A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to eliminate the reduction in the credit rate for certain facilities producing electricity from renewable resources.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I wish to propound a unanimous consent request. I will try to explain it in layman's terms.

I ask unanimous consent that the Sanders amendment move from first place to second place and that the amendment offered by Senator Vitter, from Louisiana, be offered first, under the same conditions.

Mr. President, if my colleague wants to proceed a little longer, this is a very important amendment. If he wants to spend another minute or so talking about it, that is fine because I will need probably more than a minute to respond. Would he like additional time?

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment. I will explain why. The basic identity verification recordkeeping requirement in this amendment is already included in section 326 of the USA PATRIOT Act. It is redundant and not necessary on this amendment.

This bill is designed specifically to deal with credit card reform. A matter such as this obviously belongs in a more appropriate place. Also, the amendment would require card issuers to verify an applicant's identity by obtaining a Social Security card, photo ID, driver's license, and a card issued by a State in compliance with the REAL ID Act.

There are legitimate issues about terrorism and illegal immigrants in the country, but it seems to me when you already have provisions in the law that are specifically designed to protect the issues being raised by my friend--to add redundancy to a credit card bill, when we are trying to make sure people can have credit, and make sure it is provided in a way that is not abusive, with interest rate hikes, penalties, fees, and the like.

I say, with respect, to my friend that, presently, applications for credit cards are currently taken by mail, by telephone, and on the Internet. This would force all applicants to physically go to the bank and present the required documents, which would cause a huge inconvenience to customers. I don't think that is in our best interest at this time. We are not trying to make it more difficult for people to have access to credit cards. We want adequate information so decisions can be made about their ability to repay, but we don't want to burden them with unfair fines, penalties, fees, and high interest rates. This idea runs contrary to what we are trying to achieve with this bill.

I say, respectfully, that I oppose this amendment and ask my colleagues to do so as well.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 15 more seconds.

Mr. President, it is not my opinion that this would require people to show up physically. This is the opinion of the Treasury Department. We asked them to comment on this, and they told us that. The elderly, the handicapped, and those in rural areas are going to be adversely affected if this were to be adopted. It is duplicative, redundant, and unnecessary. It adds tremendous burdens on certain segments of this country. Credit cards are valuable instruments during difficult economic times.

I am happy to.

It is not the length of the amendment. Sometimes one or two words can have huge implications. We asked Treasury how they would interpret this, and they claim this would require the physical presence of an applicant. That is one of their concerns.

As long as that is a concern and it raises that possibility, adopting this, which could result in that, it seems to me would be an irresponsible action for this body to take.

I yield back my time.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider that vote and move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 1062

Mr. President, what is the business before the Senate?

Amendment No. 1085

Mr. President, there are very few Members for whom I have more affection or respect than Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. But I think this amendment, first of all, has no place on this bill. It is unnecessary and raises some very serious, legitimate issues. Let me point them out.

First of all, it is going to be costly to do this: every agency to report what the national debt is. The number is absolutely worthless by the time you publish it because the national debt rises, of course, every nanosecond. So to have that idea what it is also gives you a false illusion of actually where we are.

The level of public cynicism about this issue is getting almost insurmountable. It seems to me we need to be far more realistic. There are other costs, as well, in addition to the debt that people care about. Why not have a tuition cost clock? Why not have a health care cost clock? These matters go up all the time as well. It seems to me that by adding something such as this, we are just adding to that illusion, adding to that cynicism at a time when there are plenty of places where you can get this information--certainly the Congressional Budget Office as well.

So while this amendment has been adopted in the past because it seems relatively harmless, the fact is, I think it is an idea that can actually raise costs and create false illusions. Certainly consumers ought to have some idea about some of these other costs, which I would object to. If you had a health care cost clock, a tuition cost clock, an energy cost clock, it could contribute to those problems. So I urge that the amendment be defeated.

Mr. President, let me make a couple of comments, if I can, regarding previous debates.

Our colleague from Vermont offered an amendment to deal with caps on interest rates and that failed on a point of order. I know there are others who have various ideas about this issue. It is a legitimate issue, and I want my colleagues to know this. It is a complicated issue, because dealing with credit cards, dealing with payday lenders, dealing with all sorts of different entities, the matter of what is an excessive interest rate is one that many Americans care deeply about and one where they wish to see some restraint.

It is legitimate to point out that there are interest rates being imposed today that you would have gone to jail for imposing not many years ago. In fact, it would make a loan shark blush, some of these interest rates that are being charged. So what I intend to do at some point, because I realize when you look at the votes, there were only about 30 votes dealing with the point of order dealing with the motion of the Senator from Vermont. But I think a lot of my colleagues do not feel his desire was illegitimate; they were concerned about whether the rate was too low or how it would apply.

So I am going to propose--I hope along with my friend and colleague from Alabama--to ask either the Federal Reserve, or whatever else is the appropriate place, to come back and give us a comprehensive review of what national rates there ought to be.

This idea that you can end up charging in effect 200, 300, or 400 percent interest rates, which is what has happened in some cases, is offensive, to put it mildly. It ought to be wrong and illegal, and people ought not to be able to get away with it.

I think it is difficult for my colleagues to determine what is that level and what institutions, and under what financial circumstances, do you apply it to. I realize a payday lender lends money for a week or two, not annually. So the interest rate will be different than on a credit card, on a home mortgage, or what it is apt to be with a credit union. With various institutions, under various circumstances, rates can differ.

It is confusing, except that most constituents and millions of Americans would like to see some restraint. I don't know how you can possibly explain why some institutions can get away with rates that are literally triple digits in some cases. I don't think we are going to resolve that matter on this bill. But we ought to have some clear idea of how to put some restraints on national usury laws. I am not a Bible scholar, but for those who are, I am sure they can recite chapter and verse in the Old and New Testaments when it comes to the usurious rates that were being charged by money changers and the like.

At the appropriate time, I will propose an amendment that will allow us to get back to people in a short period with some analysis of how to impose some meaningful restraints on what is charged to consumers for the privilege of borrowing money when they need it, as so many do, to pay tuition, pay mortgages, keep the business operating and deal with the health care crisis, or just to survive week to week. People have been taken advantage of under circumstances that are deplorable, in my view, when the rates are particularly beyond excessive.

I think one should not read the outcome of the Sanders vote as a rejection of the idea that applying some standards of fairness is unacceptable to this body. I believe a lot of Members voted against waiving the budget point of order not because they disagreed with what he is trying to do. I would not want that vote to reflect that. I support Senator Sanders, as I did on the budget debate, not because I necessarily agreed with the number he had in mind, but because it is an important debate and he should have had the right to be able to proceed with his amendment. I wanted to make that point overall. I think it would be a false impression to walk away and say

the Senate rejected any idea of considering some sort of a national usury rate because they rejected the waiver of the point of order that Senator Sanders offered.

