A bill to amend the Commodity Exchange Act to require energy commodities to be traded only on regulated markets, and for other purposes.

Madam President, I do support the initiative of the Senator from Alabama. I think what he has said about the consequences and effects of what he is doing are absolutely correct. At the appropriate time, with the permission of the Senator from Indiana, and in the context of a unanimous consent agreement here, we would be prepared to accept the amendment. But we are not quite there yet.

While I have the floor, if I could say for the benefit of my colleagues and their staffs who are listening as to the status of where we are, the Senator from Indiana and I think we are very close to the wrapping up of an entire unanimous consent agreement which would allow us to have no more than four votes, including final passage--at least that is the expectation--and that we would be able to do that sometime within the next 2 hours, and we would be out of here relatively early.

On that point, I thank all the Senators who have had amendments for their cooperation in moving this along, I think a great deal more rapidly than anybody anticipated, at least more rapidly than I anticipated we would be able to do.

To conclude where I began, I say to the Senator from Alabama, I think his initiative is first rate. Everything he says about the consequences of what he is talking about is absolutely accurate, as best I know the situation.

In the context of a wrap-up unanimous consent agreement, we will be able to handle all of this. So that is the intention, I say to the Senator.

I am told in the meantime if and when the Senator from Alabama yields the floor, the Senator from Florida is looking to proceed as in morning business for some relatively short period of time.

Amendment No. 5086

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be set aside, and on behalf of Senator Vitter, I send to the desk an amendment to the Vitter amendment, and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Madam President, I wish to correct what I said. I said I send to the desk an amendment to the Vitter amendment. I send the Vitter amendment to the desk, and I ask unanimous consent that we move to its immediate consideration.

Madam President, for the benefit of my colleagues, I believe we are down to three amendments. As my grandfather would say, God willing and the creek not rising, we will get a UC that can wrap this up pretty quickly.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, for the benefit of my colleagues, I am going to propound, very shortly, two unanimous consent requests relative to the legislation. I wanted to make sure Senator Lugar has copies of them.

The first one relates to the Sessions amendment. Then the second relates to wrapping up the entirety of the bill, all remaining amendments. With the Senator's permission, I will proceed.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for Senator Sessions to substitute an amendment on promoting blood safety for the amendment he currently has listed under the agreement with respect to S. 2731, with no second-degree amendments in order to the amendment; that the Sessions amendment be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that the Sessions amendment on the list be deleted, and that no point of order be in order to the bill based on section 305.

Madam President, that means the Sessions amendment is now agreed to; is that correct?

Madam President, I send the amendment to the desk.

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

Madam President, I urge passage of the amendment by voice vote.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that no further amendments be in order to S. 2731; that the Senate then proceed to vote in relation to the pending amendments in the order listed below; that prior to each vote there be 4 minutes equally divided and controlled in the usual form; that after the first vote in the sequence, each succeeding vote be limited to 10 minutes each; that upon disposition of all of the amendments, and prior to voting on final passage of H.R. 5501, the House companion, there be 40 minutes of debate, with the time equally divided and controlled between the chair and ranking member; that upon the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate proceed to vote on passage of H.R. 5501, as amended, with any other provisions of the previous order remaining in effect.

The amendments in question are the Gregg amendment, No. 5081; the Kyl amendment, No. 5082; and the DeMint amendment, No. 5077.

Madam President, I believe we are looking for a unanimous consent to begin the first amendment in the series of votes at 5 o'clock.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order of the votes that was set out in the unanimous consent agreement begin at 5 o'clock, the first vote beginning at 5 o'clock.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I want the Senator to have the last word, so I would ask that he have another 15 seconds to respond to what I am going to say.

Let's get this straight. This is an authorization. This is not an appropriation. I understand the Senator's concern. But we may need to, in terms of rationally ramping up the expenditures of this money without wasting the $48 billion, be spending $11 or $12 billion in the fifth year.

His concern is that becomes the baseline for the next 5 years. We are not authorizing for the next 5 years. We are authorizing for this 5 years. All we are doing is authorizing.

So I would strongly urge us to vote against this amendment.

Mr. President, currently we are spending $6.3 billion a year. This amendment is based in part on the Congressional Budget Office report that assumes PEPFAR, tuberculosis, and malaria spending for fiscal 2009 will only be $1.5 billion. That false assumption stems from the fact that the Congressional Budget Office is evaluating this authorization act as if it were starting from zero. That is how they get the $35 billion. It is not starting from zero. It is starting from $6.3 billion. Slashing funding will require slashing targets set in this bill, including prevention of 12 million HIV infections; care for 12 million people, including 5 million orphans and vulnerable children; treatment of millions of people with AIDS, according to a formula that climbs as appropriations rise over time; and a major expansion of efforts to combat tuberculosis and malaria together which claim 6.3 million lives a year.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I yield myself 1 minute.

For the benefit of our colleagues, there is 40 minutes of debate equally divided, but it is not the intention of the majority to use that 40 minutes. For planning purposes, I do not think we will use more than 8 minutes.

I yield 5 minutes to my friend from Ohio, Senator Brown.

Madam President, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I wish to make clear in the Record that I have never had any trouble working with Tom Coburn. He is correct. We did work on this. He is one smart fellow. He knew a great deal about the substance of this legislation but also the financing of it. I wish to thank him and his staff for his cooperation and thank him for his compliment to our staffs on the committee. I share his view about them, but also it has always been a pleasure to work with him.

I yield 5 minutes of our time to the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kerry.

Madam President, I yield myself a couple of minutes. After final passage, I will go through the thank-yous that are robustly warranted to the staff and individuals and Senators who are still here serving, and some who are not serving here, who have laid the groundwork for us to get to this point.

In a small village in Otse, Botswana, there is a rural health clinic run by a retired nurse in her seventies. Their patient log is a simple, handwritten ledger. It lists in chronological order the patients who have come in to her for treatment. The ledger has several columns, including one where, if the patient died, there is a mark made in red ink.

On a visit to this clinic last summer by minority and majority staff, this nurse, I am told by our staff, held up this ledger that showed an array of red marks in the early part of this decade. Then, a few years ago, something drastic happened. The nurse explained, with great excitement, to our staffs:

Look, no red marks. The red marks have stopped.

There is one reason for that dramatic turn of events in this small village in Africa, and that is PEPFAR, which I think would more appropriately be named the ``President of the United States fund.'' But it is nonetheless called PEPFAR, which is confusing to people.

The bottom line is what the President of the United States of America, all the Senators, and others who have

not been mentioned today are about to do, began to change the life of that village.

In 2003, President Bush and this Congress launched the largest public health program in the history of the world. It is saving lives-- millions of them. The funerals that were a daily occurrence have been reduced in number, and millions of people around the world have been given hope.

We have to sustain and build on this progress, and that is what we are doing today. That is what we are about to vote on. This bill we are about to vote on will set the course for the next 5 years and, hopefully, beyond. I am confident that, with the hard work of our House counterparts, this bill we are going to pass today will, in fact, be moved very quickly and be sent to the President's desk for signature.

We set forth very ambitious targets for care, treatment, and prevention. We must do all three. We cannot treat our way out of this disease, but we have succeeded at treatment in a way that nobody ever envisaged when John Kerry, Russ Feingold, and others started talking about this a long time ago. Five years ago, when we stood on the floor, I don't think anybody thought that the treatment side of this ledger would be as successful as it has been. I expect and hope that we are going to continue to see this kind of progress.

There are a lot of people to thank. I will do that after we pass the bill. For the moment, I wish to thank the President of the United States, President George Bush. His decision to launch this initiative was bold, and it was unexpected. I believe historians will regard it as his single finest hour. That is not a backhanded compliment. It would be a fine hour under the tenure of any President of the United States of America.

I wish to thank--quite frankly, I don't do it often enough around here--the American people for their generosity. Let me say it again-- the generosity of the American people. Senator Kyl makes the point that we have serious needs here at home. Yes, the American people are overwhelmingly supporting what we are doing today, knowing the cost and knowing there will be tradeoffs. I also appreciate the hard work of thousands of men and women in our Government and of the governments of our foreign partners, and their partners in the private sector, who are working on the ground around the world and have made this possible.

