the unchecked speculation. This vote reflects the administration. That is it. They all marched together.

Well, I think they are marching off a plank. The American people are smart and getting smarter every day. They know the pain they are feeling at the pump has a cost. They understand the speculation on futures. We address that. We address that in the legislation on which they voted no.

We said: You cannot take money and speculate on futures in an out-of- town market, an out-of-country market. You have to have transparency. Oh, no, they do not want transparency. That would be bad for the oil companies.

If anyone ever says to you: There is no difference between Democrats and Republicans, look at the debate we had on global warming, look at the vote on global warming, and look at the vote we had today. There is an enormous difference. And it has to do with whose side you are on. In the case today, it was are you on the side of big oil and foreign oil or are you on the side of the American people? It is pretty clear.

You have to look at Iraq. We have been in Iraq more than 5 long years. Do you remember what President Bush said when he went in? He said Iraqi oil would pay for the reconstruction of Iraq. He did. And look at what we have spent on this war. We are going broke on this war. We are into it longer than we were in World War II.

We are looking at trillions of dollars at the end of the day in the actual cost of the war, the cost of the reconstruction, the cost of taking care of our beautiful, brave, courageous, and incomparable men and women who are coming home in desperate shape.

What happened to George Bush's promise? They stand up, we stand down. Well, I think they are standing up. Why are we not standing down? And why did the oil not work out? Why were we not able to pay for reconstruction from the price of the oil?

It is very simple: We have had a destabilization in the region because of the war, and that contributed to these high oil prices. What a disaster--a disaster, a disaster, a disaster.

We would have today, had we had the opportunity to move forward on our legislation, not only sent a signal which could have done something, we could have investigated these companies for the kinds of illegal actions I believe some of them are taking. We could have gone after companies and countries for collusion. We could have gone after these excess profits and said: Look, we want everyone to do well, but let's have some fairness. I will tell you, the American people are not going to stand for it.

So we have had a very interesting few days. And my friend, the ranking member from Oklahoma, says how he is so excited. Friday was his best day--his best day--his best day--when a majority of the Senate said, yes, let's take up global warming legislation, and he opposed it.

His days are numbered on this point. All we need is six more Senators who are different than the many on the other side, and we are going to get that. People want this. We know 89 percent of the people want us to address global warming.

When we do it in the right way, we will send a signal that America is ready to lead. America is ready to work with the world so that we get off of foreign oil. We are not dependent on countries we do not want to be dependent on; we are not dependent on big companies that can care less about our families. They do not care one whit about our families. The executives are making millions and millions and millions of dollars every year on salaries, on bonuses, on expense accounts.

Well, the average family in America is struggling. So I hope the American people are watching. Last week we had a monumental vote, the high water mark. But they stopped us. Today, we had a good vote also, but they stopped us. They stopped us from doing anything about gas prices, and their answer is drill in a wildlife reserve which, at most, gives us 6 months of oil, and, by the way, destroys a gift from God that a Republican President said is not an answer.

That is feeding the addiction. Are there places in America we could drill? Yes, there are. But what we need is a whole different long-term strategy. And that long-term strategy and fighting global warming will throw us off this dependance. That will make us a leader in the world. That will create green jobs, technologies we can export, and we will have an economic renaissance in the Nation.

We will be the leader the world again when it comes to the environment and the good-paying jobs. In the short

term, we need to go after the speculators like we wanted to do today. We need to go after companies and countries who are colluding. These are the things we need to do.

We were ready, willing, and able to do it today. In closing I will say this: Whose side are you on? That is a question that every one of us has to ask ourselves. It ought to be: I am on the side of the American people, of America's families, of America's middle class, who is getting squeezed.

It ought not be: I am on the side of big oil. And my Republican friends on the other side again, on the vote last week and this vote, have chosen sides. And the American people will decide who they want to have leading the country.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I rise today to warn the American people. There is a Trojan horse riding across our country and onto the Senate floor. Its creators want everyone to believe that their climate tax proposal will clean the planet while causing minimum impact on our lives. They want us to believe that everyone will live happily ever after. However, this is not a legend or a fairy tale. Hiding inside this Trojan horse is a monster of a tax increase to pay for the largest expansion of the Federal Government since FDR's New Deal.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that this proposal will cost the American taxpayer $1.2 trillion dollars in taxes over just the first 10 years of this bill. And that tax bill is only expected to rise with time. With the hefty price tag and a huge expansion of bureaucracy, the legislation actually does very little, if anything, to improve the environment. The American people cannot afford to pay for this reckless attempt at energy policy. Instead, we should let American ingenuity lead the way toward exploration of American energy, expansion of renewable energy, and increased conservation.

This Climate Tax bill imposes a cap on greenhouse gas emissions that can be released into the environment by certain businesses, and this cap will gradually reduce every year until 2050. The bill creates allowances that gives companies the right to emit specific amounts of these greenhouse gases.

Some of the allowances will be distributed for free to various entities. The rest of the allowances will be auctioned to the highest bidder. These allowances can then be sold, traded, or transferred. The cost incurred by businesses to obtain these allowances will be passed on to consumers, hitting low-income households the hardest. But before we talk about the revenue windfall for the Government and about the people celebrating this legislation, let's discuss the victims.