I see my colleague from Louisiana, who I think wants to speak.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, before our colleague from Colorado departs the floor, I want to thank him. I mentioned Senator Bennet earlier today in my comments about some new additional Members: Senator Merkley and Senator Warner.

I say to the people of Colorado, as I did earlier about our colleague from Oregon, we are so fortunate to have the Senator in the Chamber at this time. I feel particularly fortunate to have the Senator as a member of the Banking Committee. I served on the committee for some years. I have never been chairman before 2007, the last Congress. I have served under a lot of people on that committee over the years.

I hope not just the people of Colorado but the people of the country understand how fortunate we are indeed to have someone of Michael Bennet's talents and background to be a member of this committee. He is a junior member of the committee, but his ideas, his thoughts, his questions, and his participation qualify him as a senior member of that committee because of the contribution he has already made in little more than 100 days of being on the committee.

So I thank him for his involvement on this bill. He is thoughtful. We have some major issues to grapple with in the coming weeks. The modernization of our financial regulatory structure and the architecture of that is going to be one of the largest and most important debates this committee and maybe this Congress will have engaged in in years, considering how important financial services are to our economy and the world's financial stability.

Michael Bennet brings to that chair he sits in as a junior member of the committee years of valuable experience in helping us decide what steps we should take, the configuration that architecture should be, so that we can move ahead with thoughtfulness and with a certain amount of care and caution as we try to set up a system that will avoid the pitfalls that created the problems we are in today.

So I am particularly grateful to him for his involvement on this bill. But I would be remiss if I did not say to my colleague, Michael Bennet, he has been a significant contributor to the work of this committee since the moment he arrived. I thank him for that and appreciate his continuing involvement. I am grateful to the Senator for his support of this bill. I look forward to working with him for a long time to come on these and other matters before the committee. I thank the Senator.

I want to also kind of review the bidding a bit as to where we are this evening. I will begin by thanking the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, who has created the possibility for us to bring up this important piece of legislation.

While my name and that of Senator Shelby are at the top of the page as the authors of the substitute, that is an unfair characterization because so many people have been involved on our committee, and others in this Chamber, who care about these issues and have for a long time.

I am very grateful to Senator Shelby, with whom I work very closely on the Banking Committee, and his staff and how well they work with mine in helping to shape a bill like this, a substitute like this.

We are dealing with some very egregious violations of consumer protection. They did not happen overnight; they have been growing over the years; and they reached a point where I cannot think of anyone who has not been either affected directly themselves or had family members or children or their parents or neighbors and friends adversely affected by these practices by the issuing community generally.

There are some who do a very good job. I probably should say this more frequently. We talk about the credit card issuers, the credit card companies. The behavior is not only unacceptable, it is not only irresponsible, it is offensive. There are other ones that do a good job.

Like all matters before us, when we talk about an industry, there are those who perform admirably and well and care about the people they serve, and there are others who could care less what happens as long as they get money out of the pockets of those to whom they have lent some money.

But we write laws to protect those people against those who would do them harm. So we are trying to shut down a practice that goes on too often: when there are 70 million accounts whose rates have gone up in an 11-month period; when there are fees and penalties that have brought in billions of dollars, exorbitant fees and penalties, way beyond any proportionality to the offense committed--of being a day late, an hour late, in some cases, for the first time ever.

Samantha and Don Moore from Guilford, CT, were here today to talk about their experience. I have listened to them in the past. It showed courage for them to step up. For 40 years--40 years--Don Moore has been doing business with his credit card company, 40 years. Without any violation, any late fees whatever, one time 3 days late, around the Christmas season, the Moores found that their interest rate went from 12 percent to 27 percent; their credit limit from $32,000 to $4,000.

The Moores run a small business in my State. They use their credit card as a way to function in their small business. They pay their employees; they buy inventory. Without any real violation other than to be a few days late for the first time in 40 years, the Moores watched their rate double, more than double, from 12 percent to 27 percent and watched their credit limit drop from $32,000 to $4,000.

That is the kind of behavior that is not the rare exception. Virtually every one of my colleagues can tell similar stories about people in their States.

I know the Presiding Officer could as well from the State of Illinois. May 13, as we gather a day or so away from adopting legislation that will prohibit those practices, that you cannot change these rates arbitrarily. You get notice of 45 days. These introductory rates have to be in place for at least 6 months before you can change them. You must notify a person of late penalties or fees 21 days in advance, giving people opportunity to respond; no charging higher interest rates on existing balances the way they do today; no raising rates because you may be late on a utility bill or a car payment having nothing to do with your credit card; no continuing to charge rates when you have paid off a substantial part of your balance and a small amount remains and yet the card applies that interest payment on the entire amount you owed earlier.

For example, you owe $1,000, you pay off $900, the credit card companies were actually charging interest rates not based on the $100 that remains but on the full $1,000 until all of it is paid off. Those are not isolated examples of abuses by credit card companies. They are widespread. There are other such examples that go on that have been very harmful to consumers.

In this legislation, we give the consumer the power to decide what the circumstances are as to whether they want a credit limit or whether they want that limit to be exceeded. I remember the days not long ago when if you exceeded your credit limit, the clerk in that store or that waiter in the restaurant might politely suggest the credit limit has been exceeded and you might want to return the product. It is more difficult in a restaurant since the bill usually arrives at the end of the meal, but, nonetheless, I am sure many who may be listening can recall similar instances. That is no longer the case because the issuing companies have discovered they make a lot more money by charging exorbitant fees and penalties because you might be $10 or $20 or $50 over your limit.

The point there is a legitimacy in their mind to absolutely load you up with penalties and fees. In fact, they welcome the opportunity that you may be a little bit over your credit limit,

rather than being responsible and giving you the opportunity to decide whether you want to actually acquire that particular good or purchase. Today we have changed that. We let the consumer decide. We begin by saying there will be credit limits. If you want to opt out of that, you can. But it gives you the opportunity to be notified when you are going to exceed that limit so you don't find yourself behind the 8 ball and paying penalties you would rather not pay and would like to be notified when that is the case.

Imagine this: Here we are a decade into the 21st century. My 7-year- old runs a computer at home. My 4-year-old is trying to figure it out. Credit card companies want to charge fees if you pay your bills electronically. You can file your income taxes, you can engage in all sorts of economic behavior through the Internet today. But credit card companies want to penalize you if you pay your bills electronically or by phone or by some other means other than mail. Again, it is a further egregious example of an industry that is more interested in trying to trip you up, trying to make it more costly for you to use their cards than they are trying to assist you economically.

