Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, my colleague, Senator Wyden, just offered an amendment on his behalf and mine. He spoke in support of it. Obviously, I am a cosponsor so I support the amendment. It is an amendment that is very simple. We are putting oil away underground in something called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve or SPR. The purpose of putting oil underground at this point is in the event that we would have an emergency at some point in the future, we would have a substantial inventory of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

That SPR is nearly full. As I understand, it is well over 98 percent filled at this point. Yet we are still, each day, taking about 100,000 barrels of oil off the market and putting it underground at a time when we are effectively paying the highest price ever for that oil in order to put it there.

There are two problems with that. No. 1, at a time when we have very high prices, which means we have lower supplies and higher demand, it makes no sense to have 100,000 barrels a day taken off the market and stuck underground. Even more than that, it makes no sense to do this, with the last increment to be put into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, at a time when oil is $55, $57, $58 a barrel.

Our amendment is very simple. It would suspend the acquisition of oil at these inflated prices, suspend the acquisition of oil at a time when we need more supply, not less, and it would allow the acquisition to complete filling the SPR when the price of a barrel of oil reaches $40 per barrel or below.

My hope is the Senate will adopt the amendment. It is just common sense. It is not rocket science to believe that if you have a Strategic Petroleum Reserve almost filled, you should not go to the market and take $55 or $57 oil in order to take inventory off the market at a time when you have record prices. That doesn't make any sense.

We are asking that the Senate approve the amendment.

Before the Senator from New Mexico leaves the floor, I have another matter I wish to address, but I don't intend to address something in morning business that would interrupt the work on the bill. I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for up to 15 minutes with the understanding that if someone comes to the floor with an amendment on the Energy bill, I will defer. I don't want to delay the bill. I ask unanimous consent for 15 minutes in morning business with that understanding.

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

Mr. President, I want to speak about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. My understanding is their board of directors is meeting today. I don't know whether they are going to select a new president for the corporation, but I know that was at least announced as the intention today of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Let me go all the way back to Big Bird. Everyone who grows up watching Sesame Street and Children's Television Workshop understands that Cookie Monster, Big Bird, and all of those things represent learning devices and the wonderful characters on Sesame Street. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created a long while ago as a part of an approach to do something unique.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Public Television, and National Public Radio have been pretty remarkable. Every week 94 million Americans watch public television or some portion of public television and 46 million people listen to public radio. That is a remarkable statistic. Public radio and public television are available to over 90 percent of American homes. We have come a long way since President Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.

It is the case that public broadcasting will tackle issues that other broadcasters don't tackle. I admit you won't see Fear Factor on public television. You won't tune in and see someone sitting in front of a bowl of maggots to see whether they can eat an entire bowl in 15 or 30 seconds. That is not the kind of television I watch. But occasionally when you are browsing through the television routine, you tune in to programs that have that kind of approach. You wonder what has become of good television. Or you might tune in to another program where you see a couple of women or men engaged in a fist fight over some romance that turned sour, where on that program day after day they hold this imperfection up to the light and say: Isn't this ugly? Let's entertain ourselves with everyone else's dysfunctional behavior.

You won't find that on public broadcasting. They sink their teeth into some pretty interesting things. I mentioned Big Bird. I suppose could you say Big Bird isn't quite so serious, but a lot of children grow up with Sesame Street watching Big Bird and the lessons therein. Frankly, it is wonderful television--more than television for children, I will give you an example of the kinds of things public broadcasting tackles that others will not.

Do you think ABC, CBS, NBC or FOX is going to tackle the question of concentration in broadcasting? There are no more than five or six companies and people that control what we see, hear, and read. Because we see all of these concentrations of television stations and radio stations, the Federal Communications Commission decided in their ruling, which the court subsequently stayed, that it is OK to open this up. And the Federal Communications Commission said: We believe that in one major American city, one company ought to be able to own eight radio stations, three television stations, the cable company, and the dominant newspaper. We think that is fine.

It is not fine with me. It is limiting what people can see and read and hear. The controversy surrounding public television, public radio, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting saddens me. My hope is that perhaps actions taken in the next couple of days might resolve that.

There is apparently a board meeting this afternoon and apparently another meeting of some type tomorrow where they will choose a new president. This all is with the backdrop of the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, who has consistently and publicly said that public broadcasting, public television, public radio has a liberal bias. There have been all of those allegations over some long period of time. A liberal bias, it is easy to say. It doesn't have a liberal bias. It is just independent television which most people appreciate.

Let me talk for a moment about my concern about where we are heading. Press accounts from last week noted that the House Appropriations Committee approved a spending bill on Thursday that would slash spending for public television and radio by nearly half. That includes a 25-percent cut in financing for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and a total of $112 million in additional cuts for programs that provide continuing children's programming.

Just the news coming out of the Appropriations Committee in the House is

ominous. But more than that, inside the organization, the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting hired a consultant to evaluate the bias in public broadcasting. He hired a consultant to go after the program called ``NOW with Bill Moyers.'' He hired that consultant without notifying the board of directors. This is the chairman of the board. He hired that consultant with public funds.

As an appropriator, I asked him: Would you provide me with the information that the consultant provided you.

This is what I received. I received a substantial amount of what he called raw data. It didn't include any summary, just raw data. I was struck and disappointed to see that a consultant was hired, and this is a summary of April 4 to June 4, just to pick one. And they go through the list of programs, and they label anti-Bush, anti-Bush, anti-DeLay. I guess if he reported on the controversy about Tom DeLay, it is anti- DeLay programming.

It says, ``anticorporation.'' In fact, they did a program about some waste. It might have been about Halliburton, although I have done hearings on Halliburton. I guess that would then be declared anticorporation. It is really not. Again, it reads anti-Bush, anti- Bush, pro-Bush.

I am struck that it is way out of bounds to be paying money for a consultant who decides to evaluate public broadcasting through the prism of whether or not it supports the President. That is not the role of public broadcasting, to decide whether it supports the President of the United States. If we ever get to the point where you can't be critical of public policy, Democrats and Republicans, Congress and the President, then there is something wrong.

Interestingly enough, they used another approach on another set of programming, and they divided these segments that were shown into either liberal or conservative segments. And there was a segment on June 7 last year and Senator Hagel from Nebraska, a conservative Republican, was on that segment and apparently said something that wasn't completely in sync with the White House. So he is labeled as a liberal. A conservative Republican Senator from Nebraska is labeled a liberal by the consultant for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Why? Because he said something liberal? No, apparently he just didn't have the party line down and said something that was perhaps at odds with policy coming out of the White House.

This list goes on and on. My guess is my colleague Senator Hagel is going to be mighty surprised to discover that a consultant hired by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting views his appearances on public broadcasting as appearances that contribute to a liberal bias because a conservative Republican Senator from Nebraska shows up on public broadcasting.

I don't mean to make light of this. I think it is serious. In addition to all of this, an allegation of bias--a relentless allegation of bias by the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, in addition to his hiring a consultant to do this kind of thing--evaluate programming, whether it is anti-Bush or pro-Bush--in addition to all of that, there is now a discussion and potentially even a vote today in which they would select a new president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the leading candidate for that job is a former cochairman of the Republican National Committee.

I would not think it appropriate for a former cochair of the Democratic National Committee to assume the presidency of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; nor would I think it would be wise for Mr. Tomlinson, the chairman of the board, to usher in a former partisan as president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Again, I only say that, going back some 35 years and more, I think public broadcasting has been a real service to our country. Public television and public radio tackle things other interests will not tackle in this country. They are, in fact, independent. That is precisely what drives some people half-wild. My hope is that the actions of Mr. Tomlinson, the chairman, the actions of the board, whatever they might be today--my hope is that those actions will not further contribute to injuring public broadcasting.

We fund public broadcasting because we think it is a great alternative to commercial television. If you tune in--nothing against broadcasts in the evening on the commercial station, but I happen to think Jim Lehrer has one of the best newscasts in our country. He covers both sides aggressively. I think it contributes to our country and I think, in many ways, public broadcasting is a national treasure. I regret that I have to describe these things--consultants who evaluate whether or not something is anti-Bush. That is not the prism through which one should evaluate whether something makes sense. I will wait to see what happens today at the meeting taking place of the board. My hope is that they will not take action that will further injure and be detrimental to public broadcasting.