First and foremost, this Climate Tax bill will cost our economy and our working families greatly. Restricting carbon dioxide emissions drives our energy supply down. Just as the bill hopes to do, the price of energy would increase. With gasoline prices already over 4 dollars a gallon and predicted to continue rising, we will all be hurting.

According to the EPA, this bill will increase the price of gas by at least 53 cents a gallon. 53 cents. In my home State of Nevada, this would translate currently into about $4.68 a gallon at today's average price for regular gasoline. And gas prices aren't the only thing that will go up. Electricity bills will increase by 44 percent or more.

And the cost to our overall economy would be devastating. By 2030, the annual loss to the United States' gross domestic product could reach nearly a trillion dollars. The proposal is called America's Climate Security Act, but with millions of jobs being destroyed because of this bill, not many Americans are going to be feeling secure. Many of the jobs lost are going to be in the manufacturing and mining industries that support so many of our smaller and rural communities. These valuable jobs will be forced to move overseas to countries like China and India, where companies will continue to emit greenhouse gases freely and without constraint. In case you haven't noticed, we all occupy the same big greenhouse--the planet Earth. So Americans lose their jobs, but our air on our planet is still polluted.

In fact, this bill makes such a minor impact on the worldwide greenhouse gas emissions that any reduction in the United States is swallowed up by the uncontrolled and rapidly growing emissions of China, India, and other developing nations.

If emissions continue to increase in these countries, the problems resulting from the global warming predicted by many scientists may still occur.

It just does not make sense for us to dramatically restrict our greenhouse gas emissions if China and India do not do the same.

If this bill isn't good for our families, our economy, our workers or our environment, who is it good for? The special interests and Washington lobbyists. By auctioning off carbon emission allowances and giving away even more for free, there will be more than $6 trillion dollars worth of allowances and offsets and funds to dole out to a hungry and a fierce pack of special interests. It's being called ``environmental pork,'' and the wolves are going to be ready to pounce. Hundreds of billions of dollars of that pork won't even stay here in America. Instead, it will be given away to foreign governments and companies.

So do we stand by as the proponents trot around this plan that means new taxes, higher gas prices, higher electricity bills, and more bureaucracy? In fact, the only thing this proposal reduces are the jobs of hard-working Americans and our standard of living.

Now, don't get me wrong, we absolutely need comprehensive energy reform. Americans are hurting at the pump and their budgets are being busted by rising cooling and heating bills. As a Nation, we are too dependent on Middle Eastern oil--a resource that is too often in the hands of brutal dictatorships.

But as is often the case in our Nation's history, we must look forward to a policy that unleashes the innovative spirit of Americans, takes a commonsense approach to our challenges, and rallies everyone to the cause.

We do this by encouraging conservation, efficiency, and renewable energy expansion through incentives, not by imposing unworkable mandates and impossible timelines.

As we spend time debating this legislation today, crucial tax credits that encourage innovation in solar, geothermal, wind, hydropower, and other alternative energy technologies are scheduled to expire. America's energy security needs those tax credits, and Congress should act to extend them immediately without offsets. The Senate

took an important step toward that objective by voting 88 to 8--to include the bipartisan Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act, which I sponsored as part of the Senate-passed housing bill. Now the House must act so we can send a bill to the President that can be signed into law as soon as possible.

With exciting energy technology on the horizon, we can't afford to let these tax credits expire. In Nevada, some innovative projects have already begun harnessing the power of the Sun and to provide energy to our residents.

Nevada Solar One in Boulder City is one of the largest capacity solar plants built in the world and generates enough electricity to power at least 14,000 households a year.

Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas has the Nation's biggest photovoltaic solar power system, which supplies 30 percent of the energy needs at that base.

Henderson has Nevada's first solar home community, where each home has a rooftop solar electric system that generates 4,400 kilowatts hours per year. And late last year, Ausra, Inc., selected Las Vegas as the site of the first U.S. manufacturing plant for solar thermal power systems.

The world's largest geothermal power producer is headquartered in Reno.

And Nevada is home to the only associate degree program in the Nation in energy efficiency.

This is the innovative spirit that has powered American progress for centuries and will continue to drive us toward energy security for the 21st century and beyond. Renewable energy is a large part of that security, and my renewable energy bill encourages further investment in all these technological advances.

I believe that energy efficiency is the key to increasing conservation of our nation's energy resources. For this reason, my bipartisan Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act contains a number of meaningful incentives to put us on the path to greater energy efficiency and independence. My bill encourages Americans to make energy efficiency improvements to their homes and businesses. This bill also encourages appliance manufacturers to produce more energy- efficient appliances.

But we also need to grow America's energy supply so that our economy and our wallets are not in the hands of unpredictable and unyielding hostile nations. What can we do? We can open a new frontier in American energy. I'm talking about responsible exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, recoverable oil in deep-sea resources, opportunities with oil shale, a new era of nuclear energy, and a push toward clean coal.

I know these projects are controversial. When I first started considering exploration of ANWR, I had serious concerns. Proponents and opponents have been very vocal on this issue. I sought out neutral information so that I could make an informed decision. When you really get to the bottom of the debate over ANWR, you learn a few things.

