Defending America's Affordable Energy and Jobs Act

Just a parliamentary inquiry: Since we are going back and forth, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized after Senator Murkowski.

Mr. President, I have the floor now to respond to some of the statements of my friend from Alaska, and also to be able to enter into some colloquies about this very dangerous and radical amendment. But before I do that, without losing my right to the floor, I yield for a moment to Senator Snowe to lay down an amendment.

Mr. President, I am happy my friend has her amendment lined up so we can get to that.

I commend, first of all, the Senator from Louisiana for her measure that is before us. It is a bill I support very strongly. Therefore, to say I was disappointed to see an unrelated amendment offered is an understatement. But that is the way it is. We are going to have to vote on this. Frankly, we have had votes similar to this before. I feel comfortable and hopeful that we will defeat this amendment.

In about 5 minutes I am going to yield for a question to my friend from New Jersey, but before I do that I want to make about 5 minutes worth of remarks.

The amendment that is pending on this bill has been named by Senators McConnell and Inhofe The Energy Tax Prevention Act. Good title. The bill doesn't do one thing to lower the price of oil--not one thing. We know what we can do right now to lower the price of oil. We know we should go after the speculators who are speculating on futures. We know we have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that the President is looking at. Every time we have taken some oil out of that it has had a salutary impact on the price of gas immediately. We know we should increase our investment in alternative clean fuels. We know what we have to do. We have to work for more stability in the Middle East. Most of all, we have to get off foreign oil. We cannot be hostage to what is going on in the world. This bill does nothing about it. It has a good title but it has nothing to do with the price of oil. We know what we have to do to do something about that. I hope we will.

Let me tell you what I would name this amendment. I would not name it what it has been called, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, because it doesn't do a thing about that. I would call it the Reliance On Foreign Oil Forever Act, because part of it says we can no longer look at fuel economy through the Clean Air Act and make gains on fuel economy.

We all now have the opportunity to buy gas-efficient cars. How do you think that happened? It did not happen without some leadership here. As a matter of fact, the Senator from Maine, Olympia Snowe, was very involved in that. My colleague Senator Feinstein was as well. We all worked on this--Senator Lautenberg. We said we are going to have more fuel-efficient cars. According to this, it is over and no State can step out and pass tougher fuel economy standards. It is stopping our States from acting. That is No. 1. So I call it the Reliance On Foreign Oil Forever Act because as long as we drive cars that do not do well on fuel economy, we will be stopping at the gas pump. Mark my words.

How wonderful is it for me. I drive a hybrid car. I go about 50 miles per gallon. I can wave at that gas station and say I am glad I don't have to stop here for a long time.

If you don't want to name the amendment the Reliance On Foreign Oil Forever Act, you can name it something else:

The More Air Pollution for Americans Act. The More Air Pollution for Americans Act. More air pollution. Now, we all ran for office and we all run for office. I never met one person who said: Please go back there and get me more air pollution. Not one person ever said that. What they tell me is that they know someone with asthma. They have asthma. Their kid has asthma.

So here is what happens here. This bill says, forever, the EPA can never, ever go after carbon pollution. Let me repeat that. This amendment, despite the fact that the Clean Air Act specifically says that carbon pollution is covered, says, no more. EPA cannot go after it. It is going to keep on keeping on, and there is going to be more air pollution for every American. That is what this amendment promises that they want to pass.

I have to tell you, my colleagues are playing scientist and they are playing doctor. They are deciding for us whether we should be exposed to pollution. When we hear from my colleague, Senator Lautenberg, we are going to hear what it is like to have a grandchild with terrible asthma and to worry about it 24/7.

So who are the real doctors and what are they saying? We got a letter in opposition to this terrible amendment from the American Lung Association. I guarantee you, Mr. President, even though you are an extremely persuasive person, if you went outside and just stopped people on the street and said: Well, who is really more trustworthy about your health, the American Lung Association or a Senator, I don't care what you say, they would take the American Lung Association. They oppose this.

The American Public Health Association, the American Thoracic Society, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, the Physicians for Social Responsibility and Trust for America's Health--they write to us.

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

``We the undersigned write to express our strong opposition to the McConnell amendment known as the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011. We believe this legislation would block the Environmental Protection Agency from setting sensible safeguards to protect public health and the effects of air pollution.''

So here is where we are. This is a terrible amendment. It is going to keep us reliant on foreign oil. It is going to overturn the endangerment finding, a health finding made by scientists and doctors that says carbon pollution is dangerous. It is even going to stop us from having a greenhouse registry where we know how much carbon pollution we are producing. This is a radical amendment. I trust we will defeat it.

I yield to Senator Lautenberg, without losing my right to the floor, for a question.

Absolutely.

Well, I say to my friend, not only do I generally agree, I agree wholeheartedly.

Let me show you a picture of a couple of kids. We have a couple of pictures. I would love my friend to look at this, these beautiful children.

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. This is worth 1 million words. This baby has to go to a mask to breathe air because the air is so foul. We have another picture of another child. I am sure my colleague has seen it. I am a grandma. I would say we are talking maybe 3 years old, maybe even younger, a child knowing how to gasp for air. Here is another beautiful child. The answer I give to my friend is-- thanking him for his passion, because this is what he has dealt with with one of his grandkids, the fear, the blood-curdling fear, as my friend has said over and over, that when he is out and playing a sport, he might have to rush to an emergency room and my friend's daughter having to know in advance where the nearest emergency room is--this amendment is an attack on our children.

Let me prove it. We have the leading health experts who have just sent us a letter telling us it is an attack on our children. I put up any Senator against these groups for a debate. When I hear from the American Lung Association, the American Public Health Association, the American Thoracic Society, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation, from physicians across the country, the Trust for America's Health--they say: Beat this McConnell amendment; it is dangerous--I listen. So should every American. I don't care if one is a Republican or a Democrat.

The Senator from Alaska was railing against the Environmental Protection Agency. Let's see what the American people think of the Environmental Protection Agency. There was a bipartisan poll done by a Republican pollster and a Democratic pollster. Sixty-nine percent of Americans think EPA should update the Clean Air Act standards with stricter air pollution limits. The McConnell amendment says to EPA: You may not do this. You may not update air pollution standards as it relates to carbon pollution.

We are a country that is polarized by a lot of issues. I appreciate that. I often say, I just came out of an election that was tough. But 68 percent of the people believe Congress should not stop EPA from enforcing Clean Air Act standards. Let me repeat: 68 percent of the American people--this poll was done February 16, very recently--believe Congress should not stop EPA from enforcing Clean Air Act standards. Guess what the McConnell amendment does. It stops the EPA from enforcing Clean Air Act standards.

Sixty-nine percent believe EPA scientists, not Congress, should set pollution standards. What does the McConnell amendment do? It says that Mitch McConnell and Jim Inhofe--my buddy, my pal, and we are friends. But on this one, we are on opposite sides. I stand with the American people on this one. Sixty-nine percent say EPA scientists, not Congress, should set pollution standards.

Why would that be? These are people from Alabama, Florida, California, New Hampshire. It doesn't matter. This is a huge number. Why do they think that? Common sense. We trust doctors and scientists to tell us what is good for us, not politicians. Period. We have Members of Congress who are doctors. But I have to say, some of them come out against the science and the doctors because they have given that up. They are politicians now. Here is the deal. We have the McConnell amendment. It is taken straight from the Upton bill in the House and the Inhofe bill in the Senate that stops EPA in its tracks from updating Clean Air Act standards, so that we have a standard for carbon pollution which is dangerous. Who tells us it is dangerous? The doctors. Who tells us it is dangerous? The scientists. Who made an endangerment finding? The Environmental Protection Agency.

Do my colleagues know who actually came up with the idea of an Environmental Protection Agency in the 1970s? Richard Nixon. Everyone knows Richard Nixon was a Republican. By the way, I have the same Senate seat he once held. In this, we are in agreement. The EPA was a brilliant idea. Why? Because if we can't breathe, we can't work. My colleagues may think they are doing something for the economy by telling the EPA to go into their rooms and forget about their jobs. But when people start getting more asthma, when there are increased premature deaths, they will think about it again.

