Floor Statements

Mr. President, I wish to say a few words as to why I am strongly opposed to the Peru Free Trade Agreement. Some of the points I made last night, but I think they need reiteration. The untold story of the economy in the United States is that the middle class is shrinking, poverty is increasing, and the gap between the rich and the poor is growing much wider. I am not going to stand here and tell you trade is the only reason the middle class is shrinking, but I am going to tell you it is a major reason, and it is an issue we have to deal with.

Mr. President, since George W. Bush has been in office, 5 million Americans have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty, 8\1/2\ million Americans have lost their health insurance, median household income for working-age families has gone down by nearly $2,500, over 3 million good-paying manufacturing jobs have been lost, 3 million Americans have lost their pensions, wages and salaries are now at their lowest share of GDP since 1929, and we are in a situation now where the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans earn far more income than the bottom 50 percent.

In the last number of years, technology has exploded and worker productivity has increased. Yet in the midst of all of that, the middle class is struggling desperately to keep their heads above water, and poverty is increasing.

I think the question this Senate should be spending a lot of time on answering is why that is happening. Why is it that everything being equal, our kids will have, for the first time in the modern history of the United States, a lower standard of living than we do? Why is it that a two-income family today has less disposable income than a one- income family did 30 years ago? In the midst of all this globalization, all of the explosion of technology, all of the increase in worker productivity, there is more and more economic desperation in the United States, and the only people who are doing very well are the wealthiest 1 or 2 percent of the population.

Now, I think there is a real problem when you have unfettered free- trade agreements which essentially allow corporate America to throw American workers out on the street, move to China, move to other low- wage countries, pay people their 50 cents an hour, $1 an hour, and then bring their products back into this country. One of the great crises we are facing is we are not building manufacturing plants in the United States and putting people to work at good wages with good benefits. Not only are we losing blue-collar jobs, we are losing white-collar information technology jobs. And millions of parents all over this country are wondering what kind of jobs are going to be available for their kids.

The fact is, these free-trade agreements have not worked. I don't know how many times and what people need to understand that. Just take a look at NAFTA. I remember, because I was a Member of the House during that debate, that the supporters of unfettered free trade told us over and over that NAFTA would increase jobs in the United States. But according to the Economic Policy Institute, NAFTA has led to the elimination of over 1 million American jobs.

Now, why would you want to follow a paradigm, a trade policy approach which has failed in the past? If it has failed time and time again, why would you keep doing the same thing? A manager of a baseball team who has losing records year after year gets fired. That is what happens. The team changes its approach.

Right now, we have a huge trade deficit. It is a growing trade deficit. We are losing good-paying jobs. Pressure on wages is to push them down into a race to the bottom. That is a failed trade policy.

Supporters of unfettered free trade told us that NAFTA would significantly reduce the flow of illegal immigration into this country because the standard of living in Mexico would increase. Well, guess what. They were wrong. It didn't happen. As a result of NAFTA, severe poverty in Mexico increased. It didn't go down, it increased, and 1.3 million small farmers in that country have been displaced, with real wages for the majority of Mexicans having gone down. All of this has led to a 60-percent annual increase in illegal immigration from Mexico during the first 6 years of NAFTA alone.

What is happening in Mexico and in the United States and in many other countries today because of unfettered free trade is we are seeing a huge increase in the gap between the people on top and everybody else. I will give just one example. In Mexico today, a poor country, a gentleman named Carlos Slim has just surpassed Bill Gates as the wealthiest person in the world, worth over $60 billion, in a poor country. Incredibly, because of unfettered free trade and near liberal type of economic policy, Mr. Slim is worth more than the poorest 45 million Mexicans combined. One man has more wealth than the bottom 45 percent, which happens to be 45 million Mexicans. That is one of the manifestations of unfettered free trade.

And the situation is the same with China. I remember the debate about China--we have a great market in China. If we open permanent normal trade relations with China, it will create all kinds of jobs. Nobody believes that is true. We have a huge trade deficit with China, a trade deficit that is growing. People today are doing Christmas shopping. When they go to the stores, the products they will find from A to Z are made in China, not made in the United States. I can tell you that in my small State of Vermont, we have lost 25 percent of our manufacturing jobs in the last 6 years--not just due to trade, but trade has played an important role.

All over this country, people are wondering why corporate America is not reinvesting in Pennsylvania or Vermont or the rest of the country. Well, you know why. They are investing billions and billions of dollars in China, hiring people there at pennies an hour, and then they bring their products back into this country. And people are wondering: How do you become a great economy? How do you lead the world? How do you have good jobs for your kids if we are not producing the goods that our people purchase?

You will remember, Mr. President, that 20, 25 years ago, the largest employer in the United States was General Motors. They produced automobiles. They paid people good wages, they had good benefits, and there was a strong union. Today, the largest employer in the United States is Wal-Mart, with low wages, minimal benefits, and vehemently antiunion.

What I also don't understand, in terms of this trade debate, is who the

Congress thinks it is representing. You go out in my State and all over this country, and people say: We do not like unfettered free trade. If you want to be a political opportunist, and you don't care about the issue, you should vote against the Peru trade agreement. That is what the people want you to do. In fact, according to a recent Wall Street Journal NBC news poll, 59 percent of Republicans--of Republicans-- believe unfettered free trade has been bad for the U.S. economy. And a majority of Democrats feel the same way. So I think maybe the Congress has got to start saying to the large corporation CEOs, who in fact do very well by unfettered free trade, that our job is not just to represent them but to represent the working families of this country.

This agreement will simply continue a failed trade policy. And, Mr. President, you know, because you are a new Senator as well, that during the last campaign, many of us raised this issue about unfettered free trade. What we heard from constituents was that they wanted a change in trade policy. They wanted companies to start investing in America, not in China. They are worried about the future.

So the bottom line is, we have a failed trade policy, and before we pass any more trade agreements, I think we need to take a hard look at what past trade agreements have done. I think we need a moratorium on them, and we need to develop new trade agreements. Trade is a good thing, but we need new trade agreements that represent the working families of this country so that we can see our wages and our incomes going up, not going down; our health care benefits going up, not going down; so that we are not engaged in a race to the bottom; so that we are helping poor countries improve their standard of living, while our standard of living is going up and not bringing everybody down.

I hope Members of the Senate will give serious consideration to rethinking our trade policies and voting this Peru trade agreement down.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Keep Americans Warm Act, which provides an additional $1 billion in emergency home heating aid under the highly successful Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, otherwise known as LIHEAP. Most importantly, this $1 billion in emergency home heating assistance would be in addition to the overall fiscal year 2008 appropriations for LIHEAP.

I am delighted this bill enjoys widespread bipartisan support from across the political spectrum. As a matter of fact, this legislation is being cosponsored by 23 of my colleagues--16 Democrats, 6 Republicans, and 1 Independent.

I would like to recognize all of the cosponsors this morning: both Senators from Minnesota, Mr. Coleman and Ms. Klobuchar; Senator Obama; both Senators from Maine, Ms. Snowe and Ms. Collins; both Senators from Massachusetts, Mr. Kerry and Mr. Kennedy; Senator Brown; Senator Lugar; the senior Senator from the great State of Vermont, Senator Leahy; Senator Smith; Senator Bingaman, the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee; Senator Sununu; both Senators from New York, Mr. Schumer and Mrs. Clinton; Senator Casey; Senator Mikulski; Senator Menendez; Senator Stabenow; Senator Lieberman; Senator Cantwell; Senator Biden; and Senator Boxer.

Mr. President, the reason this legislation is being cosponsored by so many of my colleagues is simple: Skyrocketing home heating prices in New England, the Northeast, and the Mideast, are already stretching household budgets beyond the breaking point.

In the wealthiest country on the face of the Earth, not one family should go cold this winter. That is not what America is supposed to be about. Not one senior citizen should have to choose between heating their homes or paying for their prescription drugs.

I am afraid if we do not act, and act aggressively, that is what is going to happen all across this country. While the official start of winter is still about 3 weeks away, home heating prices in Vermont and in other parts of the country are already going through the roof.

According to the Central Vermont Community Action Council, many Vermont families have been paying an incredible $3.47 a gallon for heating oil and as much as $3.71 a gallon for kerosene this year. Nationwide, heating oil prices are already up 90 cents from last year, or more than double from where they were 4 years ago. Further, the price of kerosene has also increased by 50 cents a gallon from last year.

These rapidly rising energy prices right now are bad enough; but the overall projections of what people will pay for energy over the course of this winter is frightening.

The National Energy Assistance Directors Association has projected that the typical household using heating oil will pay $2,157 to heat their homes this winter--a 47-percent increase from what they paid last year. Those using propane will pay $1,765 this winter, or 30 percent more than what they paid 2 years ago.

Before we got back into session this week, the debate over LIHEAP was between an 11.6-percent increase from last year, as included in the fiscal year 2008 Labor-HHS conference report, and the President's budget proposal of a 21-percent cut--cut--from last year.

While the level of funding for LIHEAP included in the Labor-HHS conference report is a good starting point, even if this level eventually becomes law, it would still be 31 percent below the $3.2 billion provided in fiscal year 2006.

Making matters worse, the President vetoed the Labor-HHS conference report, insisting on a $379 million cut to LIHEAP, among other things.

We hear a lot of talk in Washington about family values. Well, to my mind, a family value is that we do not let our fellow Americans go cold when the cost of home heating oil is exploding.

I thank all my colleagues. This legislation has brought forth widespread bipartisan support from Senators all across this country. Let us be aggressive and pass this legislation so that in this great country nobody goes cold this winter. Thank you.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Keep Americans Warm Act, which provides an additional $1 billion in emergency home heating aid under the highly successful Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, otherwise known as LIHEAP. Most importantly, this $1 billion in emergency home heating assistance would be in addition to the overall fiscal year 2008 appropriations for LIHEAP.