Exploration of ANWR, which would not impact habitat and wildlife, would be limited to a tiny area, roughly the size of a postage stamp on a football field. With such a limited environmental impact, the benefit would be great. ANWR could generate more than 10 billion barrels of oil, enough to replace decades' worth of oil imports from Saudi Arabia. ANWR alone could save the United States $40 billion dollars annually in money now spent buying oil from overseas. It would also create hundreds of thousands of jobs. Thirteen years ago, President Clinton vetoed legislation that would have opened ANWR for exploration. If he had signed it into law instead, 1 million barrels of domestic oil would be flowing into the United States every single day.

This is American oil that would create American jobs. I'd say that is a much better investment than filling the coffers of countries that despise America and use our money to further that hate.

And we can access more American energy through deep-sea exploration in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. This doesn't mean we set up oil rigs on our beaches and our shores. Development would take place at least 50 miles offshore, well beyond the visibility from land and at the discretion of coastal State Governors. Again, with very limited environmental impact, the benefit would be great.

There are about 8\1/2\ billion barrels of recoverable oil and 29.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas available through such deep-sea exploration.

Oil shale is another promising supply of American energy that could make us more self-reliant and less dependent on Middle Eastern oil. Oil shale can be mined and processed to generate oil. By far the largest deposits of oil shale in the world are found in the United States in the Green River Formation, which includes portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. If we estimate there are about 1.8 trillion barrels of oil from oil shale in the Green River Formation, it is three times greater than the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. It is also important to note that more than 70 percent of oil shale acreage in the Green River Formation is under federally owned land. Another positive attribute of oil shale resources.

America has more than a 230-year supply also of coal. Making us the Saudi Arabia of coal. It would be irresponsible for us to ignore this valuable resource that is abundant and affordable. With the progress being made in clean coal technology, we need coal to balance our energy portfolio and make us less dependent on Middle Eastern oil.

Another energy supply that we can take advantage of right here on American soil is nuclear energy. America was once the leader in this technology, but we are so far behind today that if we don't make drastic changes in our policy, we may never catch up.

Nuclear energy is clean and safe. It causes no air pollution, no water pollution, and no ground pollution. Nuclear energy in the United States has never caused a single injury or death. Unfortunately, only 20 percent of our electricity is coming from nuclear reactors. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it?

We have several challenges when it comes to nuclear energy. President Carter outlawed nuclear recycling back in 1977. Another terrible blow came with the requirement that all radioactive byproducts be disposed of in a nuclear waste repository. Today, Britain, France, and Russia are recycling their nuclear waste, negating the need for a controversial repository, like Yucca Mountain. France has actually used nuclear power to produce 80 percent of its electricity for the last 25 years. France also manages to store all its high-level nuclear waste in a single room.

On the other hand, lawmakers in the United States have been throwing billions of dollars at a mountain in Nevada that is unsafe and unfit for nuclear waste storage. And why on Earth would we bury material that could be recycled into more energy? I also believe we must create incentives for the private sector to tackle the challenge of spent fuel storage. We know that Yucca mountain is not an option. For this reason, I plan to introduce a bill to establish monetary prizes for achievements in the research, development, demonstration, and commercial application of spent fuel storage alternatives. In the past, prized competitions have been very effective ways of encouraging creative solutions to address difficult technological challenges.

Technology has led to tremendous progress when it comes to nuclear energy, coal, and many other energy fronts. As ranking member of the Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Innovation, I have had the opportunity to delve into the latest advances, and they are exciting. I can tell you technology and innovation will be keys to overcoming our energy challenges into the future. No other single road--renewable energy, conservation, domestic supply--can get us there. But technology, together with these American energy resources, will help lift us from the control of unconscionable nations.

These are the answers to our energy challenges, not some ill- conceived fantasy legislation called America's Climate Security Act, that will only drive us into greater energy insecurity. We can, however, learn from history and if we open this Trojan horse, we shouldn't be surprised to be engulfed by hidden tax hikes, $5 dollar-a- gallon gasoline, and an army of new Washington bureaucrats.

Instead, let us put our resources into American ingenuity. The innovation that has always come out of our inventors, scientists, and entrepreneurs will fuel our quest for energy security in the 21st century.

Ronald Reagan once said:

Preservation of our environment is not liberal or

conservative challenge, it's common sense.

We need to come together to address this issue because it impacts every facet of our lives. I know that we can be champions of a commonsense energy policy that is environmentally responsible as well as economically responsible. Let's not look back on another 13 years and wish we had acted today. The price for inaction is clearly too steep.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the debate time on the motion to proceed to S. 3044 be divided in blocks of 30 minutes for the next 2 hours, with the majority controlling the first 30 minutes and the Republicans controlling the next 30 minutes, and so on; that at the expiration of the 2 hours debate time be limited to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I rise today to lend my strong support to the Renewable Energy and Jobs Creation Act. I wish to applaud the incredibly hard work that was put into this package by the Finance Committee and particularly Chairman Baucus. I also wish to congratulate our counterparts in the House Ways and Means Committee for their efforts in putting together this important piece of legislation.

I am so very disappointed--as we tried early this morning--that our friends on the other side of the aisle chose to block progress on this bill. It would have provided much needed tax relief to individual taxpayers and to businesses alike. I don't know about other Senators, but when I travel home people look to me and say: What are you doing to help us with this economy? We are paying $4 a gallon for gasoline to get to our jobs, to get to school, to get to all of the things we need to tend to. We are concerned about the jobs we have lost in our State. We are concerned about the increase in unemployment. We have to do something about this economy. We have to do something about stimulating the economy of our country to grow on behalf of all of the millions of Americans out there who need us to help them.

