Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I ask consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, in response to the outrageously high cost of fuel all across this country, and the fact that people both in the southern part of America and the northern part of America are very worried about how they are going to stay warm next winter and stay cool this summer, I introduced S. 3186, the Warm In Winter And Cool In Summer Act, which will provide immediate relief to millions of senior citizens, families with children, and the disabled who are struggling to pay their home energy bills. Specifically, this bill would nearly double the funding for the highly successful Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, that is the LIHEAP program, in fiscal year 2008, taking LIHEAP from $2.57 billion to $5.1 billion, a total increase of $2.53 billion. I mention that is, in fact, what this program is authorized for.

I thank Majority Leader Reid for completing the rule XIV process. My hope is that this legislation, this bill, will be on the Senate floor either this week or next week because it is imperative that we move it as quickly as possible.

There are many Members of the Senate, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, who have been active on the LIHEAP issue for a number of years. I want, at this time, to announce that we have now 40 Senators who are cosponsors of this tripartisan legislation. That includes 10 Republicans. It includes 30 Democrats and 1 Independent in addition to myself, making 2 Independents.

The cosponsors of this legislation are Senators Obama, Snowe, Majority Leader Reid, Smith, Durbin, Coleman, Murray, Sununu, Landrieu, Collins, Leahy, Murkowski, Clinton, Gregg, Cantwell, Lugar, Kerry, Dole, Kennedy, Bond, Schumer, Levin, Cardin, Brown, Klobuchar, Menendez, Casey, Bingaman, Lautenberg, Stabenow, Bill Nelson, Baucus, Lieberman, Salazar, Rockefeller, Wyden, Jack Reed, Dodd, Whitehouse, and Tester.

In other words, we have very strong tripartisan support, from the northern part of our country, from the southern part of our country-- all over. People look at the degree of partisanship that takes place in Congress. I am happy to say this bill is bringing all kinds of people from all kinds of ideologies together to say we have a crisis now; that in the United States of America people should not freeze to death in the winter; in the United States of America people should not be dying of heat exhaustion in the summer.

In addition to engendering widespread tripartisan support in the Senate, another bill, exactly the same, is being circulated in the House with very good cosponsorship. Furthermore, I am happy to say we have over 200 groups, national and local groups from all over the country, that are supporting this legislation. They include, among many others: AARP, the city of Phoenix, AZ, Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, the American Association of People with Disabilities, et cetera, et cetera--tremendous grassroots support from all over the country.

Let me quote from the AARP which, as you know, is the largest senior group in this country. This is what they say:

AARP fully supports the Warm in Winter and Cool in Summer

Act. This legislation will provide needed relief for many

older persons who may not receive assistance--despite their

eligibility--due to a lack of funding. Older Americans who

are more susceptible to hypothermia and heat stroke know the

importance of heating and cooling their homes. They often

skimp on other necessities to pay their utility bills.

However, today's escalating energy prices and the Nation's

unpredictable and extreme temperatures are adding to the

growing economic hardships faced by seniors. LIHEAP is

underfunded and unable to meet the energy assistance needs of

the program's eligible households.

That is from the AARP. I reiterate, Mr. President--what I know you know--there are some Americans and maybe even Members of Congress who do not know that when we talk about LIHEAP, we are not just talking about the problems that occur in my State where the weather gets 20 below zero or in your State. We are talking about problems that take place in Arizona and Texas, where temperatures get to be 110, 115 degrees. With a declining economy and escalating utility bills, many people--seniors, disabled, lower income people--cannot afford their electric bill. Their electricity is being disconnected. You are finding elderly people, people with illnesses, in a very horrendous position.

This is not just a northern State issue. It is not a New England issue. This is, in fact, a national issue and that is why we have cosponsorship for this bill from all over the country.

I have talked in the past and will talk again, obviously, about what LIHEAP means for northern States such as my own, but let me say a few words about what it means for southern States. Let me quote from the city of Phoenix, AZ.

This is from Phoenix, and the person there is saying:

I am writing to express my support for the Warm in Winter

and Cool in Summer Act. Currently Arizona can only provide

assistance to 6 percent of eligible LIHEAP households. To

make matters worse, Phoenix continues to experience extreme

heat. In the past month alone we have had 15 days with

temperatures at or above 110 degrees. This extreme heat is

especially hard on the very young, the elderly and disabled

who are on fixed incomes and can no longer afford to cool

their homes.

Arizona Public Service reported that there was a 36 percent increase in the number of households having difficulty in paying utility bills and an increase of 11,000 families being disconnected compared to a year ago. Rising energy and housing costs are placing enormous strains on households across Arizona.

Now, imagine being ill or elderly, having your electricity disconnected with temperatures day after day after day being 110 degrees. That is a serious health problem. But the issue obviously is not only in the South.

In my State there is a newspaper called the Stowe Reporter. This is what they say, very briefly, in an editorial:

It could be New England's own Katrina disaster. Hundreds of

homes rendered uninhabitable, families' finances stretched to

the limit, some driven away altogether to take

shelter with friends or family. But unlike Katrina, this

calamity is clearly visible on the horizon and we have months

to prepare.

With home heating oil prices nearly twice what they were

one year ago, and no price relief in sight, thousands of

Vermonters will be struggling this winter to keep their homes

warm. The financial effect of an additional $500 to more than

$1,000 on the winter's oil bill will force many to choose

between heat and other necessities, such as food.

So what we are looking at in the northern tier of this country is our own Katrina, if you like: people being forced out of their homes, people becoming ill, people leaving the northern part of this country because they cannot pay these outrageously high energy costs. This is, in fact, a life-and-death issue. Unlike hurricanes or tornadoes, you are not going to see CNN there. But as my friend from Maine, who is just walking in, understands, in her State and in my State, we are seeing people struggle in a life-and-death fashion. This is very important for people to know, because it does not get a lot of publicity, but according to the Centers for Disease Control, over 1,000 Americans from across the country died from hypothermia in their own homes from 1999 to 2002, and those are the latest figures we have available.

In other words, they froze to death because they could not afford to heat their homes. How many of these deaths were preventable? Well, according to the CDC, all of them were preventable. If people were living in homes that were adequately heated, those folks would not have died. It is important to understand that it is not only heating oil prices that are skyrocketing but electricity prices are also soaring.

Recently, USA Today ran a headline on its front page that said: ``Price Jolt: Electricity Bills Going Up.'' According to this article, utilities across the United States are raising power prices up to 29 percent, mostly to pay for soaring fuel costs. In other words, the situation that exists in the southern part of the country is that the electricity is disconnected because you cannot afford the huge increases in your electric bill, and if the temperatures are 110 degrees in Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, you are in serious trouble.

Before I yield to my friend from Maine, I did want to mention some information in our southern and southwestern States. Due to a lack of LIHEAP funding, the State of Texas only provides air conditioning assistance to about 4 percent of those who qualify. Recently I received a letter from Shawnee Bayer, from the Community Action Committee in Victoria, TX. In her letter, Shawnee Bayer told me that LIHEAP funding for their elderly and disabled clients ran out on May 1 of this year. As a result, they have had to turn away over 500 elderly and disabled families seeking assistance with their air conditioning bills.

According to Ms. Bayer:

The temperatures in our area have been 100 to 110 degrees

for 16 consecutive days. I fear it is going to be very tragic

at the current pace we are going with so little funding

available. There are so many who need our assistance, like

the elderly lady in her 80s who recently almost died due to

kidney failure; now she doesn't want to use her air

conditioner because she is afraid she won't be able to pay

the bill and that we won't have funding to assist her when

she needs us.

She just called me last Thursday and has pneumonia; she

could hardly talk. Last year she was placed in the hospital

in ICU due to a heat stroke as a result of using only a fan,

not the air conditioner. I see children every day who have

not eaten because the parents, grandparents and in some cases

great grandparents are just trying to keep the electricity

on. The electric bills in our area have tripled.

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

Madam President, I want to take a moment to speak about one of the most important issues facing our country right now, and that is the energy crisis, in terms of the high cost of energy and the fact that people will be suffering very significantly this coming winter--in fact, this summer--if we do not address it.

In that regard, on June 24, I introduced S. 3186, the Warm in Winter and Cool in Summer Act, to provide immediate relief to millions of senior citizens, families with children, and the disabled, who are struggling to pay their home energy bills. Specifically, this bill would nearly double the funding for the highly successful Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, commonly called LIHEAP, in fiscal year 2008, taking LIHEAP from $2.57 billion to $5.1 billion, a total increase of over $2.5 billion.

I thank Majority Leader Reid for completing the rule XIV process for this important piece of legislation and placing it directly on the Senate calendar. My understanding is that we will have this bill on the floor before we recess for the August vacation. It is important we do that, and I thank Senator Harry Reid very much for allowing us to move forward in that direction.