Mr. President, first I thank Senator Bingaman for this amendment. I support the amendment. It advances, improves and strengthens the underlying energy bill. I know that the term ``renewable portfolio standard''--we have talked about that--is not necessarily something everybody understands. Much of what we do in the Senate sounds like a foreign language. Renewable portfolio standard. I think what this is is an American-made amendment, a home-grown energy amendment. It says what we ought to do is take charge and decide we are going to move in a different direction.

My colleague said, and other colleagues have said, yes, we are going to continue to use coal, oil and natural gas, and I support that. We must continue to use fossil fuels. We also need to understand that we are increasingly dependent upon a supply of oil that comes from under the sands of the Middle East. A very small part of this world has an inventory of a very substantial part of the oil resources that exist in the world. To be hopelessly addicted to that oil--foreign sources of oil--makes no sense. So as we developed a new energy bill, I think we did an excellent job in the Energy Committee. I have complimented Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman at some length about that. We have produced a bipartisan piece of legislation and brought it to the floor.

During the debate in committee, we recognized that we would reserve this amendment for the floor of the Senate and debate it here on the floor. Again, I call this the home-grown energy, or an American-made energy amendment.

Let me use a picture to make a point. This happens to be a photograph of a wind turbine just south of Minot, ND. There are actually two wind turbines that sit on a hill south of Minot. North Dakota is a wonderful State. I am enormously proud to represent North Dakota. We happen to be fiftieth in the 50 States in native forest lands. Translated, we are dead last in trees. It is a great State. We happen to be dead last in trees. We put up a wind turbine here and there, and we like it because we are also a State that has more wind than almost any State in the Nation. We are dead last in trees, but we are first in wind--some say especially when I am at home on the weekends.

The Department of Energy says that North Dakota, among all of the States, is the ``Saudi Arabia of wind.'' We have more potential to develop wind energy than anywhere in America. So this wind turbine is south of Minot, ND. I happen to have had a role in this wind turbine because we on the Appropriations Committee put money in for the air base to buy green power. Eight air bases are buying green power. Two of these wind turbines went up, and they are supplying wind energy to an air base. Incidentally, these turbines are named. The two south of Minot are Willy and Wally. I am not able to determine at first glance whether this is Willy or Wally. They are essentially twins. We care a lot about them and this turbine is an example of the new technology-- much more efficient technology--by which you can take energy from the wind and turn it into electricity.

In the long term, I think we will be able to take energy from that wind, through these turbines, and turn it into electricity, and through the process of electrolysis, separate hydrogen from water and produce hydrogen for hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. What a wonderful thing for this country. Then we won't be quite so addicted to oil from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Venezuela, or Kuwait. Maybe we can shed that addiction.

As we begin to talk about energy in the future, we have all talked about natural gas and the increased use of natural gas as a result of both our country and industry wanting to have cleaner burning fuels. Now we are realizing that we don't have enough natural gas to keep up with demand. So now we are beginning to talk about how much natural gas we will import into this country. The demand for natural gas continues to increase rather substantially. We are talking about new terminals for LNG and how much LNG we will import into this country to keep pace with our need.

Isn't that moving in exactly the same direction as we find ourselves now with oil? Should we not, with just as much aggressiveness, decide we want to change the whole construct of our energy mix, to the extent we can? The answer should be yes. That is why a home-grown energy amendment makes a lot of sense.

As I said yesterday, I understand there will be opposition to every proposition that changes the way we currently do things. I understand that. ``It won't work, can't work, bad idea.'' The fact is, this amendment asks the question, will we begin to take control ourselves? Will we take control?

This is a very simple proposition--in fact, milder than some. It says, of the electricity we produce in this country, 10 percent of it should come from renewable sources. This is not a giant lift.

I understand there are some in the electric utility industry, and others, who feel this should not happen. They don't want this. They believe it is an intrusion. But I also understand we are trying to march toward a different energy future. We are trying to push a bit, trying to stretch a bit to see if we cannot remove this hopeless addiction to foreign sources of energy. That is the basis of this amendment.

My colleague from New Mexico, Senator Bingaman, is going to describe information about what this amendment, if we pass it, will mean in terms of the use of fossil fuels versus the use of renewable sources of energy, what it means in costs, and what it means in the reduction of energy dependency that now exists. I think this is not only a win-win, but a win-win-win amendment for everybody. So what we are trying to do is harness energy we can produce.

Using 100 kilowatt hours of wind power each month is the equivalent of planting one-half acre of trees, or not driving 2,400 miles. Think of that. Put up a turbine--by the way, I understand the turbines didn't use to be so efficient. We had to have much more of a boost and incentive. Now they are highly efficient. Put up one of these turbines and use the wind to produce electricity. Use the wind to turn that turbine, and from it produce the electricity. And 100 kilowatt hours-- incidentally, this is probably 10 times that; this is about a megawatt. But 100 kilowatt hours is the equivalent of planting a half acre of trees or not driving 2,400 miles. That is the savings in energy.

This amendment will also reduce electric sector carbon dioxide emissions by 7.5 percent. That is a great result also, because we are going to have other debates on the floor of the Senate about global warming, about CO2, about all of these related issues.

This amendment moves us in the right direction in several areas. It makes a lot of sense. I hope at the end of this discussion we will have sent a message to the country and to the world that, while this is a good bill that came out of committee, we have improved it. This amendment moves us well down the road to a substantial improvement with respect to our energy future.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. President, we will have other debates of consequence on these issues. Yesterday, we had a big idea, which said let's reduce our dependency on foreign oil by 40 percent in the next 20 years. We had people stand up and say, oh, my gosh, we cannot do that; what are you thinking about?

We went to the Moon in 10 years. If we can go to the Moon in 10 years, we ought to be able to find a way to reduce our hopeless addiction to foreign oil in 20 years. Of course we can do that. I am tired of the can't-doers around here. Let's have some of the can-doers decide to affect the destiny of this country's energy future. Our country's economic future, our children's ability to find jobs, our economy's ability to expand, and our ability to remain a world economic power depends on energy. When the tank runs dry, this economy goes belly up.

This amendment describes an opportunity for us to move in a slightly different direction--toward home-grown energy, American made--believing in ourselves, taking control and taking charge. I support this amendment. I hope the Senate will give it very broad support.

I yield the floor.

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Let me thank my colleague from the State of Washington. I think she has offered an amendment that is worthy of the kind of significant debate we should be having about energy. I recognize that tomorrow's newspapers will not likely include this discussion on the front page. I was watching the television programs last Sunday, including one with perhaps one of the most esteemed columnists in this country, one of the best, in my judgment, David Broder. They were talking about the majority party and Democrats and the political differences. David Broder observed that the Democrats need to come forward with a positive agenda--with an agenda. What is their agenda?

The fact is, people don't cover positive news. You can be on the floor all day with an agenda and they will not cover it. This will not be on the front page of the paper tomorrow.

On the front page today is Michael Jackson. His attorney says he has agreed to end the behavior that got him into such trouble.

A new ``Batman'' movie, I noticed on the front page.

The Lakers have hired a new coach. That is on the front page of the newspaper.

I don't think this debate will make the front page and that is regrettable, because this is a big issue. This is an important issue. The question is, are we going to set goals as a country and aspire to achieve those goals? There is an old saying that if you do not care where you are going, you are never going to be lost. Where are we going with respect to energy? We know that 60 percent of our oil comes from off our shores--60 percent from off our shores.

I asked the Energy Department officials one day when they came before the Energy Committee: We talk a lot about 50 years from now, like what will be the consequences of the Social Security financing system 50 years and 75 years from now. Then I asked these officials to tell me what their plan is 50 years from now with respect to energy usage and energy supply. You would have thought I hit him with a baseball bat. They did not have the foggiest idea. They don't have a 50-year plan for energy. We know that 60 percent of our oil now comes from off our shores, much of it from troubled parts of the world. Yet here we are, blissfully moving along, buying one big vehicle after another.

In fact, pull up to the next stoplight and pull beside a humvee; that is about 6,500 pounds--I will get a letter from the humvee folks, I suppose--6,000 pounds or so. I am sure it gets single-digit gas mileage. I never took Latin, but I think of the Latin term ``totus porcus'' whenever I pull up next to a humvee. Someone told me it means whole hog. Here we are, blissfully moving along, driving our humvees, driving our SUVs, understanding that the question of whether we continue to have an oil and gas supply in this country is not up to us, it is up to the generosity of others, their willingness to pump it, their willingness to sell it, and the question of, at what price do they sell it to this country.