This bill on which we were trying to proceed this morning could have done just that. It could have provided just the stimulus we needed to jump-start our economy. It would have been a good start. I think it is particularly frustrating not to be able to move on it in light of all of our current economic downturns. Taxpayers need this relief and they need it right now. We need to provide them every opportunity to keep this economy turning.

One of the things I think that comes from our businesses and individuals across my State--and certainly across this country--is the concern of the unknown. We try to create in our Tax Code the types of incentives that will incentivize different cultural activities, such as the purchasing of a home and home ownership, but we also want to incentivize businesses to be able to grow and be competitive. If they don't know they are going to have that same tax treatment for more than 6 months, or in 6 months it is going to expire, how are they going to be able to make the reasonable business decisions to take the capital, which right now is very hard to come by, and invest in certain areas of their industry, to grow those jobs, and to grow those businesses that are out there in this great country?

This package would have done just that. It provides businesses that make investments in research and development with a tax credit. We are falling behind every year. Other countries across the globe are working hard to provide the kind of research and development they need to move into new industries for multiple reasons: job creation, obviously, as well as our environment. Look at nations, such as Brazil, which have lessened their dependence on foreign oil from 80 percent to 11 percent. They have invested in research. They have invested in developing renewable fuels. We have to do that too. This is the bill that would have started us moving on that pathway to investing in companies that cannot only provide us the good types of industries that would help us clean our environment but would have created the jobs that would have made the difference.

It also encourages infrastructure investment. One of the ways it does that is through the extension of the short-line rail credit which provides an incentive for the maintenance and expansion of our short line rail systems. When you come from a rural State as I do--we are very fortunate to have the major lines that come through our State to reach out to all of those small communities where we desperately need to create jobs--we need those short line rails that can connect to the major main line rails to take our goods and our services all across this great country into the ports that will take it to other countries with which we can compete. We need to give them the incentive to invest in themselves.

In talking to one of my short line rails, they said to me: You wouldn't believe the number of jobs we could create, the investment we could make, if we just simply knew that Congress was supporting us, that they are going to help us with that incentive we have had in the past and we want to continue.

The unknown is very frightening to businesses in this world we live in and in the economic times in which we are living. The margins right now are so slim, limiting their ability to compete with other modes of transportation, but without a doubt they can provide a service to industries that are competing with industries across the globe.

This bill would have kept jobs at home through incentives to encourage domestic production of films, as one particular example. We are seeing our films being sent overseas and offshore because other countries are offering greater incentives. When you look at rural America, one of the strongest ways--and the quickest ways too--to see the investment and the revitalization of these small communities and their little downtown Main Streets is when somebody comes in to produce a film. They come in to produce a film, and they put a good picture on redoing that Main Street area. They bring in jobs; not only jobs with filmmaking, but they also come and eat in our cafes, and they use the shops and the other amenities that are there, keeping businesses at home.

But we can't do that if those film companies don't know that they are going to get good treatment, at least as good as they get in other countries. They have a bottom line to meet too. They take their film crews and all the dollars they are spending in making those films, and they go into other countries. We need to keep them at home. Those are good jobs for electricians and contractors, plumbers, and a whole host of other people.

I have a retired man at home, and they did a film--a made-for-TV movie--in my former Congressional District on the eastern side of my State, and he had two antique cars. You wouldn't have believed the difference it made in his life to be able to rent those two cars, those two antique cars to be featured in a vintage film and what it meant to his pocketbook as well.

The bill we have been trying to bring forward and were prevented this morning from bringing forward allows our financial services businesses to remain competitive globally through the extension of the subpart F exceptions for the active financing income. It provides access to capital to our communities that need it the most--our rural and low- income communities--through an extension of the new market tax credit, enabling our businesses to be viable overseas, and also making sure that the new and innovative businesses we want to see in our small and rural communities can actually happen, that they can be a part of this global community, and that they will have the same kind of advantages that other industries and other businesses in bigger parts of our Nation may have. All of these provisions provide a huge benefit to our American businesses and would most definitely help to stimulate our slowing economy.

In addition, the bill we were trying to bring up this morning provides very important relief for individual taxpayers. It includes tax cuts for college students, their families, and our teachers. With twin boys who are finishing

the sixth grade and starting the seventh grade, right now in my mind I have a tremendous appreciation for our teachers and what they give day in and day out, being able to offer them the opportunity of a Tax Code that is going to reward them for this incredible job they do.

I ask my colleagues--just as was my experience in the public schools of Arkansas--to look back and think of those wonderful teachers who have affected their lives. There are great teachers out there right now, and they need us because it is an institution and a business that, unfortunately, we are not seeing enough. We are hitting a brick wall. We are seeing more teachers who are retiring than we are seeing new teachers. What a great way for us in this country to show how much we believe in those teachers.

It includes an incentive for our senior citizens who want to take part in charitable giving. That is the IRA rollover. Every week I get a call in my office from the same gentleman. He took advantage of the IRA rollover to be able to give to his church. Every Sunday morning he goes to his Sunday school and talks to the people in his Sunday school class about this great opportunity of being able to give through these IRA rollovers. Well, all of his friends in his Sunday school class want to know if this is going to be the law. Can we do this? Should we do this? Is this something that is going to continue?