I also thank the 26 Senators who are cosponsors of this tripartisan legislation. This bill absolutely is a tripartisan piece of legislation. At this point, we have 18 Democrats on board, we have 8 Republicans on board, and I expect more will be coming on in the coming days and weeks. I thank Senators Obama, Coleman, Leahy, Smith, Durbin, Snowe, Murray, Sununu, Landrieu, Collins, Murkowski, Clinton, Lugar, Cantwell, Gregg, Kerry, Cardin, Kennedy, Schumer, Brown, Klobuchar, Menendez, Casey, Bingaman, Stabenow, and Lautenberg for their support.

This legislation not only has strong bipartisan support here in the Senate, it is also moving in the House, and it also has been endorsed by numerous groups all across this country, including the AARP, the National Grange, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Community Action Foundation, the National Association of State Energy Officials, the Alliance For Rural America, the Northeast Public Power Association, the National Consumer Law Center on behalf of its low-income clients, the Edison Electric Institute, the National Fuel Funds Network, and the Petroleum Marketers Association of America.

I think we are going to show more and more support in coming weeks, but there is a widespread understanding that we are facing a crisis in this country and that the President and the Congress have to act.

Let me read a support letter I received from the AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons. As you know, the AARP represents over 39 million Americans, and this is what the AARP said.

AARP fully supports the Warm in Winter and Cool in Summer

Act. This legislation will provide needed relief for many

older persons who may not receive assistance--despite their

eligibility--due to a lack of funding. Older Americans who

are more susceptible to hypothermia and heat stroke know the

importance of heating and cooling their homes. They often

skimp on other necessities to pay their utility bills.

However, today's escalating energy prices and the Nation's

unpredictable and extreme temperatures are adding to the

growing economic hardships faced by seniors. LIHEAP is

underfunded and unable to meet the energy assistance needs of

the program's eligible households.

I thank the AARP very much for their strong support of this legislation.

Let me also quote from a very recent New York Times editorial. This is what the New York Times said the other day.

A bill just introduced in the Senate would provide about

$2.5 billion under the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance

Program. Half would be released to the States to help low-

income residents pay their energy bills and half would sit in

a contingency fund that could be tapped at the discretion of

the President. When the bill comes up for a vote, likely

later this month, Congress should approve it and President

Bush should sign it into law. As the economy slows and oil

prices rise, helping Americans who cannot afford to heat

their homes is a matter of public health and safety as well

as a moral imperative. People without adequate heat are

vulnerable to illness, and people struggling to pay the

heating bills may be tempted to skimp on medicines and even

food. No one should have to choose between heating and

eating. If they act this summer, as they must, before the

Presidential and congressional campaigns send everyone home,

Congress and President Bush can help make sure that nobody

has to make that choice.

That is from the New York Times, and I appreciate the support of the New York Times on this issue.

Make no mistake about it, we have an energy emergency in Vermont and all across this country, and it is about time the President and the Congress treated this as the emergency it is. As many of my colleagues understand, the price of heating oil skyrocketed last winter, making it extremely difficult for some of my constituents and people all across this country to stay alive, especially when the temperature dropped well below zero. Next winter will even be worse.

At this time last year, heating oil prices were about $2.50 a gallon. Today, they are about $4.50 a gallon. Fuel dealers in Vermont are telling me that if this trend continues, heating oil prices could surpass $5 a gallon by December. I must tell you, Madam President, that all across my State people are very worried about how they will in fact be able to adequately heat their homes next winter.

Meanwhile, LIHEAP funding is 23 percent less than it was 2 years ago, completely eviscerating the purchasing power of this extremely important program. In fact, after adjusting for inflation, the Federal Government spent more money on LIHEAP 20 years ago than it is spending today. So we have a real crisis we have got to address.

It is not an exaggeration to say this is a life-and-death situation. People use that phrase often, but in this sense we are describing the reality facing a number of people. According to the Centers for Disease Control, over 1,000 Americans all across this country died from hypothermia in their own homes from 1992 to 2002, the latest figures we have available. Over 1,000 Americans died from hypothermia. In other words, they froze to death in the United States because they were unable to afford to heat their homes. How many of these deaths were preventable? Well, the answer is, all of them, according to the CDC.

We will probably not know for several years how many Americans died last winter because they could not afford to heat their homes, but clearly one death is too many. And everything being equal, if we do not act, I think we can reasonably expect the number of people dying of hypothermia in this country will only go up. If heating oil even approaches $5 a gallon by next winter, we will have a public health emergency throughout the northern tier of this country, and this is something we have to address.

I wish also to point out that, although I come from a cold weather State--and I hope and expect all of my colleagues understand this-- LIHEAP does not only help constituents in the northern part of our country stay warm in the winter, it also helps people in the South and the West stay cool in the summer. Right now, many people in the southern and western States are suffering with temperatures frequently soaring past 100 degrees while their electricity prices are rapidly increasing.

I was in Nevada last week, and the temperature there was something like 110 to 115 degrees. That is hot. I cannot imagine a frail or elderly person, somebody who is ill, trying to survive in that kind of weather. Those people are going to need help today as much as people in the North will need help when the winter comes.

Recently, USA Today ran a headline on its front page and it said:

Price jolt: Electricity bills going up, up, up.

That was a headline, front-page story. According to this story:

Utilities across the USA are raising power prices up to 29

percent, mostly to pay for soaring fuel cost. . . . The

spikes come after rising fuel prices already have driven up

utility bills nearly 30 percent the past 5 years, the

sharpest jump since the 1970s energy crisis.

Let me give an example of why LIHEAP funding is vital, right now, for these hot-weather States. Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Florida have either exhausted all their LIHEAP funding or are on the verge of running out of funds. In other words, they will have absolutely no support from the Federal Government to help millions of senior citizens on fixed incomes, low-income families with kids or the disabled stay cool this winter. They are running out of funds right now.

As I have indicated, with the price of electricity going up and up, with the economy in the tank, people are having a harder and harder time paying their electric bills, air-conditioners are run on electricity, and if you don't have your electricity, you don't have your air-conditioner, and if you are old and you are frail and you are sick, you are in a lot of trouble.

From 1999 to 2003, over 3,400 deaths in this country were due to excessive heat. All these deaths were preventable, and air-conditioning is the best way to prevent these deaths from occurring, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In fact, more people in the United States--and this is an interesting fact that I think many people are not aware of--more people in the United States have died from the extreme heat than from floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes combined, since 1998.

CNN may not be in a senior citizen's bedroom when she expires because of heat exhaustion. They are there with the floods and hurricanes and cyclones and tornadoes--we understand that. But we need to reiterate that more people in the United States have died from the extreme heat than from floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes combined.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government spends less money preventing these deaths from occurring than any other natural disaster we face, according to the CDC.

My point is, hurricanes and floods certainly are emergencies. I have always supported efforts to address these emergencies. I want my colleagues to know that when the weather gets 20 below in Vermont and Maine and New Hampshire, that is an emergency. When the weather gets to 110 degrees in California or Nevada, that is also an emergency. We have to act.

My legislation will begin to move us in the right direction. If this legislation becomes law, as I certainly hope it will be, the State of Arizona would receive over $24 million, the State of Kentucky would receive over $34 million, the State of Georgia would receive over $70 million, and the State of Florida would receive over $80 million to keep their residents cool this summer.

The point I am making is, I don't want anybody to think that because I represent Vermont and we are from the Northeast, that this is simply a cold-weather issue. It is not. It is an issue for every region of this country.

In addition to all that I have said, it is important to understand that tens of thousands of Americans have had their utility and natural gas service shut off this year, and millions more are in danger of having these services cut off because they are at least 1 month late in paying their bills. There is a lot of attention, obviously, on housing foreclosures that we have been focusing on. But let us not forget that as people lose their jobs, as people's wages decline, as utility bills go up, we are looking at utility cutoffs in a very dramatic way.

Increasing LIHEAP funding will allow these Americans to turn their electricity and other essential utility services back on right now so they can cool their homes this summer and heat their homes next winter. According to the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association, a record 15 million American families, or nearly 15 percent of all households, are at least 30 days overdue in paying their utility bills.

Let me conclude by thanking the 26 cosponsors, including 8 Republicans, who are onboard this legislation. Let me thank AARP and the many national organizations that are supporting this. Let me thank Senator Reid for completing the rule XIV process.

I hope very much that in a week or two, certainly before we break for the August recess, we will be voting on this legislation. I hope we win it by a very large majority.

I thank Majority Leader Reid and all my colleagues who are supporting this legislation and look forward to, in the very short term, reassuring people throughout this country that we are mindful of the impact high energy costs are having on their lives, and we are here to do something about it.

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

Senator Leahy has yielded me his remaining time.

Yes. Mr. President, international terrorism is a serious issue, and every Member of this body has pledged to protect the American people, and we will do that. But we will and must do it within the context of the Constitution of the United States and the law of the land. No individual, no President, is above the law. This President, perhaps more than any other in history, has abdicated the Constitution of the United States. The time is now to stand up and say: No more.

Let's defeat this legislation. Let's assure the American people that in fact we are a nation of laws, not individuals.

Thank you.