I yield back the remainder of the time and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the bill was passed and to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I have refrained from thanking the people who need to be thanked on the incredible work that was done to get us to the point of such overwhelming passage on this legislation. I tell my colleagues that there are no more votes, so I want to make clear we are not holding anybody up here, but I want to take about 5 minutes to talk about the work done by our staffs and some of our predecessors in this body to produce the result we have today.

And I might add, way ahead of time Senator Lugar's staff and my staff have been coordinating this every step of the way with the House. So hopefully--God willing and the creek not rising--we are going to be able to produce something for the President's desk within a matter of days so that we are not going to have to go to conference.

There are a lot of people to thank, but let me start saying that this was a long time in coming.

The first bit of thanks, and I want to reiterate it again, goes to President Bush. I have been extremely critical of President Bush's foreign policy. I have been extremely critical of what I believe the damage his foreign policy has done to our image and/or standing in the world. But I must say the President of the United States has led us to this incredible moment, where this is the single largest effort on the part of any country in the history of the world to go out and literally save and extend the lives of tens of millions of people. This is a gigantic accomplishment. So first the credit should go to President Bush. Because, in fact, without his making it clear and at the very end of this process, making it clear--I am told to some of his Republican colleagues--how important this was, not merely to him but to the United States, this would have never happened. That is an unusual position for me to be in, but

credit should go where it is due, and credit is due to President Bush and his administration and the many people who have worked both in the White House and in the various Departments in order to get to this moment.

I also want to thank an extraordinary combination of people. It is presumptuous of me to say this, but the chemistry between the minority and majority staffs on the Foreign Relations Committee is extraordinary. I have had the great privilege of working with my colleague Senator Lugar for a long time. We have been working together for over 30 years. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a harsh word, a raised voice, a single solitary slight that ever has gone across the aisle between the Senator and me. There is no one in this body whose judgment on foreign policy I respect as much as this Senator. There is no one in the Congress, and quite frankly there is no one else in the country, whose judgment on matters relating to our national security and foreign policy I respect more, and I thank him. I thank him for his friendship and I also thank him in this specific case for his leadership and that of his staff.

I wish to express my personal appreciation to Shannon Smith. Shannon Smith was new to my staff. She came up on the Hill at a time where she was able to be the catalyst, along with a few other people I will name, to produce the result we have today. I can say to Shannon I am absolutely confident--absolutely confident--that if you do nothing else in your professional life than what you put together with Senator Lugar's staff today, you will have had a significant life, because very few people ever get put in a position where they arrive at a moment in history where they literally can change the path of people's lives in other parts of the world.

I know that sounds like hyperbole, but it is literally true. Few people get that opportunity. So you should relish it. You deserve it.

I also thank Brian McKeon of my staff, who has been with me since he was a kid out of Notre Dame. I guess it is now 20-some years, with a brief interlude where he went off to law school and clerked for the Federal Court and then came back as our legal counsel. I don't know anybody who knows his way around this body better than Brian does, and I don't know anybody who doesn't respect him. He is an incredible asset to have on this committee. And I should also credit Sherman Patrick, Steve Feldstein and Julie Baker on the staff of the Committee.

I would be remiss if I didn't say that it is hard on the Foreign Relations Committee--it is kind of like when Senator Lugar and I first got here. There was a unified staff. I mean literally when I came here, Senator Fulbright was the chairman and there was a unified staff. The chairman hired everybody, but he didn't hire anybody without the consultation and agreement of the minority. We have essentially arrived at the same place without having to go through that process.

There is Shellie Bressler, who has traveled the world with Shannon, went to those places. I am not being solicitous, Shellie, when I say you should understand that you made history. You helped make history.

People wonder whether we underpay the staff here. I say to the American people all the time, and the people of Delaware, and I mean it sincerely, the single best buy they get in everything they purchase is the incredible talent of the staff who work in this Congress and in the Federal Government. These people could go out and be making three and four times what they are now, but they are incredibly bright and dedicated, and Shellie, I am telling you, you will be able to tell your children and grandchildren and your great-grandchildren that you made something consequential happen.

I can say the same about Paul Foldi, who works for Senator Lugar. But I want to remind Senator Lugar, he used to work for me. He is a Delaware guy. Paul was actually foolish enough to help me when I tried the folly of attempting to get the nomination for President. I don't want to ruin his reputation. He has gone right since then. He is now working for a solid Republican. But Paul has been incredible. And Dan Diller has been as well.

I have managed many bills in my career, and have had some few successes, so I apologize, because I usually don't take this much time to talk about the staff, but this has been a staff-driven success and they deserve the attention and the recognition.

I also thank, in the Office of Legislative Counsel, Matt McGhie and Kevin Davis, whom I have not spoken to, but the staff has spoken to constantly and who worked tirelessly to prepare many drafts of this bill and numerous amendments that have been developed over the past several months.

In the other body, I also thank Peter Yeo and David Abramowitz and Pearl Alice-Marsh on the staff of Chairman Berman, as well as Chairman Berman. We are indebted to the House committee for striking the initial compromise that got us to this point, and we built on the House bill. We have consulted them regularly--I would guess many times a day, when I say regularly, in the last few weeks--in the hope that they will be able to approve the Senate-passed bill, which is my expectation.

Finally, in the administration, several people have devoted many hours, and maybe a lot more than that, moving this bill forward. In the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator, great credit goes to Ambassador Mark Dybul, a very talented public servant, who testified before our committee, and who has spent a lot of time with our staffs and helped design and implement the PEPFAR program and made several contributions to the compromises developed over the past few months to get us to the 80-plus vote. I am embarrassed to say I don't remember the actual count, but I think it was over 80 people who voted for this.

I thank, and his staff particularly, Myron Meche, and Tom Walsh, who contributed a great deal to this moment. Also, at the White House, Deb Fiddelke and David Boyer of the Office of Legislative Affairs have been critical in this process.

Most of all, I want to thank in absentia the two people after whom this bill is named. Tom Lantos was a friend of all of us, but he was a particular friend of mine. Tom Lantos was a very successful businessman, an economics professor teaching at San Francisco State University, advising a number of banks, as well as two major unions on their financial investments. I met him when I was a young Senator, and I asked him on a lark whether he would come and be my foreign policy and economic adviser, and he came and worked for me. He came and worked for me--although, knowing Tom, he never worked for anybody.

But Tom Lantos, with his great Hungarian charm--everyone says Ireland has a Blarney Stone. I am absolutely confident the Blarney Stone is only a chip of the stone that is somewhere buried in Lake Balaton, in Hungary.

Tom became a close friend. Annette and his entire family are close personal friends still. Tom's daughter came to work with me as well, an 18-year-old graduate of Yale Law School, who graduated from Yale with honors at age 18.

He was an incredible man who, after a terrible tragedy in Guyana, where the San Francisco Congressman was shot dead, went home, ran for that seat with my encouragement, and ultimately became the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

And Henry Hyde, with whom I had many disagreements philosophically but was always a gentleman, became a great friend of both Senator Lugar and myself. This is the Lantos-Hyde legislation. It is named after them.

I know some of my colleagues will sort of wonder whether I am going overboard, but I also want to thank, in absentia--and I will thank him through Dot Helms--Jesse Helms. Jesse Helms had a conversion on the way to Damascus on AIDS. Jesse Helms started as a very hard edged guy, mirroring the attitudes of some of the most fundamentalist folks out there talking about AIDS, that it was a scourge because of a lot of things that I will not go into. This is a man who not only became convinced of the necessity of this legislation, he became a disciple of pushing this legislation.

Here in the Senate, and I will end with this, I don't know how we can talk about the success here without recognizing on the Republican side Senator Brownback, a very conservative Member of the Senate who worked very hard.

I do not think this would have happened without Dick Durbin being on the floor of the Senate almost every day for the past 5 or 6 years, pounding away, talking--I do not mean literally, but it seemed like almost every day for the last 5 years--about the moral responsibility we had as a nation to deal with this problem because we could--because we could--because we had the capacity.

Senator Lugar has already mentioned--again, I apologize going on for so long, but these people deserve credit--John Kerry. This has been a passion of John Kerry's for the last 10 years. John Kerry, when this was not at all popular, was not at all sort of the flavor of the day, John Kerry was banging away at the need for us to attend to this problem. I think he is owed a debt of gratitude for his persistence and consistency.