I could go on for the entire rest of the evening citing story after story in my State, as I am sure every other Member could, examples of abusive, outrageous behavior.

We have spent a long time over these last number of weeks and months talking about what needs to be done to get banks and other financial institutions in shape. I don't regret that. That was the right thing to do. But it is long overdue that we also try to do something on behalf of the people who utilize these services, whether it is trying to mitigate foreclosure of their homes or trying to see to it they don't get ripped off by a credit card company. In the next 48 hours, we are going to do that for the first time in the history of this body.

Twenty years ago, I started on this issue. I never got much more than 30 votes. When the bankruptcy reform bill was up, I tried to deal with credit cards. It got 32 votes. I tried to do some of the things for which I believe we will have an overwhelming vote in the next day or so. I believe our constituents will welcome the fact that the Senate of the United States, along with the other body which has acted on this issue already, is responding to their concerns. They are talking about it every day. They are wondering whether their interests will be part of this debate. This bill may not do everything everyone would like, but I believe it is a major step in the right direction. It addresses many of the major concerns raised over these many weeks and months and years that these matters have been growing in terms of their impact on people and their ability to survive on a daily basis economically.

Again, I thank my colleagues from the Banking Committee, Democrats and Republicans, Senator Shelby, former chairman of the committee. We got it out of committee by one vote. The Presiding Officer is a member of the committee. By a vote of 11 to 12 we happen to be here. We would have lost this issue had we lost one other vote. But our colleagues in the committee stood with us and, by the thinnest of margins, we were given the right to be here tonight to talk about this.

The vote of this body will be far greater than a one-vote margin when it comes to passing this legislation. We have an American President who has been utilizing the Office of the Presidency to talk about this issue. He has had press conferences, met with consumers. He talked about it on his radio broadcast on Saturday. He is creating the kind of environment where this legislation will become the law of the land.

I may not get many more opportunities, with the amendments to be considered tomorrow, to address the overall consideration of this bill.

Let me say that to the card companies as well, I appreciate the fact that they have been at the table as we have worked through this. I have not isolated them. I allowed them to make their cases where we were doing things that may have gone further in terms of serving the needs of our consumers and constituents. This is a bipartisan bill. That is something I try to achieve on every matter I am involved in directly. I don't think you can do much in this Chamber without having to reach out to each other and listen. We have done that.

To Senator Shelby's great credit, he has joined in this effort so we have the bipartisanship our colleagues seek. I believe we will pass this legislation and provide some relief for the people of our country at a time when they need it desperately. There has never been a moment in recent past history when constituents and the citizens of this country needed more help from their Government, whether it is home foreclosures, a loss of jobs, tuition, health care problems--all of those issues are affecting millions of people. While this bill will not solve all the problems, for the first time ever it will provide some relief in a very important area--the availability of credit and the use of credit cards and the need that people have on a daily basis to have access to that credit to provide for themselves and their families.

I see my good friend and colleague from Nebraska.

I yield the floor.

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, for the last several weeks there has been a hue and cry from the other side of the aisle, a steady procession of Republican Senators, concerning the President's intention to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. I would like to remind colleagues this is a problem President Obama inherited from the previous administration, and it is worth a few moments to review the history.

After the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the Bush administration decided to set aside treaties that had served us in past conflicts. They sent detainees to the Guantanamo facility and claimed the right to seize anyone, including American citizens in the United States, and to hold them indefinitely without legal rights.

GEN Colin Powell, then the Secretary of State to President George W. Bush, objected. He said the administration's policy:

Will reverse over a century of U.S. policy and practice . .

. and undermine the protections of the law of war for our own

troops . . . It will undermine public support among critical

allies, making military cooperation more difficult to

sustain.

GEN Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then Secretary of State to George W. Bush. Secretary Powell's words were prophetic. Guantanamo became an international embarrassment for the United States and, sadly, tragically, a recruiting tool for terrorists such as al-Qaida. The Supreme Court repeatedly held that the administration's detention policies were illegal. As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor famously wrote for the majority in the Hamdi difficult decision:

A state of war is not a blank check for the President.

Today, nearly 8 years after the 9/11 attacks, none of the terrorists who planned those attacks has been brought to justice.

After he left the Bush administration, Colin Powell spoke out publicly again. He said:

Guantanamo has become a major, major problem . . . in the

way the world perceives America. . . . We don't need it and

it is causing us far more damage than any good we get for it.

That is not a quote from the ACLU. That came from GEN Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State. A lot of others agree. Four other former Secretaries of State, Republican and Democratic, have weighed in: Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, James Baker, and Warren Christopher have all called for Guantanamo to be closed. As Secretary Baker explained:

We all agreed one of the best things that could happen

would be to close Guantanamo, which is a very serious blot on

our reputation.

Former Navy general counsel Alberto Mora testified in the Senate Armed Services Committee, saying:

There are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that

the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat

deaths in Iraq--as judged by their effectiveness in

recruiting insurgent fighters into combat--are respectively

the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

This was not some leftwing columnist. This is the former Navy general counsel, Alberto Mora.

Retired Air Force MAJ Matthew Alexander led the interrogation team that tracked down Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. He used legal and traditional interrogation tactics which he believes are more effective than torture. Here is what Major Alexander said:

I listened time and time again to foreign fighters, and

Sunni Iraqis, state that the number one reason they decided

to pick up arms and join Al Qaeda was the abuses at Abu

Ghraib and the authorized torture and abuse at Guantanamo

Bay. . . . It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of

our losses and casualties in that country have come at the

hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our

program of detainee abuse.

Let me remind those listening again, the source of this quote is not some liberal-leaning columnist, angry at policies of the United States. It is MAJ Matthew Alexander from the Air Force, a man who dedicated a large part of his life to serving our country and risking his life in its defense.

I visited Guantanamo in 2006. I left with a feeling of pride and admiration for the soldiers and sailors serving there. They are great Americans doing a tough job in a very bleak climate. But they are being asked to carry a heavy burden created by the previous administration's policies, which have turned Guantanamo, sadly, into a recruiting poster for al-Qaida.

By 2006, even former President George W. Bush said he wanted to close Guantanamo Bay. He acknowledged the problem. He didn't do anything to solve it.

As an aside, it is interesting to note that there were no complaints from the Republican side of the aisle when President Bush said he wanted to close Guantanamo. The Republican leader of the Senate did not come down to the floor to object when his President made the suggestion. He started making a regular trip to the floor to object when the suggestion was made by President Obama.

