A bill to authorize appropriations for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission through fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague from Washington State, Senator Cantwell, in introducing what I believe to be landmark legislation, the Carbon Limits and Energy for America's Renewal, or CLEAR Act. Let me commend the Senator for her leadership on this important issue.

One of the most appealing parts of this bill is it takes a fresh look at the issues facing our country in the area of developing alternative energy, promoting energy independence, and addressing climate change and the need for more green jobs in the economy. Indeed, this bill addresses the most significant energy and environmental challenges we face. It would help to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, promote alternative energy and energy conservation, and advance the goal of energy independence for our Nation.

The cost of gas and oil imposes a great burden on many Americans, particularly those living in large rural States such as the State of Maine. High gasoline prices have a disproportionate impact on Mainers who often have no choice but to travel long distances to their jobs, grocery stores, and doctors offices. This lessens the amount of money they have to spend on other necessities.

In addition, 80 percent of Mainers heat their homes with home heating oil. That is one of the highest percentages in the Nation. The State of Maine is one of the States most dependent on foreign oil of any State in the Nation. Our Nation must work together on comprehensive long-term actions that will stabilize gas and oil prices, help to prevent energy shortages, avoid those spikes when we are held hostage to foreign oil, and achieve national energy independence. This effort will require a stronger commitment to renewable energy sources such as wind energy, as well as energy efficiency and conservation.

The development and implementation of these new approaches to environmental stewardship and energy independence will also provide a powerful stimulus to our economy and the creation of green jobs. Like my colleague, I want the United States to lead the way on green technology, not lose our edge to China, for example.

In addition to advancing these goals, the CLEAR Act is the fairest climate change approach from the perspective of consumers. It would rebate 75 percent of the proceeds generated by the cap on carbon emissions directly to citizens. That is a tremendous advantage of this bill over alternative approaches such as the cap-and-trade bill.

I also share the concerns of my colleague from Washington State about the abuses we have seen in energy and agricultural markets, when speculators are allowed to participate in the market. That is why in our bill, which imposes an upstream cap on carbon, only the producers are allowed to participate in the trading. That is a far better approach that will guard against market manipulation and excessive speculation.

In the United States alone, emissions of the primary greenhouse gas carbon dioxide have risen more than 20 percent since 1990. Clearly climate change is a daunting environmental challenge, but we must develop solutions that do not impose a heavy burden on our economy, particularly during these difficult economic times. That is why I am pleased to join as the lead cosponsor of the CLEAR Act. Climate change legislation must protect consumers and industries that could be hit with higher energy prices. We must recognize that many of our citizens are struggling to afford their monthly energy bills now and cannot afford dramatically higher prices. We also must produce legislation that would provide predictability in the price of carbon emissions so that businesses can plan, invest, and create good jobs. Climate change legislation should encourage the adoption of energy efficiency measures and the further development of renewable energy.

I am very excited about the possibilities for the State of Maine because of its immense potential to develop offshore wind energy. Estimates are that the development of 5 gigawatts of offshore wind in Maine would be enough to power more than 1 million homes for a year. It could attract $20 billion of investment to the State of Maine and create more than 15,000 green energy jobs, jobs that are desperately needed in our State. The CLEAR Act would help to achieve all of those goals.

I could not support the bill that was passed to deal with climate change by the House of Representatives. Let me read a couple of the descriptions of that bill. The New York Times described it as ``fat with compromises, carve-outs, concessions, and out-and-out gifts.'' The Washington Post in an editorial described it as having pollution credits and revenue that were ``divvied up to the advantage of politically favored polluters.''

I do not believe this bill, which is a 2,000-page monstrosity, can garner the necessary 60 votes to proceed in the Senate. The CLEAR Act, by contrast, would help to move a stalled debate forward by offering a fairer, a more efficient, and a straightforward approach.

You have only to look at our bill. It is 39 pages long compared to 2,000 pages of the House-passed bill.