Also, the former majority leader, Dr. Frist, a doctor who came from Tennessee, and he got deeply involved in this process and his credibility as a great transplant surgeon sort of transcended the politics of this issue. He deserves great credit.

One of the guys who maybe was--every once in a while there is sort of a spark that ignites the kindling and gets it all going. I always kid him, but Richard Holbrooke--and I say affectionately, who drives me crazy sometimes--but Richard Holbrooke and Senator Feingold were on a trip to Africa. Senator Feingold, who has been passionate about this issue, was chairman of the African Affairs Subcommittee--or he may have been ranking member at that time. In fairness, I cannot remember which it was. Senator Holbrooke going through a torturous confirmation process with the help of Senator Lugar and myself--was finally confirmed and did a great job there.

He picked up the phone in classic Holbrooke fashion and called Senator Feingold and said: We are going to Africa. They went to, I think--I would stand corrected by Senator Feingold, but I believe it was 12 countries in 14 days. They didn't go for this purpose, but in the process they visited clinics and the rest and they saw the depth, breadth, and consequence of this problem. Richard Holbrooke, according to Russ Feingold, called Kofi Annan on the plane and said: Kofi, we need a Security Council meeting on AIDS.

And Kofi Annan said: I am told we don't have health care Security Council meetings.

They had it, and that was also a major moment. So I thank Senator Feingold as well.

I could go on. There are others I am sure I left out, but in my years in the Senate, they were some of the people who delivered us this moment.

Last, and I will not say any more because I am going to yield to Senator Wyden to ask a unanimous consent--but, again, nothing works in this place unless it is bipartisan. No one has the credibility that is more recognized to produce those kinds of bipartisan results than my colleague, Senator Lugar, who deserves incredible credit for this bill.

I am told by staff Senator Wyden wishes to ask unanimous consent about an issue.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will not object, I ask unanimous consent that following Senator Vitter--he is going to speak next for approximately 5 minutes--I then be recognized to speak for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. President, is it necessary that I ask to speak as in morning business? I am taking time off my postcloture time.

I thank the Chair.

Drilling in Pristine Areas

Mr. President, I am going to discuss, in about a 20-minute timeframe, a couple issues that are swirling around this country and the Senate, and I wish to go on record on both of them. One has to do with President Bush and Senator McCain's proposal to open pristine areas off America's coastline to offshore oil drilling as an answer, they say, to high gas prices. I am going to, hopefully, debunk that argument, and I hope I can do it convincingly.

The second area is going to be my feeling on the FISA bill, which is coming to us tomorrow--the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act bill.

I think I can start off where Senator Dorgan ended. He has been brilliant on the point that speculation in oil futures is what is responsible for a good deal of this horrific runup in the price of gas at the pump. We need to do something about these speculators. We have been blocked from doing that by the Republican leadership. I wish to quote Michael Greenberg, a former director of trading and markets for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, who testified before the Senate Commerce Committee. He said:

Going after the speculators will bring down the price of

crude oil to get at least a 25 percent drop in the cost of

oil and a corresponding drop in the cost of gasoline.

Testifying Monday before a House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee, Michael Masters, of Masters Capital, said:

The price of crude oil would drop to a marginal cost of $65

to $75 a barrel, about half of the current $135.

Imagine, the experts are telling us speculation is responsible for about 25

to 50 percent of the cost runup of gasoline. We are trying desperately to close that Enron loophole, to ensure that the speculators are once again regulated. There is a Bill Nelson bill, S. 3134, which would say all energy future contracts will fall within the regulatory format they were at before. So we can do this.

Where are President Bush and Senator McCain on going after the speculators? I don't hear them suggesting that. I don't see my Republican friends embracing this. They have already stopped us a couple times from doing it. If we want to do something about the price of gas, let's go after the speculators, and it will result in a very quick reduction in these outrageous price increases. We have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve which is 97 percent full. George Bush's father took some oil out of there after the first gulf war. President Clinton also took some out of there, and it had the impact of lowering the price. In other words, they are adding a supply from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Again, it is 97 percent full. This is the moment when we could tap it. It will make a difference, and it will get to the people, within a few short days. Thirteen days from a Presidential decision, we could have more oil on the market.

Our colleagues agreed with us to stop filling SPR, but we don't have their support for taking some out--and, of course, you would return it at another time.

Here is a big one, and I will show you this chart. Remember, the President and Senator McCain said open all the coastal areas to drilling--these pristine areas. So you have to ask yourself: Well, have we run out of places to drill offshore? The answer is no. What about onshore? No. Oil companies hold leases to nearly 68 million acres of Federal lands that are not producing oil. This land could produce 4.8 million barrels of oil each day--six times the peak production from drilling in the Arctic--and it would double total U.S. oil production. Let me say that again--68 million acres of oil leases are being held today by the oil companies. I say they should use it or lose it. Here we have people saying: Oh, give them more. That is akin to saying to a kid, whom you are trying to get to do something, I will buy you an ice cream cone if you do XYZ; but they are holding two ice cream cones in their hands now.

Let me show you what 68 million acres looks like. First, I will show you the onshore, which is about half of that. Look at the red areas on the map. This is onshore, 34.5 million acres that are unused by the oil companies. They will not drill there, but now they want more leases in the most beautiful parts of America.

This is ridiculous. It is a phony idea. It is not going to bring down gas prices 1 cent, according to the Bush Energy Department. It will have no impact--maybe by 2030. I am looking at some of the Senate pages, and they will be moms and dads by then.

Let's look at the offshore leases. Look at this. These are the offshore leases that the oil companies hold. They are not using them. Yet, still, President Bush and Senator McCain--and this is a flip-flop by Senator McCain; he has always supported protecting the beautiful areas, but they are now saying it is necessary now to sell off the family jewels.

I have to tell you, coming from a State--and the Senator in the chair does as well--where an unspoiled coastline is our ticket to a tourist industry, a fishing industry, a recreation industry, an industry in America that provides, today, $70 billion in a coastal economy--$70 billion and millions of jobs. In my State, it is about $11 billion or $12 billion and a quarter of a million jobs.

So you have to ask this question to the President and Senator McCain: We all want to help our middle class and our working poor pay for the price of gas. We want to bring down the price of gas, or we want to give them alternatives to having to fill their cars; we all want to do that. Let's give real answers. Let's not give an answer that could threaten a huge coastal economy. Our families are having a very hard time paying for gas. Imagine what happens when they lose their jobs because the coastal economy is now going to go. What good is that? Millions of jobs are at stake.

So rather than go after the speculators, rather than look at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, rather than tell the oil companies, look, you can double production and you are not doing it, rather than ask the Federal Trade Commission to investigate supply manipulation--and I can give you story after story of supply manipulation. In my own State, we had a large company--Shell Oil--try to close down a refinery. They said it wasn't making money and there were no buyers. Untrue. We called our State attorney general. He got involved. We found out they were making money and that there were buyers. They just want to manipulate the supply. Because of our involvement, and especially the attorney general, that refinery was sold. That was 2 percent of our State's supply at the pump.

So these oil companies do not come to this with clean hands. We know it. This administration gives them a pass, saying let the speculation fly, and let the oil companies sit on these leases; forget about using the CFTC, forget about going to the World Trade Organization and lodging a complaint against OPEC because they are anticompetitive. They don't do that. They are not doing anything to extend the tax credit for the most fuel-efficient vehicles. That expired because they put a cap on it, on how many cars would have to be sold before you no longer get this tax credit. They don't do any of the things that would help us now. I don't see them saying: Let's make sure our transportation districts locally have enough funds to add more buses and to add more ferry boats. We could be doing these things now.

What is their answer? Drill, drill, drill, drill, drill. Where? The most pristine areas of our coasts--these areas that are a gift from God. Millions of dollars have gone into setting aside marine sanctuaries. We will put it all at risk because oil companies see it as an opportunity to get more leases, increase their portfolio, and increase the assets on their books.

I have to say I hope the American people will look at this proposal the same way they looked at the gas tax holiday. When that first came up, having a gas tax holiday, John McCain recommended it, saying this is going to mean good news at the pump. The truth is it threatens the highway trust fund because those are the funds that go into the highway trust funds so we can take care of our highways. There was nothing in the proposal that would have led to a lowering of the price of gasoline. Other costs could have been passed right on to the consumer.