Let me show my colleagues what happened in Los Angeles since the Clean Air Act was passed. This is an amazing graph. I hope people can see this clearly. In the 1970s, when Richard Nixon and Congress voted the Clean Air Act in--and it was voted in with a huge majority, it was overwhelming--in Los Angeles, 166 days were lost where people were told they had to stay in, sensitive people. I remember those years. You used to go to the radio to make sure it was safe to go out, if you had a kid with asthma or you had a mom who had a breathing problem. More than half the year, in those years, you couldn't go out of the house. Think about what that says about the economy, when people are trapped inside their houses. Think about what it means to their freedom of movement and think about what it means to the economy when so many people have to stay home and not go to work, not go to school.

Over the years, as the EPA starts to do its job, we start to see fewer and fewer lost days where people could actually go out. I am proud to tell my

colleagues, in 2010, in Los Angeles, which was once the smog capital of the Nation, not one day was there an advisory, not one day. What more of a success rate can we have?

Do my colleagues want to see more success? I will show you some of the benefits in another way. The Congress said to the EPA: We want to make sure there are benefits that go along with your enforcement of the Clean Air Act, so that when you go to a company that is belching smoke and you say they have to install some cleanup devices, it is working. What did we find out? In 2010, the Clean Air Act prevented 160,000 cases of premature death. We understand why the heart doctors and the lung doctors and the physicians and the public health doctors are telling us: Don't vote for McConnell. It will turn the clock back. We saved 160,000 lives in 2010 alone. Projected out, it is going to go way higher in the number of premature deaths averted, if we move forward with the Clean Air Act and we don't substitute politicians for doctors and scientists. Clearly, we are on the right track. In the future, we prevent even more deaths--230,000, to be exact, by 2020.

I don't care if one is a Republican or a Democrat, liberal, conservative, Independent, whatever, this has nothing to do with politics. This has to do with families. This has to do with health. That is why we see 69 percent of the people saying: Congress, butt out of this. Let the EPA do its work. That is why a defeat of the McConnell amendment means we are standing with the doctors, with the scientists and, more than anything else, we are standing with the kids. We are standing with these beautiful kids, these kids who at age 3 are having to learn how to breathe oxygen because they can't go outside because the air is dirty.

Whose side are we on? Are we on the side of this baby and his family or are we on the side of the biggest polluters in the country who are making billions of dollars? They are doing fine, and all they have to do is do a little bit more to clean up the air. We had lots of arguments over the years. Every time we had Clean Air Act amendments, people argued: Don't do it. The air is clean enough. Stop. Enough. Business can't do it.

Guess what we found out. Not only did business step up to the plate and do it, but what was created was an incredible export business, exports of clean air products, technologies, machinery, the best available technology made in America. We are talking about taking the lead on clean air and keeping it, not retreating.

We remember when the Berlin Wall came down. Everyone said: Hooray. But then they could see the air settling on the other side. Germany did the right thing, and they said: We are going to clean up the air in Eastern Europe. Because without clean air, you can't have growth.

I am happy to see my friend from Washington State. I will yield to her for a question. I want her to know how much I rely on her leadership. Maria Cantwell has been a leader from the beginning on clean air, clean water, safe drinking water, cleaning up Superfund sites. She never flinches.

Before I yield for a question, I started off my debate by telling the Senate what my friends on the other side call their amendment. They call it the Energy Tax Prevention Act. I have already told my colleagues why it should be called the more air pollution for every American act or, if they don't like that, we could call it the relying on foreign oil forever act. That is what it truly is. It stops us from cleaning up our air, which the people definitely do not support, 69 percent of the people in a bipartisan poll.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this Truth-O- Meter Politifact. That is an independent Web site that judges the truth of these claims.

They looked at this amendment. They said the claim is false, that gasoline prices would go down. So beware of things that are called good names. But when we get behind them, we see they are not good. They are dangerous. This is a red flag coming from me to everybody watching the debate. This bill would tell the EPA they can no longer do their job--EPA, one of the most popular agencies in the Nation. Sixty-nine percent of the people say: Do your job.

It would, in essence, stop us from making more fuel-efficient cars because it would say States cannot do more, and that would mean reliance on foreign oil.

I am happy to yield to my friend from Washington for a question.

I have the floor, and I plan to proceed as long as colleagues want to come and ask questions. I could go until about 5.

She was already allowed to offer it.

I will continue yielding without losing my right to the floor because there will be a question.

I do not at this point. We are taking our time. I wish to say through the Chair to my friend, this amendment is so radical, it is so far beyond any other amendment we have ever had on this subject, so I am not going to yield the floor until I have given people a chance on my side to ask questions about it. I intend to hold the floor at this point. I cannot give you a time when I will stop. I am also very willing to have a vote on this at a time we can mutually agree to. But at this point, I will not be able to yield the floor.

I yield to my friend for a question or a series of questions--as many as she might have.

I will answer and then yield for further questioning. The Senator is making the case so clearly. The one area we know we can make progress on in terms of getting off foreign oil is cars that get better fuel economy. My friend worked so diligently on the Commerce Committee, along with Senator Snowe, Senator Feinstein, and others. We all worked. But my friend took a tremendous lead on it.

In this particular amendment, which is named something that has nothing to do with reducing or preventing gas taxes or something--it has nothing to do with that. If this passes--and I hope it will not pass--but if it were to be signed into law, it essentially takes the EPA completely out of the picture, in terms of fuel economy, which means that all the progress we have made in getting more fuel economy, cleaning up the air, will be gone.

This little child, shown in this picture, gasping for air, as it is, is going to be gasping for more air. Children are particularly vulnerable.

So the Senator is right on so many fronts. If we were to pass this, we would turn around from all our progress we just made. We would stop the States from being able to do more on their own. We would lose the competition in the world for the most fuel-efficient vehicles, which is so critical--everybody looks to us--and consumers, as my friend points out, would miss out on, frankly, thousands of dollars a year in savings.

I hope I have answered my friend's question.

Obviously, I cannot speak for my colleagues. I cannot. But I have to look at what would happen if this were to become law. EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, signed into law by Richard Nixon, a Republican, overwhelmingly--and, by the way, the Clean Air Act amendments were signed into law by George Herbert Walker Bush--they would say to the EPA: You are out. You no longer have the ability to do your job, which is laid out in the Clean Air Act. This particular amendment changes the Clean Air Act and says--I say to my friend--to the EPA: You no longer can look at carbon pollution. You cannot look at any pollution at all that relates to the climate change issue. In doing so, they are in a frontal assault against the American Lung Association, the American Public Health Association, the American Thoracic Society, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Trust for America's Health.

But I say to my friend, even more than that, they are going against the American people. I wished to share this poll with the Senator.

In February, 1 month ago--truly 1 month ago--there was a bipartisan poll. A Republican pollster and a Democratic pollster teamed up, and they asked the people what they thought about these very issues. Sixty- nine percent of the American people--this is not people in Washington State or California; this is all over the country--think EPA should update the Clean Air Act standards with stricter air pollution limits.

The McConnell amendment stops them, stops them from updating the Clean Air Act standards. As a matter of fact, it repeals the ability of the EPA to ever address carbon pollution, which, by the way, is a clear endangerment to the people. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record EPA's Endangerment Finding.

I say to my good friend and colleague from Washington State, in EPA's summary of the endangerment our people would face, they talk about the worsening of ground-level ozone pollution if the EPA is not allowed to enforce the law, which is what McConnell offers us today.

They say:

Exposure to ground-level ozone has been linked to

respiratory health problems ranging from decreased lung

function--

We know kids, even today, with all the progress we have made--kids who are born in areas that are close to freeways, I say to my friend, close to railroads, close to ports--have a reduced lung function. At birth, they have a lesser lung function. What are we doing? How dare people come and hurt the American people. That is what this is. This is about hurting the American people, hurting America's families, stopping the Environmental Protection Agency from cleaning up the air, cleaning up pollution.

Here is this poll: 69 percent say EPA scientists--not Congress-- should set pollution standards. Yet this amendment says: EPA, get out of the picture. We do not want you. We want to do this, the politicians. Well, the people do not want this. That is why I hope we will reject this terrible amendment that endangers the people.

I continue to yield for a further question.

Could the Senator repeat that, please?

Well, my friend is so right. If this is an economic argument, bring it on to us. We know the numbers. The Senator has laid them out. We know tens of thousands of firms are moving forward because we have these laws on the books. The clean air technologies and the clean water technologies and the safe drinking water technologies are wanted by the whole world.

I have to say to my friends who are pushing this--I wish to tell them something they do not seem to either understand or maybe they do not want to hear, but I am going to say it--the whole world is going green, no matter where you look. Walmart is going green. I have had my differences with them on their policies on workers.