President Obama has shown courage in taking on this difficult challenge. Within 48 hours of his inauguration, President Obama issued executive orders prohibiting torture, stating that Guantanamo will be closed within 1 year and setting up a review process for all detainees who are currently held at Guantanamo.

Here is what President Obama said:

The United States intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle

against violence and terrorism and we are going to do so

vigilantly, we are going to do so effectively, and we are

going to do so in a manner that is consistent with our values

and our ideals.

At the signing of the Executive orders, the President was joined by 16 retired admirals and generals. These distinguished Americans issued a statement saying:

President Obama's actions today will restore the moral

authority and strengthen the national security of the United

States. . . . President Obama has rejected the false choice

between national security and our ideals. Our Nation will be

stronger and safer for it.

In response to the Executive orders, Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham said:

We support President Obama's decision to close the prison

at Guantanamo, reaffirm America's adherence to the Geneva

Conventions, and begin a process that will, we hope, lead to

the resolution of all cases of Guantanamo detainees.

Keep in mind, I have just read a quote from Senator John McCain, a man who, of course, was President Obama's opponent in the last election, but a man who had a personal life experience of over 5 years of captivity during the Vietnam war, and a colleague of mine who has shown extraordinary courage and political courage and leadership in leading the effort to say, once and for all, that we were going to prohibit torture as part of America's policy.

It was Senator McCain, along with his colleague Senator Graham, who said these supportive things after President Obama's announcement. It was a strong bipartisan statement, a strong day for our country.

But now things have changed, and I do not know why. The Republicans are on the attack. They claim that the President does not have a plan to close Guantanamo, and yet at the same time they are arguing that the President does have a plan, which is to release terrorists into the United States. Imagine that. These claims are not only contradictory, they are preposterous.

The truth is, the President is taking the time to carefully plan for the closure of Guantanamo, and he is going to do it in a way that is consistent with America's security.

Here is how the Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair explained it:

[Guantanamo] is a rallying cry for terrorist recruitment

and harmful to our national security, so closing it is

important for our national security. The guiding principles

for closing the center should be protecting our national

security, respecting the Geneva Conventions and the rule of

law, and respecting the existing institutions of justice in

this country. Closing this center and satisfying these

principles will take time, and is the work of many

departments and agencies.

In recent weeks, Republicans have regularly come to the floor of the Senate and the House to make dozens of statements criticizing President Obama on Guantanamo. The distinguished minority leader, Senator McConnell of Kentucky, alone, has spoken on this issue on 9 separate occasions over the last 11 days the Senate has been in session. It is interesting that the Republicans are spending so much time focused on the fate of Guantanamo while President Obama and others in Congress are focused on getting our economy back on track after 8 years of failed economic policies.

What is the explanation? According to a recent story in Politico:

Congressional Republicans have stoked parochial fears of

releasing Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. mainland, and GOP

aides privately acknowledge that this issue is one of the few

on which they believe they have a real edge on the Obama

administration.

Somehow arguing on the floor of the Senate that President Barack Obama cannot wait to close Guantanamo and turn terrorists loose in the United States--incredible.

The Hill newspaper reported:

As polls show most Americans approve of the job Obama is

doing on issues like the economy, the wars in Iraq and

Afghanistan and others, Republicans are desperate to find an

issue on which they can come out ahead.

In other words, the Republicans are trying to turn Guantanamo into a political issue. Richard Clarke was President George W. Bush's first counterterrorism chief. Listen to what he said last week:

Recent Republican attacks on Guantanamo are more desperate

attempts from a demoralized party to politicize national

security and the safety of the American people.

Let's examine two of the specific claims from the other side of the aisle. They argue that transferring Guantanamo detainees to U.S. prisons will put Americans at risk.

Well, earlier today my colleague Sheldon Whitehouse--I serve on the Judiciary Committee with him--had a very interesting hearing, which I am sure will be noted by many people when they follow the news, where he talked about the detention and interrogation policies and brought some critical witnesses to testify who had dissented from President Bush's policies during the course of his administration.

During his hearing in the Judiciary Committee today, one of the witnesses was Phillip Zelikow. Phillip Zelikow was the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, which has received high marks from virtually everyone for the professional job they did under the leadership of Governor Kean of New Jersey and former Congressman Hamilton of Indiana. Mr. Zelikow also served as counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He comes to this issue with ample experience.

Mr. Zelikow was intimately involved with these issues during the Bush administration, and he strongly supports closing Guantanamo. He told me in the hearing it will be safe to transfer Guantanamo detainees to U.S. prisons and facilities, and some of the most dangerous terrorists are already incarcerated in the United States.

Here are a few examples: Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings--he is being safely and securely held in an American detention facility; 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui; Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber; and numerous al-Qaida terrorists responsible for bombing United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

If we can safely hold these individuals, I believe we can safely hold any Guantanamo detainees who need to be held. I should note no prisoner has ever escaped from a Federal supermaximum security facility in the United States.

Republicans also claim the administration wants to release terrorists into our communities. What an incredible charge, and patently false. President Obama has made clear that Guantanamo will be closed in a manner consistent with our national security.

Even the Bush administration acknowledged that there are people being held at Guantanamo who were wrongly detained and who are not terrorists. Let me give you one example.

There is an attorney in Chicago who is a friend of mine who volunteered to represent one of the detainees at Guantanamo. At his own expense, he flies down to Guantanamo and meets with this man periodically. He tells me that the man is now 26 years old. He is originally from Gaza. He has been held now for 7 years--7 years-- because at the time we were offering rewards to people in various parts of the world who would turn in suspects. So the money was offered. This man was turned in, eventually sent to Guantanamo.

The attorney tells me he was sent to Guantanamo at the age of 19. He is now 26. Fifteen months ago, our Government sent a message to this attorney saying: We have reviewed this case in detail--after 6 years-- reviewed this case in detail. We have no charges against this man being held in detention.

This man is being held in Guantanamo, which is a very bleak setting if you have been there, and he has now been held an additional 15 months with no pending charges. Our Government did not believe he is a dangerous individual. What they were trying to do is to find a place where he can go and, for 15 months, he has been sitting in detention in Guantanamo.

Is that consistent with justice in America? Is that the kind of image we want? Of course we want to be safe. But the rule of law suggests that if the man has done nothing wrong, he should not be punished for it and continue to be in this secure setting in Guantanamo, separated from his family now for 7 years, with no charges brought against him.

Even the Bush administration, which started this Guantanamo detention, realized after some time that literally hundreds of people who were detained there were not in any way, shape, or form a threat to the United States and they were released--many of them back to their home countries.