So it is amazing to me that we now have another proposal that is basically the same kind of proposal: Drill, drill, drill, and put at risk a $70 billion coastal economy. First, the gas tax holiday put at risk the highway trust funds. This proposal puts at risk a $70 billion coastal economy and millions of jobs that go with it, and it doesn't even account for the fact that there are so many acres--68 million acres--leased to oil companies that they have not produced.

It seems to me the American people will understand that this so- called solution to high gas prices, which the President's own Energy Department says will not save a penny, is another phony solution. It is not real. When we look at the long term, what we know is we have to pass global warming legislation. When we do that, when the private sector puts a price on carbon, we are going to see technologies erupt from America that are going to make us competitive. We will export those technologies.

We know when we take care of our environment, in the long run, our economy gets stronger. We need to invest in transportation. We need to go after OPEC. We have to go after the speculators. We know we will see, with global warming legislation, investments in cellulosic ethanol, which is going to compete with fossil fuel, and we know it is going to work.

So there are short-term answers to these gas prices, and I laid them out, and there are long-term answers, and I laid those out. I am not the only person in the Senate who has these ideas. But to put out a phony solution to a real problem does not help us and it jeopardizes a lot of jobs and a coastal economy.

I look forward to working with my colleagues on going after the speculators and doing all I need to do.

I ask unanimous consent that I be given an additional 10 minutes on my time.

Mr. President, this debate over gas prices and the long- term and short-term solutions is going to go on for a while. I look forward to addressing them, both in my committees of jurisdiction and on the floor.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

Mr. President, we are about to get a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act bill that is going to come to the Senate probably tomorrow. I know that a lot of my colleagues worked very hard and very long to try to get a compromise on this bill. I have to say that there is a portion of this bill that I believe is egregious and will prevent me from voting for this bill. It is because I believe one of the most basic tenets of our freedom is justice. Looking at justice, we have to see what lies at the heart of justice. And what lies at the heart of justice is the search for the truth. If you block the truth from coming out, if you don't allow a search for the truth, you don't find justice. I worry very much about that.

Throughout our history, whenever the U.S. Government has violated the trust of the American people, we have worked to regain that trust by seeking the truth and allowing for a full examination of the abuses of Government power. We can see that in the history of America. Sometimes these egregious acts take many years to uncover. I am thinking of the Tuskegee experiments. Of course, we have to go back to the days of slavery. Go back to the Jim Crow laws. Go back to the era of the Vietnam war and the tenure of J. Edgar Hoover, who headed the FBI. We knew in that particular case that the CIA and the FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover--he headed the FBI--he engaged in spying on the political activities of American citizens. He was spying on famous, important people, such as Martin Luther King. He was spying on people at the highest levels of Government. He was also spying on the American people. Pictures were taken at rallies where people were trying to argue for an end to the Vietnam war.

In 1975, the Church Committee, which would later become the Senate Committee on Intelligence, looked into allegations of covert and illegal spying by the Federal Government on Americans. What did the committee find? The committee found that, indeed, there had been spying on Americans by the FBI and the CIA.

Here is what is interesting. What did the Congress do when they found out, in horror, that the Government was spying on the people? They passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978. It set up a new court with authority to approve electronic surveillance but only on a case-by-case basis. Since that time, we have updated FISA to reflect the changes in the threat we face in America and to reflect the new technologies.

Suddenly, in late 2005, we learned that the U.S. Government--our Government, the Bush administration--had violated the trust of the American people again when the New York Times published a story exposing a warrantless surveillance program authorized by President Bush shortly after 9/11. Since that time, Congress and the American people have been grappling with the disclosure and working, with no help from this administration, to find out what happened. We cannot find out exactly what happened, who was spied upon. Was I spied upon? Were you spied upon? How many people were spied upon? What information was gained?

In putting together the FISA bill, I do believe House and Senate members tried hard to find a balance and figure out a way to get to the truth, but I feel they have fallen short because what we will have before us when this bill comes before us is not only a bill that will deny the court the ability to make a judicial determination as to the legality of the spying program, but it will effectively guarantee immunity for the telecommunications companies that cooperated with the administration and violated the privacy of their customers.

You have to know that we had laws in place that specifically said to telephone companies: You cannot invade the privacy of your customers. What apparently happened was the Government went to them and said: We are asking you to disregard the law.

I understand the predicament of the companies, although there was one company that refused to cooperate. One company refused to cooperate. They said: No, we are not going to do it. But all the others cooperated. And now we have a situation where we know the telephone companies responded to the Government and said: OK, we will disregard that law on your say-so.

I would support granting the telecom companies indemnification--in other words, having the Government step in and be the party that has to pay the price--but this immunity provision that is in the bill blocks us from finding the truth. Remember what I said when I started: The essence of justice is to get to the truth, and we are not going to be able to get to the truth. We are not going to know exactly how this program ran. We don't know enough. The Bush administration, in my view, trampled on the Constitution, and we are not doing anything in this bill to provide accountability. Frankly, if we just left out this provision and passed the rest of the bill, we would let the courts do their job. Fine. But, no, no, we have to add this provision and essentially set up kind of a new law now to deal with this spying operation.

I don't think we can hold up the Constitution when it suits us and set it aside when it hinders us. That is not what the Constitution is.

The supporters of this compromise will say: Wait a minute, Senator Boxer, we have a provision in there that says the telecom companies have to prove they were asked by the Government to do this activity. We know they were asked by them. That is why I don't want to punish the telecom companies.

Mr. President, I tell you what I do want to do: find out the truth. That, the truth, I want to find out. I have to believe that if we don't change Title II of this bill, we are perpetuating a coverup. I use that word advisedly because I don't think we will ever get to the truth of what happened here.

I support giving our country every tool necessary to track down the terrorists. I voted to go to war against bin Laden, and I am disgusted that he is still out there taunting us, all these days, all these years, despite George Bush. Dead or alive, we will get him. Where is he? I want to go after al-Qaida. I want to go after bin Laden. I think we do have to provide all the tools that are necessary, but we also must uphold the Constitution and the rights of our citizens.

This granting of immunity will block the courts from moving forward and learning whose privacy was violated. I want to be able to look in the eyes of my constituents in California, 38 million people, and say: I know you were in that group of people, and I feel terrible, and we are going to make it right for you; or, I know you were not involved in being caught up in this net.

These are extraordinary and difficult times. Our sons and daughters were sent to Iraq to fight for our freedoms. We have to listen to what former Justice Marshall says:

History teaches us that grave threats to liberty often come

in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too

extravagant to endure.

Our Constitution is not an extravagance. It is the centerpiece, the very essence of a democracy. It is what our sons and daughters are fighting for abroad. How could we say on the one hand to our soldiers: Go fight for our freedoms, go fight for the freedoms in our Constitution, while at home we are covering up the erosion of those freedoms?

The bill was improved upon, and I am glad Title I improved the way we go about protecting the rights of our citizens and balances it with the need to get this information. I am very pleased with that. But it seems to me, if you believe in the truth, then I don't see how you grant this type of immunity.

Again, I would substitute the Government, I would indemnify these companies. I am not interested in hurting them. But I want to get to the truth. We have a really good way to do that, which is to strip this part from the bill. We will have our rights protected then. We will have the tools we need to fight terrorism. We must do better than this.

So unless there is some miracle that happens overnight and we see some changes, I will be forced to oppose this bill. I am hoping we will have an opportunity to vote on a substitute that will

keep the rest of the bill intact but eliminate this egregious provision which really is very troubling. Anyone who lived through the days of J. Edgar Hoover and the kind of spying that went on, who understands FISA was passed to protect Americans has to be alarmed.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, would the Senator from Nevada yield for a question?

I was noticing a story that just moved on the wire, and it says:

In a big win for the U.S. futures industry, new Senate

legislation unveiled on Wednesday would not impose higher

margins on oil traders but would still aim to rein in

excessive speculation in energy markets.

I want to make a comment about that, because it goes on to say:

Futures markets participants had feared that earlier

legislation introduced by Senator Byron Dorgan to boost

significantly the

amount of money, or margin, that speculators would have to

put up to trade oil futures would make it into the final

anti-speculation bill.