Walmart is going green. And why? Because, as my friend said, it saves money. The whole world is going green. What does it mean? It means everyone wants to save money. Everyone is looking for better energy opportunities that are clean. And everybody wants clean energy. If we back away from that, we are saying to China: Go for it. You will get the whole market, and we will still be pumping for oil.

By the way, I have a message on that front: Oil companies have 57 million acres of land and offshore tracts they already have a permit to drill in. My friends on the other side, in another debate, keep saying: Let's drill, drill. Why don't they drill where they already have the leases and it is already approved? So that is not at debate here.

What is at debate here is why would we, as my friend asked me, turn away from policies that result in clean technologies that the entire world wants--clean technologies that support more than 100,000 businesses and tens of thousands of more jobs? Why would we do that? My answer is, to me, it would be a self-inflicted wound on our country, when this is an opportunity.

I think my friend from Washington knows John Doerr who is a venture capitalist. He has told us for years now that if we invest in clean energy, if we incentivize clean energy, the venture capitalists will come off the sidelines with more billions than they ever gave to high tech and biotech combined. So why would anyone support this amendment which would turn the clock back on fuel economy, as my friend said, on clean energy technology, and turn the clock back on our little kids who are struggling as it is with asthma?

I yield for another question.

Well, of course my friend from Washington is right on target when she points out that--first of all, the EPA is being very cautious in the way it moves on this. They are only going after the biggest, dirtiest polluters. I think most of the people I talk to out there say--my mother always said, Clean up your room. If you are belching all of this smoke into the air, you have to take some responsibility for it, especially when you are making billions and billions and billions of dollars of profit.

No one has come to me and said big oil is suffering because they were under the Clean Air Act all of these years. But it is true. There is no pressing matter before us. They are using the problems in Libya and the tragedy in Japan.

The Upton bill, as in this McConnell amendment, says--Upton: A bill that would halt the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases would help stop rising gas prices. That is what he says, that this amendment before us will help stop rising gas prices. The nonpartisan PolitiFact, which is an independent Web site, looked at this. When they came to the end of looking at Mr. Upton's claim that this would reduce gas prices-- and this is the same bill as the Upton bill--they say, We find this claim false.

I feel comfortable in this debate because I am on the side of the truth. I am on the side of the American people who are telling us: Stop, Congress. Don't tell EPA to stop enforcing the law. That is wrong. So I feel good about that. We are on the side of these children whom we are protecting. We are on the side of consumers. We are on the side of progress. We are on the side of business. We are on the side of exports. We want America to be the leader.

My friend from Washington is an innovator. My friend knows what it is to go to the capital markets and say, I have a great idea, and she knows what government can do to encourage this type of investment. Government can't do everything, but we can set the stage. One of the ways we set the stage for a great multibillion-dollar economy to take off is by having a Clean Air Act that saves our children from these terrible air-gasping days, but also creates technology that cleans up our air.

My friend is so right. The false claim that this amendment is going to lower gas prices has been debunked right now. That claim has been debunked by people who have no axe to grind.

I appreciate my friend coming here and engaging this. Does she have any further questions?

The Senator from Washington poses an important question, and that is: Why are we seeing this kind of amendment on a small business bill? It is ridiculous. It makes the American people lose faith in us, frankly. This is a bill about small business innovation. This isn't a bill that is about telling EPA they can no longer do their job in protecting the American people. This is ridiculous.

We already know from reports how many lives have been saved. We have it here, and I want my friend to see this. In 2010, the Clean Air Act prevented 160,000 cases of premature deaths. That is a fact. By 2020, that number is projected to grow to 230,000. So excuse me. If this amendment were to pass and stop EPA from cleaning up the air, people will die.

If this is what you want to do, don't hang it on a small business bill. Why don't you have a press conference and say, You know what, we don't think this is worth it: 160,000 deaths; win a few, lose a few, you know. They don't care at all. But we care, and that is why we are talking about this.

I yield again to my friend.

This is what they would turn away from: preventing 160,000 premature deaths--that is documented--in 2010 alone.

There have clearly been a lot of moves on the part of special interests in this country--the biggest polluters--to try to get their way, and they try every which way to try to get their way. If they were to present the case to the Senator from Washington or to me that what they want is good for the American people, that is great. Make the case. Who could ever make the case that stopping the EPA from enforcing the Clean Air Act is good for the people? They can't. So what do they do? My friend is right to recall these other attempts. They couch it as: Oh, it is going to lower the price of gas, or it is good for business, or it is good for jobs. The truth is, it is devastating for all of those things.

My friend from Washington has been a leader on consumer protection. Oh, my goodness, we remember the fights when we had the Enrons of the world destroying people by raising the price of electricity behind closed doors, and the conspiracy to do that. Remember those battles we were in? These battles keep coming back at us. Does my colleague know-- my friend is asking me questions, but I would ask her one rhetorically. This amendment is so radical, it goes after fuel economy standards, and it says, No more. EPA, you are out of that. You can't deal with it ever again, even though we know fuel economy, when we get it done right, takes those toxins out of the air, plus we get better fuel mileage, and that will get us off of foreign oil. It takes that away. Chalk one up in the Middle East for oil barons. That is good for them. It is not good for America, but yes, chalk that up for them.

We already know what happens to kids. Let's show this picture because it shows the look on this child's face. This is what happens to our kids when the air is dirty.

The fact is, if we take EPA out of the business of cleaning up carbon pollution and all the co-contaminants that go into the air with it, such as mercury and others I could list, people are going to be sick. But here is beyond the pale what they do: In addition to those things, they even stop in this amendment the Carbon Registry, so that, America, you might as well cover your eyes, cover your ears, and cover your mouth, because you will not speak evil, you will not hear evil, you will not see evil. You will not see, you will not hear, and you cannot speak about the carbon pollution in the air.

That is what is going on here. So my friend is right to connect this to a whole line of faulty reasoning that the American people have been asked to swallow.

But I have news for you. They are smart. Madam President, 69 percent think EPA should update the Clean Air Act standards with stricter air pollution limits; 68 percent believe Congress should not stop EPA from enforcing the Clean Air Act; and 69 percent believe EPA scientists, not Congress, should set pollution standards.

So this vote we will have tonight--I hope we will have it tonight--is about whether Congress should play doctor and scientist and decide what is best for the people or allow that to be done by the physicians, by the scientists, and by an agency that is extremely popular in this country.

It is not popular right here, right now, I will tell you that, because the polluters don't want anything to do with it. But we don't represent polluters, we represent everyone--everyone. And a vast majority want us to say no to this McConnell amendment.

So I yield to my friend, if she has a final comment or question.

Before my friend leaves, I thank her so much, and I am going to leave the floor so my Republican friends have time to speak on this issue. America will hear a lot of different stories from a lot of different people. But, remember, this is pretty simple. This amendment stops the Environmental Protection Agency from doing its job.

I thank my friend and tell her that we can't afford this amendment. This amendment will hurt America. It will hurt it in every way. It will hurt the health of Americans, it will hurt jobs in this country, it will hurt consumers, and I am proud to stand with her.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I understand Senator Inhofe and Senator Vitter are both on the floor to offer amendments to the SBIR and STIR Program. Are we under a consent agreement?

Yes, I yield to Senator Inhofe.

Is that Senator Vitter's amendment? Senator Vitter was here, so I wanted him to have the opportunity to offer his. It doesn't matter to me in what order.

Mr. President, let me just add a word. I see the Senator from Oklahoma. Again, as the managers of this bill, Senator Snowe and I have worked across party lines to bring the SBIR bill to the floor. We want to have as open an amendment process as possible. We think that is fair. We would like to really ask people to focus on amendments specific to this legislation. I know time on the Senate floor is precious, and we don't get as much time as we would like to offer our bills and amendments, but we do ask that of everyone so we can try to get this bill to the House and, hopefully, to the President's desk.

Senator Inhofe is here to offer an amendment. We agreed earlier to allow that to happen, so I will turn the floor over to him.

Mr. President, I sincerely appreciate the remarks of the Senator from Delaware and thank him for his support not only of this program but for his expertise and leadership in the whole area of small business innovation and technological advancements. He was quite a leader in his previous positions in Delaware, and he brings a great deal of expertise to the Senate.

I know the Senator from Alaska is on the floor to speak about an amendment that is pending for debate and consideration. We may have amendments that are called up for votes today--that has not been finally decided--but we can come to the floor, of course, and offer amendments and debate several that are pending.