Madam President, I would like to recognize the National Life Group of Vermont for the impact this company is having in the field of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and environmental stewardship in my State of Vermont. National Life, a Fortune 1000 financial services and insurance firm based in Montpelier, is actively moving forward with a significant solar project at its headquarters.

National Life announced in May that it will install 240 300-watt solar panels on the roof of its Montpelier headquarters. This will be one of the largest, if not the largest, solar electric installations in Vermont. The solar panels are expected to be installed and running by September, and they estimate that the system will generate 77,767 kilowatt-hours a year. The 72 kW Photovoltaic, PV, system will generate enough electricity to power 13 average Vermont homes.

The $500,000 project will be financed in part through a $200,000 grant from the State of Vermont's Clean Energy Development Fund, which is administered by the Department of Public Service.

National Life has contracted Solar Works of Montpelier to handle the installation. Solar Works is the leading solar electric systems provider in the Northeast.

National Life is also working on a separate proposal to install a solar hot water system at the building. Both solar projects are part of a larger plan, begun 5 years ago, to transform the company's Montpelier headquarters into a ``green'' campus. An important plan objective will be realized at the end of 2008, when the company expects to win a coveted LEED certification. LEED--Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design--is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high-performance green buildings. Impressively, experts say LEED certification for National Life's headquarters would be the first for a 50-year-old facility anywhere in the Nation.

Tom MacLeay, the CEO of National Life, has driven this entire green initiative. A Vermont native who has worked at National Life for 32 years, Tom recently announced that he would be retiring at the end of this year. It is certainly worth noting that the company's commitment to environmental leadership is a testimony to his vision of the ways in which business can help achieve a secure environmental future for this Nation.

Solar is not the only area in which National Life has shown its environmental stewardship. Every 10 days National Life sends its shredded paper to Fairmont Farms, a dairy farm in East Montpelier, to be used as bedding for the cows and mixed into fertilizer for the fields. In 2007 they recycled 64 percent of their waste, including paper, plastic, shredded material, aluminum, metal, food composting, and computer equipment.

In 2007 National Life transformed the offices of its Human Resources Department into a showcase for leading-edge green technology, using carpet with no volatile organic compounds, VOC, occupancy sensors, glass walls and automatic window blinds that allow light to pass through while keeping the heat out in the summer and the cold out in the winter. The new lighting technology put in place at its headquarters--with fixtures that are 95 percent efficient compared to the 50-percent efficiency of existing fixtures--will cut the company's electric bill in half.

The company's Alternate Transportation Program offers incentives such as free bike tuneups, gas cards, free bus passes, and shoe discounts for those who carpool, bike, use bus service, or walk or run to and from work.

These accomplishments are not just environmentally sound, they illustrate smart business decisions. By reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, Vermont Life is cutting its electric bills and saving serious money too. And by pushing the boundaries of what can be done, it is setting an example for other companies.

What they are accomplishing with solar energy in Vermont, which is not a particularly sunny State, demonstrates what is possible to achieve right now if the will is there to carry it through.

Mr. President, I look forward to the day when renewable energy and conservation have become so commonplace in our society that they are no longer looked upon as being unusual or path-breaking but are seen as totally ordinary, a normal part of the landscape. When that day comes, and I believe that it will, we will be able to look back to a handful of environmentally aware companies, such as National Life, that helped show us the way toward our sustainable energy society.

Mr. President, on Tuesday, I introduced S. 3186, the Warm in Winter and Cool in Summer Act. This bill would provide $2.53 billion in emergency funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, commonly known as LIHEAP.

I take this opportunity to thank the majority leader for completing the rule XIV process of placing this bill directly on the Senate calendar yesterday. I also want to express my deep appreciation to him for his goal of moving this legislation forward within the next month. I think there is widespread support, in a nonpartisan way, for this legislation, which impacts people when the weather gets hot and it impacts people when the weather gets cold.

This bipartisan bill is being cosponsored by Senators Leahy, Snowe, Brown, Sununu, Cardin, Coleman, Kerry, Collins, Kennedy, and Smith and I expect that the numbers of Senators from both sides of the aisle who will be supporting it will only grow. The bottom line here is pretty simple, and that is: With the cost of energy soaring, we have many millions of Americans wondering next winter how they are going to be able to stay warm, and we have got to expand LIHEAP funding to match the inflationary costs of home heating fuel.

For those people living in warm weather States, what we understand right now is that electricity rates are also soaring. There are many Americans--elderly people, lower income people--who are unable to afford the increasingly high cost of electricity. They run the danger of seeing their electricity cut off. When the weather gets 110 degrees and the electricity gets cut off, and you are a senior citizen or you are a person who is frail or who is ill, you have a problem dealing with heat problems.

So I hope and expect there will be widespread support for this legislation. Once again, I thank the leader for putting this on the rule XIV process.

I also want to say a few words about the Medicare package that was approved overwhelmingly in the House on Tuesday, and which we expect, hopefully, to take up here shortly. This bill is nearly identical to the bill put forth on the floor last week by Finance Committee Chairman Baucus, and I thank the chairman for his commitment and his effort in putting together this excellent piece of legislation.

There is a lot in this bill, but there is one particular section I want to focus on, and that is the section pertaining to Medicare payments to community health centers.

Specifically, this bill provides for a much needed increase in the cap on Medicare payments to community health centers, and also requires a GAO study to determine whether the current structure for Medicare payments to community health centers provides adequate compensation for the care provided. I believe it does not.

According to the National Association of Community Health Centers, the artificially low cap on Medicare payments costs community health centers $50 million annually--money that could be used to provide primary care access to thousands more of our Nation's seniors. An overwhelming majority of community health centers--a full 75 percent-- now lose money--they

lose money--treating Medicare beneficiaries. An inadequate and arbitrary payment system jeopardizes the ability of community health centers to continue to provide necessary primary care to the 1.5 million Medicare beneficiaries who are seen at community health centers each year, many of who live in the most isolated and medically underserved regions of this country.

Let me say a word on community health centers, because I am a very strong advocate of that program. The truth is that in the midst of the disintegrating health care system, one of the major crises we are facing is in primary health care access. All over America, especially in rural areas, millions and millions of people simply cannot get access to a doctor, to a nurse, to a dentist, to people who will help them deal with their day-to-day health problems. The insanity of continuing that situation, that lack of health care access, means people will simply get sicker. They are going to go to the emergency room and they will end up in the hospital at far greater expense and a lot more human suffering.

I happen to believe this country has to join the rest of the industrialized world and establish a national health care program which guarantees health care to every man, woman, and child. I think at a time when we spend twice as much per person on health care as any other nation and have 47 million people uninsured and see our social indices, in terms of infant mortality or longevity, much worse than many other countries, I think we should finally conclude there is something fundamentally wrong with our health care system.

Health care should be a right of all people. We should do it in a cost-effective way. The function of health care should not be to make insurance companies rich or make drug companies rich but should be to provide quality health care to every man, woman, and child.

In the midst of all that, while we try to take on the insurance companies and all their lobbyists and while we try to take on the drug companies and all their lobbyists and advertising and campaign contributions, there is one simple thing we can do, where I suspect there is going to be tripartisan support, and that is substantially increase the funding for community health centers. In that regard, I thank Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi for a very strong authorization package that came out of the Health, Education, Labor Committee. I thank Senator Harkin and Senator Specter for their support in giving us a reasonable increase in appropriations funding. But we have a long way to go.

The simple truth is--and this is a point that should be understood by all Members--if we spend as a nation $2 or $3 billion more on community health centers, do you know what? We could provide primary health care access to every man, woman, and child. That is about 1 week of the war in Iraq. So you have war in Iraq, 1 week; or $2 billion or $3 billion building hundreds of community health centers, providing primary health care, dental care, mental health counseling, low-cost prescription drugs, to every man, woman, and child.

In the course of the coming months and years, I will be fighting for that $2 or $3 billion. It certainly is not going to solve all our health care problems, but by providing a place where any American-- whether you are insured, uninsured, Medicare, Medicaid--regardless of your income you can walk in and get high-quality primary health care-- wow, that is a huge step forward in this country.

In order to make sure these community health centers function, we have to do something else. Do you know what we have to do? We have to graduate doctors and nurses. We are living at a time when we are not graduating from medical school enough doctors or enough nurses or enough dentists. We have to work on that. One of the ways we work on that is to significantly increase funding for the Health Services Corps, a program which provides debt forgiveness and scholarships for those willing to serve in underserved medical areas.

There is a lot of work to be done. I think we are making some progress on the Medicare bill coming before us. The day has to come when all our people, by right, have primary health care access and access to health care.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to express my strong opposition to H.R. 6304, the FISA Amendments Act, and my opposition to invoking cloture on the motion to proceed to this legislation.

Let me tell you what I think this debate is about and what it is not about. What it is not about is whether anyone in the Senate or the Congress is not going to do everything he or she can to protect the American people from another terrorist attack. It is not about whether we are going to be as vigorous as we can in hunting down terrorists. It is not about whether we are going to be vigilant in the war against terrorism. That is what it is not about. What it is

about essentially is whether we can be forceful and successful in fighting terrorism while we protect the constitutional rights that make us a free country. That is what this debate is about.