I am delighted this bill enjoys widespread bipartisan support from across the political spectrum. As a matter of fact, this legislation is being cosponsored by 23 of my colleagues--16 Democrats, 6 Republicans, and 1 Independent.

I would like to recognize all of the cosponsors this morning: both Senators from Minnesota, Mr. Coleman and Ms. Klobuchar; Senator Obama; both Senators from Maine, Ms. Snowe and Ms. Collins; both Senators from Massachusetts, Mr. Kerry and Mr. Kennedy; Senator Brown; Senator Lugar; the senior Senator from the great State of Vermont, Senator Leahy; Senator Smith; Senator Bingaman, the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee; Senator Sununu; both Senators from New York, Mr. Schumer and Mrs. Clinton; Senator Casey; Senator Mikulski; Senator Menendez; Senator Stabenow; Senator Lieberman; Senator Cantwell; Senator Biden; and Senator Boxer.

Mr. President, the reason this legislation is being cosponsored by so many of my colleagues is simple: Skyrocketing home heating prices in New England, the Northeast, and the Mideast, are already stretching household budgets beyond the breaking point.

In the wealthiest country on the face of the Earth, not one family should go cold this winter. That is not what America is supposed to be about. Not one senior citizen should have to choose between heating their homes or paying for their prescription drugs.

I am afraid if we do not act, and act aggressively, that is what is going to happen all across this country. While the official start of winter is still about 3 weeks away, home heating prices in Vermont and in other parts of the country are already going through the roof.

According to the Central Vermont Community Action Council, many Vermont families have been paying an incredible $3.47 a gallon for heating oil and as much as $3.71 a gallon for kerosene this year. Nationwide, heating oil prices are already up 90 cents from last year, or more than double from where they were 4 years ago. Further, the price of kerosene has also increased by 50 cents a gallon from last year.

These rapidly rising energy prices right now are bad enough; but the overall projections of what people will pay for energy over the course of this winter is frightening.

The National Energy Assistance Directors Association has projected that the typical household using heating oil will pay $2,157 to heat their homes this winter--a 47-percent increase from what they paid last year. Those using propane will pay $1,765 this winter, or 30 percent more than what they paid 2 years ago.

Before we got back into session this week, the debate over LIHEAP was between an 11.6-percent increase from last year, as included in the fiscal year 2008 Labor-HHS conference report, and the President's budget proposal of a 21-percent cut--cut--from last year.

While the level of funding for LIHEAP included in the Labor-HHS conference report is a good starting point, even if this level eventually becomes law, it would still be 31 percent below the $3.2 billion provided in fiscal year 2006.

Making matters worse, the President vetoed the Labor-HHS conference report, insisting on a $379 million cut to LIHEAP, among other things.

We hear a lot of talk in Washington about family values. Well, to my mind, a family value is that we do not let our fellow Americans go cold when the cost of home heating oil is exploding.

I thank all my colleagues. This legislation has brought forth widespread bipartisan support from Senators all across this country. Let us be aggressive and pass this legislation so that in this great country nobody goes cold this winter. Thank you.

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

Madam President, I rise this evening in strong opposition to the Peru Free Trade Agreement. It seems to me that most Americans understand that our current trade policies are failing. They see this every day when they go shopping and they buy products that are made in China--made all over the world--but that it is increasingly difficult to find a product manufactured in the United States of America. They understand our trade policies are failing when they note our trade deficit is huge and growing larger every single year. It seems to me that before we go forward again in pursuit of a failing trade agenda, we might want to sit back, take a moratorium, understand why our trade policies are failing, and then put together trade agreements that work for the working people and the middle class of this country, rather than just the CEOs of large multinational corporations. That is what I think we should be doing; not rushing helter skelter along the direction of failed trade policies.

One of the major reasons that the middle class in the United States is shrinking, poverty is increasing, and the gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider is, in fact, due to our disastrous, unfettered free trade policies. In my opinion, the last thing we should be doing now is passing another job-destroying, NAFTA-style free trade agreement.

Before we vote on this piece of legislation, I think it is terribly important that we as a Senate take a hard look at the current state of our economy. Now, if our economy is doing well for the middle class, if our trade policies are creating good-paying jobs, if our trade policies are moving toward eliminating poverty, if our trade policies are making us a more egalitarian society, let's go forward; but, in fact, if our trade policies are moving in exactly the wrong direction for the middle class, I think we should take a deep breath and not go forward in that direction.

Let's take a look at in fact what is happening in our economy today since President Bush has been in office.

Nearly 5 million Americans have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty. In fact, today, the United States has the highest rate of poverty of any major country on Earth. Madam President, 8.6 million Americans have lost their health insurance, and some 47 million Americans now have health insurance. Median household income for working-age families has gone down by nearly $2,500 since President Bush has been in office. Over 3 million good-paying manufacturing jobs have been lost. Three million American workers have lost their pensions. Wages and salaries are now at their lowest share of GDP since 1929. The United States has the largest gap between the rich and the poor of any major developed country on Earth. Incredibly, in 2005, the top 1 percent earned more income than the bottom 50 percent. According to Forbes Magazine, the collective net worth of the wealthiest 400 Americans increased by $120 billion last year to $1.25 trillion.

Now, is our current trade policy responsible for all of these economic trends? The answer, obviously, is no. Our current trade policies are not the sole cause for the decline of the middle class and the increase in poverty. But has unfettered free trade significantly contributed to the shrinking of the middle class and the increase in income inequality? The answer is absolutely, it has.

So the point I am making this evening is if you like the way the economy is going, with a shrinking middle class and an increase in poverty and a growing gap between the very rich and everybody else, I guess we should go forward on these trade policies. But if you don't like the direction of the economy of the United States--and the overwhelming majority of people in this country do not like where the economy is going--I think we need a new direction in our trade policies.

According to the Institute for International Economics, 39 percent of the increase in income inequality in our country is due to our unfettered free trade policy. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, unfettered free trade has caused the wages of American workers without a college degree to be slashed by over 12 percent. When we talk about economics, we often look at the problem from a general sense, but if we focus on what is happening, especially to those people who are high school graduates, what we are seeing is a severe decline in wages for that subset of the American population. Those people are struggling very hard to keep their heads above water economically.

We now have a record-breaking $765 billion trade deficit, including a $232 billion trade deficit with China, and a $64 billion trade deficit with Mexico. Today, we now have the fewest manufacturing jobs than at any time since Dwight David Eisenhower was President of our country.

If the United States is to remain a major industrial power, producing real products and creating good-paying jobs, we must develop a new set of trade policies which work for the middle class of this country and not just for the CEOs of large corporations. As the Presiding Officer well knows, coming from the great State of Michigan, it was not so many years ago that General Motors was the largest employer in the United States. By and large, those people who worked for General Motors had good wages, good benefits, and a strong union to represent them. Today, the largest employer in the United States is Wal-Mart--low wages, vehemently antiunion, and minimum benefits. That is the transformation of the American economy, and that is a metaphor for why the middle class in America today is shrinking.

Unfortunately, the Peru Free Trade Agreement is another failed trade policy among many other failed trade policies. In fact, in large part, this Free Trade Agreement, the Peru agreement,

was modeled after the North American Free Trade Agreement--NAFTA. So I guess the bottom line here is, if you like NAFTA, you will like the Peru Free Trade Agreement. Most people in this country do not like

Mr. President, as we consider the farm bill, I am proud to say that Vermont is leading the Nation in developing programs to bring fresh, local foods to school cafeterias.

Let me begin by recounting the experience of Burlington, VT, which has been replicated in other cities and towns across our State. Five years ago, residents of the city expressed concern about the significant nutritional issues facing the city's children. Twenty percent of the city's children were living in poverty, food insecurity was widespread, and the rate of childhood obesity was steadily increasing. In response, citizens called for an increased commitment to healthy food choices for children and their families.

At the same time, they were aware of the need to promote the local farm economy. So in the fall of 2003, with a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant, the Burlington School Food Project was created.

The program brings fresh foods from local farms to school cafeterias and provides hands-on agricultural education in the classroom. Students at the ten schools in this program are now eating foods that are healthier, more nutritious and from all the reports I have heard, better tasting.

The program also involves students in the process of harvesting, preparing and even taste-testing their own food. This has helped many young Vermonters learn about where food comes from, helping them connect with their local farms and community.

After 4 years of the project's existence, the Burlington school district now prepares 930,000 meals annually using fresh and local produce. Several schools offer salad bars either as a full lunch or as a side item to hot lunches. This has led to better diets and improved health.

The project has also been impressive from an economic standpoint. Last year, for instance, more than 1,000 pounds of local tomatoes, 600 pounds of local zucchini, 600 pounds of carrots and 400 pounds of local basil were used in school meals. The amount of local produce purchased tripled between 2003 and 2006.

Many partners have built upon these successes. Today, I would like to mention two driving forces.

Bonnie Acker, a school parent, took it upon herself to do whatever necessary to improve the quality of the food being served at her child's school. She worked with teachers, students, volunteers, and cafeteria workers at Edmunds Middle School. This school has become a model for others, its cafeteria has been transformed, and its school gardens are rich with color.

The director of the Burlington School Food Service, Doug Davis, provided much of the leadership needed to make BSFP work. When he was approached by parents like Bonnie, he listened. He then immediately took action and spearheaded an effort to buy whole grain breads for the cafeterias. Doug also introduced initiatives such as taste tests and classrooms linked to the cafeteria. Before long, Burlington students were trying new foods and getting healthier lunches. For his efforts, Doug was presented the Northeast award as Food Service Director of the Year.