So they paint this as some sort of victory, but let me point out what they missed. Yes, I am the one who authored a bill that said: Let's put in 25 percent margin requirements in order to wring out the speculation in this market. What they missed, however, is that last week we met in a room over here for 3 hours into the evening, and I indicated then that I don't need to have a 25-percent margin requirement if you have position limits that are effective. The bill the majority leader has introduced, which I am cosponsor of, and pleased to be a part of it, does the following: It distinguishes between legitimate hedge trading by commercial producers and purchasers of physical energy commodities for future delivery and their direct counterparties, and all other speculators. Then it establishes real position limits. That is what wrings the speculators out of the system.

Now, there are some who say: Well, speculation is not going on here. There is no issue with speculation. A study done by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations found that in the year 2000 about 37 percent of those who were in the oil futures market were speculators. Today, it is 71 percent. This market is broken. It has been taken over by speculators. Will Rogers described them as people who are buying things they will never get from people who never had it, making money on both sides of the trade, and grinning all the way to the bank. The problem is they are damaging this economy, hurting American families and destroying this country's airlines and farmers and truckers.

I wanted to make the point to the Senator from Nevada that when someone writes a story and says this is a big victory for the futures market because it doesn't have the 25-percent margin requirement, I was fine with dropping that piece if we had strong position limits that apply against those who aren't engaged in legitimate hedging but, instead, are engaged in pure, raw, unadulterated speculation.

If I might make one other point. This market was set up in 1936 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. When he signed the bill, he warned about speculation. He warned about speculators taking over a market. The fact is, the bill that created this market has a provision that deals with excess speculation. Our problem is that under this administration, there is no such thing as regulation. So the regulators, who are supposed to be wearing the striped shirts and blowing the whistles and calling the fouls in these markets, have decided they don't want to regulate. These folks have gone hog wild and destroyed the market for oil futures and driven these prices up to $130, $140 a barrel, far beyond where supply and demand would justify it being.

That is why I wanted to make the point that the bill we introduced last night--and I applaud the majority leader--is a bill that does exactly what we had intended it to do following our meeting last week. Yes, we dropped the new margin requirement, but that is not a failure. We dropped that because we put in very strong position limits to wring the speculation out of these markets. Isn't that the case, I ask the Senator?

If I might make an additional point, Mr. President, by asking the Senator from Nevada a question. The issue of position limits is critical. That is why this bill has teeth and bite and could actually accomplish something. We will have some other people here in this Chamber who will come to the floor believing in their policy, which is yesterday forever--drill, drill, drill, drill. Every 20 years, we have another debate about who wants to drill where. But the fact is, that is not a game-changing approach to address energy in a significant way.

We want to do this in 2 steps: No. 1, wring the speculation out of this market and bring down prices, and some say by as much as 40 percent; and No. 2, we see a very different kind of energy future. Yes, we increase production, but we must have conservation, efficiency, renewables, and other things.

So for those who come to the floor and say, well, taking on speculation is too easy, well, it is easy when it is right in front of you. There are some people refusing to recognize it when it is right in front of them.

I want to show this chart to my colleague from Nevada. This chart shows what has happened to the price of oil, and every driver in this country knows that is what has happened to the price of gasoline as well. This red line is the price, and it goes up like a Roman candle: up, up, up, up.

Here is what our Energy Information Administration said. We spend $100 million a year on this agency down at the Department of Energy that has all the people who estimate what is going to happen to the price of oil. Let me show you their estimates. Back in May of last year, here is what the price of oil is going to be--straight across. Kind of a bump here and there. In July, here is the price. January of this year, here is where we think the price of oil will be.

So how is it they could miss it by so far? Because at each of these junctures they took a look at supply and demand and estimated what the price would be. They missed it by a country mile. You would have to be blind to miss it by this far, right?

Why did they miss it? Because this is all about speculation. It has nothing to do with supply and demand--not a thing. And if we say speculation is fine, let's let it damage our country, let's do nothing about it, I think we would be fools. The American people understand you have to take these two steps: No. 1, wring the speculation out of this system and put downward pressure on prices; and then, No. 2, do a new construct with a game-changing plan on energy for the future.

But I ask the Senator from Nevada: Is it not the case that the agency we rely on for estimates has not just been wrong by a foot but wrong by a mile in every case because they could not measure what this excess speculation was going to do to this country?

If the Senator will yield for one additional question, I would make the observation that we come to the floor of the Senate wanting to do something. I understand there are 100 ideas, some of them long term, some would have an impact in 10 years, some in the sweet by- and-by. But this proposition is about the here and now. What do we do about the here and now with respect to speculation?

There is a radio announcer who was talking once about interviewing an old man--age 85 years old. The radio announcer said: I bet you have seen a lot of changes in your life.

And the old guy said: Yes, and I have been against every one them.

We know some people like that, and they serve in this Chamber. They are against anything.

My question is, wouldn't it make sense for us at least to put this in the bank of progress; that is, to shut down the speculation, put downward pressure on oil and gas prices? If some experts are right--Mr. Gates, for example, a top energy analyst for Oppenheimer & Co. for 30 years, says as much as 40 percent or more of the increase in the price of oil and gas is because of excess speculation. He said to us it is like a casino open 24/7 today, like a highway with no speed limit and no cops.

Let's assume he is right. Other experts have said the same thing. Wouldn't it make sense for all of us at least to agree to take this step and then take the other steps? Let's try to find a way to come together rather than to have all the folks who come to this Chamber say: No, not now, not this. Every single day we hear that.

My hope will be that we will get bipartisan support because it is the right thing to do and it is the right time to do it.

That is right.

If I might make just one final very brief comment. There are people in this Chamber, in the Republican caucus and the Democratic caucus, who have all spoken of speculation. My hope is that we can come together, work together, and do something in the next week or two, Republicans and Democrats, on this issue. I think we have put together a good bill.

I would say to the Senator from Nevada, one of the things he talked about in the middle of last week was making this a bipartisan initiative in the Chamber of the Senate. I very much hope that can be the case in the coming days.

Madam President, let me make a couple of points. No. 1, this legislation is real. I know people who look at the Congress and look at Washington, DC, and its Government and say, they have not done one thing to address this issue or that issue. This is one thing, and I think a significant thing, that could address the issue of the prices of oil and gas that have doubled in a year, with no justification for that doubling relating to supply and demand. This is one thing.

My hope is, in a Chamber that disagrees so often--my hope is that on this issue of national importance we could agree on this one thing.

I was sitting here thinking about when I was growing up. We raised some livestock and lived in a very small town. My father also had a gas station that he managed. So as a young man, I worked at that gas station. I pumped a lot of gas. People have told me my occupation may not have changed very much.

But the fact is, back in those days when gasoline was priced at a very low price and plentiful, the supplies of energy were plentiful, people did not think much about where is the energy going to come from.

Near my little hometown, they decided to drill an oil well. I had never seen an oil well. I remember as a little boy going out about 1 mile from town, looking at the oil well. There was not much to do in that small town. So you drive out and look at the lights on that drilling rig and stare. How exciting it was. And then it turned out to be a dry hole.

Well, 2 weeks ago, I was in western North Dakota where they are drilling in what is called the Bakken shale. When my colleagues talk about drilling, let me remind them that I asked for an assessment of what is called the Bakken shale formation. The U.S. Geological Survey completed it 2 months ago. It turns out they estimate there is 3.6 to 4.3 billion barrels of oil recoverable in the Bakken shale formation in eastern Montana and western North Dakota. The 3.6 to 4.3 billion is just in the North Dakota portion. The fact is, we have nearly 80 drill rigs right now drilling in that area, producing a great amount of additional oil. So I support that, my colleagues support that. We do support additional production. That additional production is ongoing and happening right now. It will be good for this country.

But the fact is, we are in a situation where we have an urgent need to deal with something that is happening in this country that is damaging our economy. The price of oil has doubled in the past year, and there is no justification in the marketplace for it related to the supply or demand--in fact, demand is going down in this country. We drove 5 or 6 billion fewer miles in the 6-month period than a comparable period before.

Today, we saw another monthly description of inventory going up. So the fact is, there is no justification for prices to have doubled. Now, to do nothing about this issue of speculation, which has run up the price double in a year, is to ignore the obvious. I mean, some might be content to ignore the obvious, not me.

Let's say someone who is grossly obese is brought to the hospital on a stretcher having a heart attack, and a doctor takes a look at this grossly obese patient having a heart attack and says: Well, what we need to do, we need to work first on the weight problem. Let's prescribe a diet.