We can't even tell them that. We are being held back from doing so many productive things that would encourage not only individual involvement in being able to generate our economy and put the emphasis back on our economy from individuals, but also our businesses who need our help.

The bill also includes an AMT patch to ensure more middle-income taxpayers aren't going to be hit by the AMT this year.

It also has tremendous incentives for green jobs that we can grow in this country and looking at renewable fuels and all the many things we can do with those renewable fuels but also things such as wind--and we have had tremendous tornadoes in Arkansas--and wind mills, and energy from wind is not something we are really noted for doing. Our topography is not necessarily meant for that, like some other States. But we produce the blades for the windmills. That is hundreds of jobs in my State. Let me tell you, do you think those industries are going to want to continue to make the capital investment in the manufacturing of something that may or may not be used, because those other industries that are building and making that energy from wind don't know if they can depend on the tax credit--a tax incentive in the code that encourages the behavior of moving to a renewable energy source?

Mr. President, we have to move forward. We cannot keep standing here fighting and bickering over whether we are going to proceed to talk about these things. We have to move forward and talk about them.

Most important is an issue I have worked on for years which includes a provision very near and dear to my heart, and that is a patch to the refundable child tax credit, to ensure that thousands of hard-working low- income families aren't locked out of this credit. I wish to take a few minutes to explain the child tax credit provision, which I have worked on with my good friend and colleague, Olympia Snowe.

As some colleagues may be aware, to be eligible for the refundable child tax credit, working families must meet an income threshold. If they don't earn enough, they don't qualify for the credit. The problem is, some of our working parents are working full time, but they still don't earn enough to meet the current income threshold to qualify for this tax credit, much less to receive a meaningful refund from it.

When first enacted, the income threshold for the refundable child tax credit was set at $10,000. The threshold is indexed for inflation and thus has increased every year. For 2008, it is going to be $12,050. Unfortunately, as many of us are aware, wages are not increasing at that same pace. For example, a single mother who earns the current minimum wage and works a 35-hour-a-week job, 50 weeks out of the year, fails to qualify for the refundable portion of the child tax credit. Even after the minimum wage increases next month, that mother still will not meet the income threshold.

That is what we want to encourage. We want to encourage people to work, to be able to change the cycle of poverty that exists for welfare today. We want to make sure individuals are encouraged to go to work, so that they can still take care of their children. Our children are our greatest resource. Why would parents who want to care for their kids not want to incentivize that.

It is absolutely wrong to provide this credit to some hard-working Americans while leaving others behind. The single working parent who is stocking shelves in a local grocery score is every bit as deserving as the teacher, accountant, or insurance salesman who qualifies for the credit in its current form. It is imperative that we address this inequity, and we must ensure our Tax Code works for all Americans, especially those working parents who are forced to get by on minimum wage.

I am extremely frustrated that our friends across the aisle chose to block action on this bill. I hope that we will reconsider this position, that we will look at the important value in all of these pieces of this legislation, and that we will come back again and go back to the drawing board and figure out how we can make this bill a reality.

Again, I applaud our committee chairman for putting this package together and trying to move it through the Senate in a timely fashion. There is absolutely no reason we should not see this package. It is a commonsense package. It makes sense for everybody concerned. We owe it to our American businesses that are trying to remain competitive. We owe it to our teachers, students, and the families paying college tuition. We owe it to our communities that are desperately in need of infrastructure and jobs. We owe it to our working families with children. No one should stand in the way of this package that truly will bring relief to so many Americans.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, we have had some unusual developments in the Senate in recent days. No sooner had the majority in the Senate moved to the cap-and-trade bill, for which they were demanding the debate be limited and utilizing a procedure by the Democratic majority leader to basically fill the tree, which eliminates free debate of amendments on the bill--this was a piece of legislation that was claimed to be one of the most important to be offered in the Senate.

In the early 1990s, when the clean air act amendments were passed, 131 amendments were disposed of during that debate, and it took 5 weeks on the floor. This bill has more far-reaching and pernicious ramifications than the Clean Air Act Amendments. Yet they were going to end the debate and begun to spin the issue as if the Republicans were filibustering the bill. That is what they said repeatedly: Republicans were filibustering the bill. But in truth we wished to talk about the bill. We asked to be able to do so and use the 30 hours which Senate rules allow to discuss the legislation, and our request was treated with great horror, as if this were somehow a plan to reject a discussion of the legislation.

Well, no sooner had we done that and gotten through that, and the majority leader filled the tree to limit real amendments on the bill-- amendments he did not approve--then, the majority leader came forward and moved to move off the bill, to move away from cap and trade--the centerpiece of their philosophy about what is happening in energy in America today--and he wanted to move to their Energy bill, which I think can legitimately be referred to, in utilizing senatorial license, as a no-energy bill. I will talk about that in a minute.

It is not an energy bill. It is not going to produce any energy. It is weak to a degree that is breathtaking. It is not what the American people are upset about. It would not come close to helping us deal with the serious problems we face.