Back in 2002, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld described the detainees at Guantanamo as ``the hardest of the hard core'' and ``among the most dangerous, best trained, vicious killers on the face of the Earth.'' Those are the words of Secretary Rumsfeld. However, since that statement by Secretary

Rumsfeld, two out of three of the detainees in Guantanamo have been released. They have also cleared dozens of additional detainees for release but cannot return them to their home countries, much like the one I described, because of the risk they may be tortured if they return.

We need our allies to accept some of these detainees, but they have made it clear they will not do so unless the United States admits a small number of detainees who do not present any threat to our country.

As Senator Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, has pointed out, it is illegal under U.S. law to resettle terrorists in the United States--one of the charges being made on the Republican side of the aisle. Unlike the previous administration, President Obama does not believe that he can set aside any laws enacted by Congress. No one can be admitted to this country to live freely until they have been through a thorough background and security check and cleared of wrongdoing.

President Obama inherited the Guantanamo mess from the previous administration. Solving this problem is not easy. There will be difficult choices, and it will take time. But the President has shown he is willing to step up and lead and make hard decisions that are in the best interests of the security of the United States.

I applaud the President for engaging in a careful and deliberative process to close Guantanamo. As Colin Powell, James Baker, John McCain, and many military officials have said, closing Guantanamo will make us a safer nation.

I urge my Republican colleagues to take another look at this issue and understand that this important national security issue is best solved in a bipartisan way, and that we should continue the work of closing Guantanamo, suggested by President George W. Bush, by doing it in a fashion that is consistent with America's values.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I announce that the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy), the Senator from Maryland (Ms. Mikulski), the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Rockefeller), and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) are necessarily absent.

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

Madam President, I fully support the bill offered by the distinguished chairman of the Banking Committee, Senator Dodd. It would create a long overdue reform of the credit card industry whose practices have been increasingly predatory and abusive. I have heard from many hundreds of Iowans who have been victimized by credit card companies. These are good people who, in the current economic downturn, have had no choice but to resort to their credit cards in order to put food on the table or to make a car payment or even help pay for college tuition. As a result, they have found themselves on the receiving end of a whole array of unfair and often outright abusive practices; things such as double billing, unwanted fees, and arbitrary interest rate increases. I applaud the Dodd-Shelby legislation for cracking down on some of these abuses. I think the legislation is a good first step.

However, this bill still allows credit card companies to charge excessive and, for millions of Americans, ruinous interest rates. Currently one-third of all credit cardholders in the United States are being forced to pay interest rates above 20 percent, sometimes as high as 41 percent. These interest rates are grossly excessive. It is time to set a reasonable limit on what credit card companies can charge.

In times past, an interest rate of 20 percent, 30 percent, or 40 percent would have been condemned by religious leaders of all faiths as being the sin of usury. People daring to charge these interest rates would have been prosecuted for loan sharking. But today the credit card industry tells us that charging people these grossly excessive interest rates is both fair and necessary. I totally disagree. It is not fair, and it is not necessary. What is more, many Iowans have pointed out to me the very financial institutions that are victimizing and squeezing ordinary hard-working Americans have already received billions of dollars from the taxpayers. Now these institutions are lending money that came from taxpayers to people at interest rates as high as 41 percent. Someone tell me, what is the logic of that? No wonder people are upset all over this country. We take their hard-earned tax dollars, give it to the big institutions. They have a credit card and in hard times they have to use that credit card for some necessities. Now they are being charged 20, 25, 30 percent interest. It is a sweet deal for the financial institution. It is nothing more than an old-fashioned rip-off of consumers.

For these reasons, I have joined with Senators Sanders, Whitehouse, Leahy, Durbin, and Levin to offer an amendment to cap credit card interest rates at 15 percent. Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. No credit card could charge more than 15 percent interest rates. Why did we pick 15 percent as an appropriate top rate? Thanks to a law passed by this Congress 30 years ago--I was here at the time--we put a cap of 15 percent on the maximum interest charges a credit union could charge their customers. That was 30 years ago. We left a safety valve for special circumstances. This rate cap of 15 percent has protected millions of consumers at credit unions. I belong to a credit union right here in the Senate. I have always belonged to a credit union. I belonged to one in the House when I was there, and before that, in the Navy, I belonged to the Navy Federal Credit Union. These credit unions have performed a viable, good service for millions of Americans without harming the safety or soundness of the institutions and without negatively impacting access to credit for credit union members. I have been a member of a credit union all my adult life. I have never once seen them constrict the amount of credit involved to borrowers. If you need a car, you have been able to get consumer loans from credit unions.

I would also point out, not one single credit union--not one--had to line up with the big banks begging for a bailout. Not one credit union. Yet they are capped at 15-percent interest rates. Interesting, isn't it?

Credit unions have remained strong and stable despite the meltdown in much of our financial system.

Chris Coliver, a regulatory analyst for the California Credit Union League, was recently asked about the effect of the interest rate cap on his institutions--the 15-percent cap. He answered:

It hasn't been an issue. Credit unions are still able to

thrive.

Of course, there may be some special circumstances under which an interest rate above 15 percent is temporarily necessary. Currently, credit unions are allowed to charge higher interest rates if their regulator--which is the National Credit Union Administration-- determines this is necessary to maintain the safety and soundness of the institutions. At the present time, the NCUA, the National Credit Union Administration, allows credit unions to charge interest rates as high as--get this--as high as 18 percent, though most credit unions continue to have a top rate that is actually much lower than that, and some of them lower than 15 percent, some as low as 12 percent, 11 percent. Well, our amendment includes a similar, reasonable exception. It would allow credit card companies to charge interest rates higher than 15 percent in circumstances where Federal regulators determine that higher rates are necessary to protect the safety and soundness of financial institutions.

It seems as if this is deja vu all over again for me. I have been advocating

for a 15-percent cap since I was an attorney for the Iowa Consumer League in 1973, fresh out of law school. I was a lawyer for the Iowa Consumer League, and we were trying to get the Iowa Legislature at that time to put a cap of 15 percent on credit cards. So this issue has been around for a long time. As a legal aid lawyer at that time, I saw firsthand the devastation and hardship caused to Iowa families by excessive interest rates charged by credit card companies and others. Again, many of these Iowans turned to their credit cards in a time of crisis--a medical emergency, for example--but because of the prohibitive interest rates, they found themselves falling further and further behind in their payments. Some were forced into bankruptcy.