No, that is not what they would do. They would deal with the heart attack first. That is what we need to do with respect to energy. We need do a lot of things, but first and foremost, we have to find a way to make this futures market work and wring the speculation out of that market and bring down prices.

Now, we have people who talk about the ``free market.'' Well, I am a big fan of markets. I do not know of a better allocator of goods and services than the marketplace. I am a big fan. I used to teach economics in college ever so briefly. The marketplace is something I admire. I want the free market to work. But sometimes the market is broken. Sometimes the arteries to the market are clogged and do not work. That is certainly the case with oil.

How do you make the market in oil? Well, you have the OPEC countries. They formed a cartel. It would be illegal and prosecutable in this country. OPEC forms a cartel. They all close and lock a door and have a suggestion about how much they want to produce and what price they are going to extract for it. That is the front end.

Second, you have oil companies, bigger and stronger through mergers. All of them now have two names: ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, they all have two names because they decided to get together and get hitched. So they did mergers. They are all more powerful and have more muscle in the marketplace.

You have OPEC, bigger oil companies with more muscle in the marketplace, and at the other end you have this futures market that has become an orgy of speculation, unbridled speculation. I showed a chart a bit ago that showed over 70 percent of the trades in the oil futures market are not by people who ever want to see a can of oil or carry a 5-gallon can of oil or see a 30-gallon drum of oil.

They are people who want to trade contracts and make money. That might be fun for them. They might be the most satisfied people in the world traipsing back and forth to put our money in their bank accounts in the last year. God bless them.

But if we have our way on the floor of the Senate, that is going to end. Because what is happening when you run up the price of oil--and gasoline doubled--and do the kind of damage that exists in this country today, airlines declaring bankruptcy, cities losing their airlines, family truckers who have been working for 30 years saying they cannot go on because they cannot afford to fill their tanks with diesel fuel, farmers and families trying to figure out: How do I scrape up enough money to fill my tank to be able to drive to work?

The fact is, it does not work for us to allow this to continue. This market is broken. We have a right, it seems to me, to restore the market to its original purpose. Go back and look at the legislation that created the oil futures market. The purpose was to have normal hedging to hedge risk between producers and consumers of a physical product, a perfectly reasonable and necessary thing to do. But what has happened is the market is taken over now by other interests. Those interests are described by a Wall Street Journal article many months ago that piqued my interest in what was going on: investment banks, hedge funds, pension funds, running deep into these futures markets driving up prices. Investment banks buying oil storage capability to buy oil and take it off the market.

That is not the way a market should work or should be expected to work. When a broken market damages this country's economy, we have a right and, in fact, we have a responsibility, in my judgment, to address it. There will be those who disagree very strongly with that which I say. They will be surrounding Capitol Hill with substantial effort to say: This legislation that we introduced last evening will be destructive and damaging.

I say to them: I know what is destructive and damaging, it is doubling the price of oil and gasoline in the last year. That is destructive and damaging to this country, to the families in this country, and to a good many businesses in this country that cannot fly through that storm.

So my hope is we will be able to get some bipartisan support for a piece of legislation that begins to shut down the excess speculation in the market that is damaging this country's economy.

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

Mr. President, George Bernard Shaw once said: ``If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.''

Sometimes I feel the same about legislation to extend expiring tax provisions. Sometimes it feels as though that process never reaches a conclusion. Regrettably, Tuesday, the Senate failed to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the House-passed renewable energy and tax extenders bill.

Today, we must begin anew the march to a conclusion for the tax extenders package.

Next week, the Senate will face a choice. We'll vote again on getting to the tax extenders bill. We'll vote on allowing the Senate to get to the substitute amendment, the text of which I introduce today. I think that it's a pretty easy choice.

We need to decide whether we will develop new jobs and new medications.

Or, we can continue to allow hedge fund managers to defer, without limitation, their compensation for investing other people's money.

The choice is easy. We must pass this package of expiring provisions. We must reach a conclusion.

Last month, the House passed its renewable energy and tax extenders package, by a vote of 263 to 160. It came over to the Senate last week. My Colleagues on the other side of the aisle objected to moving to the House bill, for which I was prepared to offer a substitute amendment.

Today, I am introducing that substitute amendment as a stand-alone bill. This extender package is fully paid-for. These offsets are fiscally responsible. And these revenue-raising provisions are also sound tax policy.

The first revenue-raising provision is an extension of the effective date of the worldwide allocation of interest. The bill would delay application of the new rule.

This section of the code is scheduled to take effect in 2009.

Many of the companies that will benefit from this provision told me that they would rather have business extenders, including R&D, active financing, and CFC look-through. They prefer those important extenders to a 2009 application of the world wide allocation of interest.

These companies want a conclusion. And, they realize that to get a conclusion, they, along with Congress, must be fiscally responsible and pay for these provisions.

This provision allows Congress to be fiscally responsible and to pay for the priorities of the business community.

The second revenue-raising provision addresses offshore deferred compensation. This provision prevents hedge fund managers from deferring income. This is not an increase in tax on hedge fund managers. Rather, it is a change in the timing of when they have to pay their income tax.

We need to make decisions about our priorities. Is the ability of hedge fund managers to defer taxation of their compensation more important than spurring research and development?

This bill has a solid energy-tax package. It has about $17 billion in incentives for alternative energy, efficiency, and clean coal. This package is important for our environment and energy security. And it's important to facilitate the transition to a carbon-controlled economy.

I have been working to get the Congress to pass a good energy-tax package for the better part of a year. At the beginning of last year, the Finance Committee conducted several hearings. Last June, the Committee marked up a bill to bolster investment in clean energy, efficiency, and clean coal. Our bill--a roughly $30 billion package-- passed the Finance Committee with a 15-to-5 vote.

The bill included a 5-year extension of the credit for production of renewable electricity. That credit enjoys strong bipartisan support.

It included 8-year extensions of credits for solar power. Solar power still needs significant subsidies to compete with fossil-based energy.

It included $4 billion in new funds for clean coal tax credits. These credits are needed to demonstrate that coal--which accounts for half of this Nation's electricity--can be burned cleanly.

The bill included a new consumer credit for plug-in hybrids. Already prototypes of plug-in hybrids can go a hundred miles on a gallon of gas.

The bill included a new credit for cellulosic ethanol. Some experts predict that cellulosic ethanol will become the fuel of the future.

Last June's Finance Committee package was largely financed by reducing tax benefits for oil and gas companies. We proposed repealing the manufacturing deduction for oil and gas firms. That raised about $9.4 billion for the package.

We proposed a tax on production in the Gulf of Mexico, with credit for the tax provided to companies paying royalties on that production. This raised more than $10 billion.

We also proposed tightening the rules on tax credits received by oil and gas companies that pay taxes to overseas jurisdictions. This proposal raised about $3.2 billion.

Taken together, these tax changes would have financed about two- thirds of the roughly $30 billion energy-tax package. We argued that the oil and gas offsets were justified, in part because of record-high oil prices. Recall that in 2005, President Bush said, ``With $55 (a barrel) oil we don't need incentives to oil and gas companies to explore.''

When the Finance Committee passed this energy-tax bill, oil traded at $69 a barrel.

After moving the bill through the Finance Committee, Senator Grassley and I offered that measure on the Senate floor. We offered it as an amendment to the energy policy bill.

But our amendment got 57 votes on the floor, 3 shy of the 60 votes that we needed to break a filibuster.

The objections, almost entirely from the other side, were that the bill would increase energy prices. They argued that our bill unreasonably targeted the oil and gas industry. They argued that the package was simply too big.

So we went back to the drawing board. In negotiations with the House, we cut the size of the energy package by about a third. We dropped the $10 billion tax on Gulf production. We retained repeal of the manufacturing deduction for large oil and gas firms, and the provision to tighten loopholes on foreign tax credits for oil and gas companies. And we also included nearly $7 billion in offsets from President Bush's own budget proposal.

That's right. About one-third of the package that came to the Senate floor in December was offset by items taken directly from proposals offered by President Bush in his 2008 budget.

Even though we cut the package by about a third, the bill still maintained meaningful support for alternative energy and efficiency. It included extension of the renewable energy production credit. It included long-term extensions of credits for solar power. It included $2 billion for clean-coal projects. And it included a new consumer incentive for plug-in hybrid cars.