So I would say, this is a weird kind of event here. The no-energy bill I understand they would like to move to--and wanted to move to-- would authorize the U.S. Government to sue OPEC nations that are withholding and reducing supplies of oil on the world market in the way we would sue an American company that was manipulating the market by withholding products or otherwise colluding to fix prices. Now, that is exactly what OPEC is doing. What they are doing is unacceptable, and it needs sustained, relentless leadership by this administration and this Congress to stand up to OPEC and confront that because they are effectively raising the price of oil by restricting supply. I understand other nations are seeing declines in production as well, including Mexico and Russia. So we are creating shortages in the marketplace, allowing people to make large amounts of money-- corporations and others--but the people who are primarily making the money are oil-producing nations. Go look at the skyscrapers they are building in the desert, the billions and billions of dollars they are receiving from us as a result of these high prices, as a result of tripling the price of oil on the world marketplace from the forties just a couple years ago to now over $130 a barrel. So you were getting $40 for each barrel of oil one year, and a couple years later you are now getting $130 for each barrel in your small country. The bigger countries, of course, make more money because they produce and sell more oil.

We are sending overseas each year from our Nation $500 billion a year to purchase the oil that comes into our country. It is half the trade deficit we have--half of it--just to purchase this oil. It is not getting better, and we have no policy before us to legitimately do something about this other than the one Senator Domenici and Senator McConnell and the Republican leadership offered a few weeks ago, which was rejected.

Let me explain what this no-energy bill and its NOPEC provision would do. We would sue OPEC nations for refusing to increase their production. Now, how you get jurisdiction over a sovereign nation--the Presiding Officer, a former attorney general, as I have been in a previous life, knows jurisdiction may sound like a little thing. It is not such a little thing to get jurisdiction over a sovereign nation to order them to produce more oil out of their ground.

But I would submit to you, the idea is so weak and so implausible and so unenforceable that it would be a laughable thing if it were not so serious because we do have a problem with OPEC nations and others who are fixing the price of oil.

See, oil production is an essential part, I would suggest--and I think most any court would conclude--of sovereignty. A sovereign nation can produce as much of its oil as it wants to produce. You cannot make them produce more oil because you would like them to. They are not like an American corporation, subject to the jurisdiction of the court. Part of the protections of the laws of America, they become subject to lawsuits--but not a foreign nation.

We do not want them suing us to say: You ought to open ANWR--or perhaps we might. Open Alaska. Open offshore. Now, that has, perhaps, a lawsuit that might have some merit. Or maybe sue the Congress for voting not to produce more oil and gas off our shores over the years. At least you could get jurisdiction over Congress.

So this is not a serious response, I will say to you. It is not.

Now, in addition, they propose in this Energy bill to tax the oil companies, but taxing the oil companies will not produce more energy. You can take this to the bank. It is a concept of universal acceptance. When you tax something, you get less of it. What we need in this country is more energy, not less. We need more cleanly produced, clean American energy. That is what we need more of. That is what people are complaining to me about.

When I go back home and talk to my constituents, they are upset. They are outraged. According to the national reports that came out yesterday, the people in my home county in Alabama--the citizens there--pay a larger percentage of their income to buy gasoline than any other county in America. It is because they are rural, they have low wages. They do not compete with the big-city wages, and they have to travel so far to work.

That is a very painful thing. It brings it home to me personally. I filled up our smaller car this weekend, and it cost $61. People have larger cars. They bought them years ago. They cannot just go out and sell their SUV today--what price would they get?--sell it so they could buy some Prius. Where are they going to get the money to do that? We would like them to. We would like them to move to those kinds of vehicles in the future, but it is not possible today.

So the ``masters of the universe'' who think we can pass a bill and allow the price of energy to be exceedingly high and that the people will adjust their habits so they can reduce the price of oil, are not in the real world. Let's get with it.

I tell you, my constituents are unhappy, and they want us to do something to confront, in a realistic way, the surge of prices that are impacting their budgets very seriously. They also understand these rising prices that are taking money out of their budget are also impacting the businesses they deal with and see and, perhaps, work for and it is making us less competitive in the

world marketplace and it places us in a position to see our economy sink in general and it puts at risk their job. It affects how many hours they might work a week and whether they can get overtime or whether they get a bonus. That is what people are worried about.

So what do we have before us? A cap-and-trade bill that is guaranteed, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, to drive up the cost of gasoline $1.40 a gallon to meet Kyoto-type agreements we did not sign and we have not approved. That is not what people are telling me they want us to do. They want us to produce more clean American energy.

Well, I hate to be partisan about this, but I think we need to talk about how we got here, what happened in this country to get us in as bad a shape as we are. The trends have not been good in terms of a rising demand for oil and energy and a not-rising-so-fast supply, but there are things we could and should have done and some things we did 2 years ago that are being reversed.

In 2005, for example, this Congress, when Senator Pete Domenici chaired the Energy Committee, recognized the potential of oil shale in the Energy Policy Act that became law. The act identified oil from the shale rock out in the West as a strategically important asset and called for its development. Yet, last year, the Democratic-controlled Congress, led by the House of Representatives, put in language that blocked and reversed the development of this abundant resource despite the surging price of oil and gasoline.

In the recently passed Energy Independence and Security Act, the House-sponsored section 526 prohibits any Federal agency from contracting to procure any alternative or synthetic fuel that produces greater life cycle greenhouse gas emissions than those produced from traditional fuels. This language prohibits the Federal Government from contracting to produce and use oil shale and coal-to-liquids. This provision is misguided and should be repealed immediately.