My full statement goes into detail on how the bill would work. I hope my colleagues will look closely at it. But let me talk about one part. That is in the CLEAR Act, 75 percent of the carbon auction revenues would be returned to consumers as tax free rebates. They wouldn't be lost to speculation or to $\1/2\ billion of fees every year to investment firms on Wall Street. No, 75 percent of those revenues would be returned on a per capita basis to consumers. That means that 80 percent of Americans would incur no net new cost under the CLEAR Act. The average Mainer would stand to actually gain $102 per year from the CLEAR Act. I can tell you, Mainers would welcome that. It would help them winterize their homes, meet their energy bills, invest in energy conservation and efficiency, or have a little more money to get by.

By contrast, under the House-passed cap-and-trade bill, the average citizen in this country would experience a net cost increase of $175 per year. That is a big difference and a big advantage of the Cantwell- Collins approach.

What about the other 25 percent of the auction revenues? What we would propose is that those would go to a trust fund to fund energy efficiency programs and renewable energy research and development, to provide incentives for forestry and agriculture practices that sequester carbon, to encourage practices that reduce other greenhouse gases, to help energy-efficient, energy-intensive manufacturers, and to assist low-income consumers. That fund would be called the Clean Energy Reinvestment Trust, the CERT fund. It would be subject to the annual appropriations process so that Congress could adapt assistance for climate-related activities on an annual basis rather than being locked into a complicated allocation scheme that may well favor special interests.

I am excited about this bill. It offers us a way forward to a green economy. It will help create jobs. It will alleviate the burden on consumers, particularly in New England, where the Presiding Officer and I live, as well as the Northwest. It makes sense. It is a commonsense approach. I hope my colleagues will consider joining the Senator from Washington and me on this important legislation.

Again, I commend Senator Cantwell's leadership. She has done a great deal of work to come up with this approach, and I am excited to be joining her in this effort.

To reiterate, today I am pleased to join my colleague from Washington, Senator Cantwell, in introducing landmark legislation, the Carbon Limits and Energy for America's Renewal, or CLEAR, Act.

This bill addresses the most significant energy and environmental challenges facing our country. It would help reduce our dependence on foreign oil, promote alternative energy and energy conservation, and advance the goal of energy independence for our Nation.

The costs of gas and oil impose a great burden on many Americans, particularly those living in large, rural States like Maine. High gasoline prices have a disproportionate impact on Mainers who often have to travel long distances to their jobs, doctors' offices, and grocery stores, which lessens the amount of money they have available to spend on other necessities. Also, 80 percent of Mainers heat their homes with home heating oil, one of the highest percentages in the Nation. Our Nation must work together on comprehensive, long-term actions that will stabilize gas and oil prices, help to prevent energy shortages, and achieve national energy independence. This effort will require a stronger commitment to renewable energy sources, such as wind energy, and energy efficiency and conservation.

The development and implementation of these new approaches to environmental stewardship and energy independence will also provide a powerful stimulus for our economy and the creation of ``green'' jobs.

In addition to advancing the goal of energy independence and creating green jobs, the CLEAR Act is the fairest climate change approach for consumers. It would rebate 75 percent of the proceeds generated by the cap on carbon directly to citizens.

According to recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, increases in greenhouse gas emissions have already increased global temperatures, and likely contributed to more extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. These emissions will continue to change the climate, causing warming in most regions of the world, and likely causing more droughts, floods, and many other problems.

In the United States alone, emissions of the primary greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, have risen more than 20 percent since 1990. Climate change is the most daunting environmental challenge we face, and we must develop reasonable solutions to reduce our carbon emissions.

I have personally observed the dramatic effects of climate change and had the opportunity to be briefed by the preeminent experts, including University of Maine professor and National Academy of Sciences member George Denton. In 2006, on a trip to Antarctica and New Zealand, for example, I saw sites in New Zealand that had been buried by massive glaciers at the beginning of the 20th century, but are now ice free. Fifty percent of the glaciers in New Zealand have melted since 1860--an event unprecedented in the last 5,000 years. It was remarkable to stand in a place where some 140 years ago, I would have been covered in tens or hundreds of feet of ice, and then to look far up the mountainside and see how distant the edge of the ice is today.