I want to tell a story. Late one evening, I was in the old Air Force One, the old 707 used by President George Bush, the first. That plane was retired and is now in a museum. But that old Air Force One is the airplane that carried John F. Kennedy's body from Dallas, TX, to Andrews Air Force Base the night that he was shot. It is a great old airplane. One of the last trips made in that old Air Force One was to Asia. I was on that trip. Senator John Glenn was on the trip and about two or three other Senators. We were going to China and Vietnam and a couple of other places to talk to foreign leaders.

Late that night, in the dark, in the front cabin which the President would have used when it was Air Force One, we began talking as we were sitting around, as colleagues do. I asked John Glenn about his space flight because I was a young boy listening to the radio with rapt attention when I heard that John Glenn circled the Earth. I asked him questions about it. What was it like going up in that space capsule and being the first American to orbit the Earth? He leaned forward, and for the first time he began talking about that flight to us.

One of the things he told us I never have forgotten. As he crossed from the light side of the Earth to the dark side of the Earth--some of you might remember that all of the citizens of Perth, Australia, decided to turn on all of their lights so that when this human being in some small little capsule called Friendship 7 orbited over the dark side, Perth, Australia, wanted to shine all their lights up so that John Glenn could see them. And John Glenn told us that night, sitting in that old Air Force One cabin, flying across the Pacific, he told us that he looked down on the dark side, and the only thing he could see on that path around were the lights of Perth, Australia.

Think of that. This big old planet of ours, with 6 billion people, that spins around the Sun, we have a human

being for the first time orbit the Earth. He looked down on the dark side and saw the product of the light switches turned on by all those citizens in that community in Australia. The only evidence on the dark side of the Earth that John Glenn could see as he orbited the Earth was the product of energy--light.

We take energy for granted every single morning. We wake up, we flip the switch on, and it is energy at our fingertips. We put our key in the ignition, we turn the ignition on, and it is energy at our fingertips. We turn on the air conditioner or the heater, it is energy at our fingertips. We take it for granted. The story John Glenn told describes that the human condition in this country depends a lot on the availability of energy.

What has the Senator from Washington said today? She said: Let's have a big idea. I am pleased to support this amendment and to come over and speak about this amendment because this is a big idea. It says: Let's set a goal. Let's set a target, a timetable. I know there will be some, and there are some, who say it shouldn't be done, won't be done, can't be done, can't be done, can't be done. I understand these comments. That is always the case.

In my little old hometown, we had a guy named Grampy. His reaction to everything was, it can't be done. He always supported it after it was done, but he always said, it can't be done. While he was saying it can't be done, the other folks in my little hometown were doing it, out making it happen.

This country has a responsibility at this intersection, at this time, at this moment, to decide on a different energy future. We cannot hold this country hostage by being dependent on 60 percent of our oil from troubled parts of the world.

I talk a lot about trade. In part, this is a trade issue. We use nearly 21 million barrels of oil a day. The Saudis suck that oil out of the sands. They are blessed with a lot of oil under their sands. Then the oil comes over here, and we say, well, go ahead and fill her up over here and we will just give you a credit card. By the way, our folks will pay for it later. That is exactly what happens because that is how we get a $640 billion trade deficit--which, by the way, next year we are on the path--for the first 4 months of this year--we are on the path to exceed $750 billion in trade deficit next year. This is just one construct of that transaction, saying: Suck the oil out of the sand, send it over here, and we will pay later. It is like going to the gas station saying: Fill it up, here is a plastic card. We will not pay now, we will pay later.

This cannot continue. What if, God forbid, we woke up and discovered our oil supplies from Iraq, from Saudi Arabia, from Kuwait, from Venezuela, from any other country around the world, were gone. If that happened, I guarantee this economy will be belly up immediately. We cannot exist as a world class economy, we cannot exist, without this supply of energy.

What about this energy? We are hopelessly addicted to oil. When you have an addiction, the best way to deal with an addiction is to have an intervention. My colleague from Washington is saying let's have an intervention. Let's decide the future has to be different from the past. She says let's propose a big idea. I support that, as do many of my colleagues. Let's really have a big idea. Let's decide to reduce our dependence on foreign oil in the next 20 years by 40 percent.

Some say it can't be done. Well, we decided to go to the Moon. We did it in 10 years. We cannot do this in 20? Don't underestimate the American people. Of course, we can do this in 20 years.

I will go through a list of technologies, and my colleague from Tennessee listed some, but there are a lot of hopeful things on the horizon. Those things alone will not solve this issue. We have to be more aggressive, much more aggressive, by setting timetables.

Those who are pilots, they understand what I mean when I say you set waypoints when you are in the airplane. You get in the cockpit and decide where you are going to fly and you set waypoints and fly to a waypoint. We need to set targets, waypoints. Where do we want to be? How do you measure where you are if you do not have a discussion about where you want to be?

That is what this amendment is about. It is not about 80-mile-per- gallon CAFE standards or 50-mile-per-gallon CAFE standards. It is not about that at all. It is about whether this country collectively will decide that when it is dependent on something, dangerously dependent on something that it must shed its dependency on, whether we will make the decision to stop that dependency. Will it make a bold decision to stop the direction we are heading, turn it around, and back off?

I don't know the answer to that. We will find out at some point. If anyone happens to be listening with respect to reporting on positive agendas, I would say here is an example of a positive agenda, a positive idea, a big idea. Big and bold. Risky? I don't know. I know the riskiest proposition for this country. By far, the riskiest proposition for this country is to keep doing what we are doing and be dependent and held hostage to 60 percent of our oil coming from outside of our country.

Those who have studied economics, and I have studied and taught economics--probably not very well--but you will recognize the doctrine of comparative advantage. It was a simple doctrine. The doctrine of comparative advantage is, and the example traditionally used is, it is easier to produce wool through sheep in England and to grow grapes and wine in Portugal. It makes more sense, is more efficient to do both in England and Portugal, and then the English can ship their wool to Portugal, and Portugal can ship their wine to England, and they have traded. They have each produced what is to their advantage. The English raise sheep, get the wool; the Portuguese raise grapes, make the wine; and you simply trade wool for wine. It is a very simple construct, the doctrine of comparative advantage.

That is not what this issue is about. The issue of energy has nothing to do with the doctrine of comparative advantage. The advantage here is not comparative. The advantage here is that in the Middle East you have a massive amount of oil under the sands. It is pulled up less expensively there than any place else in the world. A few people sit on massive reserves of oil. And we have become addicted to its supply. As a result of that, instead of getting ourselves out of a hole, we are still busy with shovels continuing to dig.

We need to find a way and develop a goal that says at a certain point this country's future is no longer dependent on someone else providing for us the oil we need. We need to do that. Is it hard? Sure, it is hard, absolutely. This is not an easy thing to do. But do we have a choice? I do not think so. I do not believe we have a choice.

My colleague described a number of technologies that are being discussed these days. Let me describe a few of them.

Wind. Does anybody here understand how much more efficient the new wind turbines are? The new turbines are much more efficient. We are in a situation where we have the capability of taking energy from the wind. You take energy from the wind, a renewable resource, use it to produce electricity, use the electricity in a process called electrolysis, and separate hydrogen from water, and have an inexhaustible supply of hydrogen coming from water. Where does that come from? It comes from renewable energy, an inexhaustible supply of energy.

We just finished the ethanol title on this piece of legislation today. What a wonderful thing that is, to grow energy in your farm fields. Take a kernel of corn, and from that kernel of corn comes a drop of alcohol and, in addition to the drop of alcohol, you still have the protein feedstock left to give to the cows. It makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

I know some oil companies do not like it. When I learned they did not like it, I figured this has to make a lot of sense for our country. So we passed an ethanol title. The renewable part of this legislation dealing with wind energy and biodiesel and a range of other strategies makes great sense.

I particularly have been interested in helping write the title that deals with hydrogen and fuel cells. Some say: Well, we are not ready for that. You are right, at this point we do not have all the solutions of production, storage, transportation, and infrastructure. I understand that. But we can, and we

will, and other countries, particularly in Europe, are moving rapidly in this direction. And even as an interim step we are seeing these hybrid cars. But we are going to move rapidly toward a different construct: hydrogen fuel cells--twice the efficiency of power to the wheel and water vapor out the tailpipe.