But Burlington is not alone. Other Vermont school districts have undertaken similar programs, among them:

Brattleboro Elementary Schools, which won a Vermont Farm to School grant to set up a program to promote local food purchasing, taste testing seasonal foods, and to get students to farms for hands-on agricultural experiences. Sheila Humphreys coordinates the program, and Laura White has been a major force in its success.

Waitsfield Elementary worked with VT FEED on local purchasing and developing a food, farm and nutrition curriculum. Key figures in this effort have been school nurse Sue Dillon, as well as George Schenk of American Flatbread, who has been a strong and supportive community member raising money for Waitsfield and other schools.

Orleans Essex North Supervisory Union, where three elementary schools have comprehensive farm to school programs that include local purchasing, school gardening, taste testing of seasonal products, harvest celebrations with farmers and the communities, field studies with students on farms, and the development of farm and food-based classroom activities.

Sharon Elementary School also worked with VT FEED for 3 years developing a food, farm, and nutrition curriculum. Its principal, Sheila Moran, along with teacher Keenan Haley and food service director Lynn Ann Perry, have been instrumental in weaving farm to school into their school culture.

Ferrisburgh Elementary School has involved high school students to do field studies on farms, make a school garden, purchase more local foods and taste-test them, try new recipes using local foods, and have a farmers' market harvest festival for their community.

In addition, Hardwick Elementary School has worked with VT FEED on combining food, farm, and nutrition into the existing curricula, planting crops on farms for school use, and making healthy snacks. Val Simmons, its food service director, has led the effort to reconnect students and school food to the local farms.

Salisbury Elementary School takes students to local farms for field studies and does local food taste testing in classrooms. Here, teacher Diane Benware and food service director Gaye Truax have been prime movers.

On a larger scale, the Food Works' Farm-to-Table program, based in Montpelier, serves as a nonprofit distributor of produce from 18 area farms, delivering the produce throughout the year to 13 schools in central Vermont. In 2007 alone, more than $50,000 of local produce has been purchased and distributed through Farm-to-Table. Rick Hungerford, food service director at the U-32 High School in East Montpelier, is now sourcing nearly 14 percent of cafeteria purchases locally while turning a profit and preparing outstanding, healthy food for the entire school community. Ann Gilbert and Liz Scharf, two parents from Rumney Elementary School in Middlesex, spearheaded a grassroots effort to connect their school with local farms, in particular to purchase year- round from local grower Joe Buley, who is new to farming and has invested in greenhouse production so he can sell to schools.

Finally, let me recognize Vermont Food Education Every Day, VT FEED, which uses a community-based approach to school food system change and is the product of a collaboration of three Vermont nonprofits: Food Works, Northeast Organic Farming Association of VT, and Shelburne Farms. It does fine work in building connections between classrooms, cafeterias, local farms, and communities. It is most ably directed by Abbie Nelson and Kim Norris. It has also had strong cooperation from Jo Busha, the State Director of the Vermont Department of Education Child Nutrition Program, in introducing the farm to school concept to many school food service directors.

And this is just the beginning. With strong provisions in the farm bill for beginning farmers, increased funding for fruits and vegetables for schools, and an innovative pilot to work on community gardens in high-poverty schools, I expect Vermont's trailblazing efforts to expand not only in our State, but across the Nation.

Mr. President, I wish to add my voice to the others and thank Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi for their leadership on this issue and for the cooperative, bipartisan relationship we see on that committee, which makes it perhaps the most productive committee in the Senate.

As others have said, this is a very important day forward for the children of our country. Right now, I am thinking about the Head Start workers in Vermont who do such an extraordinary job in reaching out and providing for low-income kids throughout our State, and I know the same is true throughout this country. They are dedicated people, they are underpaid and overworked, but they do it for the love of the children. I very much appreciate all they are doing.

Mr. President, while this is, in fact, an important day forward, it is significant to point out again that this is an authorization bill, not an appropriations bill. We had the disappointment just the other day of the President vetoing the Labor-HHS bill, which includes Head Start. My hope is that in the very near future we are going to have a strong Labor bill, with adequate funding for Head Start, but more significantly--and this is an issue I will talk about until the cows come home--we have to change our national priorities with regard to how we treat the children of this country.

Every Member of Congress, every American should be deeply ashamed and embarrassed that in this great country, we have, by far, the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. The figures are that between 18 and 20 percent of our children live in poverty. As other speakers have pointed out, if children at an early age don't get the intellectual and emotional nourishment they need, they are not going to do well in life. It is not an accident that at the same time we have the highest rate of childhood poverty, we also have the highest rate of incarceration of any major nation on Earth. So we don't take adequate care of our children, and, lo and behold, we are shocked when they end up behind bars, and we spend $50,000 to $70,000 for each person who is incarcerated. It makes a lot more sense to me--and I hope my colleagues agree--that we put that money up front to make sure all of our kids get the opportunities they are entitled to as young Americans.

The truth is that while this bill is a significant step forward--and I applaud all those who built it--as Senator Kennedy indicated earlier, only one-half of

the eligible children in America today, because of inadequate funding, are able to get into the Head Start Program. So this is an important step forward. I congratulate all who have made this day possible. We have a long way to go to, in fact, keep the faith with the children of America.

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

Mr. President, as a member of the Senate environmental committee, and also on the Energy Committee, it is my view that the time is long overdue for Congress to go beyond deal-making and politics as usual in addressing the crisis of global warming. The droughts, the floods, and the severe weather disturbances our planet is already experiencing will only get worse, potentially impacting billions of people, if we do not take bold and decisive action in the very near future.

While the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill is a strong step forward--and I applaud both Senators and I applaud Senator Barbara Boxer for her entire leadership on global warming--it is my view that legislation as currently written does not go anywhere near far enough in creating the policies the scientific community says we must develop in order to avert a planetary catastrophe.

This legislation is also lacking in paving the way for the transformation of our energy system, away from fossil fuels into energy efficiency and sustainable energy technologies.

Here are some of my concerns about the Lieberman-Warner bill. These are concerns I will be working on in the next number of weeks, trying to improve that legislation. First, virtually all the scientific evidence tells us, at the least, we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050, if we stand a chance to reverse global warming. Unfortunately, the Lieberman-Warner bill, as currently written, under the very best projections, provides a 63- percent reduction. In other words, under the best projections, this bill does not go far enough, according to the scientific community, in giving us a chance to reverse global warming. Secondly, this legislation allows major polluters to continue emitting greenhouse gases for free until the year 2036. In fact, old-fashioned, dirty coal- burning plants could still be built during this period. That is wrong. The right to pollute should not be given away for up to 26 years. Further, in calculating emission reductions, this bill relies much too heavily on ``offsets,'' a process which is difficult to verify and which could lead to the underreporting of emission reductions.

Third, this bill provides a massive amount of corporate welfare to industries that have been major emitters of greenhouse gases, while requiring minimal performance standards and accountability for these same industries. According to a recent report published by Friends of the Earth, the auction and allocation processes of the bill could generate up to $3.6 trillion over a 40-year period. While a large fund does exist in the bill for ``low carbon technology,'' there is no guaranteed allocation for such important technologies as wind, solar, geothermal, hydrogen or for energy efficiency. But there is a guaranteed allotment of $324 billion over a 40-year period for the coal industry through an advanced coal sequestration program and $232 billion for advanced technology vehicles.

The time is late. If Congress is serious about preventing irreversible damage to our planet because of global warming, we need to get our act together. We need to move in a bold and focused manner. Not only are the people of our country looking to us to do that, but so are countries all over the world. The good news is, we can do it.

As Members will recall, in 1941, President Roosevelt and the Congress began the process of rearming America to defeat Naziism and Japanese imperialism. Within a few short years, we had transformed our economy and started producing the tanks and bombs and planes and guns needed to defeat Nazism. We did it because of the leadership of Roosevelt and the Congress. In 1961, President Kennedy called upon our Nation to undertake the seemingly impossible task of sending a man to the Moon. Working with Congress, NASA was greatly expanded. The best scientists and engineers in this country and in the world were assembled to focus on the task. Billions of dollars were appropriated and, in 1969, as we all remember with great pride, Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the Moon. We did it. There was a challenge. We stepped up to the plate. We did it.

As a result of global warming, the challenge we face today is no less daunting and no less consequential. Quite the contrary. Now we are fighting for the future of the planet and the well-being of billions of people in every corner of the world. Once again, if we summon the political courage, I have absolutely no doubt the United States of America can lead the world in resolving this very dangerous crisis. We can do it.

In that context, let me take a moment to suggest some ways we can strengthen the Lieberman-Warner bill--and I look forward to working with those Senators and the entire committee--to aggressively reverse global warming. Most importantly, significant resources in this bill must be explicitly allocated for energy efficiency and sustainable energy, the areas where we can get the greatest and quickest bang for the buck. In terms of energy efficiency, my home city of Burlington, VT--and I have the honor of having been mayor of that city from 1981 to 1989--despite strong economic growth, consumes no more electricity today than it did 16 years ago because of a successful citywide effort on the part of our municipally owned electric company to make our homes, offices, schools, and buildings all over the city more energy efficient. That is what we did in Burlington, VT. In California, which has a strong and growing economy, electric consumption per person has remained steady over the last 20 years because of that State's commitment to energy efficiency. In other words, in Burlington, VT, and the State of California--and I am sure in other communities around the country--despite economic growth, the consumption of electricity does not have to go soaring, if we invest in energy efficiency, if we rally the people to not waste energy.

Numerous studies tell us that by retrofitting older buildings and by establishing strong energy efficiency standards for new construction, we can cut fuel and electric consumption by at least 40 percent. If we want to save energy, that is how we do it. Those savings will increase with such new technologies as LED light bulbs, which consume 1/10th the electricity of an incandescent bulb, while lasting 20 years. These LED light bulbs are on the verge of getting on the market. We have to facilitate that process and get them all over the country as soon as we possibly can.