One thing I want to say before I turn it over to Senator Murkowski is that I think Senator Coons hit the nail on the head when he said a smart budget plan is going to work to meet the challenges of this extraordinary debt we have that has been caused for multiple reasons. It is important we address that correctly and not just one-sided.

This bill addresses a significant aspect of smart budgeting and debt reduction by creating jobs that generate revenues for governments at the local level that are looking for those revenues, at the State level where they are desperate for those revenues, and at the Federal level that could most certainly use some additional tax revenues so we can maintain our leadership in strategic investments.

Now, there were some on the floor this morning and in the Senate who said the only way to get to a balanced budget is by slashing some of the important programs that help create the atmosphere in America for businesses to thrive. Some of that would be strategic investments in infrastructure; some of that would be strategic investments in education. But even the Business Roundtable would say the last programs we should be cutting from the budget are effective job training and education programs. Yet, according to the philosophy of some, those are the first programs that get slashed.

That is not smart budgeting. That is not closing the budget gap. That is not putting your head to the problem. What the Senator from Delaware said is, it is a combination of some strategic cutting and some discretionary budgets. We are going to have to pare down the defense budget appropriately and find some cuts in some savings.

Even Secretary Gates acknowledges there is waste, fraud, and abuse in the Defense bill. But, most importantly, I think Democrats and Republicans are coming together to say we can grow our way out by producing jobs, and this reauthorization bill is one of the bills that can actually do that. So I just wanted to put a little exclamation point on that part.

I see the Senator from Alaska, who is going to be expressing her views on one of the amendments that is pending. Then Senator Boxer is also on the Senate floor, as is Senator Lautenberg from New Jersey. I think Senator Snowe may want to say just one word.

Senator Snowe is here to offer an amendment. So why don't we turn to Senator Murkowski.

Madam President, can I just inquire?

How long does the Senator think the Senator from Washington will proceed and how long will the Senator herself proceed?

OK. Because Senator Snowe has an amendment.

She would like to speak on it.

Do you think Senator Snowe can go after Senator Cantwell?

Let me see what we can do.

I will object. I know the Senator is very interested in offering this amendment, and we are very interested in hearing about it, but we have now six amendments pending. So if the Senator would like to go ahead and speak about the amendment, explain the amendment, and when we can get an agreement about how we should proceed with these amendments, we will move forward.

Will the Senator yield for a clarification?

This most certainly is an open process. What I was trying to explain to the Senator is there have been about a half dozen other Senators who have come to the floor during the day--such as Senator Hutchison, who came down earlier--and we are trying to be accommodating in the order the Senators come. So if the Senator doesn't mind explaining his amendment, I commit to him that Senator Snowe and I will try to get a pending list as soon as we can.

Mr. President, I know Members are following this debate carefully, and their amendments. Let me bring everybody up to date. It is about 5 after 5. We hope to have a vote around 6 o'clock, potentially two

votes. We have about five amendments pending. Senator Cornyn would like his amendment pending, Senator Hutchison is here to speak about I think two amendments she may want to have pending, and Senator Barrasso is on the floor to speak on the underlying McConnell amendment.

I will ask unanimous consent in a few minutes to try to get one or two votes set up for 6 o'clock, potentially get these other amendments pending, and set a time for votes tomorrow so we can move through it. We want to have as open a debate as possible, but we also really want to focus on the bill at hand, which is the Small Business Reauthorization Act and related measures. Many of these are somewhat related to jobs and the economy, so we are trying to be liberal in our views here. But we do want to try to be as orderly and as appropriate, as Members have come down to the floor, in the order they have come.

Why don't we turn now to Senator Hutchison, and Senator Cornyn--we will get back to the Senator as soon as we can about getting his amendment pending, if we can do that before the night ends.

I thank the Senator from Texas. I appreciate the patience of my colleagues who are on the floor. Because we have had two or three colleagues from this side of the aisle speak, I thought it would be appropriate to go to the Senator from Oregon, then recognizing Senator Barrasso to speak on his amendment and Senator Paul to then speak on his amendment.

If no one objects--I do not see anyone on the floor--if we can go in that order, I think everyone can be accommodated before the vote at 6 o'clock.

Is that okay with everyone?

Thank you.

I object to making it pending but not for discussion.

Please let me correct myself. Earlier today I said that Senator Coons is from Connecticut. Clearly he is from Delaware. And Senator Johanns is not on the floor, but Senator Barrasso is. It has been a long day and I apologize to my colleagues. But the Senator from Wyoming is going to speak for a few minutes, and then the Senator from Vermont, Mr. Sanders.

I am still hoping we can have a vote on one or two amendments at 6 o'clock.

Mr. President, I see two Members on the floor. I ask unanimous consent for Senator Johanns to go next and Senator Rockefeller, who wanted to speak, and then we will try to get some sort of consent for one or two votes tonight. We are still hoping to do that around 6. We will try to keep Members posted.

Amendment No. 161

Mr. President, I thank Senator Rockefeller and all of the Members who have come to the floor today debating this important bill and to share their thoughts about other amendments that are--some directly but some indirectly--related to our discussion. It doesn't look as if we are going to vote tonight, but we are going to continue to work throughout the evening as Members want to come to the floor and speak on their amendments, so we can try to work something out for tomorrow.

I thank Senator Snowe and her staff for their good work today. I see Senator Whitehouse on the floor. He may wish to speak about an amendment. But I remind everyone that we are on the SBIR and STTR Reauthorization Act. It is a very important piece of legislation that has been sputtering for a reauthorization now for over 6 years, and there are literally thousands of entities--small businesses, dozens of Federal agencies, many, many organizations from the Chamber of Commerce to the American Small Business Association--that are depending on us to do our work and actually get this program reauthorized. It is important to give consistency and permanency. So we are going to continue to work to do that.

I look forward to speaking in more detail about the bill later tonight and tomorrow. But it looks as though we are not going to have votes tonight;

but, hopefully, we can get some order and some agreement to proceed.

At this time I see Senator Whitehouse on the floor.

Madam President, this has actually been a very invigorating debate on the bill that is pending before the Senate. We have heard a few amendments that have been filed that are directly related to the reauthorization of this important program, and there are others who have an arguably indirect impact on small business jobs and the creation of opportunity for research and technology investments for small business in America. But we are unable to vote tonight and to come to any consensus about the order of votes. Hopefully, we can do that sometime this evening.

Let me take this moment to again thank the 84 Members of the Senate who voted yesterday to give us an opportunity to get to this important bill. As people have watched this debate throughout the day and continue to watch this evening, one of the reasons the leadership likes to sometimes put appropriate limits on the debate is to keep people focused on the underlying issue. But Senator Snowe and I decided to urge our leaders to have a really open debate because we understand there are Members who feel very strongly about the EPA issues and the climate change rules and regulations and about the 1099 provision. Senator Nelson feels strongly about reducing legislative spending. Senator Hutchison and I in particular have strong feelings about the LEASE Act. So we are going to be as inclusive and incorporate as many of these ideas as we can.

But I really want to ask, since we have looked at the amendment list just within the hour and we have 48 amendments pending on this bill-- and some people have half a dozen--if Members and their staffs will please look and see what is absolutely essential for them to offer as an amendment on this bill so that we don't miss this opportunity. That is really what I want to express right now, that this will be a missed opportunity to reauthorize one of the best programs at the Federal level.

We have heard a lot of talk about programs that don't work, about programs that are wasteful, programs that are full of fraud and abuse. This is not one of them. This is the Federal Government's largest investment program in research and development. This gives small businesses in America--businesses we all represent on main streets everywhere, whether North Carolina, Louisiana, California, or Massachusetts, small businesses with cutting-edge technology and new and exciting science, with very bright people who have graduated from some of the finest universities in the world--this gives them an opportunity to put their technology and their know-how in front of Federal agencies for the sole purpose of saving taxpayer money, creating jobs, and increasing the revenues paid to governments at the local, State, and Federal level to solve our deficit problem.

We are not going to solve our debt and deficit problem by cutting, slashing recklessly, domestic discretionary spending alone. No one in America believes that. I don't know why people come to the floor to continue to promote that idea. It is not going to happen. We are going to get to a balanced budget when we bring our revenues and our spending, in appropriate order, in line and when we pass bills such as this that literally help create thousands of jobs in America. That is what is going

to end the recession. That is what is going to close this budget gap. And that is why I will stay on the floor all week with Senator Snowe, who has been wonderfully helpful today, and we will continue until we can get this bill passed.