Now, let me tell my colleagues--I know the Presiding Officer is familiar with a number of these issues--a representative of U.S. Air Force was in my office a few weeks ago discussing a contract they had with a company that would take coal--we have 250 years of coal in America. It is an American energy source. You can heat that coal and off comes a gas which can be converted through a known and proven process to a liquid, and they were going to use it in their airplanes to fly U.S. aircraft with it. But the Air Force representative told me the language in section 526 had blocked them. Coal-to-liquids derived fuel is a fabulously clean fuel. It actually cleans the engine, so when you use this fuel, the pollutants and waste products have been taken out, and it is a very pure fuel they burn, and the Air Force was expecting to be able to bring this fuel into the U.S. Department of Defense for around $85 a barrel. That is well below the more-than-$130 a barrel cost that is on the world marketplace today, and it is a source of energy that does not leave the U.S. Air Force dependent on foreign sources of oil to fuel our Nation's aircraft in the defense of America. But this effort has been blocked by the Democratic majority.

The 2005 Energy Policy Act, which Senator Domenici led when he was chairman of the Energy Committee, also directed the Bureau of Land Management to lease Federal lands for oil shale research projects. There are approximately 1.8 trillion barrels of oil in oil shale rock, but it is hard to get out. It is not easy to get out. It takes some effort to produce that, but some major companies are prepared to invest billions of dollars to prove that it can be brought out well below the current world price of oil. I would have thought we would have been delighted to see this go forward--at least in an experimental way--and see how that would work out. But oh, no. This Congress, again with a Democratic majority, acted to block the development and the carrying out of this provision that would promote oil shale. The Senate- sponsored section 433 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act--this was the monumental appropriations bill that was about this thick. They slipped language in, in conference, to take care of that. It would prohibit funds from being used to implement any leasing program directed to the Bureau of Land Management, as had been approved in 2005, effectively stopping this program.

I will just say that is frustrating. We are sort of in a manner of disconnect here to an extraordinary degree. The American people want us to do something. Oil shale: Well, it is not going to be easy, but this is not a dreamland idea. It absolutely can work. One company is using the same technology that was used by the oil sands industry in Canada that has proven to be quite commercially feasible. We need to be testing this because 1.8 trillion barrels of oil in oil shale would be enough for 100 years of oil--actually, 200 years of oil at our current rate. So oil shale, if we could make that breakthrough, would make us completely independent of foreign oil. We have huge reserves offshore, as the Senator from Louisiana knows. He is out there. He is in Louisiana, and he sees the production that survived Hurricane Katrina, and as a result, we were able to get those systems back on line with no oil spills or damage to the environment.

I thank the Chair for letting me share this frustration. I don't know where we are going now, but I know one thing: This Congress does not need to leave this energy debate without creating some policies that allow for more production of clean American energy. We can do that. We are going to continue using oil and gas for many years to come. Why in the world would we want 60-plus percent of it to be foreign oil? Why wouldn't we want to at least produce what we can at home--and really we can produce quite a lot at home. It is very frustrating that attempts to do that have been blocked by persons whose thinking, I believe, on this issue is confused and not in the public interest.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, in 2003, I made my maiden floor speech on hunger issues and how we as a Nation can tackle them. I have continued my strongest efforts to raise awareness that 1 in 10 U.S. households is affected by hunger and to advance legislation and programs that aid the hungry.

Today is Hunger Awareness Day, and as I have in years past, I welcome the opportunity to speak about the food insecurity problems that persist throughout this country and the world. Most importantly, I come to offer ideas and invigorate the discussion about solutions.

With food and energy prices on the rise, we must be particularly cognizant of the hungry. Not only do hard economic times generate a greater need for food assistance, but the very agencies and organizations that provide assistance are trying to meet growing demands while food and gas grow more expensive.

In the past few months, I have read numerous stories in North Carolina newspapers about soup kitchens and food banks struggling to serve all those in need and even schools strapped for cash to pay for their lunch programs.

For example, last weekend, the Asheville Citizen-Times ran a letter to the editor from MANNA FoodBank which said:

In 2006, we estimated that 115,500 different North

Carolinians sought emergency food aid from MANNA partner

agencies in a single year--one in six of our neighbors.

However, that data has rapidly become outdated by shifting

economic tides. Surging energy and food prices combined with

stagnant economic growth have dramatically increased the

ranks of those seeking help from food banks.

In the May 29, 2008 Raleigh News & Observer, David Reese, the chief operating officer for food recovery and distribution at the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, is quoted as saying:

A lot of people don't realize or don't take into account

the dramatic effect that high fuel prices have, that trickle-

down effect. . . . It doesn't only affect the regular

consumer who is driving to the store. It also affects the

distributor, also affects the retailer and then the end

result, it affects us as a food-rescue organization.

Unfortunately, we know too well high food prices and hunger problems are not unique to North Carolina or even just to the United States. Indeed, as food prices continue to soar, the impacts are felt around the globe, especially among the poor in developing nations. The increase in food costs has led to international shortfalls of food supplies, resulting in food riots and civil unrest in many regions. In fact, the World Bank recently estimated that more than 100 million people are being pushed into poverty as a result of the escalation of food prices.