I happen to believe that with strong law enforcement, with a strong and effective judiciary, with a Congress working diligently, we can be vigorous and successful in protecting the American people against terrorism and we can do it in a way that does not undermine the constitutional rights which people have fought for hundreds of years to protect--the Constitution, which today remains one of the greatest documents ever written in the history of humanity.

We hear a whole lot about the word ``freedom.'' Everybody in the Senate and the House is for freedom. But what do we mean by freedom? What we mean by freedom is that we want our kids to be able to read any book they want to read without worrying that the FBI is going to come into a library or a bookstore to check on what they are reading. We want people to be able to write letters to the editor critical of the President, critical of their Congressmen or their Senator without worrying that somebody is going to knock on their door. We want people to have the freedom to assemble, to demonstrate without worrying that someone has a camera on them and is taking notes and later on there will be retribution because they exercised their freedom of assembly and their right to dissent.

That is really what the debate is about. It is not whether you are for protecting the American people against a terrorist attack. That is not what the debate is. The debate is whether we, as a great country, will be capable of doing that within the context of our laws, within the context of our Constitution, and understanding that we are a nation of laws and not of men, regardless of who the President is.

Before I go into deeper concerns, I begin by recognizing the very hard work done by members of both the Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee in the Senate and in the House. We all know these are not issues resolved, and while I have strong disagreements with the final product, I know that the intentions of all the Members on both sides of the aisle were honorable.

Although there have been some improvements made to this bill that the Senate passed earlier this year, including having the inspector general review the so-called terrorist surveillance program and making it clear that FISA and criminal law are the exclusive process by which the electronic surveillance can take place rather than some broad power of the President, this final legislation is something I simply cannot support.

This legislation does not strike the right and appropriate balance between ensuring that our intelligence community has the tools it needs to protect our country against international terrorism and protecting the civil liberties of law-abiding Americans. Instead, it gives a get- out-of-jail-free card to companies that may well have violated the privacy and constitutional rights of millions of innocent Americans.

I am proud to be a cosponsor of the amendment that will be offered, as I understand it, by Senators Dodd, Feingold, and Leahy to strike title II of the Intelligence bill which deals with retroactive immunity. This is a very important amendment, and I hope a majority of the Members of the Senate will support it.

It is important in this debate to put the discussion of this FISA legislation in a broader context. The context, sadly, in which we must view this legislation has everything to do with the history of what this administration currently in power has done since 9/11. Sadly, what they have done is shown the people of our country and people all over the world that they really do not understand what the Constitution of the United States is about and, in fact, they do not understand, in many instances, what international human rights agreements, such as the Geneva Convention, are all about.

So when we enter this debate, we should not look at it that this is the first time we are addressing the issue of fundamental attacks on American civil liberties. This has been going on year after year. This is more of the same from an administration which believes, to a significant degree, that they are an imperial Presidency, that in the guise of fighting terrorism, a President has the right to do anything against anybody for any reason without understanding what our Constitution is about or what our laws are about.

Let me give a few examples to remind my colleagues what kind of credibility, or lack thereof, this administration has in the whole area of civil liberties.

Among other things, this administration has pushed for, successfully, the passage of the original PATRIOT Act and the PATRIOT Act reauthorization. Under that bill, among many things, an area I was involved in when I was in the House was a provision that says, without probable cause, the FBI can go into a library or bookstore and find out the books you are reading, and if the librarian or bookstore owner were to tell anybody, that person would be in violation of the law. Do we want the kids of this country to be frightened about taking out a book on Osama bin Laden because somebody may think they are sympathetic to terrorism? I don't think so. What freedom is about is encouraging our young people and all Americans to investigate any area they want. I don't want the people of this country to be intimidated. That is not what free people are about.

Further, under this administration, we have seen an illegal and expanded use of national security letters by the FBI.

We have seen the NSA's warrantless wiretap program, which, in fact, is what we are discussing today.

We have seen the President using signing statements to ignore the intent of Congress's law in an unprecedented way. The President says: Oh, yes, I am going to sign this bill, but, by the way, I am not going to enforce section 387; I don't like that section. Mr. President, that is not the way the law works. If you don't like it, you have the power to veto. You cannot pick and choose what provisions you want. But that is, to a large degree, what this President has done.

What we have seen in recent years is a profiling of citizens engaged in constitutionally protected free speech and peaceful assembly. As I mentioned earlier, the right to dissent, the right to protest is at the heart of what this country is about. I do not want Americans to be worried that there is a video camera filming them and they will be punished somewhere down the line because they exercised their freedom of speech.

We have seen data mining of personal records.

We have seen the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, which has embarrassed us before the entire world.

We have seen a broad interpretation of congressional resolutions regarding use of military force as justification for unauthorized surveillance and other actions.

We have seen extraordinary renditions of detainees to countries that allow torture. All over the world, people are looking at the United States of America and saying: What is going on in that great Nation? We tell them to be like us, to support democracy, to support human rights, and then we engage in torture and we pick people up and we take them to countries where they are treated in horrendous ways. This is certainly one of the reasons respect for the United States has gone down all over this world, which is a tragedy unto itself but obviously makes it harder for us to bring countries together in the important fight against international terrorism.

We have seen an administration that has gotten rid of the rights of detainees to file habeas corpus petitions--simply put people away, deny them access to a lawyer, deny them the right to defend themselves.

We have seen political firings in the Office of the U.S. Attorney.

We have seen destruction of CIA tapes.

The list goes on and on.

So the issue we are debating today has to be seen in the broader context that for the last 7 years, there has been a systematic attack on our Constitution by an administration which believes that, in the guise of fighting terrorism, they can do anything they want against anybody they want without getting court approval or without respecting our Constitution and the rule of law.

I wish to touch on one point. I know Senator Feingold, Senator Leahy, and Senator Dodd have touched on this bill at great length. I just want to focus on one issue, and that is the retroactive immunity granted to the telecommunications companies.

Why is it important that we support the amendment which does away with that retroactive immunity? It is very simple. The argument is that the President of the United States went to these companies and said: Look, I need your help in doing something, and the companies obliged.

Then the issue is, well, why are we punishing them, even if they broke the law? And the answer is pretty simple: It is precisely that we are a nation of laws and not of men. If we grant them retroactive immunity, what it says to future Presidents is, I am the law because I am the President, and I will tell you what you can do. And because I tell you what to do or ask you to do something, that is, by definition, legal. Go and break into my political opponent's office. Don't worry about it; I am the President. I am saying it is for national security. Those guys are bad guys, just do it. I am the President, and that is all that matters.

That is the precedent that we are setting today, and I think it is a very bad precedent. Trust me, Verizon and these other large telecommunications companies, multi, multibillion-dollar companies, have a lot of lawyers. They have a lot of good lawyers. And what we know, in fact, is that some of the telecommunications companies--at least one that comes to mind--said: No, Mr. President, sorry, that is unconstitutional. That is illegal, I ``ain't'' gonna do it. I applaud them for that. But others said: Hey, the President is asking us, we are going to do it.

The point is, the President is not the law. The law is the law. The Constitution is the law. And I don't want to set a precedent today by which any President can tell any company or any individual: You go out and do it; don't worry about it; no problem at all. That is not what this country is about.

So let me conclude, Mr. President, by saying this is a very important issue which concerns millions and millions of Americans. Bottom line, every American, every Member of the Senate understands we have to do every single thing we can to protect the American people from terrorist attacks. There is no debate about that. Some of us believe, however, that we can be successful in doing that while we uphold the rule of law, while we uphold the Constitution of this country, which has made us the envy of the world and for which we owe the Founders of our country and those who came after, fighting to protect those civil liberties, so much.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, for a number of months now I have been trying, with the help of both Democrats and Republicans, to bring a LIHEAP bill onto the floor. The reason for that

is, with the energy crisis we are now facing and the cost of home heating fuel and electricity escalating, there is no doubt in my mind that both in warm-weather States this summer and cold-weather States next winter, there are going to be people struggling for their lives.

Without air-conditioning, people--old people, frail people, sick people--are going to have a hard time when the temperature gets above 100 degrees. What we are seeing all over this country are unprecedented numbers of homes being shut off from electricity because people cannot pay their bills.

We remember some years back, in Chicago, hundreds and hundreds of elderly people died from heat exhaustion because of the heat in their apartments. We must not allow that to happen again.

LIHEAP, of course, pays electric bills to help people keep their air- conditioning on when the temperature becomes very high. Clearly, in my State of Vermont and throughout the whole northern tier of this country, there is great fear right now--I should tell you that--not just about $4.10-a-gallon gas prices today--people worry about that, but they worry about what is going to happen next winter when the price of home heating fuel is soaring.