In terms of saving energy in transportation, it is beyond my comprehension that we are driving automobiles today which get the same mileage per gallon--25 miles per gallon--as cars in this country did 20 years ago. Think of all the technology, all of the changes. Yet we are driving cars today which get the same mileage per gallon as was the case 20 years ago. That is absurd. If Europe and Japan can average over 44 miles per gallon, we can do at least as well. Simply raising CAFE standards to 40 miles per gallon--less than the Europeans, less than the Japanese--will save more oil than we import from Saudi Arabia. How about that? That makes a lot of sense.

Further, we should also be rebuilding and expanding our decaying rail and subway systems and making sure energy-efficient buses are available in rural America so travelers have an alternative to the automobile. Everybody knows the state of the rail system in America today is absolutely unacceptable, way behind Europe, way behind Japan. Subways in large cities need an enormous amount of work. In rural States such as Vermont, there are communities that have virtually no public transportation at all. We have to address that crisis, if we are serious about global warming.

In terms of sustainable energy, the other area we can make tremendous leaps forward, wind power is now the fastest growing source of new energy in the world and in the United States, but we have barely begun to tap its potential. In Denmark, for example, 20 percent of the electricity is produced by wind. We, as a Congress, should be supporting wind energy, not only through the creation of large wind farms in the appropriate areas but through the production of small inexpensive wind turbines which can be used in homes and

farms all across rural America. These small turbines can produce up to half the electricity an average home consumes and are now--right now, forget the future--reasonably priced. Without Federal tax credits, which are available, without rebates such as what is being done in California today, a 1.8-kilowatt turbine is now being sold for some $12,000, including installation, with a payback of 5 to 6 years. That is a pretty good deal. If you are not worried about global warming, if you are not worried about carbon emissions, it is a good deal because you are going to save money on your electric bill.

The possibilities for solar energy are virtually unlimited. In Germany, a quarter of a million homes are now producing electricity through rooftop photovoltaic units, and the price per kilowatt is rapidly declining. In California, that State is providing strong incentives so 1 million homes will have photovoltaic rooftop units in the next 10 years. But the potential for solar energy goes far beyond rooftop photovoltaic units. Right now in the State of Nevada, a solar plant is generating 56 megawatts of electricity. What we are now beginning to see developed in the Southwestern part of the country are solar plants which are capable of producing enormous amounts of electricity. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy:

Solar energy represents a huge domestic energy resource for

the United States, particularly in the Southwest where the

deserts have some of the best solar resource levels in the

world. For example, an area approximately 12% the size of

Nevada (15% of federal lands in Nevada) has the potential to

supply all of the electric needs of the United States.

Whether that area can in fact supply all the electric needs of the United States, I don't know. But I have recently, in the last couple weeks, talked to people who are involved in these solar plants. They say in the reasonably near future, they can supply 20 percent of the electricity our country needs. There it is, sitting there, ready to happen. Our job is to facilitate that process and make it happen sooner rather than later.

Perhaps most significantly, Pacific Gas & Electric, which to my understanding is the largest electric utility in the country based in California, has recently signed a contract with Solel, an Israeli company, to build a 535-megawatt plant in the Mohave Desert. This plant, which should be operating in 4 years--my understanding is they are going to break ground in 2, and it should be operating in 4 years-- will have an output equivalent to a small nuclear powerplant and will produce electricity for some 400,000 homes. This is not a small-time operation. The people I talked to involved in this industry say this is the beginning. Think of what we can do if we provided them with the support they need.

Most importantly, people say: Well, that is a good idea, but unfortunately this electricity is going to be sky high, very expensive.

That is not the case. The price of the electricity generated by this plant to be online in 4 years is competitive with other fuels today and will likely be much cheaper than other fuels in the future.

News reports indicate that the 25-year purchase agreement signed by Pacific Gas and Electric with Solel calls for electricity to be initially generated at about 10 cents per kilowatt, with very minimal increases over the next 25 years--minimal increases because this is a process that does not have all that many moving parts. There it is. It needs maintenance. It needs work. But, unlike gas, unlike oil, you are not looking at a volatile market. There is the Sun. It will shine. So we are talking about a price over a 25-year period which probably will end up being less than 15 cents a kilowatt in the year 2035, which I suspect will be not only very competitive, it will be more than competitive.

The potential for solar plants in the Southwest is extremely strong. While there certainly is no magical silver bullet in the production of new, nonpolluting energy sources, experts tell us we can build dozens of plants in the Southwest, and that this one nongreenhouse gas- emitting source could provide a huge amount of the electricity our country needs.

Geothermal energy is another source of sustainable energy that has huge potential. Mr. President, as you know, geothermal energy is the heat from deep inside the Earth. It is free, it is renewable, and it can be used for electricity generation and direct heating. While geothermal is available at some depth everywhere, it is most accessible in Western States where hydrothermal resources are at shallow depths.

Currently, the United States has approximately 2,900 megawatts of installed capacity, which is just 5 percent--5 percent--of the renewable electricity generation in the United States. The installed geothermal capacity is already expected to double in the near term with projects that are under development, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.

A recent report for the U.S. Department of Energy by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, suggests that geothermal could provide 100,000 megawatts of new carbon-free electricity at less than 10 cents per kilowatt hour, comparable to costs for clean coal. Drilling technology from the petroleum industry is the key to unlocking this huge potential. Enhanced geothermal systems tap energy from hot impermeable rocks that are between 2 and 6 miles below the Earth's crust.

So geothermal is another opportunity for us as a nation to be producing large amounts of energy in a way that does not emit carbon dioxide and does not create greenhouse gases.

An investment of $1 billion--less than the price of one coal-fired powerplant--could make this resource commercially viable within 15 years. The potential payoff is huge. It is estimated that electricity from geothermal sources can provide 10 percent of the U.S. base-load energy needs in 2050.

In terms of the future--in terms of the future of our planet--the bad news is that scientists are now telling us they have underestimated the speed and destructive aspects of global warming.

As you remember, Mr. President, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, along with former Vice President Al Gore--many of those scientists are now saying their projections were too conservative, that the planet is warming faster than they had anticipated, and the damage will be greater if we do not move boldly to reverse it. That is the bad news.

There is good news, however. The good news is that, at the end of the day, we know how to reverse global warming. We know what to do. What is lacking now is not the scientific knowledge, though more and more knowledge will come, and it is not the technology, though more and more technology will be developed, and sustainable energy will become less and less expensive. But after all is said and done, we know what we have to do. We know how to make our homes and our transportation systems more energy efficient. We are now making great progress in driving down the cost of nonpolluting, sustainable energy technologies. That is what we are doing.

What is lacking now is the political will--the political will to think outside of the box, the political will to envision a new energy system in America which is not based on fossil fuels, the political will to stand up to powerful special interests that are more concerned about their profits than about the well-being of our planet.

So I think not only the children--the young people of our country and the people all over America--but people throughout the world want this Congress to catch up to where they are. They are far ahead of where we are. I think if we have the courage to do the right thing here, we can reverse global warming. In the process, we can create millions of good- paying jobs, we can help restore our position in the international community as a country that is leading and not following on this issue of huge consequence.

Mr. President, I yield back the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Let me thank my colleague from Vermont, Senator Leahy, for yielding, and applaud him for the role he is playing on the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. President, several weeks ago, I informed the citizens of Vermont that I would be voting against the confirmation of Judge Mukasey to be Attorney General, and tonight I am going to, in fact, be casting a ``no'' vote.

Mr. President, there are several reasons I will vote no on Judge Mukasey. First, like many of my colleagues, I was deeply disturbed by his response to the question of waterboarding. He apparently does not know whether waterboarding is torture. Well, millions of Americans know waterboarding is torture. People all over the world know waterboarding is torture. The Geneva Conventions are quite clear about waterboarding being torture. And, frankly, I don't think it is too much to ask for us to have an Attorney General who knows waterboarding is torture. That is one reason I am voting against Judge Mukasey, but there is a second reason, and perhaps maybe an even more important reason.

For the last 6 years, it is clear that we have had a President who does not understand what the Constitution of the United States is about. What this President believes, essentially, is that he can do anything he wants, at any time, against anybody in the name of fighting terrorism. And he happens to believe the war on terrorism is unending. It is going to go on indefinitely. I think it is very important that we have an Attorney General who can explain the Constitution to a President who clearly does not understand it. Unfortunately, Mr. Mukasey is not that person.

In the last 6 years under President Bush, we have seen the National Security Agency start a program which allows wiretapping without first obtaining a court order, to my mind, in violation of the Constitution. We have seen personal records that have been extensively mined for data. How many millions? Who knows? Nobody in the Senate really knows. We don't have access to that information. It is massive amounts of data mining, in clear violation of the privacy rights and the laws of America under this President.

We have seen the phenomenon of extraordinary rendition, which has shifted detainees to prisons in countries abroad which allow torture. We have seen the firing and the politicization of the Office of the U.S. Attorney. We have seen detainees of the United States being denied the oldest right in the Western legal system--the right to habeas corpus. We are running a prison camp in Guantanamo where prisoners have minimal legal rights, which is an international embarrassment for us as we struggle against international terrorism. And we have seen many other assaults by this President on our constitutional rights and on the laws of this country.

We have a President who clearly does not understand the separation of powers; that the Congress of the United States is an equal branch of our Government; that the Judiciary is an equal branch of our Government; that the executive branch does not have all of the power.

A little while ago I was on a statewide TV program in Vermont. Somebody called in and they said: When is Congress going to begin to stand up to this President?

That is a good question, and I didn't have a good answer. But what I can tell you, the time is long overdue for us to begin to stand up to this President, who thinks he can veto virtually every piece of legislation we send him, who ignores the Constitution of this country-- I think it is time we begin to stand up.