The melting is even more dramatic in the Northern Hemisphere. In the last 30 years, the Arctic has lost sea ice cover over an area ten times as large as the State of Maine, and at this rate will be ice free by 2050. In 2005 in Barrow, AK, I witnessed a melting permafrost that is causing telephone poles, planted years ago, to lean over for the first time ever.

I also learned about the potential impact of sea level rise during my trips to these regions. If the west Antarctica ice sheet were to collapse, for example, sea level would rise 15 feet, flooding many coastal cities. In its 2007 report, the IPCC found that even with just gradual melting of ice sheets, the average predicted sea level rise by 2100 will be 1.6 feet, but could be as high as 1 meter, or almost 3 feet. In Maine a 1 meter rise in sea level would cause the loss of 20,000 acres of land, include 100 acres of downtown Portland, including Commercial Street. Already in the past 94 years, a 7-inch rise in sea level has been documented in Portland.

The solutions to these problems must not impose a heavy burden on our economy, particularly during these difficult economic times. That is why I am pleased to be the lead cosponsor of the CLEAR Act.

While we must take meaningful action to respond to climate change, it must be a balanced approach. Climate change legislation must protect consumers and industries that could be hit with higher energy prices. We must recognize that many of our citizens are struggling just to pay their monthly energy bills and cannot afford dramatically higher prices. Such legislation also must provide predictability so that businesses can plan, invest, and create jobs.

Climate change legislation should encourage adoption of energy efficiency measures and the further development of renewable energy, which could spur our economy and job creation. For example, Maine has immense potential to develop offshore wind energy. Estimates are that development of 5 gigawatts of offshore wind in Maine--

enough to power more than 1 million homes for a year--could attract $20 billion of investment to the State and create more than 15,000 green energy jobs that would be sustained over 30 years.

The CLEAR Act achieves all of these goals, whereas the bill passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year has been characterized by the Boston Globe as ``providing cushions for industry;'' ``fat with compromises, carve-outs, concessions and out-and-out gifts,'' a New York Times article by John Broder, June 30, 2009; and having pollution credits and revenue that were ``divvied up to the advantage of politically favored polluters,'' from the Washington Post editorial, June 26, 2009. This House bill could not garner the necessary 60 votes in the Senate. The CLEAR Act will help to move a stalled debate forward by offering a more efficient, straightforward approach.

Let me discuss how our bill would work. The CLEAR Act places an upstream cap on carbon entering the economy. The upstream cap on carbon would capture 96 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions, 93 percent of total annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by weight, and 82 percent of total annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by global warming potential.

The initial annual carbon budget under the cap would be set based on the amount of fossil carbon likely to be consumed by the U.S. economy in 2012, the year in which the CLEAR Act regulations would begin, based on projections by the Energy Information Administration. For the first 2 years, the cap would stay at the 2012 level to give companies time to adapt to the system. Starting in 2015, the carbon budget would be reduced annually along a schedule designed to achieve nearly an 80 percent reduction in 2005 level emissions by 2050.

The cap will recognize voluntary regional efforts like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, RGGI. RGGI is a cooperative effort by 10 northeast and mid-Atlantic States to limit greenhouse gas emissions. These 10 States have capped CO2 emissions from the power sector and will require a 10-percent reduction in these emissions by 2018.

Coal companies, oil and gas producers, and oil and gas importers would have to buy permits or ``allowances'' for the carbon in their products. They would buy the permits in a monthly auction in which those companies would be the only ones allowed to participate. One hundred percent of the allowances would be auctioned; no free allowances are provided to special interests. Thus, the CLEAR Act does not provide special favors like the House bill.