So I have tried, and will continue to try, working with people in a bipartisan manner to get a vote on the floor. The simple truth is, we have a lot of support from Republicans and Democrats, progressives and conservatives. People understand the significance of this issue. We are going to do our best to get a vote on the floor as soon as we possibly can.

In the last couple months, we have had large numbers of Republicans and Democrats coming together on bipartisan legislation. We are going to keep up that effort.

So I wished to mention to my friends this is an issue of great importance, I believe, to the American people all over this country. People are fearful about what happens when the weather goes down below zero, and people are worried about what happens when the temperature goes up over 100 degrees.

In this country, we do not want to see people dying of heat exhaustion and we do not want to see people freezing to death. With the cost of home heating fuel soaring, electricity soaring, we have a moral obligation to significantly expand LIHEAP funding. I will continue to do my best to make sure, finally, we get a vote on the floor of the Senate to do that.

Thank you, Mr. President. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask unanimous consent that Winoka Begay, Jessica Borchert, Jullian Carr, Kelley Fry, and Dane Lauritzen, from the office of Senator Bingaman, be granted the privileges of the floor for today, June 24, 2008.

Madam President, every American understands that we now have a national crisis in terms of the outrageously high price that we are paying for energy. In Vermont and all over this country, workers are wondering how they can afford to fill their gas tanks. Truckers using diesel are going out of business. Senior citizens and others are worried with dread what happens to them next winter when the cost of home heating oil is off the roof. As a result of high oil and gas prices, the cost of food and other products is also rising, and our entire economy--and, in fact, the world economy--is suffering.

The question that millions of people are now asking is pretty simple. They want to know what this Congress can do now--not in 10 years or in 20 years but now--to lower the outrageously high price of oil and gas. Further, they want to know what we can do long term to make sure our country is energy independent; that we don't continue to import huge amounts of oil from the Middle East or elsewhere. They want to know what we are going to do in the midst of all of this to address the crisis of global warming and the droughts and the severe weather disturbances and the floods that we are seeing as a result of global warming.

Lastly, they want to know in the midst of all of this, long term, how do we make sure that the cost of energy is affordable. These are the issues the Congress has to address.

But let's be very clear. These issues will not be debated in an intellectual realm where we are just trading ideas. This debate is going to be clouded by the enormous power and money of special interests.

Since 1998, the oil and gas industry has spent over $600 million on lobbying--$600 million on lobbying--and since 1990, they have made over $213 million in campaign contributions. So they are extremely powerful. They have an unlimited supply of cash. They are using that power and that money to influence this debate. Anybody who doesn't understand that is very naive, indeed.

If we are serious about lowering oil and gas prices today in a significant way, it seems to me we have to address two fundamental issues. First, the reality is that the American people are getting sick and tired of paying over $4 for a gallon of gas at exactly the same time as the major oil companies are making record-breaking profits and providing their CEOs with outrageous compensation packages. Enough is enough. The greed of the oil industry apparently has no end, which is why Congress must impose a windfall profits tax and use some of that money to give back to people through rebate checks.

In the last 2 years alone, ExxonMobil has made more profits than any corporation in the history of the world, making over $40 billion last year alone. But ExxonMobil is not alone. Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell, and BP have also been making out like bandits. Last year, BP, for example, announced a 63-percent increase in their profits for the first quarter of this year. As a matter of fact, the five largest oil companies in this country have made over $600 billion in profits since George W. Bush has been President, while working people are paying $4, $4.20 for a gallon of gas. That is unacceptable.

What have they been doing with these huge profits? One of the things they have been doing is to make sure that the CEOs of their companies are extremely well compensated. In 2005, Lee Raymond, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, received a total retirement package of over $398 million. People in Vermont and around America are wondering how they are going to stay warm next winter. The former CEO of ExxonMobil receives a retirement package of $398 million.

In 2006, Ray Irani, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum--the largest oil producer in Texas--received over $400 million in total compensation. That is going on all over the industry: the heads of these corporations who are making record-breaking profits receiving huge compensation packages.

The situation is so absurd and the greed is so outrageous that oil company executives are not only giving themselves huge compensation packages in their lifetimes, but they have also created a situation, if you can believe it, where they have carved out huge corporate payouts to their heirs if they die while they are on the job. It never ends.

Let's be clear. Oil companies have a right to make a profit, but they do not have a right to rip off the American people.

Some of my Republican friends claim that big oil needs to keep these huge windfall profits so they can increase production and build more refineries. They are going to take this money and they are going to use it to create more oil for the benefit of the American people. That particular argument does not hold water. Big oil companies have been making windfall profits for over 7 long years, and they are not using these profits to build more refineries or to expand production. Instead, they are using this money to buy back their own stock, increase dividends to their shareholders, and, as I just mentioned, pay outrageous compensation packages to their CEOs.

Since 2005, the five largest oil companies have made $345 billion in profits, but they have spent over $250 billion out of the $345 billion buying back stock and paying dividends to their shareholders. That is where their profits are going, not investing in future oil production. Last year, ExxonMobil spent 850 percent more buying back its own stock than it did on capital expenditures in the United States.

Here is my final point on that issue: The $38 billion in windfall profits that ExxonMobil gave back to shareholders last year could have been used to reduce gas prices at the pump throughout the United States by 27 cents a gallon for the entire year.

Dealing with the greed of the oil companies is one immediate issue that we have to address. The second one deals with the growing reality that Wall Street investment banks, such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and J.P. Morgan Chase, and greedy hedge fund managers are driving up the price of oil in the unregulated energy futures market. There are estimates that a number of committees in the Senate have heard from different experts who testified that the price of a barrel of oil today is 25 to 50 percent higher than it should be because of excessive manipulation of oil futures markets and excessive speculation. This is an issue that must be dealt with.

Some people say: Well, we don't know anything about this. This has never happened before. Wrong. As I think most Americans understand and remember, manipulation of energy markets is nothing new. It is recent history. Everybody remembers that in 2000 and 2001, Enron successfully manipulated the energy markets on the west coast, driving up prices by 300 percent. During the midst of that controversy, they were saying: Oh, it is not us, it is supply and demand. It was them, and some of those guys are now in jail for the fraud they committed on the people of this country. That was Enron. But it is not just Enron.

In 2004, energy price manipulators moved to the propane market. That year, the CFTC found that BP artificially increased propane prices by purchasing enormous quantities of propane and withholding the fuel to drive prices higher. BP was fined $303 million for manipulating propane prices. Again, this is not a new concept; that is what they do.

In 2006, energy price manipulators moved to the natural gas market when Federal regulators discovered that the Amaranth hedge fund was responsible for artificially driving up natural gas prices. Amaranth cornered the natural gas markets by controlling as much as 75 percent of all of the natural gas futures contracts in a single month. Amaranth eventually went out of business, went bankrupt, and the price of natural gas went down. So if you are looking at Enron, BP, Amaranth, why would anybody be shocked that today there are financial institutions manipulating the oil markets as we see it?

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has the authority and the responsibility to prevent fraud, manipulation, and excessive speculation in U.S. commodity markets. Unfortunately, this authority and responsibility has largely been abdicated through the use of over- the-counter energy derivatives that are largely unregulated and by foreign boards of trade that have received no-action letters from the CFTC to operate terminals inside the United States, trading U.S. commodities to U.S. investors free from regulatory oversight.

That is an issue we must deal with and we must deal with now. If we are serious about lowering oil and gas prices today, we have to deal with the greed of the oil companies and with the speculators. Long term, of course, we have to move this country away from foreign oil, away from fossil fuel, to energy efficiency, to sustainable energy, and the potential there is enormous. That will help us deal with greenhouse gas emissions, in terms of global warming and, in the process, we can create millions of good-paying jobs.

Let me conclude by saying that if this Congress, in the very short term, does not deal with these issues, there are going to be people who are going to go cold this winter, not only in the Northeast but all over the Northern tier of this country. That is why I am going to do my best in this bill, and/or as soon as possible, to bring forth an amendment to substantially increase funding for LIHEAP.

The National Governors Association supports over $5 billion for LIHEAP. They are exactly right because, as the price of home heating oil and other fuels explodes, we are going to simply need to substantially increase funding for LIHEAP if we are going to make sure people don't go cold this winter. I look forward to working on this issue in a bipartisan manner.

Bottom line: Short term, going after the oil companies and dealing with speculation. Long term, we need to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to sustainable energy. We must substantially increase funding for LIHEAP.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I want to set aside the pending amendment and send an amendment to the desk.

I will be very brief. I do not need more than 2 or 3 minutes.

Then I would like to talk about the amendment.

At which time I will be able to offer the amendment?

Yes. I wish to raise an issue. And it is my intention at the appropriate time to offer an amendment which I hope we can get a vote on because this is an amendment of huge consequence; that is, with the price of heating fuel soaring, if we do not significantly expand LIHEAP funding, there are going to be people who will go cold, people who will die this winter.

We have heard about a number of national emergencies out there. I am certainly sensitive to the crisis taking place in Iowa and as to the remnants of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. But I want Members of this body to understand that if we do not substantially

increase LIHEAP funding, there will be people in the northern tier of this country who will go cold this winter because they cannot afford to pay the outrageously high prices of home heating fuels that they are going to be asked to pay.