What a wonderful thing. Hydrogen is ubiquitous. It is everywhere. There are many strategies to employ to take hydrogen from water, using renewable resources, to extend our country's energy supply in a dramatic way and move us toward less dependence and greater independence.

The one thing that characterizes this country is how famously wrong people have been in trying to prognosticate the future. There is a whole list of these famous projections. Thomas Watson, in 1943, who was the chairman of IBM, said he thought maybe there was a world market for up to five computers. He was the head of IBM in 1943: I think maybe there is a world market for five computers. Sarnoff once said, with respect to the proposal to develop the radio: Well, who on Earth would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?

I guess they missed the mark. I could go through a long list. We are famous for not understanding what promise the future holds. This is not going to the Moon. That is not what this is. But this country does best when setting goals, such as when John F. Kennedy said, in response to Sputnik and in response to the race with the Soviets: We are going to go to the Moon by the end of the decade.

I have talked to folks at NASA who were around back then, the old codgers, the old-timers. They scratched their heads: How on Earth are we going to get to the Moon? We don't have the technology to get to the Moon.

Did you know the lunar lander that landed on the Moon with Armstrong and Aldrin had less computer power than a current new car has? Let me say that again. The lunar lander, on which Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong settled on the surface of the Moon, had less computer power than a new car that you purchase today at the dealership anyplace around this country.

That is remarkable. But those scientists, those engineers, that American ingenuity, that know-how, that spirit said: We are going to do this. We are going to put someone on the Moon in a decade. And guess what. By the end of the decade, there they were. ``One small step,'' you will recall, when Neil Armstrong planted his foot on the Moon.

This country needs to establish goals. This country needs to have aspirations. All of us need to be a part of something that is bigger than ourselves. We debate so many issues on the floor of the Senate that have so little importance. This issue will determine whether our kids and our grandkids and their kids have jobs and opportunities and live in a country that has an economy that expands, that improves the standard and scale of living in the United States. That is what this amendment is about.

Read the history books. Just because we are here on this designated spot in America, we think we have some blessing, some right to believe that America will always grow, always expand, always lead the world. Not so. It will be the case only if we make good decisions, only if we make the right decisions.

This country has a wonderful economy. You can circle the globe in any kind of plane you want and you can look down on any spot in the world, and you will not find the equivalent of the United States of America-- nowhere. But we are headed toward some whitewater rapids here in a range of areas. We are spending money we do not have. We have the highest budget deficits in history. We have a trade deficit that is going to choke this country unless we get it under control. And, I think most importantly, we have an economy that is running on foreign oil.

Sixty percent of that which we use comes from elsewhere. An economy that is hostage to decisions made by OPEC, hostage to decisions that might be made by terrorists, hostage to 60 percent--and going, we estimate by the Department of Energy, to 69 percent in a relatively short period of time--of its oil coming from off its shores, is a country, in my judgment, that is not in control of its own destiny.

It falls to us to make the decisions to put this country on track. It falls to us to chart the future with respect to this country's energy. We have an energy bill on the floor. I have complimented Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman. I am pleased this bill was brought to the floor in a bipartisan way. I voted for it out of the committee. I had a hand in a good many of the titles that were written for this bill. I could not be more pleased than to be here saying this is a step that is a positive step in the right direction: a bipartisan energy bill.

My hope is the amendment that has been offered by Senator Cantwell will be embraced on a bipartisan basis as well because there is not a Republican or a Democratic way for this country to go off course. There is not a Republican or Democratic way for this country to need energy and not have it and, therefore, shrink its economy and shrink opportunity for the future.

We need to do this together. Together we need to describe a big, new, bold idea that charts a new course for this country, a new energy course that gives us some feeling that we are moving toward independence.

There is all this discussion these days about freedom. I am not talking about ``freedom fries'' now, I am talking about freedom and independence. All of that was undergirding the State of the Union Address given to us by President George Bush.

Well, in my judgment, the issue of independence related to the word ``freedom'' these days applies to a lot of things. And it must--it must--apply to the circumstances that this country finds itself in with respect to its dangerous, its hopeless addiction to oil coming from off our shores. As I have said previously, we simply cannot hope that in the months and years ahead the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the Iraqis, the Venezuelans, and others, will decide there is enough oil to share with us.

My colleague from New Mexico, the other day on television, I think, actually said--I did not hear him exactly--but there may not be a completely inexhaustible supply of oil in this world. We act as though it is inexhaustible. Every day we wake up in this country and use over 20 million barrels of oil.

We pretend it is inexhaustible. Maybe it is not. If it is not, what then: That is why I believe we ought to set some goals. This has nothing to do with politics. The Senator from New Mexico just came on the floor. He missed the credit I have given him and Senator Bingaman. I like what we have done. I am going to vote for another energy independence amendment called the renewable portfolio standard, requiring 10 percent of our electricity be made with renewables. We didn't have that in committee because we decided to do it on the floor. Some utility companies don't want it. I understand that. There is lots of room for debate. Maybe my view isn't the right view. I don't know.

I know my view is one I hold passionately. I believe strongly that we need to do what is in this bill because it moves this country forward and advances our energy interests. I also believe we ought to do more. I believe we should set big, bold goals for America's energy future, see if we can't free ourselves from a hopeless dependence on foreign oil that is set now to grow and grow. Let's decide to make a U-turn and see if we can't begin to move in a more constructive direction.

The Cantwell amendment will improve the legislation. I am going to vote for the Energy bill. I voted for it in committee. I am proud to vote for it. I am also going to vote for some things that will improve it. This positive idea is going to improve the legislation. I am happy to be a cosponsor and happy to support it.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Jerry Hinkle, a fellow in my office, be granted the privileges of the floor through the pendency of the Energy bill.

Mr. President, my understanding is the Senate is about to go out for the caucus on our side. It is customarily held on Tuesdays. My thought is, perhaps when we come back--I believe at 2:15, by previous consent; is that correct?

I am wondering if it might be appropriate for me to be recognized at 2:15 for 15 minutes. Then, at that point, Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman will proceed with whatever agreement they are going to have.

At 2:30.

I would start at 2:15. That is my request.

Mr. President, I heard the statement by my colleague from Florida. He is aggressive and persuasive. I must say, in the committee we have already had some of these discussions by some who would want to open the Outer Continental Shelf and have more drilling and have a State election and so on. We already had some of that discussion, and I do not know whether anybody can agree in advance to prohibit amendments. You cannot agree to that, certainly, or agree to oppose amendments you do not know exist.

But I would say to the Senator from Florida, I do not think there is a ghost of a chance of us finishing this energy bill and having it carry some new mandate for Outer Continental Shelf production. That is just not going to happen, in my judgment. I think the reason it is not going to happen, at least in part, is for the reasons my colleague from Florida has described with his charts of what it would do to Florida. And it also relates to some concerns in other areas as well dealing with the Outer Continental Shelf and areas that have been set aside.

I just want to say, I understand the presentation. I did not mean to be here to interrupt it. I would like to make a general statement at 2:15 about the bill which, incidentally, I think is an excellent bill. It is the best energy bill we have brought to the Senate for several decades, in my judgment. I am going to support a couple of additions to it here and there. We have not done the energy independence approach, what is called the renewable portfolio standard. We will do that and some other things.

I am proud of this bill. This is a bipartisan effort, which is unusual in the Senate. I hope this starts a new habit. This legislation moves this country in the right direction in a significant way. Acknowledging the concern of my colleague from Florida, when the dust settles, I think he will understand that the battle he wages is one he will win because I don't believe the Senate is going to add the concerns he expresses about Outer Continental Shelf production.

I am pleased to come back at 2:15 and make a more general statement. I thank my colleagues from Florida and New Mexico.

Mr. President, it is my understanding that I will be recognized for the first 15 minutes and at 2:30, I believe, Senator Domenici will be recognized; is that correct?

Mr. President, I want to make a brief opening comment about the Energy bill on the floor of the Senate.

First, I think the product of the Energy Committee is a bill that advances this country's interests. I think the work done by Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman is quite extraordinary. At a time when there is so much partisanship and division and so much difficulty in getting together, this bill was the product of two Senators-- coincidentally, from the same State--who decided to write a bipartisan bill. So the result was a vote in the committee of 21 to 1 for this Energy bill.