Unlike the House bill, in the CLEAR Act, only the companies directly regulated by the legislation would participate in the auction. This avoids the huge potential for market manipulation and speculation to drive up carbon prices that exists in the House bill. Financial experts estimate that under the House bill, carbon permit trading could create a $3 trillion commodity market by 2020. Do we really want to have energy consumers subsidizing Wall Street traders?

In the CLEAR Act, 75 percent of the carbon auction revenues would be returned to consumers as tax-free rebates. Nationwide, this means 80 percent of Americans would incur no net costs under the CLEAR Act. The average Mainer would stand to gain $102 per year from the CLEAR Act. By contrast, under the House-passed cap and trade bill, the average citizen would experience a net cost increase of $175 per year.

The other 25 percent of the auction revenues generated under CLEAR would go into a trust fund to fund energy efficiency programs and renewable energy research and development, to provide incentives for forestry and agriculture practices that sequester carbon, to encourage practices that reduce other greenhouse gases, to help energy-intensive manufacturers, and to assist low-income consumers. The fund, called the Clean Energy Reinvestment Trust, CERT Fund, would be subject to the annual appropriations process. This would allow Congress to adapt assistance for climate-related activities on an annual basis, rather than being locked into a complicated allocation scheme that favors special interests.

I applaud the leadership of my colleague from Washington for developing this straightforward, effective and fair climate bill. I urge all my colleagues to consider joining us on this important legislation.

Mr. President, our government agencies collect and report a range of economic information but much of what we see or hear is most suited to describing the general state of the country's economy. This information does not reflect what is happening in and what matters most to our families and the quality of our lives. For example, our national unemployment figures don't tell us that those who are employed may not have benefits, or that they are working two or three jobs to earn the income that they report, or that their mortgage debt and college loans are jeopardizing their ability to repay their credit card debt or their medical bills. By knowing and reporting this kind of information we can not only more accurately reflect what our families are experiencing economically, we can better inform policymakers about what matters most to people and the steps that need to be taken to address household economic needs and concerns.

To address this need I am re-introducing the Commission on Measures of Household Economic Security Act of 2009. The bill would establish a bipartisan congressional commission of 8 economic experts to look at existing government economic data and identify the possible need for new information, more accurate methodologies and better ways to report these economic measures to give a more accurate and reliable picture of the economic well being of American households. As part of their effort, the Commission will be asked to meet with representative groups of the public so that their views are taken into account in the Commission's recommendations.

In doing this, the Commission will look at such things as the current debt situation of American individuals and households, including categories of debt such as credit card debt, education related loans and mortgage payments; the movement of Americans between salaried jobs with benefits to single or multiple wage jobs with limited or no benefits with a comparison of income to include the value of benefits programs such as health insurance and retirement plans; the percentage of Americans who are covered by both employer-provided and individual health care plans and the extent of coverage per dollar paid by both employers and employees; the savings rate, including both standard savings plans and pension plans; the disparity in income distribution over time and between different demographic and geographic groups; and the breakdown of household expenditures between such categories as food, shelter, medical expenses, debt servicing, and energy.

In addition, the Commission will consider the relevance of certain non-market activities, like household production, education, and volunteer services that affect the economic well-being of households but are not measured or valued in currently reported economic statistics. As Robert F. Kennedy famously said, some of our economic indicators measure ``everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.'' We need to make an effort to value more than just our gross domestic product and sales receipts. We need to better measure and understand what matters to American households.

This effort to improve how we measure what matters in our economy is very much in the Wisconsin tradition of accountable good government. It was Senator Robert LaFollette, Jr. who, in 1932, introduced a resolution requiring the U.S. Government to establish a more scientific, specific and accurate set of measures of the health of the U.S. economy. From his request, Simon Kuznets, a University of Pennsylvania economics professor, developed the first set of national accounts which form the basis for today's measure of GDP and other economic indicators. Kuznets won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Economics ``for his empirically founded interpretation of economic growth which has led to new and deepened insight into the economic and social structure and process of development''. His work was the basis for much of the New Deal reform policies. Yet Kuznets specifically acknowledged that his measures were incomplete and did not go far enough to measure what may really matter. In his 1934 report to the Senate on his compilation of statistics associated with Gross National Product he concluded: ``The welfare of a nation can . . . scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income as [so] defined. . . .'' This bill is intended to advance these earlier efforts to make our economic statistical measures more reflective of the welfare of our families and our nation.