At the appropriate time, I will bring forth an amendment to increase funding by $2.53 billion for fiscal year 2008. Madam President, the Northeast Coalition of Governors has made that request and that is the number I am going to be bringing forth.

I wish to have printed in the Record the letter that was written by the Coalition of Northeastern Governors which is demanding that we have at least $5.1 billion--which is what, as I understand, the authorized level is--that that be, in fact, appropriated.

So at the appropriate time, I will be down here to offer--I wish to check with my colleague from Connecticut. Is there going to be any problem with me getting a vote on this amendment?

OK. I think this vote is long overdue, and it is something the American people want to see.

Madam President, today, I recognize the Vermont All Stars, the Vermont math team that won first place in Division B of the American Mathematics League's Regional Competition, held this year at Pennsylvania State University. The team was comprised of 15 Vermont students, ranging from grades 8 through 12, and seven alternates. The countrywide event, of which this was a part, is the Nation's highest precollegiate math competition.

In the individual competition, two Vermonters placed in the top 10. Both students achieved perfect scores, which qualified them to advance to a final round, which ultimately determined the ranking of the 10 students who received perfect scores. Following up perfection with an even tougher competition, Colin Sandon placed fifth overall, and David Rolnick placed tenth. Both Colin and David are high school seniors who will attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the fall.

Deserving of special mention--and special honor--is Mr. Anthony Trono, both founder and coach of the team. Tony Trono is a retired math teacher who had a long career teaching mathematics at Burlington High School.

Many years ago he began a program entitled the Vermont Talent Search, in which a math test is distributed to middle school and high school students. This was to be the first step in bringing Vermont students to the American Math League competition. The top achievers on the Vermont Talent Search tests are chosen for the team that competes in the American Mathematics League's competition.

Not content with working on this, and desiring to share his love of mathematics with students all over our

State, Tony Trono also runs a week-long summer math camp at the University of Vermont.

Because family reasons precluded him from accompanying the team this year, as he has done so often before, Barbara Unger chaperoned the team to Penn State. Like Tony a retired math teacher, from Middlebury Union High School, she said of Tony Trono, ``He has given his life to upper level math.'' How true that is!

Our Nation has excelled in the areas of math, engineering and science in large measure because of dedicated teachers such as Tony Trono--and Barbara Unger. They serve as role models to future generations of teachers, in addition to so ably training generation after generation of capable--and as the recent success of the Vermont All Stars indicates--superior mathematicians. Our State and our Nation owe a deep debt of gratitude to Tony Trono and to the many thousands of dedicated math teachers who follow along similar paths by sharing their love of mathematics.

Madam President, a few months ago I asked my constituents in the State of Vermont, and it turns out people around the country, a

very simple question. We sent out an e-mail and said: Tell me, what does the decline of the middle class mean to you personally? Not in great esoteric terms, not in academic terms--What is going on in your life? Frankly, in my State we expected to receive a few dozen responses. We ended up receiving over 700 responses.

Then I asked people in Vermont and also around the country: Tell me what these high gas and oil prices mean to you. We received 1,100 e- mails that came in, 90 percent from Vermont but some from around the country.

I want to do two things this afternoon. I want to read, in the words of ordinary people, what these high gas and oil prices are meaning, in terms of how they impact their lives; and what the decline of the middle class means in the words of people who are in the midst of that decline.

For many years I have been very angry about the Bush administration talking about how strong the economy was, how robust the economy was. That is like the operation being a success except that the patient died. The economy has been so great except that the working people in the economy are seeing a decline in their standard of living. What we are seeing, generally speaking, in the economy is poverty increasing, the middle class shrinking, while the people on top have never had it so good since the 1920s.

Let me read some e-mails that came to my office within the last several months, mostly from Vermont but occasionally from other parts of the country. This is what we heard recently:

I am a single mother with a 9-year-old boy. We lived this

past winter without any heat at all. Fortunately, someone

gave me an old wood stove. I had to hook it up to an old

unused chimney we had in the kitchen. I couldn't even afford

a chimney liner--the price of liners went up with the price

of fuel. To stay warm at night my son and I would pull off

all the pillows from the couch and pile them on the kitchen

floor. I would hang a blanket from the kitchen doorway and we

would sleep right there on the floor.

State of Vermont, United States of America, 2008.

Another letter:

My 90-year-old father in Connecticut has recently become

ill and asked me to visit him. I want to drop everything I am

doing and go visit him, however I am finding it hard to save

enough money to add to the extra gas I will need to get

there. I am self-employed with my own commercial cleaning

service and money is tight, not only with gas prices but with

everything.

In other words, here is an instance where a 90-year-old father is ill and a son cannot even visit him because of the high price of gas.

Another story:

My husband and I are retired and 65. We would have liked to

have worked longer but because of injuries caused at work and

the closing of our factory to go to Canada, we chose to

retire earlier. Now with oil prices the way they are we

cannot afford to heat our home unless my husband cuts and

splits wood--which is a real hardship as he has had his back

fused and should not be working most of the day to keep up

with the wood. Not only that, he has to get up two or three

times each night to keep the fire going.

Another story:

I, too, have been struggling to overcome the increasing

cost of gas, heating oil, food, taxes, et cetera. I have to

say this is the toughest year financially that I have ever

experienced in my 41 years on this Earth. I have what used to

be considered a decent job. I work hard, pinch my pennies,

but the pennies have all but dried up. I am thankful my

employer understands that many of us cannot afford to drive

to work 5 days a week. Instead, I work 3 15-hour days. I have

taken odd jobs to try to make ends meet.

Another story:

I am 55 years old and worse off than my adult children. I

have worked since age 16. I do not live from paycheck to

paycheck, I live day to day. I can only afford to fill my gas

tank on my payday. Thereafter, I put $5, $10, whatever I can.

I cannot afford to pay for the food items that I would. I am

riding around daily to and from work with a quarter of a tank

of gas. This is very scary as I can see myself working until

the day that I die.

Another story:

I am a working mother of two young children. I currently

pay, on average, about $80 a week for gas so that I can go to

work; $80 a week just to go to work. I see the effects of the

gas increase at the grocery stores and at the department

stores. On average I spend about $150 per week at the grocery

store. And, trust me, when I say I do not buy prime rib, I

buy just enough to get us through the week, and I cannot

afford to make sure that we have seven wholesome meals to eat

every night of the week. Some nights we eat cereal and toast

for dinner because that is all that I have.

Another story. This is an interesting story because I am sure it applies all over the country:

As the chief of a small ambulance service, I have seen the

impact of rising costs. As the service is made up of

primarily volunteers, we have seen our numbers decline. When

soliciting for volunteers in the community, we have been told

that they are unable to put the time in due to the need to

work more to pay their bills.

Our costs associated with running an ambulance

--this is a volunteer ambulance service--

have also risen in the last few years. When discussing with

our supplier fuel prices, they play a large part in the

increase both to the manufacturer and to transport.

Here is another story. This is just incredible. It reminds us of all of the ways that this increase in gas and oil is impacting our people and our communities. Here is this story:

My story involves my capacity as an oncology social worker

working with cancer patients in an outpatient clinic. I also

run an emergency fund through the Cancer Patient Support

Program which provides funds to cancer patients in need

during their cancer journey, including the initial diagnosis,

surgery, and treatment period in which they experience a

significant decrease in income during a medical leave.

This is an oncology worker at a hospital.

I cannot describe how devastating it has been for these

folks who need to travel great distances to get to and from

their cancer treatment and followup care with the way gas

prices have been. Many of these folks need to travel on a

daily basis to radiation therapy for several weeks, while

others come from surrounding counties every 1 to 2 weeks for

chemotherapy. The high price of gas has had a tremendous

impact on our ability to provide the financial assistance to

our emergency fund to all of those in need.

Imagine someone living in a rural area dealing with cancer, dealing with chemotherapy, dealing with radiation, sick as a dog, worried about the future, and then having to worry about how they can afford to get to the hospital to get the treatment they need.

Another letter:

First of all, I am a single mother of a 16-year-old

daughter. I own a condominium. I have worked at the hospital

for 16 years and make a very good salary, in the high $40,000

range. I own a 2005 Honda Civic. I filled up my gas tank

yesterday, April 1. It cost me almost $43; that was $3.22 per

gallon. That was on April 1. If prices stay at that level it

will cost me $160 per month to fill up my gas tank. A year

ago it cost me under $20 to fill up my tank.

On and on it goes. I think the message is that high gas and oil prices are having a devastating impact on tens of millions of Americans in every aspect of their lives and on our economy. As bad as it is all over this country, it is especially bad in rural areas where people have to travel long distances to work, and it is especially devastating in cold States where people have to spend a huge amount of money for home heating oil.

It seems to me it is absolutely imperative that we get our act together and that we do everything we can to lower the price of gas and oil. In that regard, let me talk a little bit about some of the events that have taken place on the floor of the Senate in the last couple of days.