I have heard some of my colleagues say, if we reject Mr. Mukasey, the President is not going to send us another nominee. That is the right of the President of the United States. But we have our rights as well. We have the right to demand an Attorney General

who supports, strongly, the Constitution and is prepared to tell the President when he is acting against our Constitution. That is our right. It is about time we began to defend our right.

I can't blame the President for taking over the rights of Congress, if Congress is not prepared to stand up and fight back. I think that time is long overdue.

Mr. President, if you do not want to send us another nominee, that is your right. We have our rights as well. I will be voting against Mr. Mukasey. I hope my colleagues do as well.

In conclusion, I ask unanimous consent that letters of opposition and concern from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and Common Cause be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I wish to say a few words this afternoon on some of the issues with which the Senate is dealing.

Last week, I believe I was the first Member of the Senate to suggest very strongly that Michael Mukasey should not become the next Attorney General, and I am very pleased that in the last week, more and more of my colleagues are coming to that same conclusion.

The Attorney General of the United States must be a defender of our constitutional rights. Because President Bush thinks he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants in the name of fighting terrorism, we need an Attorney General who can explain to the President what the Constitution of this country is all about. We need an Attorney General who does not believe the President has unlimited power. We need an Attorney General who will tell President Bush he is not above the law. We need an Attorney General who clearly understands the separation of powers inherent in our Constitution.

Regretfully, I have concluded that Michael Mukasey would not be that kind of Attorney General. I am gratified that more and more of my colleagues are coming to that same conclusion.

Let me be very clear. It goes without saying that the U.S. Government must do everything it can to protect the American people from the very dangerous threats of international terrorism, but we can do that in ways that are effective and are consistent with the Constitution of our country and the civil liberties it guarantees. We do not have to give up our basic freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism.

The Bush administration and the lawyers who have enabled it for the past 7 years cannot be bothered, it appears, with such technical legal niceties as the Bill of Rights. This administration thinks it can eavesdrop on telephone conversations without warrants, suspend due process for people classified as ``enemy combatants,'' and thumb its nose when Congress exercises its oversight responsibility. That is why I called on Roberto Gonzales to resign. I had hoped that the confirmation process for a new Attorney General would give the President and the Senate an important opportunity to refocus on the core American principles embodied in our Constitution.

Unfortunately, it appears Judge Mukasey doesn't get it. At his 2-day confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he suggested that eavesdropping without warrants and using ``enhanced'' interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects might be constitutional, even if they exceeded what the law technically allowed. Mr. Mukasey said Congress might not have the power to stop the President from conducting some surveillance without warrants. He even, incredibly, claimed to be unfamiliar with the technique known as waterboarding.

``If Judge Mukasey cannot say plainly that the President must obey a valid statute, he ought not to be the Nation's next attorney general,'' wrote Jeb Rubenfeld, a professor of constitutional law at Yale Law School, who had appeared before Judge Mukasey as a prosecutor. And he has that right. It has become an American aphorism that ours is a government of laws, not men. We need an Attorney General who understands that so, unfortunately, he can explain it to a President who does not.

Control in Basra

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times today.

Mr. President, what that article talks about is the fact that every day our main ally in Iraq, the United Kingdom, is withdrawing more and more of its troops. In the first paragraph of the article in the L.A. Times today, it states:

Saying that Iraqi forces are now capable of dealing with

the violence that persists in the south, Britain's Defense

Secretary said Wednesday that his government intended to hand

over security for the area by mid December.

And later on in the article it says:

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced last month

that his government, the main U.S. foreign partner in Iraq,

would pull out half its remaining troops by June, leaving

2,500 soldiers stationed outside Basra.

In other words, it is the United States of America, more or less alone, that is continuing this war in Iraq. We have some 140,000 soldiers in Iraq. There are tens and tens of thousands of private contractors in Iraq. It seems to me time is long overdue for us to learn from our ally, the United Kingdom, that we have to begin bringing home our troops, as they are, as soon as we possibly can.

Senator Menendez made the case, I thought very impressively, about what this war is costing us in terms of human life, what it is costing us in terms of the tens of thousands of soldiers who are going to return home with traumatic brain injury, with post-traumatic stress disorder, without arms and without legs. This war has cost the Iraqi people almost beyond comprehension. No one knows exactly how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children are dead, but there are estimates that go way up to close to 1 million. There are 2 million Iraqis who have been forced to flee their own country, and there are 2 million who have been displaced internally who have had to leave their homes because of ethnic cleansing and because of the violence that existed in their neighborhoods.

This war has resulted, tragically, in the standing of the United States of America being diminished all over the world. Some of us remember years back, when a President of the United States would go to Europe, would go abroad, and hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions of people, would be lining streets with American flags, looking up to Americans saying: America, you are the kind of country we want to be. Now, when this President goes abroad, there are thousands and thousands of people who are coming out, but invariably they are demonstrating against the United States.

What poll after poll shows, to our great loss, to our capability in fighting international terrorism, is we have lost the moral high ground; that our standing throughout the world is significantly diminished. And certainly one of the challenges we face as a Senate is to restore the confidence the entire world used to have in the United States and restore that once again, so when our kids go visit in Europe and somebody says to them: What country do you come from, they do not have to say they come from Canada. They can say proudly they come from the United States of America, a country that, once again, we hope, will be respected throughout the entire world.

I hope very much we will follow the lead of our friends in the United Kingdom, who are now down to 2,500 troops. I suspect in the not-too- distant future those troops will probably be withdrawn. We should be bringing our troops home as soon as we possibly can.

Abolishing Hunger

The last point I wish to make is that fairly soon, as I understand it, the agriculture bill will come to the floor of the Senate. In that bill, I think under Senator Harkin's leadership, there have been some very positive changes being made. But I think, because of the lack of funding, that bill does not go anywhere near as far as it should in addressing some of the very serious problems we face in our country in terms of nutrition and in terms of hunger.

At the same time this country is spending $10 billion a month on the war in Iraq, it has the dubious distinction of having, by far, the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, with almost one-fifth--almost one out of five--of the kids in this country living in poverty. Compare that with Scandinavia, where it is maybe 3 percent or 4 percent. And the rate of poverty in America is growing.

Last year, as you may recall, the Department of Agriculture, in the midst of this increase in poverty in our country, reported that 12 percent of Americans--35 million people--could not put food on their table at least part of the year. Thirty-five million of our fellow Americans could not put food on the table for at least part of the year. That is not what should be happening in our country.

When the Senate deals with the agriculture bill, I will be offering an amendment which will ask for a commitment from the Senate that says, at a time when the wealthiest people are becoming wealthier, when the poorest are becoming poorer, when hunger in America is increasing, this Senate, this Congress will make a moral commitment to abolish hunger in this country in the next 5 years. That is not asking too much for our country.

We have to fundamentally change the priorities of our Nation. When billionaires want tax breaks, we have money for them. We have money for war. But when children go hungry, I guess there is no money available. So I look forward to working with my colleagues to change the priorities of this Senate so we start paying attention to the vast majority of our people rather than the few and the wealthy who have so much power.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this is the fifth anniversary of the death of Paul and Sheila Wellstone. I wished to say a few words on that. I was a friend of Paul's when I was in the House, and on some of the important social and economic issues that I worked on there, he was the person to whom I went, to work with a Member of the Senate.

I think history will remember Paul Wellstone as one of the great Senators of our time, not just because of his accomplishments but, more importantly, because of the extraordinary vision that he had.

Paul believed very much that we could create a very different kind of world than the world that we are living in right now. He was prepared and did stand up day after day on the floor of this Senate, taking on virtually every powerful special interest that exploited working people and low-income people and who led us to wars we should not be fighting.

He was a man who believed passionately in a world of peace, in a world of economic and social justice. That vision he brought forth is the vision I hope nobody in the Senate, nobody in this country, ever forgets.

One of the major characteristics of Paul Wellstone is he understood that the way we succeed politically is not simply by going out to the wealthy and the powerful begging for more and more campaign contributions, which is what happens so often. He understood that the way to win elections is by rallying ordinary people at the grassroots level, and perhaps it is that achievement, from a political perspective, for

which he will most be remembered. I know in Minnesota he organized at the grassroots and brought thousands and thousands of people who had not been involved in the political process together to stand up under a progressive program for economic justice and a world of peace. He understood profoundly something many here do not address: Real change takes place from the bottom, not from the top, and when millions of people stand up and say it is imperative that we have economic justice, that we have a livable wage, that we have a health care program which guarantees health care to all of our people, that we protect our environment, when that comes from the grassroots, then we will succeed. He was a tireless advocate of grassroots politics.

As someone who worked with Paul, who was very fond of both him and Sheila, the vision they brought forth is something for which I will do my best to continue advocating. His loss was a loss for the working people, for the vast majority of the people of this country, and for the Senate.

I will not forget what Paul Wellstone stood for.

Madam President, let me take this opportunity to thank Senator Harkin and his staff for their very hard work on the Labor-HHS legislation and commend the ranking member, Senator Specter, and his staff as well. The reality is that the needs facing the people of our country who are impacted by this bill are enormous. There is, unfortunately, not enough funding available to accommodate those needs, and within that context, Senator Harkin and Senator Specter have done their very best.

I wish to say a few words about one particular program which is important to me, which is important to the people of Vermont, and which is vitally important to this whole country as we try to deal with the health care crisis our country is now facing, a crisis in which 47 million Americans have no health insurance, even more are underinsured, and the cost of health care is soaring every day. What this legislation deals with and I think deals with quite well is understanding that it is important for us to grow the number of community health centers in this country.

The community health center program is a wonderful success story, and it is widely recognized as one of the most cost-effective programs in the entire Federal Government. Community health centers are community- run. They are run by the people in the community themselves. They are run on a nonprofit basis. They provide not only affordable health care to their people but affordable dental care, which is a growing crisis all over rural America and in the State of Vermont. They provide mental health counseling--another serious issue. They provide low-

cost prescription drugs--in fact, the lowest cost prescription drugs available in America.