I don't want us to miss this opportunity because it has been three Congresses--not one, not two, but three Congresses--that have tried and failed. We are not going to fail this week. We are going to pass this bill this week in the Senate. We are going to get a bill out of here and over to the House. It is very likely that the House will take up our bill as it is generally written.

Why do I say that? Because we have already incorporated so many of the House views and thoughts over the last several years. This is not new language to them. We have a new chairman--Chairman Graves--and he understands perfectly that we are working hard in the Senate to get this bill over to him and to his good committee.

We have literally thousands of businesses kind of on hold because they do not know whether this program is going to be here from week to week. We have agencies that don't know if they should put out solicitations for new technologies. Why wouldn't we want to take this opportunity when we clearly know this is one of the most effective programs? Let me give a specific example. We have used it before, but it is worth using again, although we have hundreds.

Qualcomm is a company that is very well known. It developed the software primarily that allows wireless communication. Twenty years ago, nobody ever heard of Qualcomm, and very few people had cell phones that weighed less than 3 pounds each, as I remember. But 25 to 30 people came together with Dr. Jacobs. They sat in his den, as he testified before our committee just last week. He said that through the SBIR Program, their initial idea got a couple hundred dollars. In phase II, they got $1.5 million.

That is what this program does--incentivizes or gives grants or contracts to emerging technologies well before a bank would take a look, well before a venture capital fund would even look in their direction. You have to develop the technology to a point and then have it launched. This is where there is what he described as the valley of death--great ideas, but there is just not a lot of venture capital out there and particularly in this recessionary period. So he says we helped, that without this program, it would have been very difficult to grow their company.

Today, that company employs 17,500 people in about 22 countries in the world, including right here in the United States, and it pays in taxes, in 1 year, $1 billion. That is 50 percent of the cost of this entire program. So one company--Qualcomm--in its 25-year life, has grown so much that it pays enough taxes that it supports 50 percent of the cost of this program annually.

I can give dozens of examples of other companies that have been launched through this program.

Let me say that our Federal departments are getting better at this. It was a little touch-and-go at first. The Federal agencies weren't quite used to it. Senator Rudman helped to create this program. He was very passionate about it, as were others, so we sort of pushed the Federal agencies to do this. They were more comfortable doing research and development with the big companies. They felt more comfortable. They felt they weren't taking as much risk. No one likes to fail. So they thought: Well, I have this project, and I am going to give it to IBM. If it doesn't work, nobody can blame me. The problem was that IBM didn't have all the answers. We have come to find out that sometimes they had very few during parts of their career as a company.

Not to be disrespectful to that company, but right down the road there were 10 small businesses, but nobody ever heard of them; scientists nobody ever heard of. Senator Rudman knew this, so he said: We are going to mandate a certain percentage of your research and development money, you have to push it out to small business. And some of them, yes, failed. But as the folks testified, if they are not failing, this program isn't working. I want to repeat. If they are not failing, this program isn't working because this program is front-end, high-risk, but with great returns for the American taxpayer and great returns for small businesses.

I might say, as I said earlier today, it is the envy of many other countries in the world. The gentleman who has done the most research and looking over at this program testified before our committee that he travels around the world, and he is called by other nations that ask: How is it that the Federal Government sets up programs that allow the small businesses to enter into research and development?

So Senator Snowe and I have taken this on as our first priority for this year and for this Congress. We know there are many important bills pending before our committee, but we believe this is the right bill to present to the Congress in the right order. The Chair is on the committee, so she knows this very well. But we are trying to think of what we could get out of our committee to the floor, to the President's desk, that has the most immediate impact, creates the most jobs, and this is the program.

This program extends the authorization for 8 years. It updates the award sizes for the program from $100,000 to $150,000. It takes the phase II awards from $750,000 to $1 million. It increases investment in small businesses by increasing the percentage from 2.5 to 3.5 percent of the research and development monies at all agencies over 10 years, including NIH and the Department of Defense.

These are very significant numbers for the Department of Defense. It is $1 billion. It is $1 billion this bill will sort of set aside and say: Defense Department, if you are looking for that new radiator for that tank, if you are looking at ways to cool or looking at ways to sort your ammo more efficiently or looking at ways to come up with new software to help that warfighter, here is $1 billion of research money, and we want you to ask not just the big companies in America and around the world but the small companies, the innovators out there. Give them a chance to show you what they have. That is what this program does, and we have reams and reams of data supporting its effectiveness.

It also includes this compromise between the biotech, the venture capital industry, and the small business community. We had a big fight over the last several years, but we have come to a compromise. Neither side is ecstatic, which means it is a good compromise. They are all sort of just understanding that without this compromise, this bill could fall apart, and they know how important it is. So they have come to terms on the basic portion that can be invested by venture capital funds, leaving the integrity of this program as a small business program, which is the way it was created, but allowing an appropriate level of involvement with the venture capital industry.

It also creates Federal, State, and technical partnerships. It improves the SBA's ability to oversee and coordinate this program. It adds some metrics and measurements so we can really get some good data about how it is working and where it is not working. And as we authorize it for 8 years, we will be able to really say that we got down to business and we got serious about reauthorizing this important program, while leaving this debate open and flexible and allowing the Members to have an opportunity to speak about things they feel strongly about.

I am hoping that sometime tomorrow we can vote on some of the amendments we discussed today--the McConnell amendment, the Johanns amendment, potentially, the Vitter amendment, and the Nelson amendment. Senator Cornyn, Senator Hutchison, and others were down here to speak. We hope to get their amendments in the queue. But again, if the Members would just be cooperative and let Senator Snowe and me know whether you could choose one or two and not offer six or seven amendments, that would be extremely helpful to us. Just let us know and our staffs know, and we will work as hard as we can to have the votes that are necessary to move this bill off the floor and get it to the President's desk.

For those who say, why aren't we talking about the budget and debt, my answer is, we are talking about the budget and debt. This is part of closing the budget gap. This is about creating jobs that generate revenue that closes

that gap. It is not just about discretionary domestic spending cuts. We will never get where we need to be going down that road. We are going to get to it by a combination of things, and that is why Senator Snowe and I feel very strongly about bringing this bill to the floor to talk about growing and encouraging job creation, particularly by small businesses, innovators, entrepreneurs, inventors, and risk takers who need and rely on this program to launch new and exciting businesses that benefit us all.

Whether it is in the State of Oregon, the State of Louisiana, or, as I said, Massachusetts, New York, or California, we have literally thousands of companies that have used this program successfully to grow. Our people are employed, and America is continuing to lead in many areas. Unfortunately, we don't lead in every area, but in many areas in new emerging technology, depending on the field, of course, we are very proud of this Federal program, and it is an example of a program that works.

If we could work as well as this program does in doing our work this week and getting this bill actually off the floor intact--with some amendments, of course, that will be voted on--and get it over to the House, let them do their work, and get this bill to the President's desk, we will have done some good work this week.

Mr. President, I am going to suggest the absence of a quorum. I don't see anyone else on the floor. There may be Members who will want to come to talk about amendments. There will be nothing that will be pending for the next few hours, and hopefully we can get an agreement later on tonight.

Thank you, Madam President.

I thank my colleague from California, who is the chair of the committee, for working so hard on this important amendment to try to articulate and help colleagues understand what is the basis of it.

I too was surprised to learn that the McConnell-Inhofe amendment would overturn what has been the hard-won future gains in fuel economy we passed overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis just a few years ago. I don't get it, EPA's clean car standards through 2016 will save so much gasoline that car buyers will actually save as much as $3,000 over the life of the car. That is because of the hard work we have done in the Senate on a bipartisan basis.

I know our colleagues from both sides of the aisle worked to get that last agreement that we did in 2008, and while we are doing this, we will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil. So I was surprised to hear that this legislation--the McConnell-Inhofe amendment--would overturn all that progress we have made in the last couple decades on having cleaner air and more opportunities for fuel efficiency.

When I look at this, I look at our domestic automakers in Detroit who are making much more progress based on this new generation of technology. Our domestic automakers are getting back to profitability based on a new generation of vehicles offering much better fuel economy. So they are actually--because we have said you have to have more fuel-efficient cars--they are actually now winning in the marketplace with consumers because of those offerings. I know the Department of Energy, for the first time, has said we have reduced our dependence on foreign oil because of these fuel economy improvements.

So I say to my colleague from California, it was not because of ``drill, baby, drill'' that we got fuel efficiency and got off foreign oil. It was because we had fuel efficiency in automobiles that we were able to reduce our dependence.