The cost of this commission will be fully covered by amounts already authorized and appropriated to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I urge my colleagues to support my legislation.

Mr. President, I send to the desk legislation on my behalf and Senator Collins', the Senator from Maine, dealing with putting a market signal on carbon so we can get off of carbon and move forward on a green energy economy that will create millions of jobs in America.

I know we are still on health care so I am not going to take a lot of time right now to talk about this because we in the next several weeks and months ahead are going to have a lot of time to talk about this issue. But I do want to say for my colleagues, as we are introducing this legislation: The American people have been on a roller coaster ride with energy prices. I know the Presiding Officer knows this because she comes from the Northeast and knows what home heating oil costs have done to her State and surrounding States. I know my colleague from Maine knows this as well. That is part of her motivation in joining me in this cause, I am sure. The American public cannot sustain having oil prices wreak havoc on our economy for the next 30 years.

We know from economists that sometime in the next 5 to 30 years we will be at peak oil, and once we are at peak oil, the cost to the U.S. economy will be even more extravagant. The American people want to know what we are going to do to transition off of that and do so in a respectable way. What they are not so interested in is a proposal that would have Wall Street come up with a funding source by doing speculative trading to continue the games that have been played for the last year or 2 years on various commodities that drove the economy into the ditch.

I find it interesting that today in the newspapers coming from Copenhagen, now they have decided that up to 90 percent of all market activity in the European trading markets was related to fraudulent activity. That tells us that trading markets already existing on carbon futures have had great deals of problems with manipulation. I don't think we need to repeat that. What we want to do instead is say, we are going to make sure that consumers get a check back to help them with their energy bills. We want to say we are going to protect them from the skyrocketing prices of energy, but we are going to transition off of fossil fuels and onto new sources of energy, of biofuels, of alternatives such as wind and solar, of things such as plug-in electric vehicles, of an electricity grid that can be more efficient and a smart two-way communications system.

In the end, our economy is going to be better. We are going to create more jobs. We are going to make sure that consumers are not held hostage by future huge energy spikes. If we do that, we are going to leave to the next generation a better situation. We will leave the planet Earth in better shape. But most importantly, we are going to take the U.S. economy, struggling to move ahead, and we are going to create thousands of jobs in the short term and millions of jobs in the next several years. That is good news, to think that the United States could become a leader in energy technology, that we are not going to be as dependent upon the Chinese for battery technology of the future as we are right now on Middle East oil.

I introduce this legislation with the most respect for my colleagues, Senators Boxer and Kerry, Lieberman and McCain, many of my colleagues have been involved in this issue for many decades, but to work across the aisle. If health care shows us anything, we have to cut down the amount of time it takes to move these important pieces of legislation by working together in an effort to show that we do understand the needs of the American public. We have to drive down their costs, not just on health care but on fuel as well. We have to give them economic opportunity for the future. Sending this market signal is the best way to create jobs and help protect consumers for the future.

Mr. President, I rise today with my colleagues to introduce an important and bipartisan piece of legislation that will help protect our Nation's history for future generations.

Our bill reauthorizes the National Historical Publications and Record Commission, or NHPRC for short, which was first established by Congress in 1934. The Commission is the grant-making body of the National Archives and Records Administration and is comprised of representatives from the President of the United States, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the Federal judiciary, the Departments of State and Defense, the Library of Congress, and six national, professional associations of archivists. Since 1964, the Commission has funded projects that locate, preserve, and provide public access to some our nation's most precious historical resources that otherwise would be lost and destroyed.