These federally qualified health centers serve people from all walks of life and all incomes. Whether you have private insurance, whether you have Medicare, whether you have Medicaid, or whether you have no health insurance, you are welcome into these community health centers. For those with no health insurance, payment is based on a sliding scale. If you don't have a whole lot of money, you don't have to pay a lot for your health or dental care.

Today, over 16 million Americans--16 million--benefit from the services health centers provide in every State and in almost every congressional district in our country. For an average Federal grant expenditure of only $124 per patient per year, these centers offer comprehensive health care, regardless of ability to pay. At a time when more and more Americans are losing their health insurance, when they are finding it hard to secure primary health care, these centers play an extraordinary role, and they deserve to be adequately funded.

This legislation provides $2.24 billion for the community health center program--a $250 million increase above the fiscal year 2007 level. I thank Senators Harkin and Specter very much for their support for this program. It is estimated that this increase will allow us to expand or create some 500 new community health centers all over this country, serving an additional 2 million Americans. That is a big deal at a time when millions and millions of people are unable to find primary health care or just don't have the funds to pay for it. Given the fact that we have 47 million uninsured, it is clear this is not enough, but it is a significant step forward.

In Vermont in recent years, we have expanded the number of federally qualified health centers from two to six, and my hope is that we can add an additional three or four more centers in the next 3 years. These centers now serve over 86,000 Vermonters and provide quality health care, quality dental care, low-cost prescription drugs, and mental health counseling in some 23 different locations around the State of Vermont. The centers are the medical home for 24 percent of Vermont's Medicaid beneficiaries and serve 19 percent of our uninsured.

Nationally, health centers are not only providing quality, efficient care in underserved communities, they are filling a major gap in our Nation's health care system where primary care is becoming a lost profession. It is no secret that in many parts of America, especially rural America, it is very, very hard for people to locate a primary health care physician. It is also imperative that these centers play a role, which allow people to go to them rather than flooding emergency rooms in hospitals, which are much more expensive.

In addition to this appropriations bill, we are also in the process of reauthorizing the community health center program in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on which I serve, and I thank our chairman and our ranking member for putting forth this important legislation that has the support of 68 Members from both sides of the aisle.

So I think this issue of community health centers is very much an issue and an area supported by people from different political perspectives. It is doing an enormous job in providing health care to millions of Americans. I am glad we are going to take a step forward when we pass this legislation.

I call up my amendment.

Mr. President, I will say a few words about this amendment.

I thank Senator Grassley for working with me on this amendment. We modified the original amendment. This amendment is substantially similar to the amendment Senator Grassley and I offered last May on the immigration reform bill which passed the Senate with a bipartisan vote of 59 to 35.

This amendment is motivated by one major concern. We want to make certain that young Americans receive the educational opportunities they need in order to obtain the professional, good-paying jobs that are coming about in this country. To do that, we need to make sure they have the college education they need in math, science, engineering, health care, and other professional fields.

This amendment also expands the Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Educational Program, long supported by Senator Grassley.

This amendment will accomplish these goals by adding a $3,500 surcharge on companies that utilize the H-1B program, the same surcharge that 59 Senators supported last May.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I first want to thank Chairman Harkin and

Ranking Member Specter for their terrific work on the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. I appreciate how well the chairman and the ranking member were able to address so many of the important issues in this bill despite the overwhelming needs of so many worthy programs that have been terribly underfunded during the Bush administration. With this in mind, I want to enter into a colloquy to clarify a key issue concerning this measure.

As a member of the HELP Committee and its Retirement and Aging Subcommittee, I am a strong supporter of the Senior Community Service Employment Program, SCSEP, which provides part-time community service opportunities at minimum wage for unemployed low-income seniors over the age of 55 with poor employment prospects. This year, approximately 100,000 seniors nationally will have access to assistance from the SCSEP program. Last year, approximately 94,000 were served and 40 million hours of community services were provided at local community- based organizations, and 33 percent of participants obtained employment as a result of participating in this program

Through SCSEP, low-income older people benefit from training, counseling, and community service assignments at nonprofit organizations and public agencies before transitioning into the workforce. Participants' community service assignments benefit schools, health facilities, homeless shelters and food banks, disaster relief agencies, and aging services. The wages participants earn makes the difference in their ability to care for basic necessities of life such as food and medicine. Many participants overcome homelessness and other obstacles such as disabilities, literacy deficiency, language, or lack of self-esteem through their participation, and are able to compete for jobs in their local communities. Each year thousands of participants transition to employment, allowing additional older workers to benefit from the SCSEP.

The SCSEP program was reauthorized last year as part of the Older Americans Act with strong bipartisan support as a result of the tremendous difference the program makes in the lives of our Nation's low-income seniors and our communities. As our population continues to grow grayer, the need for SCSEP services is anticipated to grow accordingly.

SCSEP rewards work and the important contribution our Nation's seniors can make to our society. However, program costs will rise this coming year as the increase in the minimum wage results in higher costs for the SCSEP program due to the minimum wage payments made to program participants. In order to continue current participant service levels, the House bill provided $531 million for SCSEP, which provides adequate funds to cover the 2008 minimum wage increase.

I know that Senator Harkin and Ranking Member Specter are supporters of the program but had a funding allocation $2 billion lower than their counterparts in the House.

Can the chairman provide his commitment of his intent to fund SCSEP at the House-passed level when he moves to conference with the House?

I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their work on this critical issue.

National Health Service Corps

I would like to congratulate the chairman and ranking member for their ongoing championing of critical programs that support health care access, including making substantial investments in the Nation's community health centers. The expansion of the National Health Service Corps is essential if health centers are to continue to meet the health care needs of their growing disadvantaged populations, and if we are to address the impending crisis in the supply of primary care doctors and dentists. Increasing the program's funding over the next several years is an important goal. The program is strongly supported by the Association of American Medical Colleges, which has called for an increase of 1,500 Corps awards per year to help meet the need for physicians caring for underserved populations and to help address rising medical student indebtedness.

In fiscal year 2007, the National Health Service Corps was funded at $126 million and the current level approved by the Appropriations Committee for fiscal year 2008 would level-fund the program. I thank the committee members for rejecting the administration's proposal which would have actually reduced funding by $10 million for this vital resource in the face of a dwindling supply of primary care doctors and dentists. While I recognize the many competing needs of important programs within the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill, at the very least, I would like to see the National Health Service Corps program funding increased by the $5.8 million approved by the House of Representatives.

Madam President, today I acknowledge a Vermont artist who is widely recognized and widely loved, Edward Koren.

This year the Vermont Council on the Arts is bestowing its Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts on this renowned graphic artist.

Mr. Koren carries on the long tradition of artists who publish their work in the mass media, using the techniques of drawing to comment on the lives that men and women lead. His distinguished 19th century antecedents include Honore Daumier in France and Thomas Nast in the United States. Edward Koren is a cartoonist of the first order, having published more than 900 of his works in The New Yorker. His cartoons have appeared in other publications as well, ranging from The Nation, to the New York Times.

His work is remarkably distinctive, often focusing on shaggy figures engaged in everyday affairs. Their shaggy, hairy features are a personal signature; they embody the way he uses lines, the way his pen moves on paper. To see one of his cartoons on a page is to recognize it, instantly, as a ``Koren,'' even before one knows its subject or reads the accompanying words or his name at the bottom of the cartoon.

Koren examines people in the midst of everyday life, revealing that he understands that reality consists not of something invented by movies or policy analysts but rather what we encounter every day. He is a satirist of pretension, and deftly explores the neuroses of our times. Koren is a great chronicler of what the poet Wallace Stevens called ``the malady of the quotidian.''

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, recently told the Burlington Free Press that ``Ed Koren is one of the great original voices of cartooning . . .. I love his work, always have.''

Edward Koren's work has been widely recognized by museums as well as the media which so often publish his cartoons. His work is in the Swann Collection at the Library of Congress, and also in the permanent collections of the Fogg Museum at Harvard, the Princeton University Museum, and the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University.

Mr. Koren and his wife Curtis live in central Vermont. He long ago moved to our State for reasons he articulated recently:

I was captivated intensely by Vermont. There was a deep

sense of community. I kept thinking, this is unusual in this

society, this country. I had never come across this kind of

closely compacted community. I was fleeing huge, giant-scaled

cities without a real cohesive sense of place and connection.

It turned out I was a country guy.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Koren is a captain of the Brookfield, VT, Volunteer Fire Department.

He is well deserving of the honor of receiving the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts.

I also want to say a few words on climate change and the issue of global warming. Let me begin by quoting from an op-ed that appeared in the Burlington Free Press, my hometown newspaper, on October 7, by Bill McKibben, well known as one of the most savvy and best known environmental writers in the world. He happens to teach at Middlebury College. He said:

It's not Democrats negotiating with Republicans or

environmentalists negotiating with business interests. It's

human beings negotiating with chemistry and physics, and

chemistry and physics don't really do much in the way of

bargaining. Science has told us what we need to do: cut

carbon emissions quickly in the next few years, and keep that

pressure on til we've trimmed our emissions at least 80

percent by midcentury. No loopholes for vested interests, no

hard-to-quantify offset schemes, no giveaways to the

utilities. Just a commitment to stop vetoing the laws of

nature. That commitment has got to come soon . . .

The point that Bill McKibben and many other scientists and environmentalists have made is, we are up against very serious laws of physics. That is what we are dealing with. It is not what I say or what anybody else says. It is whether we are going to get a handle on global warming. Because if we don't, this planet is going to suffer severe and irreparable damage.