So I ask my friend from California why we would want to go backward on that if we have made progress and better cars out of Detroit, if they have become cheaper for consumers over the life of the car. If we have made advancements in reducing our dependence on fossil fuel, why would we want Americans to pay more at the pump and have cars that do not go as far per gallon of gas as they do today? So I do not understand what kind of scheme this is, to keep the oil companies in business? Why would we want to go back on that level of fuel efficiency and override that by this amendment?

Am I correct in understanding that?

I am amazed because my predecessor, a Republican from Washington, was fighting for fuel efficiency standards in the 1990s. So I do not know why we would be here in 2011 with a radical proposal to basically erase the ability for fuel efficiency standards.

But I have a question about public health too because I think my colleague from California has articulated something that is greater than any economic issue; that is, health and clean air and healthier children because of that. I do not understand why we would want to go back on the Clean Air Act as it relates to adverse health outcomes.

Why would you want to have more problems with asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes, visits to the emergency room, hospitalization, premature deaths, all these things? EPA just came out with a comprehensive cost-benefit study on the Clean Air Act, and their findings were stark. They said the Clean Air Act will save our society $2 trillion through 2020. That is amazing.

So when I look at that, and we are going to say to polluters do not have to pay or adhere to the law, we are going to cause ourselves more costs in the future with health care. Yes, some polluters need to pay more, but as members of Congress we need to think of what's good for America, not just special interests. And the Clean Air Act

creates $30 for every $1 investing in reducing pollution.

I ask my colleague from California, what is it that Senators McConnell and Inhofe think they know about this that is different than what the American Lung Association, the American Public Health Association, the American Thoracic Society, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Trust for America's Health--what is it they know that those organizations do not know? Because those organizations are saying we have a serious health problem, and let's make sure it is addressed through the Clean Air Act. Are they just ignoring this issue?

I thank my colleague because my next question deals with technology. One thing I appreciate about working with the Senator from California is that we certainly share an interest in innovation and the innovation economy and making sure we do not do things to damage it, since so much job creation has happened from the technology sectors and from our improvements.

So I was surprised to think about this amendment from the perspective of that it would kill a wide range of jobs in America, including many that can't be outsourced. If we basically say we are going to allow people to continue to pollute and not adhere to the Clean Air Act, all those technologies that are about to get us off those pollutants and diversifying our energy sources would no longer be incented. The Senator and I probably would say we need to do a lot more to incent those and stop incenting those that cause so much harmful pollution.

But the United States is the largest producer and consumer of environmental technology, goods, and services. The environmental technology industry has approximately 119,000 firms and generates $300 billion in revenues and $43.8 billion in exports.

That is just the environmental technology industry. So that is 119,000 firms, $300 billion in revenue, and $43 billion in exports. So it is a very vibrant part of our economy that is based on that we want to do something about toxic pollutants. If all of a sudden you pass a bill in the Senate saying we do not want to do anything about these toxic pollutants, even though the Clean Air Act says we should, and the Supreme Court said, yes, EPA you should, then all of a sudden we are basically saying: OK. How far are we willing to go in saying we do not need to deal with toxins and pollutants?

To me, the foreign markets in developing countries that are already getting an edge on some of the clean energy technologies would worry me that they would continue to make advancements even more with these technologies.

I do not understand why people would think this radical measure would somehow help us, when the foreign technology market would continue to grow, and we would lose market share.

But foreign markets, particularly those of developing countries offer the most opportunity for U.S. companies.

The U.S. share of foreign environmental technology markets has continued to grow from 5.7 percent in 1997 to 9.8 percent in 2007, giving the U.S. environmental technology industry a positive trade surplus for the past decade.

I ask my friend from California, doesn't it make more sense to think about the future jobs we are trying to attract--because they are so much bigger--than thinking about this in the sense of 20th century jobs? That is almost what we are advocating: Let's go back to saying, if you are a pollutant, it is OK because somehow you are creating jobs.

I ask my colleague, isn't the market opportunity more in these technology jobs and environmental technology jobs?

I thank my colleague from California.

I am also interested in the Senator's opinion about this as it relates to gas prices because people are--I think House Republicans, anyway, and maybe even the minority leader, feel that if we pass this amendment, somehow gas prices are going to come down. Well clearly they don't believe this radical measure will actually pass because then they would have to worry about misleading their constituents.

We all know this: It seems about every summer we have these debates about the impact of gas prices. But this measure is so radical. When I think about even if EPA continued to act on their fulfillment of the Supreme Court decision that they must act in regulating pollutants--and rules on oil refineries won't even go into effect until December of 2011 and the final rules aren't even due until July 2011. So we are talking about rules that don't go into effect until 2013, 2014, 2015.

I ask my colleague from California, how would that have an impact? We don't even know what they are going to be. We have to wait until July, hopefully, to hear from EPA about that. So, somehow, that is going to affect gas prices today?

I think what we know to be true is that getting off of oil and having more fuel-efficient cars has reduced our dependence, saved consumers money, and allowed them to have a choice in the marketplace. We ought to continue in that direction, not this direction. But does the Senator think those rules going into effect are somehow having an effect today? Aren't we talking about people who have already written about this as false rhetoric in the debate, that it is not accurate and that this will impact the price at the pump tomorrow?

I do, if the Senator from California would indulge me on this. Because I see our colleagues on the floor, and as a member of the Small Business Committee I am as frustrated as they are that this important legislation that would help small businesses in America grow is being now held hostage by this amendment.

I look at this issue, the broader issue of discussion, as some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have said, as a major policy issue. Well, if it is a major policy issue and it is a major policy change, why should we try to hang it in an amendment onto the small business bill? Is that making some industry happy? Is that why they are doing it? Because if this is, as they are saying, a major policy issue, then let's have a major policy discussion. I know my colleague and I support legislation that would instigate a major policy discussion here. Some of that legislation has gotten bipartisan support. I think some of our colleagues on

the other side of the aisle have been saying we should address climate. Well, if that is the case, let's have that broad debate. Is that the understanding of my colleague, that some Republicans wish to address it and are saying now that we need to address it and not leave it all to EPA? If that is the case, then let's have that debate, but let's not have a rifle shot amendment that basically guts the law as it is being implemented. Let's have a discussion about what would be a more flexible approach to implementation of the requirements to regulate pollutants.

I have one last question for my colleague. I think these attempts that try to carve out pollutants and give them exemptions are never good policy, because there is so much at stake for the American people who believe our job is to protect them with clean air and clean water and to make sure that polluters are regulated. But it reminds me of that 2003 energy bill that was kind of done behind closed doors when the whole MTBE debate--you know, the additive to fuel--came up. I remember one newspaper ended up dubbing the bill the ``hooters and polluters and corporate looters'' bill or something like that, because it ended up trying to carve out for the manufacturers of that product that they would be exempted. It was a bipartisan effort on the Senate floor. My colleagues from the Northeast, from New Hampshire, I believe, and there may have been the Senators from Maine, all said, Wait a minute. We are not going to exempt MTBE from this legislation as a way to get an energy policy for the future.

I ask my colleague from California if she remembers that and other attempts to try to do this without the public fully understanding what is at stake for clean air and clean water, and if she remembers that failure because of doing this. It left the public vulnerable. Are there other instances of that debate she could recall for us? Because I think it is very similar.

I thank the chair of the EPW Committee, a great legislator, for protecting the interests of consumers on this issue. I serve with the Senator on the Commerce Committee, and I see her fight for consumers every day. Her passengers' bill of rights for the airlines on the FAA bill is another perfect example of how she is thinking about how all legislation impacts individuals and their rights, and this is about the right to clean air and clean water and to make sure we are not going to cut EPA out of the regulation of pollutants business. I don't know why we would do that. That is their day job. They are supposed to regulate pollutants. The Supreme Court says they are supposed to regulate pollutants.

So I thank my colleague for waging this battle against this amendment that, as she has outlined, has these radical notions in it. But I guess I go back and say: We can try to keep hanging on to the past and saying the past is going to take us somewhere, but that usually doesn't work.

My colleague from California understands probably more than any other because of the efficiency gains her State, California, has made in creating jobs and in getting more out of our current energy supply. The initiative that was just run in California, I think that was about going back to the past, too, wasn't it? That was the initiative where people said: Do we want to go backward or forward? The people spoke in California, and they said let's move forward.