Well, it is no different today. As I said, I have received many hundreds of letters and e-mails from Iowans who have been victimized by credit card companies' abusive practices. For example, Madam President, let me share an all-too-common story from one of my Iowa constituents, and I will read it verbatim as she wrote it:

I am a single mom with a pretty good job, [for] which I am

very thankful. I have 3 credit cards. Recently, I received

notices from 2 of them that they were raising my interest

rate due to the ``economic conditions.'' I don't mean a

little, I mean a LOT.

She capitalized ``LOT.''

Capital One--

We all know who Capital One is, and their credit cards--

Capital One sent me a notice that they were raising my rate

from 13.9 percent to 23.99 percent. I had the option of

cancelling my card and paying off the existing balance at my

current rate of 13.9 percent, which I did. The other one is

Washington Mutual. They were recently purchased by JP Morgan

Chase. I received a notice from them a couple of weeks ago

that my rate was going from--

Get this--

10.4 percent to 23.99 percent.

Now, you wonder: Here is JPMorgan Chase, operating through Washington Mutual, increasing their interest rate to 23.99 percent. Capital One increasing their interest rate to 23.99 percent. Why weren't they off just 1 percent? Why are they both exactly the same? Well, it looks as if they are all ganging up to charge the same high interest rate.

Anyway, let me continue to read from her letter. The rate was going from 10.4 percent to 23.99 percent.

I have never missed a payment or been late on either one of

these. Tonight I called JP Morgan Chase and they told me I

missed the deadline to say I wanted to decline the changes in

my cardholder agreement. I said I wanted to close my account

and pay off the existing balance at the 10.4 percent. They

refused! . . . I could see it if I had missed any payments or

even paid a day late, but I have NOT. This is just WRONG.

End of her letter.

Imagine that. She actually had the wherewithal to pay it off at 10.4 percent, and JPMorgan said: No. You missed the deadline.

We all get this mail. We all get this junk mail and all that stuff from credit card companies. I just throw them away. Well, maybe there is some notice in there that, oh, if it is not a bill, maybe they have sent you a notice that maybe you have to do something. Who reads all that junk mail? Nine times out of ten, it is some kind of promotion they are promoting: You can get a free airline pass or you can get a cut rate on going to Cancun or something like that. You get all that junk. Then they slip in there another little letter that says: Oh, by the way, if you do not cancel your previous agreement, we are going to do this, this, and this. Good luck in finding that out.

This constituent who wrote me would clearly benefit from the provisions in the Dodd-Shelby bill that would prohibit retroactive rate increases on existing balances in accounts with no late payments. But the larger issue remains: Why should any bank be allowed to charge an interest rate of 24 percent under any circumstances--under any circumstances? Why should banks be allowed to charge other customers interest rates as high as 41 percent--41 percent?

As I said, I support the underlying bill, but the bill will continue to let them charge those kinds of interest rates. The bill does clean up some of the other stuff, and that is why I am supporting it. But this does not get really to the nub of the problem; that is, we are allowing usurious interest rates to be charged for credit cards. We know why they are charging these interest rates. They can get by with it. It is legal. Well, the credit unions can survive and provide credit and issue credit cards to their holders and survive on 15 percent. Are you telling me these big companies cannot? Of course they can. But guess what. They probably would not be able to pay their executives $50 million a year in salaries and bonuses or--$50 million; I am being a piker--try $200 million or $300 million a year. That is what they are paid. So to keep up this lavish lifestyle for their executives, for their corporate offices, they charge 20, 30, 40 percent.

Well, as I said, take a lesson from the credit unions. Take a lesson. That is what we have to put a limit on. That is why I cannot emphasize enough that unless and until we cap interest rates, we are still going to have these problems because people will get credit cards, they will get into dire straits. This is their only way of paying a bill--to use their credit card--and something else happens, and all of a sudden they are racked up with these high interest rates.

The other thing credit card companies are doing is they are charging these high interest rates in order to be able to give credit cards to just about anyone. People get credit cards sent to them without any kind of credit checks, whether they are really creditworthy. They get all these kinds of credit cards out there. People who are like my constituent, who are responsible and who pay their bills on time and who have credit cards which they do pay on time and never get behind, are penalized because credit card companies are so lax and so loose with whom they give these credit cards to. So we all pay for it. Well, the credit card companies ought to be a little bit more circumspect about whom they give their credit cards to. Again, they should take a lesson from the credit unions.

So, Madam President, as I said, I support the underlying bill. But we must seize this opportunity to address the single most widespread and destructive abuse in this industry; that is, grossly excessively high interest rates. That is why I support this amendment. I urge my colleagues to vote for the Sanders-Harkin-Leahy-Whitehouse-Durbin-Levin amendment on this bill.

With that, Madam President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I have come to my colleagues today, having come down to the floor last week, when I came to the Senate floor to announce a new plan to give working families and businesses the tools they need to succeed during this current economic crisis we are in. I come today also to add to my Arkansas plan a package of tax cuts and Tax Code simplification measures designed to move Arkansas and our State's hard-working families forward. Together, these tax measures will allow working families and small businesses to get ahead and emerge from the economic crisis stronger and more competitive.

We have a lot of small businesses, hard-working families down in Arkansas; entrepreneurs who unfortunately feel as though during this crisis they are not getting much out of Washington. We want to change that attitude. We want to make sure they are getting our support and that we as the Government are creating an atmosphere and an environment where they can be successful.

We are also going to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship to create new jobs and lessen our dependence on foreign oil and reduce the burden on working families and small businesses by simplifying our Tax Code. It is way too complicated these days. We have created too much of a complicated code that people can't use it for its intended purposes, and that is, obviously, to encourage good, healthy businesses to thrive and to be competitive.

Last week, I introduced a number of legislative measures that will allow working families and small businesses to emerge from the economic crisis stronger and more competitive than before. This week, my Arkansas plan focuses on encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship to create new jobs here at home and lessen our dependence on foreign oil. All of us want to be able to be more independent. We want to make sure we are creating jobs here, but we also want to know that, globally, we are more independent as a country and that we are not seeing that dependence on imported oil coming from other places.

Yesterday, I introduced the USA Jobs Act of 2009, which offers a new research and development bonus incentive to companies that both research and manufacture their products in the United States. Before, in the stimulus package, we extended the research and development tax credit to encourage more research and development of new ideas and new products, new methodologies so we could create jobs from those. We also need to make sure we are not sending those new ideas and that new research somewhere else on the globe to be able to be produced or manufactured. We want to incentivize that it stays right here at home.

Our Nation faces record unemployment, with more than 540,000 Americans put out of work last month alone and 90,000 job losses in Arkansas. It is more important now than ever before that we encourage the creation and preservation of American jobs. My bill provides a new job tax credit for manufacturers that do a substantial portion of their research and manufacturing right here at home in the United States. This new tax credit will encourage greater domestic production, which would, in turn, lead to the creation of more American jobs.