I think it is interesting that many Americans have already given up on any belief that the Bush-Cheney administration even understands the problem, let alone is prepared to do anything about it. It is amazing that no one even looks to the White House for leadership on this issue, and for appropriate reasons; that is, because Bush-Cheney, from the day they have been in office, have been much more concerned about the profits of large multinational corporations, including the oil companies, than the needs of ordinary Americans.

There are a few points that I want to focus on at this time. First, it is a national obscenity that at a time when oil prices are off the wall, when people are paying over $4 for a gallon of gas, at exactly this same moment the major oil companies are enjoying recordbreaking profits and are giving their CEOs outrageous compensation packages.

It seems to me that while there are multiple causes for why oil and gas are soaring, one of the reasons certainly has to do with the greed of these huge oil companies. And the time is long overdue for the Congress to say enough is enough and stop ripping off the American people.

During the last 2 years, ExxonMobil has made more profits than any company in the history of the world, making over $40 billion in profits last year alone--$40 billion, one company.

But it is not only ExxonMobil; Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell, and BP have also been making out like bandits. For example, in the first quarter of this year, BP announced a 63-percent increase in their profits--a 63-percent increase in their profits--and people are paying over $4 for a gallon of gas.

As a matter of fact, the five largest oil companies, the five largest companies in this country, have made over $600 billion since George W. Bush has been President; 7 years, $600 billion in profits.

Let me mention what these large oil companies have been doing with some of their profits. In the year 2005, Lee Raymond, who was then the CEO of ExxonMobil, received a retirement package of $398 million. Let me repeat that. Former CEO leaves his position, retirement package of $398 million.

Workers all over this country, as indicated in the letters that I have read, are finding it harder and harder to fill their gas tank and get to work.

In 2006, Ray Irani, who is the CEO of Occidental Petroleum--that is the largest oil producer in the State of Texas--received over $400 million in total compensation, one of the biggest single-year payouts in U.S. corporate history.

People here tell us, often my friends on the other side of the aisle say: Well, we have to trust the oil companies. They really are concerned about the American people.

I do not think so. I think one has to be very naive to believe companies in the midst of this energy crisis, when people are struggling with these very outrageously high prices, when these companies are giving hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation packages to their CEOs, and then they tell us that the oil companies are concerned about the American people. I do not think so. I really do not.

The situation is so absurd that there was an article the other day in the Wall Street Journal. Not only are these companies giving huge compensation packages to their CEOs, they now have a deal that if the CEO dies while he is CEO, their heirs and families will receive huge compensation packages.

According to the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago, the family of Ray Irani, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum, will get over $115 million if he dies while he holds that job. The family of the CEO of Nabors Industries, another oil company, will receive $288 million.

Meanwhile, in the northeastern part of this country people are saying: How am I going to stay warm this winter? Prices of home heating oil are soaring.

We need a windfall profits tax on the oil industry. We need to tell them: Enough is enough. The windfall profits tax on the oil industry is not the only thing that we should be doing. We need to take a hard look at speculation that is taking place in the industry.

As you well know, as I think the American people increasingly know, there are estimates out there that as a result of the activities of major financial institutions, such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, and others, there are estimates that between 25 and 50 percent of the cost of a barrel of oil today has to do with speculation in oil futures.

Earlier last week, George Soros told the Commerce Committee that rampant speculation in oil and gas futures is ``intellectually unsound and distinctly harmful in its economic consequences.''

We have had representatives in the oil industry themselves who have told us that speculation is one of the reasons oil prices are so high. Mark Copper with the Consumer Federation of America told the Commerce Committee last week that the speculative bubble in the price of oil has cost the U.S. economy over a half trillion dollars over the past 2 years and has cost U.S. families an average of a $1,500 increase in gasoline and natural gas costs.

So I think those are two areas at which we have to take a hard look. Now, in terms of speculation, people say: Well, this sounds like a conspiracy theory. Well, let's talk about some recent history. In 2000 and 2001, as the American people well know, especially the people on the west coast, Enron successfully manipulated the electricity markets and drove up prices by 300 percent.

Now, what was interesting is during the debate over this terrible tragedy on the west coast, what was Enron saying? They were saying: The reason that prices are going up is supply and demand. It is the natural forces of the market. Do not blame us.

That is what they said. I guess that is what some of the guys who are now in jail, after being convicted for massive fraud, told the public.

It was not supply and demand, it was excessive manipulation. But it was not only Enron in 2000 and 2001, in 2004, energy price manipulators moved to the propane gas markets. That year the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found that BP artificially increased propane prices by purchasing ``enormous quantities of propane and withholding the fuel to drive prices higher.'' That was the Commodities Future Trading Commission.

By the end of February of 2003, BP had almost 90 percent of all propane delivered on a pipeline that stretches from Texas to Pennsylvania and New York. BP's cornering of the propane market caused prices to increase by 40 percent during the month of February 2004. And as a result of their illegal actions, our friends at BP paid a $303 million fine.

So we have Enron, those guys are in jail, having caused severe economic damage on the west coast. We have BP, a major oil company, paying a $303 million fine.

But it goes on. In 2006, 2 years ago, energy manipulators moved to the natural gas market, when Federal regulators described that the Amaranth Hedge Fund was responsible for artificially driving up natural gas prices.

Amaranth cornered the natural gas market by controlling as much as 75 percent of all of the natural gas futures contracts in a single month. The skyrocketing cost of natural gas cost American consumers an estimated $9 billion. I should point out that the Amaranth hedge fund eventually collapsed, as a result of their illegal activity.

When people say, let us take a hard look at speculation, this is not conspiracy theory. This is based on some very real economic realities which have taken place in the last few years.

Today, the price of oil has more than doubled over the past 14 months. We need to find out who is manipulating oil and gas prices. Right now, oil and gas futures are largely traded on unregulated markets and enormous conflicts of interest exist between investment bank analysts, energy traders, and employees involved with oil and gas infrastructure.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has the authority and responsibility to prevent fraud, manipulation, and excessive speculation in U.S. commodity markets. Unfortunately, this authority and responsibility has largely been abdicated through the use of over- the-counter energy derivatives that are largely unregulated and by foreign boards of trade that have received no action letters from the CFTC to operate terminals inside the United States, trading U.S. commodities to U.S. investors free from regulatory oversight. It is pretty complicated stuff. But the bottom line is, huge amounts of money in oil futures are being traded in an unregulated, below-the-radar- screen market, and we don't know who is controlling what.

Congress needs to end what some have referred to as the ``Wild West'' of energy trading by requiring anyone operating a trading terminal in the U.S. trading U.S. commodities to U.S. investors to register with the CFTC and be subject to CFTC oversight. We also need to substantially increase margin requirements for these trades to make it harder for speculators to manipulate oil prices.

In addition, major conflicts of interest exist in the commodities markets. Goldman Sachs and other large financial institutions seem to have a corner on virtually every sector of this market. When Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley predict the price of oil will go up, so do their profits in the oil futures market. When ExxonMobil wants to sell or buy oil in the futures market, they go to Goldman Sachs or other large financial institutions. When Sovereign Wealth Funds, pension funds, or

smaller dealers want to invest in energy derivatives, Goldman Sachs and other investment banks facilitate those trades. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BP and other major institutional investors even co-founded the InterContinental Exchange that now trades West Texas Intermediate crude oil to U.S. investors free of U.S. regulatory oversight.

And when Morgan Stanley and other investment banks need insider knowledge of the heating oil market to benefit their traders, they physically purchase large quantities of heating oil for storage and delivery. This is an issue that I am paying particular attention to. Heating oil prices right now are skyrocketing. Right now, fuel dealers in my State have told me that the residential price for heating oil would cost about $5 a gallon. If heating oil prices keep climbing there are a large number of my constituents who are in danger of freezing to death. We cannot let that happen.

I want to know why heating oil prices are high right now and if Morgan Stanley or others are manipulating these prices through excessive speculation. We have got to get heating oil prices to go down before winter.

We need to end these massive conflicts of interest in the energy markets. There are a number of ideas that I am exploring on this issue, but for starters, I strongly believe that the commodities market should have similar laws prohibiting insider trading that our securities market currently has.

Further, we must once and for all begin to break up OPEC. OPEC is an illegal price-fixing cartel that is clearly in violation of international trade rules. The high price of oil is expected to increase OPEC's crude oil export earnings by more than $300 billion this year to a record of over $1 trillion. That is an astronomical figure.

The time has come for the President to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization and demand the dismantling of OPEC. The ending of collusion with regard to oil production will result in increased production and lower oil prices.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, over the long term we need a strong program to break our reliance on fossil fuels once and for all. That means transitioning electricity generation away from fossil fuel power and demanding automobiles that get substantially more miles per gallon. Plug-in hybrid prototypes currently get in the range of 150 miles per gallon. We need to get them out of the laboratory and onto the roads. We also have to invest heavily in mass transit, including rail and rural bus transportation. These steps can help break the power of the big energy companies, reduce damage to our environment, and create millions of good-paying, green-technology jobs across the country.