I begin my remarks by thanking Senator Lieberman and Senator Warner for their hard work in putting together America's Climate Security Act. As a member of that same subcommittee, I look forward to playing an active role in strengthening that legislation. I look forward to working with them on this issue.

I also take this opportunity to thank the 18 cosponsors of the legislation Senator Boxer and I introduced in January of this year, S. 309. Those are Senators Akaka, Biden, Cardin, Casey, Clinton, Dodd, Durbin, Feingold, Inouye, Kennedy, Klobuchar, Lautenberg, Leahy, Menendez, Mikulski, Obama, Reed, and Whitehouse.

This legislation, S. 309, tackles global warming as best we could based on the science. To be more specific, this bill is based on the desire to limit the global increase in temperature to no more than 2 degrees Celsius, and to meet this goal science tells us we must stabilize global CO2 concentrations at no higher a level than 450 parts per million. This level only provides us, the scientists say, with a 50/50 chance of keeping the worst from happening. These odds are not great. It is a gamble. If we were cautious and conservative about these things, we would err on the side of safety and keep the pollution down lower than this level in order to protect the one and only world that we have.

I thank all of the cosponsors of the legislation that Senator Boxer and I introduced for standing with science. We should also be clear about one other thing. This is a very important point. What the scientists are now telling us is, in terms of their projections, in terms of their analyses, they have been too conservative. What they are now telling us is the problem of global warming and the rapidity of the global warming changes is more severe than they had previously anticipated. In other words, we have to be even more aggressive, not less aggressive, in addressing this major planetary crisis.

It may well be that the legislation Senator Boxer and I introduced is too conservative, but it is for sure that we should be going forward and not backward.

Let me take this opportunity to quote from some of the major environmental organizations in terms of what they are saying about the legislation introduced today by Senators Lieberman and Warner. I think it is best that I read from them rather than giving my views at this particular point.

This is what the U.S. Public Interest Research Group says:

We applaud Senators Lieberman and Warner for their

leadership on global warming. Time is running out to stop the

worst effects of global warming, and this bill is an

important starting point for action.

U.S. PIRG then goes on to say:

To rise to the challenge of global warming, this new bill

must be strengthened. Three changes are essential:

(1) The bill must achieve faster and deeper cuts in

pollution, which is what the science demands. The pollution

caps in the bill aim to reduce total U.S. global warming

emissions by about 11 percent by 2020 and by just over 50

percent by 2050.

Additional, modest reductions may be achieved through other

policies in the bill, but those reductions are difficult to

quantify and are not guaranteed. According to the current

science, the United States must reduce its total global

warming emissions by at least 15% by 2020 and by at least 80%

by 2050. In addition, periodic reviews of the bill's

scientific adequacy must trigger additional pollution-

reduction requirements.

(2) Flexibility mechanisms in the bill must be tightened to

prevent undermining the goals of the bill. The bill currently

allows companies to exceed their pollution limits by paying

sources not covered by the program to reduce emissions.

Ensuring that a ton of pollution from such ``offsets'' equals

a ton of real reductions is a major challenge. In addition,

offsets delay the transition to cleaner technology that will

be needed to achieve deep future cuts in emissions. Under the

bill, a company could theoretically meet its entire 2020

pollution-reduction requirement through offsets. The number

of offset reductions allowed under the bill must be

significantly lowered.

(3) Polluters must be required to pay for every ton of

pollution they put into the atmosphere. The bill gives

hundreds of billions of dollars to polluters for free, which

will create windfall profits, such as has occurred in Europe,

and take vital resources away from easing America's

transition to a clean energy future. In the United Kingdom

alone, windfall profits from emission trading have been

estimated at nearly $2 billion. These profits come directly

from the pocketbooks of consumers. Under this bill, just

under half (49%) of the pollution permits would initially be

given to polluters for free, and it will take 25 years (until

2036) before we stop handing polluters free money.

That is what U.S. PIRG had to say.

Let me go to another group, an even better known environmental group, and that is the Sierra Club. Let me tell you what they said today in their press statement. I quote from the Sierra Club:

The bill is a significant political step forward for the

U.S. Congress, but unfortunately the legislation as

introduced still

falls short from what is demanded by the science and the

public to meet the challenge of global warming. This comes

even as U.S. states, cities, and counties move forward with

ambitious, science-based proposals to tackle the issue. We

look forward to working with Senators to seek the additional

improvements necessary for the bill to sufficiently address

the challenge before us.

I continue to quote from the Sierra Club:

At this crucial moment, we must continue to insist on a

global warming bill that is committed to scientific integrity

and economic fairness. In order to prevent the most

catastrophic effects of global warming, we must cut emissions

80 percent by 2050--an achievable annual reduction of about 2

percent. In order to get the market moving and bring

America's clean energy future to life, any bill must start

out strong by seeking a short-term reduction on the order of

20 percent of total emissions by 2020. Disturbances to the

climate have come more quickly and forcefully than even the

most pessimistic among us predicted. The Lieberman-Warner

bill, as introduced, leaves us in serious danger of reaching

the tipping points that scientists tell us could lead to

catastrophic changes to the climate.

Continuing to quote from the Sierra Club statement of today:

While the bill has moved in the right direction, it gives

too many free allowances to polluters for far too long--

enriching executives and shareholders instead of generating

the funds needed to help us meet our emissions goals and

ensure a smooth transition to the clean energy economy.

That is some of the statement from the Sierra Club.

Let me now quote from another organization, an organization of physicians. It is called Physicians for Social Responsibility, a well- known group. They have also issued a statement today. Let me quote from the statement of the Physicians for Social Responsibility:

Physicians for Social Responsibility appreciates the

efforts of Senators Joe Lieberman and John Warner to craft

legislation to address global warming but calls on the Senate

Environment and Public Works Committee to make necessary

improvements before passing the bill.

It continues:

The reality of global warming is becoming more apparent

every day, and the science is clear as to what action we need

to take. In order to prevent this world-wide disaster, we

must stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse

gases. And, the U.S. must meet the challenge of starting now

and reaching a goal of 80 percent reductions below a 2000

baseline. Unfortunately, the bill drafted by Senators

Lieberman and Warner will not meet that goal.

Let me continue quoting from the Physicians for Social Responsibility, who, of course, are physicians. This is what they say, providing an interesting analogy:

Physicians for Social Responsibility's approach to this

[global warming] is similar to the manner in which a

physician treats a patient: what are the symptoms, what are

the causes and how do we treat the disease? We would not

prescribe half of the needed medication to a patient, and we

cannot support a bill that does not fully address the causes

of global warming. To protect human health and reverse global

warming, we need to begin aggressive treatment right away.

That is Physicians for Social Responsibility.

I could sit here and quote from many other press statements or talk to my colleagues about the science, but I will not do that. This is what I want to say: If we are concerned about the future of this planet--I know every Member here is--and the lives and well-being of our kids and our grandchildren, not only in this country but all over the world, we are going to have to rise up to this issue.

It is not just a bargain here and a bargain there. Because you can have all the bargaining you want, and all the nonpartisanship you want, and yet this planet will face catastrophic damage unless we deal with the reality of the science. It is not whether we are nice guys or bad guys. This is what we are facing. We are facing science. What the scientists are telling us is their projections were too conservative. The problem is more severe than they had anticipated.

I note my friend and colleague, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, made a very important point that others have made, which is, as we deal with the issue of global warming, let us not forget about the workers who are impacted, the consumers who are impacted. Certainly and absolutely we must do that. One of the bright aspects, the positive aspects about this whole discussion of global warming is if we get our act together-- if, for example, we begin the process of breaking our dependency on the automobile and expand our rail system; if, in fact, we produce cars that get the kind of mileage we know Detroit can produce--we can grow jobs in the transportation area, not see them shrink.

If we begin to move intelligently toward energy efficiency, if we retrofit our homes and our offices and our schools, we can create huge numbers of good-paying jobs through the installation and the production of the products we need to make this Nation much more energy efficient. It is all sitting there waiting to happen. If we have the courage to move away from fossil fuel, to move to solar energy, to move to wind, to move to other forms of sustainable energy, we can create millions of good-paying jobs.

I would mention to my colleagues that right now out on the Mall--I was there last evening--there is a wonderful display of solar homes put together by the Solar Decathlon. We have universities from all over the United States of America, and from Europe as well, showing us what we can do today in making energy-efficient homes and utilizing the potential of solar energy. California is making progress. Germany is making progress. We are not moving anywhere near the degree to where we should be moving.

Think about the jobs we create when 10 million homes in America have photovoltaic units on their rooftops. Think of the energy we produce through solar plants in the South and the West and the Southwest of this country. Think about what it means when we have small wind turbines all over rural America. It is not only moving away from fossil fuels, which are destroying the planet, not only moving to clean energy, it is creating millions of good-paying jobs.

We know how to do this. We know how to do it. The technology is there today. It will only get better. Our country has to start investing in these technologies. We can create the jobs. We can reverse global warming.

I conclude by saying this: I applaud Senator Lieberman and Senator Warner. I hope we can work together. But I think we have a distance to go to make that legislation better, stronger, more consistent with the science that is out there. I look forward to working with all of my colleagues to do that.

I also want to say a few words on climate change and the issue of global warming. Let me begin by quoting from an op-ed that appeared in the Burlington Free Press, my hometown newspaper, on October 7, by Bill McKibben, well known as one of the most savvy and best known environmental writers in the world. He happens to teach at Middlebury College. He said:

It's not Democrats negotiating with Republicans or

environmentalists negotiating with business interests. It's

human beings negotiating with chemistry and physics, and

chemistry and physics don't really do much in the way of

bargaining. Science has told us what we need to do: cut

carbon emissions quickly in the next few years, and keep that

pressure on til we've trimmed our emissions at least 80

percent by midcentury. No loopholes for vested interests, no

hard-to-quantify offset schemes, no giveaways to the

utilities. Just a commitment to stop vetoing the laws of

nature. That commitment has got to come soon . . .