Today, I am focused on a series of alternative energy and conservation proposals as well. My first bill provides an even playing field for all renewable energy production. The Federal Tax Code currently offers an income tax credit for the production of electricity produced from renewable energy resources, but not all resources are treated the same. Under current law, some energy resources receive a higher level credit than others, and as a result, certain new renewable energy technologies have a more difficult time finding the necessary investment capital they need to start that process of investing in new technology and getting it to the marketplace in a reasonable way so it is cost-effective.

These are critical ideas that exist out there. We need to make sure everybody is at the table. When we look at renewable energy, we see that there are a multitude of great ideas out there, but getting those ideas to the table and then out into the marketplace is a critical part of that journey. If we don't make sure everyone has that same benefit with their ideas and technologies and being able to get out there, if it is not a fair playing field, then we are going to lose multiple opportunities.

I hope we will look forward and not backward in terms of how we are incentivizing this renewable energy. So much of what we see in terms of complications or challenges small businesses face in finding investment capital is particularly problematic with the pursuit of renewable energy opportunities in my home State of Arkansas, where biomass is a predominant renewable resource but only gets half the tax credit that many other resources receive.

That is ridiculous. We have a tremendous resource right here and available to us--not just in Arkansas but in many States in our country. It can play a tremendous role in lifting our dependence on foreign oil and finding renewable sources of energy.

My proposal would level the playing field for all energy resources by increasing the value of the credit to a full credit level for those resources that currently receive only a partial credit. It certainly makes sense not only in the sense that there are certain resources that exist today that are moving forward in their technology, but there are also resources down the road. It is amazing to me to see what

scientists are doing, even with things like algae, to be able to produce oil, and looking at how we can use our agricultural byproducts--a host of things, any of that woody biomass that we can begin to put to good use in making energy and be less dependent on imported oil.

Also, I am introducing legislation today that provides long-term certainty for producers and consumers of biofuels. Currently, the U.S. Tax Code includes credits to encourage the production of biodiesel and renewable diesel, which are proven alternative fuels that will help us lessen our dependence on foreign oil. Every barrel of biofuel that we produce is a barrel of imported oil we would not have to import. These incentives have been extended on a short-term basis in recent years and are scheduled to expire at the end of this year.

When we see all of these great ideas and we see people who are willing to invest their capital and their time and energy and resources into moving these industries to the marketplace, and in a reasonable, cost-effective way they can then integrate it into the marketplace, it takes resources. But it takes predictability in our Tax Code as well, knowing they are going to be able to depend on a certain tax treatment over a certain period of time that allows them to access that capital in the capital market.

If these credits were allowed to expire, these new technologies in renewable fuels would be priced significantly higher than petroleum diesel and, as a result, would not be competitive in the fuels marketplace. Biofuel producers and consumers in our State need the certainty that these economic incentives provide and help to sustain this new market.

We cannot move forward in changing our mindset and our marketplace from an old energy economy to a new one if we don't embrace the idea that we have to produce some predictability for these new emerging industries and fuels in a way they can--particularly in these difficult economic times--access the capital they need to move forward with the ideas and development and the production of all of these great new ideas that exist out there.

My proposal would provide a 10-year extension of the credits through 2018 to provide a stable environment for the creation of a strong domestic biofuels industry.

I want to highlight a bill I introduced a few weeks ago with Senators Roberts, Snowe, Cantwell, and Collins that would allow electricity from biomass produced onsite to qualify for the section 45 renewable electricity production tax credit.

According to the American Forest and Paper Association, in 2005, the industry produced 28.5 million megawatt hours of biomass-based electricity, which avoided the use of more than 200 million barrels of oil. There it is, plain and simple--what we can be doing with an industry that has available to them--the biomass--from byproducts and from other woody products that are there, which may be discarded or unusable--to be able to produce electricity from a renewable source.

The use of biomass electricity, whether produced onsite or purchased from a utility, has the same positive impact of reducing fossil fuel consumption and should be encouraged. That is exactly what we want to do. We want to encourage these types of activities and what we can do in terms of creating new and innovative ideas with renewable energy.

Later this week I plan to introduce a bill to also encourage workforce training and development. Together, I think these bills will create jobs at home. They will help strengthen our economy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. These are all priorities I think each one of the Members of this body seek to achieve. I, for one, decided to put together a plan that I think is particularly good for my State, with a series of different types of bills that I am introducing--last week, this week, and next week--in a way that I think can be productive for my State. I think most Senators will find that these are tools that will be just as effective for their States as well. I encourage them to take a look at what we are doing.

Next week, I will complete the rollout of our Arkansas plan by introducing reform measures to simplify the Tax Code and reduce the burden on Americans, and particularly Arkansas's working families and businesses by working to build a tax structure that is fair and equitable for all Americans.

Again, I encourage my colleagues to take a look at these commonsense measures to see how they will benefit their own constituents. I work hard in the Senate to be pragmatic and look for solutions that are good for everybody and, more important, that are focused on the issues that are important to us as a country, like getting our economy back on track, making sure Americans can keep jobs, and for those who have lost jobs, we can put back to work, with the new ideas that we know Americans are so very capable of.

We must make our Nation's working families and our small businesses a top priority. The Arkansas plan does just that. I will continue to fight to bring our families the relief they need and our business owners the tools they require to invest and grow and be competitive in the global marketplace that we have been begging so longingly for over the years. We need to make sure Government is going to create that environment where they can do just that--invest, grow, and be competitive.

Mr. President, I have come to my colleagues today, having come down to the floor last week, when I came to the Senate floor to announce a new plan to give working families and businesses the tools they need to succeed during this current economic crisis we are in. I come today also to add to my Arkansas plan a package of tax cuts and Tax Code simplification measures designed to move Arkansas and our State's hard-working families forward. Together, these tax measures will allow working families and small businesses to get ahead and emerge from the economic crisis stronger and more competitive.

We have a lot of small businesses, hard-working families down in Arkansas; entrepreneurs who unfortunately feel as though during this crisis they are not getting much out of Washington. We want to change that attitude. We want to make sure they are getting our support and that we as the Government are creating an atmosphere and an environment where they can be successful.

We are also going to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship to create new jobs and lessen our dependence on foreign oil and reduce the burden on working families and small businesses by simplifying our Tax Code. It is way too complicated these days. We have created too much of a complicated code that people can't use it for its intended purposes, and that is, obviously, to encourage good, healthy businesses to thrive and to be competitive.