So I would conclude by thanking my colleague and asking her just one last time, from an economic perspective, if America can afford this amendment. How can we afford this amendment if it is going to cost us that much in health care costs; if it is going to cause the loss of the advancements we have seen in the automobile industry? I would think Detroit alone, if we pass this amendment, would stop and say: Wait a minute. Do we even have to comply with the mile-per-gallon already on the

books because it seems as if Congress is saying they are out of the business.

So I would just say to my colleague from California, how can we afford this amendment? They would like to try to claim that as the only high ground of their debate, that somehow they are protecting jobs. But they are not protecting jobs. They are basically trying to take 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-century jobs and somehow saying they do not have to comply with the Clean Air Act. So I, again, ask my colleague whether we can afford that kind of amendment and just thank her for her leadership and tremendous support.

We all come here for different reasons, and we are all motivated by different reasons, but I know the Senator from California is motivated by doing what is right for the consumer and consumer interests. So I thank her for standing up for that voice that may not be heard today on this important issue.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object----

If the Senator amends his request that at the conclusion of his remarks we return to amendment No. 183.

Mr. President, I think the Senator was distracted over there. If the Senator would amend his unanimous consent request so that we would return to amendment No. 183 at the conclusion of his remarks.

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

Mr. President, I yield the floor to the Senator from Maryland.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

The pending amendment is No. 183. I ask unanimous consent that it be temporarily set aside for the purpose of introducing amendment No. 161.

Why not recognize Senator Vitter for his amendment, set aside our amendment temporarily, and then we will get to the Johanns amendment after that.

I thank the Senator from Louisiana.

First of all, we are currently on, it is my understanding, amendment No. 183. I ask unanimous consent to set aside the current amendment for consideration of amendment No. 161 by Senator Johanns and ask for its consideration.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to return to the pending amendment, amendment No. 183.

Thank you. Again, I thank the Senator from Louisiana.

This is an amendment to the underlying bill. It is a very significant one.

To give a little background, for the last 9 years, I have had an effort to stop legislation called cap-and-trade legislation. It is one that I think everyone now--no one used to hear about it, but everyone is familiar with it now after all these 9 years. It goes all the way back to the Kyoto treaty, when people realized, under the Clinton administration, that we were not going to ratify that treaty. In fact, President Clinton never even brought it up for ratification. But people realized this would be something very, very expensive to America.

So after that, in 2003, 2005, 2008, and on up, there were about seven different times that Members of the Senate brought up different cap- and-trade legislation. It was in 2003 that MIT and the Wharton School came out with analyses of what it would cost to do a cap-and-trade bill. The amount always ranged between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. I quite often say, when we are talking about billions and billions of dollars, you have to bring this home so people understand what we are talking about. In this case, in my State of Oklahoma, this would equate to something a little bit over $3,000 for every family that files a tax return.

The reason I am bringing this up at this time is that they tried to pass this all throughout the years. I think the last one was the Waxman-Markey bill over in the House. It came over to the Senate, and, of course, they didn't have near the votes to pass it over here. I think the most votes they could have gotten at any time in the Senate to pass a cap-and-trade bill was about 30 votes. Obviously, that is not enough.

So this administration decided: Since they won't do it legislatively, we will do what they wouldn't do legislatively through regulations. That is where the Environmental Protection Agency came along and--of course, back when the Republicans were in the majority, I was the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Now it is Senator Boxer from California, and I am the ranking member. So we have jurisdiction over the Environmental Protection Agency.

I think it is very important that we draw this in and make an attempt to connect the dots and make people realize what we are talking about now. There is great concern in this country about the price of gas at the pumps. It is approaching $4 a gallon, and this is something of great concern to my wallet and to everybody else I know in the State of Oklahoma.

The problem we have is a bureaucratic problem. It is a problem of this administration not allowing us to exploit the reserves we have in this country.

We hear over and over--or we did; we have not heard it recently--that we have only 28 billion barrels of proven

reserves and that is not enough to provide for our own consumption in this country. I ask us now to go to the CRS report. Less than 1 year ago, Senator Murkowski and I requested a CRS, Congressional Research Service, report. They said, right now, the United States of America has more oil, gas, and coal reserves than any other country in the world.

Let's take first the oil reserves. These are the proven reserves. The problem with using the word ``proven'' instead of ``recoverable'' is that proven has to be the result of drilling. We have to drill and know it is there. Obviously, if we have obstacles so that a majority of people, along with the administration, do not want us to drill offshore, do not want us to drill on public lands, and we cannot get in there and prove it, then we have to go back and take the recoverable oil.

This is what the geologists say we have in this country. No one has refuted this, I might add. Instead of being 28 billion barrels, it is 135 billion barrels of oil. If we carry that further, we realize this report is one that shows clearly we could have these huge reserves.

Let's go to natural gas and see what this same CRS report says about natural gas. This chart shows a combination of the fossil fuels; that is, gas, coal, and oil. First is the United States of America. Second is Russia. It shows the United States has greater recoverable reserves than Saudi Arabia, China, Iraq, and these countries combined. There is a huge reserve out there. In fact, the reserves of oil we are talking about, we have the equivalent to replace our imports from the Persian Gulf for more than 90 years. In other words, if we lift the restrictions we currently have in place on drilling for oil, it will be 90 years.

Gas turns out to be about the same. Based on the CRS report, it says the 2009 assessment of the Potential Gas Committee states that America's future supply of natural gas is 2,000 trillion. At today's rate of use, this would be enough natural gas to meet America's demand for 90 years.

The report also reveals the number of coal reserves. The coal reserves are 28 percent of the world's coal. CRS cites America's recoverable coal reserves to be 262 billion short tons. For perspective, the United States consumes 1.2 billion short tons of coal per year. That is a major export opportunity for us, as well as for jobs.

When we talk about our reserves in oil, gas, and coal, there are a lot more out there. This is just what we know is recoverable. For example, I did not include oil and gas shale. The Green River Formation located in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah contains the equivalent of 6 trillion barrels of oil. The Department of Energy estimates that of this 6 trillion, approximately 1.38 trillion barrels are potentially recoverable. That is equivalent to more than five times the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. I did not include these when I said we have enough to sustain us for 90 years.

Another domestic energy source is methane hydrates. That is another one that has tremendous potential. While the estimates vary significantly, the U.S. Geological Survey recently testified that ``the mean in-place gas hydrate resource for the entire United States is estimated to be 320,000 trillion cubic feet of gas.'' For a perspective, if just 3 percent of this resource can be commercialized in the years ahead, at current rates of consumption, that level of supply would be enough to provide America natural gas for more than 400 years. I did not include that. For 400 years, I am only including what is recoverable and what is out there. That is what I call energy security.

We need to also realize it is not just energy we can do. There is nothing more basic than supply and demand. If we are stopping our supply of oil and gas in this country, the demand is going to go up, and we will have to go elsewhere. If we want to become independent--and we could become independent if we were to exploit our own resources.

We have other reports that talk about the number of jobs at stake. Only two deepwater well permits have been issued in the last 11 months. I thought, at the time when we had the oilspill in the gulf, there were going to be people around saying: Aha, we are going to parlay this into stopping production, stopping exploration. Sure enough, they did.

While the moratorium on the gulf has been lifted, only two deepwater well permits have been issued in the last 11 months. Delays and continuation of the current permitting pace could cost 125,000 jobs in 2015, and getting down to the developing of Alaska's offshore, for example, would create 55,000 jobs a year. We are talking about a lot of jobs. We are talking about a lot of reasons we should go ahead and adopt this amendment.

Let's keep in mind what this amendment is. It is an amendment that would take away jurisdiction from the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases, anthropogenic gases, and leave that as something that should be done by Members of the Senate and the House.

Senator Baucus from Montana said:

I mentioned that I do not want the EPA writing those

regulations. I think it's too much power in the hands of one

single agency, but rather climate change should be a matter

that's essentially left to the Congress.

That is what we are talking about. As we speak, the House is marking up the bill. It is the Upton-Inhofe bill over there, and over here it is the Inhofe-Upton bill. That is to stop EPA from this regulation.

Senator Nelson from Nebraska said:

Controlling the level of carbon emissions is the job of

Congress. We don't need the EPA looking over Congress'

shoulder telling us we're not moving fast enough.

We have some eight Democratic Senators joining them saying that the EPA does not have the authority and should not be doing it. We are talking about Senators such as Senator Mark Begich, Senator Sherrod Brown, Senator Bob Casey, Senator Claire McCaskill, Senator Carl Levin, and Senator Max Baucus.