The point that Bill McKibben and many other scientists and environmentalists have made is, we are up against very serious laws of physics. That is what we are dealing with. It is not what I say or what anybody else says. It is whether we are going to get a handle on global warming. Because if we don't, this planet is going to suffer severe and irreparable damage.

I begin my remarks by thanking Senator Lieberman and Senator Warner for their hard work in putting together America's Climate Security Act. As a member of that same subcommittee, I look forward to playing an active role in strengthening that legislation. I look forward to working with them on this issue.

I also take this opportunity to thank the 18 cosponsors of the legislation Senator Boxer and I introduced in January of this year, S. 309. Those are Senators Akaka, Biden, Cardin, Casey, Clinton, Dodd, Durbin, Feingold, Inouye, Kennedy, Klobuchar, Lautenberg, Leahy, Menendez, Mikulski, Obama, Reed, and Whitehouse.

This legislation, S. 309, tackles global warming as best we could based on the science. To be more specific, this bill is based on the desire to limit the global increase in temperature to no more than 2 degrees Celsius, and to meet this goal science tells us we must stabilize global CO2 concentrations at no higher a level than 450 parts per million. This level only provides us, the scientists say, with a 50/50 chance of keeping the worst from happening. These odds are not great. It is a gamble. If we were cautious and conservative about these things, we would err on the side of safety and keep the pollution down lower than this level in order to protect the one and only world that we have.

I thank all of the cosponsors of the legislation that Senator Boxer and I introduced for standing with science. We should also be clear about one other thing. This is a very important point. What the scientists are now telling us is, in terms of their projections, in terms of their analyses, they have been too conservative. What they are now telling us is the problem of global warming and the rapidity of the global warming changes is more severe than they had previously anticipated. In other words, we have to be even more aggressive, not less aggressive, in addressing this major planetary crisis.

It may well be that the legislation Senator Boxer and I introduced is too conservative, but it is for sure that we should be going forward and not backward.

Let me take this opportunity to quote from some of the major environmental organizations in terms of what they are saying about the legislation introduced today by Senators Lieberman and Warner. I think it is best that I read from them rather than giving my views at this particular point.

This is what the U.S. Public Interest Research Group says:

We applaud Senators Lieberman and Warner for their

leadership on global warming. Time is running out to stop the

worst effects of global warming, and this bill is an

important starting point for action.

U.S. PIRG then goes on to say:

To rise to the challenge of global warming, this new bill

must be strengthened. Three changes are essential:

(1) The bill must achieve faster and deeper cuts in

pollution, which is what the science demands. The pollution

caps in the bill aim to reduce total U.S. global warming

emissions by about 11 percent by 2020 and by just over 50

percent by 2050.

Additional, modest reductions may be achieved through other

policies in the bill, but those reductions are difficult to

quantify and are not guaranteed. According to the current

science, the United States must reduce its total global

warming emissions by at least 15% by 2020 and by at least 80%

by 2050. In addition, periodic reviews of the bill's

scientific adequacy must trigger additional pollution-

reduction requirements.

(2) Flexibility mechanisms in the bill must be tightened to

prevent undermining the goals of the bill. The bill currently

allows companies to exceed their pollution limits by paying

sources not covered by the program to reduce emissions.

Ensuring that a ton of pollution from such ``offsets'' equals

a ton of real reductions is a major challenge. In addition,

offsets delay the transition to cleaner technology that will

be needed to achieve deep future cuts in emissions. Under the

bill, a company could theoretically meet its entire 2020

pollution-reduction requirement through offsets. The number

of offset reductions allowed under the bill must be

significantly lowered.

(3) Polluters must be required to pay for every ton of

pollution they put into the atmosphere. The bill gives

hundreds of billions of dollars to polluters for free, which

will create windfall profits, such as has occurred in Europe,

and take vital resources away from easing America's

transition to a clean energy future. In the United Kingdom

alone, windfall profits from emission trading have been

estimated at nearly $2 billion. These profits come directly

from the pocketbooks of consumers. Under this bill, just

under half (49%) of the pollution permits would initially be

given to polluters for free, and it will take 25 years (until

2036) before we stop handing polluters free money.

That is what U.S. PIRG had to say.

Let me go to another group, an even better known environmental group, and that is the Sierra Club. Let me tell you what they said today in their press statement. I quote from the Sierra Club:

The bill is a significant political step forward for the

U.S. Congress, but unfortunately the legislation as

introduced still

falls short from what is demanded by the science and the

public to meet the challenge of global warming. This comes

even as U.S. states, cities, and counties move forward with

ambitious, science-based proposals to tackle the issue. We

look forward to working with Senators to seek the additional

improvements necessary for the bill to sufficiently address

the challenge before us.

I continue to quote from the Sierra Club:

At this crucial moment, we must continue to insist on a

global warming bill that is committed to scientific integrity

and economic fairness. In order to prevent the most

catastrophic effects of global warming, we must cut emissions

80 percent by 2050--an achievable annual reduction of about 2

percent. In order to get the market moving and bring

America's clean energy future to life, any bill must start

out strong by seeking a short-term reduction on the order of

20 percent of total emissions by 2020. Disturbances to the

climate have come more quickly and forcefully than even the

most pessimistic among us predicted. The Lieberman-Warner

bill, as introduced, leaves us in serious danger of reaching

the tipping points that scientists tell us could lead to

catastrophic changes to the climate.

Continuing to quote from the Sierra Club statement of today:

While the bill has moved in the right direction, it gives

too many free allowances to polluters for far too long--

enriching executives and shareholders instead of generating

the funds needed to help us meet our emissions goals and

ensure a smooth transition to the clean energy economy.

That is some of the statement from the Sierra Club.

Let me now quote from another organization, an organization of physicians. It is called Physicians for Social Responsibility, a well- known group. They have also issued a statement today. Let me quote from the statement of the Physicians for Social Responsibility:

Physicians for Social Responsibility appreciates the

efforts of Senators Joe Lieberman and John Warner to craft

legislation to address global warming but calls on the Senate

Environment and Public Works Committee to make necessary

improvements before passing the bill.

It continues:

The reality of global warming is becoming more apparent

every day, and the science is clear as to what action we need

to take. In order to prevent this world-wide disaster, we

must stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse

gases. And, the U.S. must meet the challenge of starting now

and reaching a goal of 80 percent reductions below a 2000

baseline. Unfortunately, the bill drafted by Senators

Lieberman and Warner will not meet that goal.

Let me continue quoting from the Physicians for Social Responsibility, who, of course, are physicians. This is what they say, providing an interesting analogy:

Physicians for Social Responsibility's approach to this

[global warming] is similar to the manner in which a

physician treats a patient: what are the symptoms, what are

the causes and how do we treat the disease? We would not

prescribe half of the needed medication to a patient, and we

cannot support a bill that does not fully address the causes

of global warming. To protect human health and reverse global

warming, we need to begin aggressive treatment right away.

That is Physicians for Social Responsibility.

I could sit here and quote from many other press statements or talk to my colleagues about the science, but I will not do that. This is what I want to say: If we are concerned about the future of this planet--I know every Member here is--and the lives and well-being of our kids and our grandchildren, not only in this country but all over the world, we are going to have to rise up to this issue.

It is not just a bargain here and a bargain there. Because you can have all the bargaining you want, and all the nonpartisanship you want, and yet this planet will face catastrophic damage unless we deal with the reality of the science. It is not whether we are nice guys or bad guys. This is what we are facing. We are facing science. What the scientists are telling us is their projections were too conservative. The problem is more severe than they had anticipated.

I note my friend and colleague, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, made a very important point that others have made, which is, as we deal with the issue of global warming, let us not forget about the workers who are impacted, the consumers who are impacted. Certainly and absolutely we must do that. One of the bright aspects, the positive aspects about this whole discussion of global warming is if we get our act together-- if, for example, we begin the process of breaking our dependency on the automobile and expand our rail system; if, in fact, we produce cars that get the kind of mileage we know Detroit can produce--we can grow jobs in the transportation area, not see them shrink.

If we begin to move intelligently toward energy efficiency, if we retrofit our homes and our offices and our schools, we can create huge numbers of good-paying jobs through the installation and the production of the products we need to make this Nation much more energy efficient. It is all sitting there waiting to happen. If we have the courage to move away from fossil fuel, to move to solar energy, to move to wind, to move to other forms of sustainable energy, we can create millions of good-paying jobs.

I would mention to my colleagues that right now out on the Mall--I was there last evening--there is a wonderful display of solar homes put together by the Solar Decathlon. We have universities from all over the United States of America, and from Europe as well, showing us what we can do today in making energy-efficient homes and utilizing the potential of solar energy. California is making progress. Germany is making progress. We are not moving anywhere near the degree to where we should be moving.

Think about the jobs we create when 10 million homes in America have photovoltaic units on their rooftops. Think of the energy we produce through solar plants in the South and the West and the Southwest of this country. Think about what it means when we have small wind turbines all over rural America. It is not only moving away from fossil fuels, which are destroying the planet, not only moving to clean energy, it is creating millions of good-paying jobs.

We know how to do this. We know how to do it. The technology is there today. It will only get better. Our country has to start investing in these technologies. We can create the jobs. We can reverse global warming.

I conclude by saying this: I applaud Senator Lieberman and Senator Warner. I hope we can work together. But I think we have a distance to go to make that legislation better, stronger, more consistent with the science that is out there. I look forward to working with all of my colleagues to do that.

Mr. President, I missed the beginning part of the statement of my friend from Wyoming. Are you a new grandfather? Another grandchild? Congratulations.

I have three. I often think that one of the funniest bumper stickers I have ever seen in my life is one that says: If I had known how much fun grandchildren would be, I would have had them first. So congratulations.