Last week, I introduced a number of legislative measures that will allow working families and small businesses to emerge from the economic crisis stronger and more competitive than before. This week, my Arkansas plan focuses on encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship to create new jobs here at home and lessen our dependence on foreign oil. All of us want to be able to be more independent. We want to make sure we are creating jobs here, but we also want to know that, globally, we are more independent as a country and that we are not seeing that dependence on imported oil coming from other places.

Yesterday, I introduced the USA Jobs Act of 2009, which offers a new research and development bonus incentive to companies that both research and manufacture their products in the United States. Before, in the stimulus package, we extended the research and development tax credit to encourage more research and development of new ideas and new products, new methodologies so we could create jobs from those. We also need to make sure we are not sending those new ideas and that new research somewhere else on the globe to be able to be produced or manufactured. We want to incentivize that it stays right here at home.

Our Nation faces record unemployment, with more than 540,000 Americans put out of work last month alone and 90,000 job losses in Arkansas. It is more important now than ever before that we encourage the creation and preservation of American jobs. My bill provides a new job tax credit for manufacturers that do a substantial portion of their research and manufacturing right here at home in the United States. This new tax credit will encourage greater domestic production, which would, in turn, lead to the creation of more American jobs.

Today, I am focused on a series of alternative energy and conservation proposals as well. My first bill provides an even playing field for all renewable energy production. The Federal Tax Code currently offers an income tax credit for the production of electricity produced from renewable energy resources, but not all resources are treated the same. Under current law, some energy resources receive a higher level credit than others, and as a result, certain new renewable energy technologies have a more difficult time finding the necessary investment capital they need to start that process of investing in new technology and getting it to the marketplace in a reasonable way so it is cost-effective.

These are critical ideas that exist out there. We need to make sure everybody is at the table. When we look at renewable energy, we see that there are a multitude of great ideas out there, but getting those ideas to the table and then out into the marketplace is a critical part of that journey. If we don't make sure everyone has that same benefit with their ideas and technologies and being able to get out there, if it is not a fair playing field, then we are going to lose multiple opportunities.

I hope we will look forward and not backward in terms of how we are incentivizing this renewable energy. So much of what we see in terms of complications or challenges small businesses face in finding investment capital is particularly problematic with the pursuit of renewable energy opportunities in my home State of Arkansas, where biomass is a predominant renewable resource but only gets half the tax credit that many other resources receive.

That is ridiculous. We have a tremendous resource right here and available to us--not just in Arkansas but in many States in our country. It can play a tremendous role in lifting our dependence on foreign oil and finding renewable sources of energy.

My proposal would level the playing field for all energy resources by increasing the value of the credit to a full credit level for those resources that currently receive only a partial credit. It certainly makes sense not only in the sense that there are certain resources that exist today that are moving forward in their technology, but there are also resources down the road. It is amazing to me to see what

scientists are doing, even with things like algae, to be able to produce oil, and looking at how we can use our agricultural byproducts--a host of things, any of that woody biomass that we can begin to put to good use in making energy and be less dependent on imported oil.

Also, I am introducing legislation today that provides long-term certainty for producers and consumers of biofuels. Currently, the U.S. Tax Code includes credits to encourage the production of biodiesel and renewable diesel, which are proven alternative fuels that will help us lessen our dependence on foreign oil. Every barrel of biofuel that we produce is a barrel of imported oil we would not have to import. These incentives have been extended on a short-term basis in recent years and are scheduled to expire at the end of this year.

When we see all of these great ideas and we see people who are willing to invest their capital and their time and energy and resources into moving these industries to the marketplace, and in a reasonable, cost-effective way they can then integrate it into the marketplace, it takes resources. But it takes predictability in our Tax Code as well, knowing they are going to be able to depend on a certain tax treatment over a certain period of time that allows them to access that capital in the capital market.

If these credits were allowed to expire, these new technologies in renewable fuels would be priced significantly higher than petroleum diesel and, as a result, would not be competitive in the fuels marketplace. Biofuel producers and consumers in our State need the certainty that these economic incentives provide and help to sustain this new market.

We cannot move forward in changing our mindset and our marketplace from an old energy economy to a new one if we don't embrace the idea that we have to produce some predictability for these new emerging industries and fuels in a way they can--particularly in these difficult economic times--access the capital they need to move forward with the ideas and development and the production of all of these great new ideas that exist out there.

My proposal would provide a 10-year extension of the credits through 2018 to provide a stable environment for the creation of a strong domestic biofuels industry.

I want to highlight a bill I introduced a few weeks ago with Senators Roberts, Snowe, Cantwell, and Collins that would allow electricity from biomass produced onsite to qualify for the section 45 renewable electricity production tax credit.

According to the American Forest and Paper Association, in 2005, the industry produced 28.5 million megawatt hours of biomass-based electricity, which avoided the use of more than 200 million barrels of oil. There it is, plain and simple--what we can be doing with an industry that has available to them--the biomass--from byproducts and from other woody products that are there, which may be discarded or unusable--to be able to produce electricity from a renewable source.

The use of biomass electricity, whether produced onsite or purchased from a utility, has the same positive impact of reducing fossil fuel consumption and should be encouraged. That is exactly what we want to do. We want to encourage these types of activities and what we can do in terms of creating new and innovative ideas with renewable energy.

Later this week I plan to introduce a bill to also encourage workforce training and development. Together, I think these bills will create jobs at home. They will help strengthen our economy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. These are all priorities I think each one of the Members of this body seek to achieve. I, for one, decided to put together a plan that I think is particularly good for my State, with a series of different types of bills that I am introducing--last week, this week, and next week--in a way that I think can be productive for my State. I think most Senators will find that these are tools that will be just as effective for their States as well. I encourage them to take a look at what we are doing.

Next week, I will complete the rollout of our Arkansas plan by introducing reform measures to simplify the Tax Code and reduce the burden on Americans, and particularly Arkansas's working families and businesses by working to build a tax structure that is fair and equitable for all Americans.

Again, I encourage my colleagues to take a look at these commonsense measures to see how they will benefit their own constituents. I work hard in the Senate to be pragmatic and look for solutions that are good for everybody and, more important, that are focused on the issues that are important to us as a country, like getting our economy back on track, making sure Americans can keep jobs, and for those who have lost jobs, we can put back to work, with the new ideas that we know Americans are so very capable of.

We must make our Nation's working families and our small businesses a top priority. The Arkansas plan does just that. I will continue to fight to bring our families the relief they need and our business owners the tools they require to invest and grow and be competitive in the global marketplace that we have been begging so longingly for over the years. We need to make sure Government is going to create that environment where they can do just that--invest, grow, and be competitive.