I think the bill is progressive and strong and advances our country's interests. First, I wanted to say thanks to both of them. I think what we have is a good bill. I am going to vote for some amendments that I think will strengthen it. Such as one we did not include in committee that would move us toward energy independence by requiring 10 percent of the electricity to be produced from renewable sources of energy. We call that a renewable portfolio standard. That needs to be in the bill. I will vote for an amendment to deal with that. There are other issues as well that would advance us toward greater energy independence that I will support.

The question for us is how do we remove for America the addiction to foreign sources of oil? If I were to have a barrel of oil on the floor of the Senate--and we use over 20 million of them every single day--and that barrel of oil were transparent, you would find out the first 40 percent of that barrel was oil we produced in this country, and the next 60 percent is oil we get elsewhere. From where does it come? It comes from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Venezuela--very troubled parts of the world. We are hopelessly and dangerously addicted to oil from troubled parts of the world. God forbid, tomorrow morning a terrorist would interrupt the supply of oil coming into this country. Our economy--the American economy--would be in deep trouble.

I remember listening and watching the Indianapolis 500 this year, as I have done ever since I was a young boy. This year was different because a woman was a race car driver, Danica Patrick, who drove her race car 220 miles an hour. I believe it was seven or eight or nine laps from the end of the race, and guess who was winning. The only woman who was racing in the Indianapolis 500; this young 23-year-old woman was leading the race. But they worried she was going to run out of fuel because she had not had a pit stop, and they worried she would not make it to the end. So she had to back off a little, worried about running out of gas. I think she took fourth place in the Indianapolis 500, and she captured the hearts of the country. We are going to hear a lot about her.

But her future in the Indianapolis 500 in the final laps had to do with whether she had enough gas to finish the race? It is an appropriate question for the country. Will we run out of gas? It is dangerous for our country to be this addicted to oil from off our shores. So we need now to find a way to change that. Every moment, from the time we wake up in the morning until we go to bed at night, we take energy for granted. Energy comes in the form of a light switch. It comes in the form of pressing on the accelerator of your car. It is the gas pump, the air conditioner, the furnace, the refrigerator. Energy is all around us, and we take it for granted. We use it every day, and we don't think about it.

But wonder for a moment what would happen if that energy were not available. We use a prodigious amount of energy. We live on Earth and we circle the Sun and there are 6 billion of us living on this planet-- 6 billion. And every single month, we add to this planet the equivalent of the population of a New York City. There is only one place on the planet that resembles the United States of America, and we are lucky to be living here and living now. But, we use an enormous amount of energy. We use a great deal of energy--more per capita, by far, than any other country on Earth.

Meanwhile the Chinese have 1.4 billion people. They now have 20 million cars and they are going to have 120 million cars by 2020, they say. They want more energy and will need more.

So the question for this country is: Can we, and will we, maintain the standard of living, maintain the kind of country we want to be, and produce the opportunity we want for our children, being as dependent as we are upon oil from sources outside our country? The answer clearly is no. Things have to change.

They must change. We put gasoline in cars now the same way we did 100 years ago. Nothing has changed. This piece of legislation begins moving us down the road toward change. This legislation has parts that include production. We incentivize additional production of fossil fuels and, yes, we are going to produce more coal, oil, and natural gas. Yes, we will use more fossil fuels. But, if that is all we do--if all we do is dig and drill, I call that ``yesterday forever.'' That is a strategy, ``yesterday forever,'' and every 25 years we will hang around this Chamber and wear our blue suits and slough around the halls and come to talk about an Energy bill that is ``yesterday forever''--dig and drill, dig and drill. It doesn't work.

We are digging and drilling, and we have 60 percent of the oil coming from off our shores. We must, and we do, incentivize additional fossil fuels production in this bill. We want to get, through clean coal technology, to zero emissions, coal-fired electric generating plants, and I think we can and will. So fossil fuels are important--oil, coal, and natural gas. This bill does much, much more than that.

This bill has a very robust conservation proposal. Saving a barrel of oil is the same as producing one, and we waste an enormous amount of energy. The bill has an efficiency title that is very important, with standards on everything we use every day, such as appliances and so on. It also has a renewables provision that is very important. We want to support and encourage renewable energy. Growing energy in our farm fields makes a lot more sense than requiring energy from under the sands of Saudi Arabia. There are biodiesel, ethanol, wind, geothermal, solar, and so many other forms of renewable energy.

Finally, there is a title that I played a significant role in helping to write, in addition to ethanol and others, and that is the hydrogen title. I believe we will ultimately have to pole-vault to a different kind of energy future. If our grandchildren are still running gasoline through carburetors, such as in the old cars or the fuel injectors that are on the new cars, then we have failed. If the automobiles on our roads are still consuming gasoline through the fuel injectors, then we have failed. That is why I believe the hydrogen and fuel cell future is our future. Hydrogen is everywhere. The fact is, with hydrogen and fuel cells, you get twice the efficiency of power to the wheel and water vapor off the tailpipe. We will get twice the efficiency of power to the wheel, and we can escape the addiction to gasoline for our vehicles. That is the futuristic approach to the title in this bill that deals with hydrogen and fuel cells.

Mr. President, we have done some awfully good work here, in my judgment. I will support an amendment that sets targets and timetables to be even more aggressive and to reduce dependence on foreign oil by 40 percent in 2020. We went to the Moon in 10 years, so we can certainly achieve this in almost 20 years. It is kind of a fixation with this ``black gold,'' as they call it, that we have had in this country, for a long, long time. We need it. We need it desperately to run our economy.

I remember when I was a small boy--and I grew up in a town of 300 people--they drilled an oil well 2 miles outside of town. In a town of 300 people, there is not a lot going on, except on a Saturday night when the bars are open and the barber gives haircuts until midnight and the cafe; stays open until midnight and the town is full of cars from farmers. There is not a lot going on in that town of 300 people, except for that Saturday night, when an oil well was drilled, and they put up the oil rig 2 miles from town. I remember that everybody from town would drive out there almost every day to look at the oil rig and all those lights. It was exciting. Nothing happened, nothing moved. It shined. It was the only thing around that shined. So you would drive out there and sit and watch that oil well. As they were digging with that big rig and all of the flashing lights, we thought this is going to change our life forever. It turns out it was a dry hole. I have never forgotten the excitement of the search for oil, the building of the rig, the lighting of the rig.

This country has been transfixed by that for well over a century and a half now. But the fact is, we are living on borrowed time for the kind of economy we have produced in this country, if we believe we can continue without change. That is why this bill is such an important piece of legislation.

I have mentioned a few of the areas in this legislation that are important. I don't want to go into great detail, but ethanol is a critically important alternative source of energy. As I said, growing energy in the fields is a wonderful way to extend America's energy supply. Biodiesel, exactly the same. Wind energy--taking energy from the wind in this country and turning it into electricity, using the electricity through the process of hydrolysis to take hydrogen from water and use it in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles--what a wonderful promise for this country's energy future.

That is exactly what we do in this legislation. We set targets and timetables in this legislation to try to convert America's vehicle fleet to hydrogen fuel cells. That is why this is so important. We have had now several years of stop and start and kind of stuttering around on energy. It is time for all of us, the President and the Congress and both political parties to understand the urgency of the need to get a workable energy bill. Not just any other energy bill, but one that looks to the future and relieves this dangerous addiction that we have for foreign oil. I would love, someday, to be able to tell the Saudis you can drink your oil, we don't need it; we are no longer dependent upon oil under the sands of the Middle East. I would love to have that opportunity. But we cannot now. If we are smart, and if we write an energy bill, including the one that now comes to the floor of the Senate and one we can improve, one that came out of the Energy Committee by a vote of 21 to 1--if we stick to this through conference and get a bill to the President, a good bill, I think this country will recognize good work, and this country will recognize that its future is far more secure because of what we have done.

I know the White House, today, issued a letter that said they are going to oppose what is called a renewable portfolio standard; that is, the move toward independence by requiring 10 percent of your electricity to be made from renewables. Look, we understand there are people who are going to oppose everything. That is the way it is. Mark Twain once said he would always be happy to debate as long as he could take the opposing side. He said it doesn't matter what the subject is, the opposing side will take no preparation.