For example, some of the history that has been preserved by the NHPRC over the years has helped award-winning historian David McCullough write his biography of John Adams and Pulitzer Prize-winner Ron Chernow write his biography of Alexander Hamilton. Further, the NHPRC has helped establish or modernize public records programs in cities all across America such as the cities of Seattle, Boston, and San Diego. The NHPRC also has been the key federal body to help preserve the oral histories of many Native American tribes such as the Seneca, Blackfoot, Sioux, Navajo, Apaches, and dozens more.

Further, I am proud to say that the NHPRC recently sped up and digitized over 5,000 documents left behind by our Nation's founding fathers that were previously unpublished. Congress passed legislation last year that I was honored to co-author with our former colleague, Senator John Warner from Virginia, requiring the NHPRC to work with the groups publishing the volumes so that the documents could be made available online at no charge to any student of history. Before, they were walled-up behind the doors of large libraries and expensive to access. To put that into context, the NHPRC has saved anyone who needs to view the letters of John Adams thousands of dollars, which would have been the traditional cost of a complete set of published letters.

Lastly, the bill I am introducing today removes an artificial profit cap that Congress put in place a few years

ago that prevents the National Archives and Records Administration from operating its regional facilities more like a business. For example, there are times at the end of the year when the revolving fund that pays for the operation and maintenance of the regional archival facilities earns a profit. Instead of incentivizing the National Archives to save the excess profit for long-term capital investments, the cap incentivizes regional facilities to spend the money on short term projects that they may not be needed. This simply does not make sense for the National Archives or for the taxpayer.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to get this important and necessary bill enacted before it's too late. I think everyone can agree that one of the things our democracy relies on is educated citizenry. The NHPRC is the principle body that helps make that happen.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that will enable more low-income households to receive broadband and its benefits.

Broadband has fundamentally changed the way Americans live their daily lives. It has changed how we do business, get information, find jobs, learn, communicate, and interact with Federal, State, and local governments. Over the next few years, we can only expect more innovation and more broadband applications that open doors to new opportunities and provide even more benefits to consumers.

While broadband has been more quickly deployed and adopted in predominantly urban areas, availability and adoption in rural areas has lagged behind. Low-income rural households are among the least likely to subscribe to broadband. At the same time, businesses and educational institutions, among others, have migrated many essential services and opportunities to the Internet. The result is that people without broadband, particularly in rural areas, are being left behind.

Today, 77 percent of Fortune 500 companies only accept job applications online. Seventy-eight percent of students regularly use the Internet for classroom work. Similarly, State, and local government agencies, as well as vital healthcare services, are increasingly migrating online, especially as budget cuts reduce the availability and quality of offline services.

All of this means that the children of families without broadband lose access to learning opportunities. Qualified workers lose access to jobs. Low-income Americans waste precious time--sometimes even having to take off from their jobs--in government offices, waiting for services that are otherwise available online.

This income-based digital divide is stark. Americans who earn less than $30,000 per year have a 50 percent lower rate of broadband adoption than those who earn $100,000 annually. What makes it worse is that, in some ways, low-income consumers are the ones who stand to benefit the most from affordable broadband access. Online job information and educational opportunities can provide low-income consumers with critical means to improve their lives and the lives of their children.

Like basic telephone service, broadband is quickly becoming a necessity. Consumers without access are at risk of becoming second class citizens in a growing digital world. The original Lifeline program recognized that telephone service was a critical part of everyday life and that low-income Americans needed to be connected to the world around them. What was true for telephony then is true for broadband now. That is why the Lifeline program at the FCC should be expanded to support broadband access for low-income households.

The legislation we introduce today creates a two-year pilot program to expand the FCC's Lifeline program by supporting broadband service for eligible low-income households. It also asks the FCC to provide Congress with a report on expanding the Link-Up program to assist with the costs of securing equipment, such as computers, needed to use broadband service.

We must make sure that we act now to bridge the divide that threatens to make low-income consumers second-class citizens. For this reason, I urge my colleagues to join me and support this legislation.