It was not as ambitious as the June 2007 Finance Committee bill. But the compromise product that came to the Senate floor in December was a very good package.

Nonetheless, the President issued a veto threat on the bill. And 40 Senators followed his lead. On December 12, 2007, the compromise package failed in the Senate by a vote of 59 to 40, just one shy of 60 needed to break yet another filibuster.

Faced with the choice of maintaining tax breaks for oil and gas companies and investing in a fledgling alternative energy industry, the Senate minority chose to protect the oil and gas companies.

Faced with the choice of investing in green-collar jobs or maintaining the status quo on energy, the minority chose the status quo.

Remember the President's assertion that tax breaks were not needed when oil traded at $55 a barrel? Well, when the Senate voted on the energy package on December 13, 2007, oil cost more than $92 a barrel.

So where are we now? Vital new energy-tax provisions--such as incentives for plug-in hybrid vehicles--have not become law. Existing incentives--such as those for energy-efficient appliances--have lapsed. And in less than 7 months, many others will lapse, including the renewable energy production credit, solar credits, incentives for efficient buildings, and credits for biofuels.

So what do we do about it? To paraphrase Thomas Edison, ``I have not failed. I've just found two ways that won't work.''

I hope that this attempt will work. The bill that I introduce today, and on which I hope the Senate can vote next week, includes a robust energy package. It is very similar to that negotiated with the House last year. It is very similar to the one that got 59 votes in the Senate.

Like last year's bills, this package includes long-term extensions of renewable energy credits. It includes major funding for clean coal projects. It includes a new incentive for plug-in hybrids. And it includes extensions of vital incentives to promote energy efficiency.

This $17 billion energy package is slightly smaller than last December's. But it's still critically important to our Nation's energy future.

There is a key difference between this year's package and last year's: the offsets. In response to criticisms of the oil and gas offsets and the President's veto threat, we have dropped proposals to repeal oil and gas tax breaks.

Instead, we have included two offsets that have nothing to do with oil and gas. In fact, they have nothing to do with energy. They are simply good policy. And they have broad support.

The bill also extends provisions that offer tax benefits to individuals and businesses. One such provision is the teacher expense deduction.

Our schools are in desperate need of repair. Our students don't have the books or supplies they need. Some teachers have taken it upon themselves to use money from their own pockets to provide classroom supplies for their students.

In 2005 alone, more than 3.4 million families took the teacher expense deduction. The average salary for a teacher is about $38,000.

This says a lot about this profession's dedication to educating America's youth. These teachers work diligently to make sure that America stays competitive in this global economy by educating our children. And yet they pay out of their own pockets for supplies. The least we can do is to help share the cost.

Another provision that is important to American families is the qualified tuition deduction. Tuition costs have long been increasing faster than inflation. Parents and students worry about how to cover these escalating costs.

4.4 million families took the qualified tuition deduction in 2005. But the provision expired at the end of 2007.

The bill that I introduce today has other important benefits. Millions of families get tax relief from these expiring provisions and will suffer without this legislation.

Businesses will also suffer if Congress does not act. Many of the business provisions contained in the extenders package are crucial in allowing U.S.-based multinational corporations to compete effectively in a global economy.

America accounts for a third of the world's spending on scientific research and development, ranking first among all countries. This is impressive. But relative to the size of our economy, America is in sixth place. And the trends show that maintaining American leadership in the future depends on increased commitment to research and science.

Asia has recognized this. Spending on research and development has increased by 140 percent in China, Korea, and Taiwan. In America, it has increased by only 34 percent.

Asia's commitment is already paying off. More than a hundred Fortune 500 companies have opened research centers in India and China. I have visited some of them. I was impressed with the level of skill of the workers I met there.

There are workers in other countries who seek coveted research positions. Ireland, Poland, and other European countries would like American corporations to shift their R&D operations to their countries. Some of these countries offer incredible tax and non-tax benefits.

Yet our R&D tax credit expired on December 31. American corporations are at a competitive disadvantage. They are unsure if they will be able to obtain the benefit of the credit this year. And they need to plan for the future.

We need to pass an extenders package that allows American companies to take the credit as soon as possible.

American businesses need the R&D tax credit to compete in a global economy. The R&D tax credit gives companies an incentive to begin or continue research here in America. These jobs pay well and result in the creation of intellectual property.

We want these jobs. And we want the intellectual property to be created in our country.

American financial services companies successfully compete in world financial markets. We need to make sure, however, that the U.S. tax rules do not change that.

This legislation will extend the active financing exception to Subpart F. This provision preserves the international competitiveness of American-based financial services companies. This provision also contains appropriate safeguards to ensure that only truly active businesses benefit.

The active financing exception applies to active financial service income earned abroad by American financial services companies or American manufacturing firms with a financial services operation. The exception makes sure that this income is not subject to U.S. tax until that income is brought home to the U.S.

This provision will put the American financial services industry on an equal footing with foreign-based competitors who are not taxed on active financial services income.

There are several other provisions in this bill that encourage businesses to invest in this country. There are provisions that will help American businesses compete in a global economy. We must extend these provisions as soon as possible.

Finally, my bill will provide an AMT patch for 2008. The provision is not offset, because we recognize the reality of the budget constraints we face. We need to get this done. This is an important provision to the American families.

The patch will hold the number of people subject to the AMT at 4.2 million. As a result, over 20 million taxpayers will avoid the AMT next year.

The choice is easy. We should continue to support teachers, families and schools. We should continue to support the creation of jobs and intellectual property. That is why I urge my Colleagues to support this fully offset package.

Which is more important, Mr. President? 11 million families who take the state and local tax deduction, or a few hundred hedge fund managers?

Which is more important? 3.5 million teachers who pay out of their pocket for school supplies, or a few hundred hedge fund managers?

4.5 million families who struggle to pay for college tuition, or a few hundred hedge fund managers?

It is time to reach a conclusion. You can lay all the extenders bills end to end. But I submit that the best conclusion is the extenders package that I introduce today and that the Senate will try to get to next week. I urge my Colleagues to support the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, the Republicans have been talking now for several weeks about needing to do something about oil. But you see, we on this side of the aisle have been talking about doing something about it for a long time--a long time. That is why we brought the global warming bill to the floor. That is why we pushed very hard to have the renewable energy tax credits put in place so the American entrepreneur can invest in solar, wind, and geothermal, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. We have been stopped doing anything about global warming, we have been stopped doing anything, of course, about renewable energy, which would take tremendous pressure off the oil markets.

We have worked on doing other things. We introduced legislation dealing specifically with gas prices, and we were turned back from doing that. We could not get 60 votes.

The causes of high gas prices we all know are complicated: We have stability problems in Iraq and in Iran, the Middle East; we have problems in Nigeria now, which is the fifth largest producer of oil in the world; the weak dollar is creating more problems; some say the global demand is outpacing supply with India and China coming online to buy a lot of this oil; and the failure of the oil companies to use their record profits to invest in new refining capacity and research alternatives.

Speculation in oil, is that the problem? Of course not. But it is a problem. It is a big problem, and I think there is a lot of agreement to that effect. Economists agree that probably up to 30 percent or more of the price we pay at the pump is due to speculation.

I had a conversation this morning with the head of United Airlines. This man comes with a pretty good resume. I did not meet him until a few months ago when he and a number of people from the airline industry--all the bosses--came to see me lamenting the fact that these companies were in desperate need of help. They explained to me there were airplanes that were filled to capacity every trip they took in America, but they were going to cancel those flights. Why? Because the airplanes they are using use a lot of gas. The flights they took used a lot of kerosene, is basically what they burn. Therefore, they were going to terminate the flights and use airplanes that did not use as much gas because they lose less money. They lose basically money on every flight they take and that we take as consumers.

I met him then the first time. I have had other conversations with him. He is one of the experts we had in a meeting last Thursday to talk about speculation. Today I talked with him because we introduced legislation to deal with speculation to get the energy debate started.

The Republicans, in the bill they have introduced, have a provision about speculation. So they should join with us in allowing us to get this bill to the floor.

Mr. Tilton said to me today he appreciated our working to get this bill done. We have taken parts from Democratic bills and Republican bills to be at a place where we are now. Mr. Tilton said this is extremely important for the industry, to recognize that we in Congress are trying to do something to tamp down speculation.