We understand about all these people who oppose everything. The White House is opposing this standard that would require 10 percent of our electricity to come from renewables. That makes no sense. What are they thinking about?

Let us just write the best bill we can write. We have an awfully good start on that thanks to Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman. When we are done, we will have done something very significant for this country's future.

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

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, in order that we might reach a conclusion, my understanding is that Senator Boxer will offer the amendment, speak for 10 or 15 minutes or whatever she speaks. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 4 minutes in opposition to her amendment following that. Then, my guess is, it will be disposed of.

Mr. President, I rise to oppose the amendment by my colleague from California. I regret that we are on different sides on this issue, but this amendment is unnecessary. It addresses a problem that does not exist, in my judgment. And my guess is, the Senate will, as it has in the past, vote to oppose this amendment. But I do wish to make a couple of comments about the issue of ethanol more generally.

I was listening to my colleague, and I was thinking about energy and thinking about that old country western song that was titled ``When Gas Was 30 Cents a Gallon, Love Was 60 Cents Away.'' We are a long way from 30-cent-a-gallon gas, and I don't expect we will ever see 30-cent-a- gallon gas any longer.

Sixty percent of the oil we use in this country comes from off our shores, much of it from very troubled parts of the world--Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Venezuela, and more. It is estimated that it is going to grow to 69 percent in a relatively short period of time. We are hopelessly addicted to foreign oil, much to the detriment of this country.

The use of ethanol is not going to solve that, but it moves us in the right direction in addressing it. Ethanol is a simple proposition--it is being able to grow our energy in our farm fields. Think of it: Take a kernel of corn, extract a drop of alcohol from the kernel of corn, and still have the protein feedstock left to feed the cows.

This is about growing our energy. It is about making us less dependent on the Saudis and the Kuwaitis and the Iraqis. I have indicated we have this huge addiction to foreign sources of oil.

Now, I did not know too much about ethanol before I came to the Senate. I have learned a lot about it since and have been involved in trying to make certain that we support ethanol production. But I learned enough about it from a full-page ad that I read by a major oil company one day in a daily newspaper. This major oil company had spent enough money to take out a big old advertisement saying how bad ethanol was for America. I looked at that and I thought: Well, now, if this big oil company thinks it is bad, maybe I ought to take a good, hard look at it because I figure it is probably good for this country.

You see, they do not want competition. They have been trashing ethanol for a long time. But the fact is, we are not only addicted to foreign oil, we have this enormous growth in the size of energy companies through mergers and acquisitions, and so now there are just a few companies left. And between OPEC and the few larger energy companies these days, I do not have any great confidence that there is not market manipulation going on. However, I don't know, but I saw what happened in California with electricity because they could, because that kind of market power allowed them to do that.

So I am very interested in trying to see if we can diversify the production of fuel. This capability, through ethanol, gives farmers a new market, allows us to grow fuel in our farm fields and rely on less of it from under the sands of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Iraq, for example. It is a winner all the way around, in my judgment.

This 8-billion-gallon requirement that we have in this bill is carefully constructed. It moves this country in a very important direction. It will reduce crude oil imports by 2 billion barrels. Think of that--a 2-billion-barrel reduction in crude oil imports. It will reduce the outflow of dollars largely to foreign oil producers by $64 billion. It will create about 240,000 new jobs, it has been estimated. It will increase U.S. household income by $43 billion.

The fact is, this makes sense for everybody. And so I stand here to support ethanol, as I have on many occasions in the past. I was able to be here earlier today to give an opening speech on energy and touched on it. But my hope is we will turn back the Boxer amendment and strongly support the ethanol provisions in this bill.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, a couple of things have happened in the last several days that I want to visit. First, I wish to talk for a moment about public broadcasting and, secondly, to talk about a Supreme Court decision that was announced this morning here in Washington, DC, and the relationship between the two.

First, I will talk about public broadcasting. I confess I am a big supporter, a big fan of public broadcasting. I think they are an organization that provides an independent view of a range of issues to the American people. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television, and public radio, I think, provide a significant service to this country.

In a time when there is this enormous concentration in the media, more and more television stations are being bought up by fewer and fewer companies--one company owns over 1,200 radio stations in this country--the Federal Communications Commission writes new rules that get overturned by the courts, frankly, that say you can even buy up more of these properties. In fact, the rules the Federal Communications Commission developed some while ago said it is going to be all right in one of America's major cities for one company to own three television stations, eight radio stations, the dominant newspaper, and the cable company. That is unbelievable. Are they dead from the neck up? What possibly could they be thinking?

Fortunately for us, the Federal courts struck down the new rules and, fortunately for us, this morning the Supreme Court decided that the court had justification in striking down these new ownership rules.

Again, I do not think it makes any sense to have a handful of people in this country determining what the American people see, hear, and read, and that is exactly what is happening.

That brings me back to public broadcasting. It is interesting that at a time of this concentration in the media--one company owning a lot of radio stations, 1,200 of them, one company and several companies owning a lot of television stations--at a time when there is not much room for discord and voices, which, incidentally, I think strengthens a democracy.

There is this old saying when everyone is thinking the same thing, nobody is thinking very much. This democracy of ours, this system of self-government, this country that is full of self-expression is strengthened, in my judgment, by an exchange of views of people who have different views. But that, regrettably, is seen somehow as being disloyal these days.

Oh, I know, someone in the Dixie Chicks said something that was unpopular about the President, and then we had tractors driving over the CDs from the Dixie Chicks and big rallies to burn their music. Just before the last election, one television consortium decided they were going to run a clearly partisan film designed to attack only one Presidential candidate and not allow time for the opposing view. This was a television consortium that nearly every single night was doing editorials against one of the Presidential candidates.

In Minot, ND, late one evening, a train ran the tracks and some cars of anhydrous ammonia spilled a plume over that community of nearly 50,000 people, and that deadly cloud of anhydrous ammonia enveloped that community at about 2 o'clock in the morning. There is some disagreement about the events of that night, but reports are that the telephone calls went to the local radio station, and were not answered. All the radio stations in Minot are owned by one company.

What is happening in these broadcast facilities these days is they are running a broadcast out of a board someplace 1,000 miles away, someone who is homogenizing the music to run it

through the local station. There is no local broadcasting in many cases. What you have is a company 1,000 miles or 1,500 miles away deciding they are going to run some homogenized music through the sound board. You do not even need people around to do that.

The Minot, ND, story is one that has been well repeated. I know there is some dispute about a number of the details, but the fact is, there should not be any dispute about what is happening with this concentration. We now have people who sit in a basement, perhaps 20, 30 miles from here--one of the examples I heard was over in Baltimore, a guy sitting in a basement studio saying: It is sunny in Salt Lake City. What a beautiful morning to wake up in Salt Lake City. He was not in Salt Lake City. He was in a basement in Baltimore.

He was reading off the Internet, pretending he was broadcasting to the local folks over the local station in Salt Lake City. They have a term for that. They also have a term for the kind of homogenized television news that is put out by people who are not in your region to make it look like it is locally produced news.

We have this massive concentration in the media, which I think is awful, the FCC promoted rules that says we will let them concentrate even further. As I said, in a major city, under the FCC rule, one would be able to own eight radio stations, three television stations, the cable company, and buy the dominant newspaper all at the same time. I think it was one of the single most complete cave-ins to the biggest corporate interests in this country I have ever seen: The public interest be damned.

The FCC had three-quarters of a million people write to it to say: Do not do this. It did not matter to them. They just did it. Now they have been enjoined by a court. The Supreme Court says they cannot continue and so now they have to start over. Perhaps when they start over they will understand they also have a responsibility to work for the public interest, which brings me to public television.

A couple of things are kicking around about public television. Last week, I believe on Thursday or Friday, the appropriations subcommittee in the House decided to cut funding for public broadcasting. The cut in funding probably meets the interests of some who would like to abolish it. I do not know. I know we had one of our colleagues some years ago decide to get in a big fight with Big Bird and, frankly, Big Bird won. Public broadcasting is widely supported in this country.

In recent years, we have heard a drumbeat by people who say public broadcasting, public television, public radio, is biased. It has a liberal bias, they say. No evidence of that, to my knowledge. Still, the mantra seems to try to brand it as something that is anathema to fairness or balance.