That is the reason I feel optimistic that if we can call up this amendment for a vote, we are going to have a favorable vote on it. I know all the Republicans are going to vote for it, and I think an awful lot of the Democrats will when we are facing a situation where we have gas going so high it is going to be difficult to not give serious consideration to this amendment.

I go further to say the administration has been of no help. I have a quote I have used several times on the floor. Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy, told the Wall Street Journal that somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe. That is $8 a gallon. What they are saying is, they want to do away with fossil fuels, and before we can go to other forms of energy, we have to do that. In the meantime, how do we run this machine called America? We cannot do it without oil, gas, and coal.

The bottom line is, we do have enough oil, gas, and coal to run this country. We could be independent from our reliance on the Middle East-- totally--after a short period of time. People say: If we were to open all these places, it would be another 5 or 6 years before we are able to actually produce this oil and gas we so desperately need in this country. In response to that I say: First of all, it will not be that long. Secondly, I heard that same argument 5, 6 years ago, and if we had done it then, we would be there today.

We have a serious problem that is looming out there. I know others want to speak. I know Senator Barrasso--by the way, Senator Barrasso has a different amendment than this amendment, even though he is a cosponsor of this amendment No. 183. This would go into such things as NEPA, the Endangered Species Act, and the other things the EPA is trying to use to regulate greenhouse gases to change our lifestyle in America. That is where we are today.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have comments I wish to make on 1099 which are at odds with the distinguished Senator from Nebraska, but I will hold that for another moment.

Amendment No. 183

I think it is well known that in West Virginia we have had our problems with EPA, and I have an amendment which would say for a period of 2 years they would not have the power to enforce their laws on stationary sources, i.e., powerplants. But it lasts for 2 years and then it stops.

What is my reason for doing that? I will offer this amendment. My reason for doing that is, I wish to give us the time to come up with a good carbon sequestration bill and also give us the time to come up with an energy policy, since, if my amendment were to pass--since it is 2 years from the date of passage--that does give us the time, if it is the will of the Congress, to have an energy policy. If it is not, then that, of course, is quite a different matter.

But I simply cannot support and will not support the McConnell amendment, which calls for a complete emasculation of EPA forever. I do not understand this type of thinking. I understand we are in a very sort of difficult position in a postelection period, where people have very strong ideas: Let's get rid of government, and let's size everything down and get rid of all these people who have been giving us trouble.

I think we have to be mature in the way we approach these problems. I do not think by saying EPA, created by President Nixon in 1972, shall virtually cease to exist with respect to any effect on greenhouse gases at all, forever--the concept of doing something forever is, to me, a very risky thing on its face. It does not usually make any sense, whether it is health care or energy policy or any other kind of policy, to make a law which has to do with regulation and then say: You cannot regulate forever.

What if you did that to the National Highway Traffic Safety Commission? We have discovered that for children the little models they use for crash tests are not, in fact, big enough. They were created a number of years ago, and kids are much bigger now. So we have to change, and the Commerce Committee is working on this. We have to change the size of the little dummies they put in these seats to crash test them to see what happens to them because kids are larger. So if you made

a rule that this was to last forever, under original circumstance, obviously, that would hurt our children and create discomfort and sadness.

The Environmental Protection Agency is not a frivolous agency. It is created, yes, to regulate pollution. I have been saying to the West Virginia Coal Association, which for the most part does not believe in climate science--they do not believe there is a climate problem, and I have been saying to them for a number of years that is wrong. In my judgment, the science is true, the science is unequivocally true, and there is a price to carbon in their future. I said this a couple months ago. There is a price to carbon in their future. You cannot simply carry on business the way you are doing it now and avoiding any sense of responsibility and be called a mature corporation or a mature person in this country or a mature public servant.

I understand the fervor of the Senator from Oklahoma, the Senator from Kentucky, and others who put up this amendment for a permanent ban on any regulation of carbon dioxide or any other of these areas. But in the process, of course, what they say they are for is that the EPA can no longer regulate CAFE standards; that is, how many miles per gallon your car gets. If you look at the private sector, there is a drive and a competition now to increase and raise the level of corporate average fuel economy standards, lowering emissions. That is as it should be. That is a natural product of free enterprise competition.

But to say that the EPA--what if there were to be a backslide? What if the Big Three and a number of others decided: Well, this isn't worth our while. There is nobody regulating us, so we don't have to do anything about it, and they slipped backward and then created a much more emission-charged climate?

I cannot abide by that. I cannot believe that is sensible government. I cannot believe that in the theological drive to make government small, to make government disappear, to make health care disappear, to make all kinds of things disappear--so we can all be happy again, as we were in the 1910s and 1950s, I guess--life does not work like that and legislation should not work like that.

We should approach it thoughtfully, with a long view as well as a short view. The short view says: Oh, I have to be mad at EPA--and I am because they have done things in West Virginia which I think are wrong and should be changed--but I would never, for a moment, consider saying they should forever be banned from having anything to do with climate change policies or CAFE standards. It does not make any sense.

It is embarrassing. It is embarrassing. That is not a favor to the people of West Virginia. What that means is the companies--coal companies, power companies--that are looking at all of this, they will just start walking away from coal very quickly. This would also be true in Pennsylvania, the home of the Presiding Officer. Natural gas is beginning to take over large parts of our electric power industry. That has happened in North Carolina and in Ohio and probably a little bit in Pennsylvania and, yes, a little bit in West Virginia. The Marcellus Shale is an unbounded, endless pool of natural gas, and it lies up and down the Appalachian spine. Companies are beginning to switch away from coal to natural gas.

Now, if one doesn't care about coal miners and one doesn't care about coal companies--but, particularly, coal miners. They are not responsible for any of this. They just dig the coal God put in the Earth 1 billion years ago. They dig it, and then it is shipped by truck or by rail or in some fashion, perhaps by barge, off to a power company. The power companies are the ones that have to make the decision how are they going to burn it. Are they going to burn it cleaner?

Two companies in West Virginia, one being American Electric Power, has conducted an experiment in New Haven, which is the large powerplant in the state. They have picked out 18 percent of all their emissions, and they have applied carbon-capturing sequestration to that 18 percent. That 18 percent of the flue gas emissions have gone from whatever carbon content down to about 10 percent carbon content. That is called clean coal.

When we talk about coal on this floor, everybody assumes coal is always dirty. Well, coal is dirty when it is taken out of the ground and nothing happens to it. But with all of the science and technology we have available, carbon-capturing sequestration is not only working to make that clean coal, therefore, highly competitive--much more competitive than natural gas, which is 50 percent carbon dioxide--it makes it only 10 percent when we use these technologies. That is what my amendment--the 2-year amendment, and then only 2 years, that is what is meant to give us the time. Sensibly, that is what we ought to be doing if people cared about having an energy policy.

Then there is another facility, operated by Dow Chemical. Dow Chemical is not usually associated with these things. But they are running exactly the same kind of a burning of coal focus and demonstration using a slightly different technology, but also getting about 90 percent of the carbon out of the coal, and they use the power from that. They use that. So don't tell me it can't be done. Just tell me we don't have the technology to do it broadly enough. But if we are talking about a nation with a couple hundred years' of coal left, don't--I don't want to hear about dirty coal because that is not going to get anywhere. But clean coal, that can do a lot better than natural gas and do a lot better than a lot of other alternative energies.

What is going on in Japan right now, I shy away from the idea of saying: Oh, well, then we have to stop from ever building any nuclear powerplant forever. I am not a big fan of nuclear power, but I don't think we make decisions because of that. We don't make them out of emotion. We don't make them because of a catastrophe in another country. Maybe there is and maybe there isn't; I haven't checked the news in 4 or 5 hours. But that is 20 percent of all of the power in this country. So before we make the decision, let's be thoughtful about it.

I think we ought to be thoughtful about this amendment, the McConnell amendment, which says that forever and ever the EPA will be completely stripped away of its authority for carbon monoxide, climate problems, plus anything else that creates carbon--it could be factories; all kinds of things. They will be completely free of any kind of regulation. I think that is wrong.

I think the regulation has to be put in place which is reasonable, which would be the purpose of my amendment for 2 years. Then that would be it. Then we would see where we are. But to do a permanent, complete emasculation of the EPA isn't what a mature body of legislators does, in my judgment. I, therefore, will vote against this amendment and will wait to see the result and then offer my amendment which I think is much more sensible.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.