Congress needs to take action to ensure that policies are helping, not hurting, global food supply. For example, I believe we must reconsider mandating the use of certain biofuels which is, in part, why food prices are escalating. Last month, I joined several of my colleagues in introducing legislation to freeze the corn-based ethanol mandate at this year's level, preventing the Environmental Protection Agency from increasing the corn-based ethanol mandate included in the Energy Act of 2007 to the mandated 15 billion gallons. Instead, my legislation maintains the current level at 9 billion gallons.

During consideration of the 2007 Energy bill, I tried to include a safeguard in the renewable fuel standard which would have helped prevent a situation such as we face today. Mandates have led to more than 25 percent of America's corn crop being diverted to make fuel. In the last 2 years, the price of corn has nearly tripled, thereby resulting in feed price increases that impact the cost of items such as milk, eggs, and meat. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, food inflation rose by 4.9 percent last year, and studies suggest the cost of food will continue to escalate over the next few years.

While we continue to push for efforts to address rising food prices, we can celebrate some hard-fought victories in the recently passed farm bill that will support healthy foods in schools and health food banks, community kitchens, and other organizations that feed the hungry. For instance, I am pleased the farm bill's nutrition title expands the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program to all 50 States. In North Carolina, nearly 1.4 million children are enrolled in this program, which helps schools purchase locally farmed fruits and vegetables to provide healthy meals and fight childhood obesity. The bill also includes $1.25 billion for commodity purchases for food banks, including $50 million for 2008 to immediately address shortages at these organizations.

The farm bill also implements the Food Employment Empowerment and Development Program, the FEED Program, which I worked on with my colleagues Senators Frank Lautenberg and Blanche Lincoln. This program helps fight hunger by combining food rescue with job training and, thus, teaching unemployed and homeless adults the skills needed to work in the food service industry. It is a wonderful program.

Around the corner from the U.S. Capitol, students are hard at work in the DC Central Kitchen's culinary job-training class. Earlier today, I visited the kitchen which has a model FEED-type program that began in 1990. It is always a privilege to visit the kitchen and meet with individuals who faced adversity but who are now on track for a career in the food service industry. I look forward to the FEED Act supporting numerous similar programs, such as the Community Culinary School in Charlotte, NC, and others around the Nation.

In my ongoing efforts to stamp out hunger, today I am joining my colleague, Senator John Kerry, to introduce legislation requiring a White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health to be held by the end of 2010. It has been nearly 40 years since the first and only White House summit reviewed national nutrition policy. I actually helped organize that conference while working for the White House Office of Consumer Affairs.

Positive developments and effective policies came out of those discussions. With more than 35 million Americans today facing food insecurity issues, it is high time we make ending hunger and improving health and nutrition national priorities. I encourage my colleagues to sign on to my bill.

This week, I also plan to offer an amendment to the tax extenders bill that addresses four tax issues which will encourage food donations and volunteering to help the hungry. This package was included in the Senate-passed farm bill but, unfortunately, was removed in conference. It will extend for 2 years a provision from the Pension Protection Act that allows any taxpayer to claim an enhanced deduction for donations of food. It allows restaurants to qualify for this deduction. It simplifies the rules that allow farmers and ranchers to take advantage of this deduction for donating their products. And it allows volunteers to receive a tax deduction for mileage incurred while transporting food donations.

Along these lines, I also have a bill that will provide a tax credit for the cost of transporting food to assist the hunger relief efforts of charitable organizations. The hunger relief trucking tax credit will benefit groups such as the Society of St. Andrew, which helps recover food for the needy. The society is very active in the area of gleaning, Mr. President, where excess crops that would otherwise be thrown out are taken from farms, packinghouses, and warehouses, and distributed to the needy. Each year in this country, 696 billion pounds of good, nutritious food is left over or thrown away. Gleaning helps eliminate this waste. It helps the farmer because he doesn't have to haul off or plow under crops that don't meet exact specifications of grocery chains, and it helps the hungry by giving them nutritious fresh foods. It has been a joy to glean fields in North Carolina with the society's dedicated volunteers.

In addition to working closely with the Society of St. Andrew, I have been fortunate to meet with a number of organizations that are doing tremendous work to combat hunger in North Carolina--from our food banks to Meals on Wheels and others. These organizations rely on dedicated staff and volunteers who truly live by the ideal of helping others in their time of need.

Before I close, let me share an experience I had as president of the American Red Cross. I visited Somalia during the heart-wrenching famine. In Baidoa, I came across a little boy lying under a gunnysack, and I thought he was dead. His brother pulled back that gunnysack and sat his little brother up, and I could see that he was severely malnourished. There was no way that he could eat the rice and beans that were in a bowl there beside him, and so I asked for camel's milk to feed him. And as I put my arm around that little boy to lift that cup to his mouth, it was incredible, the feeling of the little bones almost piercing through his flesh. It is something I will never forget. That is when the horror of starvation becomes real, when you can touch it.

Since I encountered that little boy in Somalia so many years ago, I have been determined to do everything in my power to fight hunger, not just at home but also internationally. For example, I have been proud to work with Senator Dick Durbin in promoting the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program. It has reduced hunger among school-aged children and improved literacy and primary education enrollment in areas where conflict, hunger, poverty, and HIV/AIDS are prevalent.

While tackling hunger beyond our borders is a greater challenge, in the United States, the land of plenty, no American--no American--should wake up wondering whether he or she will have enough to eat today. I firmly believe with dedicated organizations, caring citizens, and a focused government working together, ending hunger in America is certainly a victory within reach.