The other day I called Mr. Tomlinson, who is the Chairman of the Board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He has been in the news a great deal. In fact, as Chairman, he is one who has made the point that he believes that some of the programming is not balanced, is in fact biased towards the liberal view.

I talked to Mr. Tomlinson by telephone the other day. I do not know him. I do not have anything bad to say about him. But I called him because of what I had read in the public domain that he has said as chairman of the board.

I knew he had hired, with public funds, a consultant to come in and take a look at programming, particularly Bill Moyers', called ``NOW,'' I believe it was titled, to see if it was fair. I will not use ``fair and balanced'' because that belongs to another brand.

So I wrote to Mr. Tomlinson and asked: Why do you not send me the work papers, send me the summary. I would like to see this report that you empaneled with public funding. He did. He sent me what he called the raw data. The raw data is here. This is raw, certainly, and I guess it is data, but there is no summary. So I called to ask: Would you please also send me summary.

If one looks through the raw data, it is unusual and strange. I will not enter this into the record. I will not put all of this information into the record. I am not going to read from all of it. I am still awaiting a summary. But I must say that the Chairman of the Board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting hired a consultant to do an evaluation of programming. Then we have all of these sheets that describe the guests and it says: anti-Bush, anti-Bush, pro-Bush, anti- Bush. It appears to me to be not so much an evaluation of is this slanted, is it liberal, does it have an agenda; it is the evaluation of is this program critical of the President?

Is that why a consultant was employed, to see whether public broadcasting is critical of our President? God forbid that we would be critical of the President of the United States.

I find it interesting that in this evaluation--this one is incidentally conservative/liberal, C or L. This was not anti-Bush but C or L. My colleague, Senator Hagel from Nebraska, appeared on one of the programs, and he apparently disagreed with a portion of President Bush's strategy with respect to Iraq. So my colleague, Senator Hagel, is referred to as liberal. He is a liberal contributor to National Public Radio. My guess is that is going to surprise a lot of Nebraskans.

If he were on the floor he would probably say he is a pretty good conservative Republican, someone for whom I have deep admiration, but he kind of claimed the liberal status according to the consultant.

This is pretty unseemly, frankly, spending public money on a consultant who then sits down and looks at all of these programs to see if something is being said that might be critical about a President or Congress.

Well, I guess that is enough to say about this particular report. I will await the summary, but as someone who supports public broadcasting and thinks it contributes a great deal to this country--and by the way, who do my colleagues think has been willing to do programs about the concentration of media ownership in this country, about the fact that one company has gobbled up over 1,200 radio stations and fewer people are involved in what we hear, what we see and what we read in this country because they are gobbling up all the television stations as well? Who do my colleagues think has the guts to do programs on the question of what does the concentration in the media mean in America?

Is it ABC, or CBS, or NBC? Get real. Do my colleagues think they are going to do that? They are involved in the concentration. Public broadcasting did it. Public broadcasting is willing to take this on.

How about a program that describes waste in the Defense Department? I am on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. I feel very strongly about our country having a strong defense. I feel passionate about supporting men and women who wear this country's uniform. We need to honor them and support them in every way possible. I also happen to think that the Pentagon is one of the largest bureaucracies in the world, and there is massive waste there. So public television did one program in which they talked about waste over at the Pentagon. Do you know how that is described? Antidefense. God forbid that you should describe waste at the Pentagon because then you will be classified, according to this consultant, as antidefense.

Let me describe something that was going on deep in the bowels of the Pentagon about a year and a half ago. They spent about $8 million, and they were going to create what was called a futures market for terrorism. It was basically supposed to be an online betting parlor.

For example, you would be able to bet on such things as: How many American soldiers would be killed in the next year? Would the King of Jordan be assassinated within the next 12 months?

Yes, that is exactly what the Pentagon was preparing to put up and operate in a real way on the Internet. They were within 3 days of doing it, and they wanted $8 million to continue it for the next fiscal year.

Senator Wyden and I discovered what they were trying to do. We blew it wide open. We had a press conference, described what they were doing, had on the Internet to show that they were only days away from implementing this crazy strategy, and the next day, the Department of Defense shut it down.

At the press conference, I said this idea of setting up an online betting

parlor to take bets on terrorism was unbelievably stupid. Can you imagine, setting up a futures market by which Americans can buy futures contracts and effectively bet on how many soldiers will be killed in the coming year? That is exactly what was going to happen in the bowels of the Pentagon.

Just as an aside, one of my staff people, about 4 months later, used a Google search and typed in the words ``unbelievably stupid,'' and my name came up. That is the danger of Google, I suppose.

But the fact is, what was happening in the bowels of the Pentagon was, in fact, unbelievably stupid and a tragic waste of the taxpayers' money and very unseemly, so we shut it down. Would that be called antidefense? I guess so. I guess, according to this consultant, that is antidefense. It may even be anti-Bush, I don't know.

On top of all this, the attack on public broadcasting by cutting the funding in the U.S. House, by hiring a consultant--unknown to the Board, by the way--with public funding to try to determine what is anti-Bush and pro-Bush or liberal or conservative--on top of all that, last week, the Washington Post reports that the search for the new president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has narrowed. I don't know whether it is true. I am just telling you what was in the papers last week. It has narrowed to two candidates, and the leading candidate is a former co-chair of the Republican National Committee. A former co-chair of the Republican National Committee they are going to make head, the president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting? I don't think so. At least those who worry about bias, those who worry about objectivity, ought not be thinking about presenting to this Congress something as unprecedented as that.

I want public broadcasting in this country to be what it has always been: a proud symbol of independence, willing to search for the truth wherever it exists and willing to take on tough subjects. I mentioned that it falls to the Public Broadcasting System to air the programs about concentration in the media. Do you know why? Because FOX News is not going to do it, CBS is not going to do it, NBC and ABC won't do it. So the American people will be spoon-fed this intellectual pabulum that says: All this is really good. If one company owns all the radio stations in your town, good for you.

It is not good for you. Who is going to broadcast the local baseball games? Who is going to broadcast the local parade? Who is going to report on local issues, when someone in a basement in a city not far from here is broadcasting over a radio station in Salt Lake City and pretending to be living there when, in fact, they have never set foot in the town?

Enough about that--only to say that some of us in this Chamber and some of us in Congress care very deeply about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, about public television and public radio. I happen to listen to NPR, National Public Radio, on the way in the mornings, in to work in the Capitol. I think it is some of the best news you can find.

Let me say I listen in the evening, when I can, to Jim Lehrer. I challenge you to find a better newscast than that which exists on public television. There are those who believe they want to abolish funding for it. If there are those who believe they want to have a former co-chair of the Republican National Committee now assume the presidency at a time when they themselves have raised all these questions and hired consultants about objectivity, I want them to know they are in for a fight because some of us care deeply about the future of public broadcasting in this country.

I wish to talk just for a moment about an announcement last week. Coming in, listening to the radio this morning, I heard a report that the dollar had strengthened just a bit recently. It has strengthened on the news that last Friday, at 8:30 in the morning, our trade deficit was announced, and our trade deficit last Friday was announced to be only $57 billion. It actually went up to $57 billion, a significant increase from the month before, but a bit less than had been expected. On the strength of that, the dollar improved a little bit because the currency market, which is probably on medication of some type, believes that is marginally good news.

This is the fourth highest monthly trade deficit in the history of this country, the fourth highest trade deficit ever. What it means is we are drowning in a sea of red ink. Going back to 1998, these are our monthly trade deficits on this chart. It means we are buying more from abroad than they are selling, importing much more than we are exporting. So each day, we sell about $2 billion worth of America. Each and every day, 7 days a week, we sell about $2 billion worth of our country.

This is what we expect. If we take a look at the first 4 months of trade deficits this year, it is 22 percent higher than last year. You see, last year was a big record. This year, we are probably headed toward $750 billion in the annual trade deficit.

To a lot of people, the trade deficit doesn't matter; it is just a term. There is nobody in this Chamber wearing a dark-blue suit who is ever going to lose his job because of a trade deficit. It is just folks working on production lines and working for American companies who discover that this trade deficit means we are buying from abroad what we used to buy at home and sending American jobs abroad. We are firing the workers at home and doing it relentlessly, day after day after day.

There are some who say, ``I know you are using these statistics and this data, but what really matters is how it relates to the entire economy.'' You can see how it relates to the economy. It is going up, up as a percent of our GDP.