The bottom line is this: Congress and the President can no longer sit idly by while Americans are getting ripped off at the gas pump, and ExxonMobil, greedy speculators, and OPEC are allowed to make out like bandits pushing oil and gas prices higher and higher. The time for action is now. We need to lower gas prices.

That is something we must address, if the Congress is going to gain, perhaps once again--hopefully regain the confidence of the American people that we understand what is going on in their lives, we understand the absolute necessity of addressing this crisis of high gas and oil prices, that we understand the necessity of transforming our energy system away from foreign oil and our dependence on foreign oil, away from fossil fuels which is causing so many problems in terms of global warming, that we understand that the potential for moving toward energy efficiency, toward sustainable energy such as wind, solar, geothermal, biomass is sitting there right in front of us.

Yesterday there was a conference right here in Washington where people were talking about plug-in hybrids that get 150 miles per gallon. These are the kinds of developments we need. There has been a lot of discussion about a so-called Manhattan project. I believe in it. I think if we focus and are aggressive and are prepared to transform our energy system, take on the big, powerful special interests, we can not only create millions of good-paying jobs, we can reverse global warming. We can address environmental concerns. That is what we have to do.

The challenge we face is to understand that the oil industry and the coal industry have put hundreds of millions of dollars into lobbying, campaign contributions, advertising. They are very formidable folks. They want the status quo. We have been represented by the people, presumably not by the special interests. Our job is to represent ordinary people. I hope we can do that. If we do the right thing, I believe not only can we lower gas and oil prices today, we can transform our energy system and create a much better tomorrow for our kids and grandchildren.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 5 minutes from the Democratic side.

Mr. President, do we need a windfall profits tax? You bet we do. The American people are sick and tired of paying $4 for a gallon of gas. In the Northeast, we are worried about how people are going to stay warm in the winter, while at the same time ExxonMobil has made more profits than any company in the history of the world for the past 2 consecutive years, making $42 billion last year alone.

But ExxonMobil is not alone. In the first quarter of this year, BP announced a 63-percent increase in their profits. Shell's first-quarter profits jumped by 25 percent, to over $9 billion, and ConocoPhillips' profits increased by over 16 percent in the first quarter, to over $4 billion. As a matter of fact, the five largest oil companies in this country have made over $600 billion in profits since George W. Bush has been President. Do we need a windfall profits tax? You bet we do.

Let me say a word about what some of these oil companies are doing with these outrageous profits. In 2005, Lee Raymond, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, received a total retirement package of at least $398 million. Yes, you heard that right, $398 million in a retirement package for the former CEO of ExxonMobil. But he is not alone. Let us not just pick on ExxonMobil. In 2006, Ray Irani, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum, received over $400 million in total compensation. Oh, yes, we don't need to do a windfall profits tax. These guys are just investing their money ever so significantly.

The situation is so absurd and the greed is so outrageous that oil company executives are not only giving themselves huge compensation packages in their lifetimes, but they have created a situation, if you can believe it, where they have carved out huge corporate payouts to their heirs if they die in office. I am not making this up. According to the Wall Street Journal, the family of Ray Irani, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum, will get over $115 million if he dies while he is the CEO. The family of the CEO of Neighbors Industries, another oil company, will receive $288 million if he dies while he is the CEO.

If this were not so pathetic, if so many people all over our country were not hurting, it would be funny. But it is not funny, it is tragic, and we have to deal with this reality. Let me be clear, however. I believe oil companies should be allowed to make a reasonable profit, but they should not be allowed to rip off the American people at the gas pump, and that is why we need to pass a windfall profits tax, which is included in this legislation.

We should understand that a windfall profits tax alone is not going to solve all our problems. Since 1988, the oil and gas industry has spent over $616 million on lobbying, and since 1990, they have made over $213 million in campaign contributions. In other words, if this Congress is going to stand up to the oil companies, it is going to take a lot of courage. These people have enormous power, and they have spent an enormous amount of money on lobbying and campaign contributions. But I think we owe it to the American people to represent their interests rather than just the interests of big money.

Imposing a windfall profits tax is not the only thing we should be doing. We must address the growing reality that Wall Street investment banks, such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase, and many hedge fund companies as well, are driving up the price of oil in the unregulated energy futures market. There are estimates that 25 to 50 percent of the $134-a-barrel cost of oil is attributable not to supply and demand, not to the cost of production, not to the decline in the dollar but to the unregulated speculation which is currently taking place on oil futures. That is an issue we must address as well, and this legislation begins to do that.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record ``Letters from Vermont and America.''

Madam President, today we are discussing two issues which, in fact, are related to each other. No. 1 is the outrageously high cost of oil and gas. The second is the planetary crisis we face as a result of global warming. There are some people who think we have to address the price of high oil prices today and not worry about global warming. Some people think we have to worry about global warming and ignore the reality facing millions of people who cannot afford oil and gas. I think we are actually smart enough to walk and chew gum at the same time. We can and must address both these important issues.

My office has recently published a small book. It is called ``The Collapse of the Middle Class, Letters from Vermont and America.'' It talks about what is going on not only in my State but all over this country, where the middle class is declining, people are working longer hours for lower wages, losing health care, pensions, their good-paying jobs. After all that, when you have gas at $4 a gallon at the pump, home heating oil outrageously high, many people throughout the country have now fallen over the economic cliff.

In terms of oil and gas prices, the time is now for the Congress to tell our friends at ExxonMobil and other oil companies enjoying recordbreaking profits--last year ExxonMobil earned more profits than any corporation in the history of the world; last year the head of Occidental Oil, a major oil company, had enough money to provide $400 million in compensation for their CEO--to stop ripping off the American people. It is time for us to pass a windfall profits tax which says: Enough is enough.

But it is not only the oil companies that are ripping off the American people. The other day at the Commerce Committee, there was an important hearing in which George Soros and major economists testified it is not only oil company greed but speculators on Wall Street who are driving prices up, which results, perhaps, in a 35-percent increase in what the price of a barrel of oil should be. We have to deal with that issue as well. This is the so-called Enron loophole. Right now, through hedge funds, through unregulated markets, there is a massive amount of trading on oil futures which is driving up oil prices. We should be regulating that speculation. It should be transparent. In the process, when we do that, as was the case with Enron and electricity, as was the case with propane gas, as was the case with natural gas, if we begin to address speculation in terms of oil futures, we can drive down oil prices.

Bottom line: We have to do that. In my State, as in rural States all over this country, where people are traveling long distances to work, they cannot afford, on limited incomes, to pay $4 for a gallon of gas. When the weather gets 20 below zero in Vermont, people cannot afford to pay twice as much this year as they did a couple years ago for home heating oil. So let us have the courage to take on the speculators. Let us have the courage to take on the oil companies and fight to lower oil and gas prices.

In addition, we can't ignore the crisis in global warming. My friends come to the floor and say: Well, the scientific evidence is not clear.

That is not true. Virtually every leading scientist who knows something about the issue, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has said, with 100 percent certainty, global warming is a reality. In fact, what they have told us is the situation is more dire than they had previously predicted. If we are concerned about

the drought we are seeing today which will only get worse, if we are concerned about the hunger we are seeing as a result of that drought which will only get worse, if we are worried about the severe weather disturbances we are seeing right now, if we are worried about flooding, about disease, it is absolutely imperative we address the crisis of global warming and address it now.

Some people say: There may be economic dislocation if we do it. There may be, and we have to address that. But I believe there are enormous economic opportunities. I believe the evidence is clear we can create millions of good-paying jobs as we move toward energy efficiency, as we produce automobiles, not that get 15 miles per gallon but hybrid plug- ins which get 150 miles per gallon, as we rebuild our deteriorating rail system so people do not have to get into a car to go where they want to go but can get on good rail, that we deliver cargo via rail.

There is enormous opportunity not only in terms of energy efficiency, in saving huge amounts of fossil fuel, but also in sustainable energy. I have tremendous optimism in what we can do with the technology that is already on the shelf, not to mention the technology that will be coming in the near future.

In terms of solar thermal plants which are now being built in the southwestern part of this country, as well as all over the world, you have plants, solar thermal plants, that are being built which can provide as much electricity as small nuclear powerplants, with no, or virtually no, greenhouse gas emissions. We are talking about producing 15, 20 or more percent of the electricity the United States needs right from solar thermal plants.

In addition to that, as Germany is doing, as California is now doing, there is tremendous opportunity with photovoltaics. We can put photovoltaics on 10 million roofs in this country. The more we produce, the more the price goes down, and we create jobs in the process.

Wind is the fastest growing source of new energy in the world and in the United States. It is also becoming less and less expensive. I am not just talking about large wind farms in Texas, in the Midwest. We are talking about small wind turbines that can be placed in people's backyards all over rural America.

Geothermal, biomass--there is huge potential. We must go forward for the sake of our kids and our grandchildren.

I thank the Chair.