President Bush said yesterday there is no immediate fix, that it took a while to get to this problem; there is no short-term solution. That is true. When President Bush took office, a gallon of gasoline cost $1.46. Today the average price is $4.11 or $4.12 a gallon. When President Bush took office, a barrel of oil cost $32. Today, with the

volatility involved, it has been up near $150 and has dropped down to $140, but it is very high, certainly more than $32 a barrel.

The President is correct that his administration's energy policy has created a crisis that the American people will suffer long past his Presidency. It is true we need long-term solutions, including a serious commitment to providing tax cuts, as I already talked about, to companies and innovators who are investing in clean alternative fuels that could take us off our addiction to oil--and that is what it is. President Bush identified that in one of his first State of the Union Messages, but he has not done anything about that.

The American people deserve solutions that will ease the pain at the pump and also make the future look better for them. One of those solutions is this bill that has been introduced, the Energy Speculation Act of 2008. We have done that together. We reach out and ask the Republicans to join with us in a bipartisan effort to tamp down speculation. Right now Wall Street traders are raising gas prices with nothing more than a click of a mouse.

In the nearly 8 years of this Bush-Cheney administration, the most oil-friendly administration in the history of the country--both made their fortunes in oil--they have turned a blind eye to this excessive speculation. Our legislation will finally hold the energy futures market to the same standards of accountability that other futures markets are held.

Sadly, for American consumers, the Federal watchdog that is working to do this has been understaffed over the last many years. Part of our legislation gives them more staff, to give them more power to do things. They were tremendously underfunded as a result of the work of Phil Gramm, one of John McCain's chief economic advisers. The 2000 Commodities Futures Modernization Act, which, in effect, allowed traders to buy and sell oil without actually taking physical delivery of it.

We are not saying in our legislation they have to take physical delivery of it. But we know where the problem started. The so-called mouse-click energy market was born as a result of John McCain's chief economic adviser, who, by the way, thinks people who are complaining about high gas prices and the housing crisis are a bunch of whiners. Those are his words.

We talked with one of the most fair, seasoned legislators in Congress, Carl Levin, a Senator from Michigan, to get more information on large traders of energy quantities in over-the-counter markets. That is in our legislation--something he came up with.

So we feel we are headed in the right direction. We have gotten help from the CFTC, the man who runs that, we have gotten help from the chairman of the Energy Committee, Senator Bingaman, and we are doing our best to address an issue we feel is very important to the American people.

I would be glad to yield to my colleague from Illinois.

I say to my friend, if you had to put a mark on this legislation--what does it do more than anything else--I would say transparency. It will allow the entity we depend on to allow us to know what is going on with trading of futures, to have more manpower in order to get more information for the American people.

I say to my friend from Illinois it is important that we have transparency. That is what we are talking about. That is why I mentioned Senator Gramm and what he did. He took away transparency so that the American people will have some idea of what is going on.

I say to my friend that the direct answer to the point is yes. But talking about 200 pilot layoffs, the last time I flew to Las Vegas was right before the July 4 break. I got on the plane and the pilot said to me, the captain: Senator, good to have you on our plane. He said: You know, there are 950 of us going to be laid off--950 pilots were given notice less than a month ago. Now we have 200 more.

The Senator said in a side remark that these people likely felt like jumping out of that window of that high-rise. My comment to that is, that is fairly valid. They are desperate. These are companies which are the largest companies in America--United Airlines, Delta, Northwest. These companies have been around for a long time and have employed hundreds of thousands of people.

The State of Nevada has two population centers. It is a huge State areawise, some 700 miles tall and some 400 miles wide at its widest part. But the population, 90 percent of the people, live in Reno and Las Vegas. If you want to go to Elko or Ely, you have to drive. It used to be that from Salt Lake to Elko you had a flight every hour. Now there is one a day. There used to be a number of flights from Reno to Elko. None.

Rural America is going to be in deep trouble. We have become an airplane society. We go places in airplanes. That is going to come to a screeching halt unless something is done quickly, because these airlines are cutting the flights as we speak. I repeat, every hour there was a flight from Salt Lake to Elko. Now there is one a day.

Be happy to.

Yes. And let me say to my friend, going back to the President of the United Airlines today--and again let me remind everyone of his background: president of Texaco, vice chairman of Chevron, and now the chief executive officer of United Airlines. He said not only are businesses, including the airline industry--using his words--``patting us on the back,'' but in addition to that, all the banks that have loaned money to these airline companies, all the other entities around our country that are looking at these businesses, such as the airline industry, to succeed, this has a wide-ranging impact on our success as a country. We have to do something about this.

Now, people can criticize this legislation all they want. It is not perfect legislation, but it is very good legislation.

Would my friend be good enough to put up the previous chart that is under that one?

Common sense enters into Government as it does in everything. Common sense dictates, when looking at this information we have before us, that we should do something about speculation. Now, this is not information that was dreamed up by some high school student. These were hearings that brought this out, congressional hearings that looked at what took place in 2000 and what took place in 2008. Look at this difference. Look at the difference--a more than 100-percent increase or close to a 100-percent increase as to what has taken place.

If somebody could sue us because we didn't do anything, they should sue us for negligence that we, looking at this chart, would do nothing as it relates to speculation.

Now, I say to my friend, is speculation the only thing we need to do? Of course not. There is a lot more we can do. Do we believe in increasing domestic production? Of course we do. We want to work and increase domestic production, and there are lots of ways we can do that. But it speaks volumes. My friends on the other side of the aisle keep talking about: let's go drill someplace else. The 68 million acres? We will just hang on to that, and that will be part of our balance sheet. We have 68 million acres, and we want other places to go.

I say to my friend, and everyone within the sound of my voice: We listened to the oil companies less than 2 years ago. They said they wanted to drill in the best place they could find in America, in the Gulf of Mexico, the Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico. We agreed with them. We said: OK, 8.3 million acres--because this is what they wanted. We gave it to them.

Everyone should know what they have done in 2 years: Nothing. Nothing. In the area they said was the most ripe for discovering new oil, they have not driven a boat to fish off the side of there. They have done nothing.

Now they are coming to us, these oil companies that have during the past year made $250 billion. Have they built new refineries as we gave them tax incentives to do? Of course not. It appears, some say, they don't want the quantity to go up any more so they keep these prices high.

But separate and apart from that, we know the last 8.3 million acres we gave them they have not so much as gone swimming there, as far as we know.

I say to my friend, the business community is crying for help. They believe this is a big step in the right direction. Our offices are now receiving e-mails and phone calls from all the airline companies, banks that are concerned about them, and hundreds of other business entities that believe this is the right thing to do.

Are these organizations usually those that support Democrats? I am somewhat constrained to say no. They usually are all Republican- oriented businesses. But they know we are doing the right thing. I plead that my Republican friends will join us in helping the American business community. If there are other things that need to be done at a subsequent time, we will try to work with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. But this is part of their legislation.

When they introduced their bill, they said speculation was important, so let's focus on speculation.

I want to say one other thing, Mr. President. My friend from North Dakota has been a real activist on this issue and trade issues and others that are important to the American economy. I appreciate his willingness to compromise. This legislation is not everything he wants. If he were King Dorgan, he would have written something else. But we are now in the legislative process, and the Senator from North Dakota and I have been in it for a long time. Legislation is the art of compromise, and that is what we have.

I hope my friends will realize our good faith. I am trying to do something we believe will have tremendous impact on stabilizing oil prices in our country.

I will be happy to.

I say through the Chair to my friend from Washington, I have been to Washington. I have driven a lot of the State of Washington. It is absolutely a beautiful State. Part of it reminds me of Nevada. People think that Washington is a State where the ocean is everyplace, and it is not. Washington is a State where there is desert. So I love the State of Washington.

But the Senator from Washington is in a very good position to understand how I am sure her constituents feel about what we are trying to do; that is, do something to affect this increase in price, to try to tamp down speculation. To have the people of Washington be told this doesn't matter, speculation doesn't matter, let's drill some more off the coast of Washington and not only drill some more, in effect--no one questions the Federal Government owns 200 miles off our coast. That is the Outer Continental Shelf, and that is recognized by international law.

To think that the Federal Government would just give up on that and say: OK, States, do whatever you want--how do the people of Washington feel about that?