Finally, while our trade deficit is a serious problem with Japan, with Canada, with Mexico, with Europe, this is the 500 pound gorilla-- China. It is a dramatic problem.

I have spoken at length. Some do not want to hear it anymore, but it is worth saying again because, you know, repetition is important, at least for slow learners. For others, it is important just to remember. Let me describe some specific examples.

Incidentally, I notice the Presiding Officer smiled a bit. I am not speaking about anyone in this Chamber being a slow learner. These are all advanced learners who serve in the Senate, I am sure. But let me describe some stories, if I might. I have used them all.

Huffy bicycles. In fact, I got a letter from Huffy bicycles. They didn't like what I said. Huffy bicycles used to be made in Ohio. It was 20 percent of the bicycle market in the United States. You buy them all at Wal-Mart, Kmart, Sears. The people in Ohio who made Huffy bicycles actually put a little decal between the handle bar and the front fender. The decal was the American flag.

The workers in Ohio who made Huffy bicycles were fired because they were making $11 an hour plus benefits, and their jobs went to China for 30 cents an hour by people who work 7 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day.

The last job performed by those folks in Ohio was to take off the little flag decal on the Huffy bicycle and replace it with a decal of the globe. Huffy bicycles are not American any more. They are Chinese. Why? Because American workers were making $11 an hour plus benefits. They were paid too much money.

Radio Flyer, the little red wagon that all the children in this country played with, was an American company for 110 years. It is gone now. Little red wagons are made elsewhere. Why? Because the American workers cost too much.

Levis? There is not one pair of Levis made in the United States. None. It is an all American company. Levis are gone.

Fig Newton cookies. Want to buy some Mexican food? Fig Newton cookies are made in Monterey, Mexico. They left this country to be made in Mexico.

Fruit of the Loom underwear, shorts, shirts--gone.

I could go on and on at great length. But these are companies who took their jobs elsewhere. Why? Because you can find labor dirt cheap, you can instantly move technology and capital, and then you can produce that product--yes, bicycles, wagons, underwear, shirts, shoes, trousers, trinkets, you name it--you can produce it elsewhere. Then you can ship it to Toledo, Fargo, to Los Angeles, Boston, New York, and sell it to the American consumer.

It is a brilliant strategy, if you are a big corporation that wants to maximize your profits. It is a devastating strategy, if you have worked all your life in a factory, proud of what you produce, and have just been told your job is gone.

Thirty years ago, the largest American corporation was General Motors. People frequently worked for that corporation for a lifetime, generally were paid a pretty good wage, were paid health care and also retirement benefits. Now, the largest corporation is Wal-Mart. I don't have to tell you what the average wage is, what the turnover is. The fact is, it is dramatically different, with less stability, fewer benefits, lower wages.

This country is in a race to the bottom, and what we ought to be doing with the strategy on international trade is lifting others up. Instead, we are pushing American workers down.

The other day, I found out that Lama boots, Tony Lama boots--I talk about Levis being all American, when you spot someone with Tony Lama boots, you think that is all American. Tony Lama boots has now moved to China.

The list goes on and on and on.

So the question is, when will this country stand up for its own economic interests? Not build walls around America, but at least develop a straight strategy that tries to lift others up rather than push us down. There is a feeling among some that workers do not matter very much, workers are like wrenches, like screwdrivers and pliers. Use them, use them up, and you throw them away. And throwing them away is as easy as saying, sayonara, so long, we are off to China, off to Sri Lanka, off to Bangladesh.

The thing is, none of this works. Henry Ford used to believe that he wanted his workers to earn a sufficient income so they could buy the product they produce. He wanted the workers at Ford Motor to have enough in wages to be able to buy Ford cars. Very simple. Simple economics.

This is an unsustainable course. We cannot continue this course of trade deficit after trade deficit, $50, $60 billion a month, month after month after month.

There is a lot of discussion about crisis around here. The President says Social Security is in crisis. It is not. Social Security, if nothing is done, will be wholly solvent until George W. Bush is 106. Clearly, it is not a crisis. Do we have to make some adjustments because people are living longer? Yes, and we will, and we should. But it is not a crisis. The trade deficit is a crisis. In a presidential campaign, some time ago, this issue was described as that giant sucking sound, that giant sucking sound that sucks American jobs out of this country.

People say, well, more people are working. But what is happening in this country? What is happening is good American jobs are leaving. And, no, it is not just the manufacturing jobs. It is now all too often engineering jobs, programming jobs, system design jobs, and others as well. What are the American workers replacing the lost jobs with? Jobs that pay less. Jobs with less security. Jobs without health care. Jobs without retirement capability. That is what is happening in our country.

Again, this town will snore through it. Last Friday, at 8:30 in the morning, we get an announcement that in the previous month we had a $57-billion trade deficit. What was the reaction to this town? Just roll over and continue laying down and taking another long nap because nothing much like this matters. This is not a crisis. This is not urgent, they say.

This country has an identity crisis. It has to decide what it wants for its future, and who will stand up for it. We fought for 100 years on these issues. We had people die on the streets of this country for the right to organize as workers. People literally died in the streets for the right to organize. Now a company can shut down their U.S. operation, ship the jobs to China, and if those workers, at 30 cents an hour, try to organize, they are fired like that. Just that quick.

We had people fighting in the streets over child labor laws, over safe workplaces, the right to work in a safe plant, the right to expect that a plant is not going to dump its chemicals into the air and into the water. Nowadays, corporations can instantly decide to pole-vault over that. We will just fire the American workers and move the jobs to another country.

The other day, I saw a report about the 470 workers laid off at a General Electric plant making refrigerators. They were told on April Fool's Day of this year, April 1, it would be the last day for 470 workers. G.E. was going to discontinue the production of midline, side- by-side refrigerator models that supposedly are not competitive or do not have the right product features, but a very similar new line of refrigerators will be started up in the G.E. Plant in Celaya, Mexico. And that plant will be funded with a loan from the Export Import Bank, which is to say U.S. taxpayers.

This may not matter much to someone around here who wears a white shirt and a blue suit to work and who is never going to lose their job to cheap foreign labor. I don't know of one journalist or one politician in this country that has ever lost their job to cheap foreign labor. It is just the folks on the assembly line, folks that work for a living in the plant, often the folks that have to come back in the evening and at suppertime and tell their family, I lost my job today. It wasn't because I did a bad job. I have worked for that company for 15, or 20, or 25 years. I love that job. I love it, but I cannot compete with 30 cents an hour.

This country has to try to figure out what is going on in how it deals with it. This country really needs to understand that this is a crisis and this requires action and an urgent response by this President and by this Congress.

There is so much to say about trade. I am tempted to continue to talk about the 600,000 cars we get from Korea every year. We get the opportunity to send 3,000 cars back into the Korean marketplace. Unbelievable to me. Just unbelievable. There are 600,000 vehicles coming our way from Korea, and we do not get cars into Korea.

I could talk about automobiles in China, talk about beef to Japan, I could talk about potato flakes to Korea. The length of the presentation could be nearly endless.

But for now let me say last Friday's announcement of one more trade deficit sells just a bit more of this country in a way that Warren Buffet, a fellow I greatly admire, says will one day put us in the position of being sharecroppers because we are selling part of America with these dramatic trade deficits. And it is not just selling part of our country when you are buying more than you are selling. Not only are your jobs leaving--and in this case they are leaving for much lower wages--but in addition to that, you end up, unlike the budget deficit, which you can argue as an economist we owe to ourselves, you end up providing, in the hands of foreign governments, currency, stock, or real estate claims against our country. That affects foreign policies, virtually everything else we do.

I will have more to say about this. But I did not want Friday's moment to pass, despite the rather sleepy attitude here in Washington, DC. In the hot, lazy months of summer, I did not want it to pass without some people understanding that some of us think what is happening is nuts. And some of us believe it is time--long past the time--for Congress and the President to have the backbone, the nerve, and the will to stand up for this country's economic interests and say: We represent this country. We represent the United States.

The next time there is a trade agreement negotiated, they ought to wear a jersey that says ``USA.'' And maybe they could just look down briefly to see who they represent and say: I stand for this country and this country's long-term interests. Without that--and we have not had that for a long while--this country, in my judgment, is consigned to a future of lower wages and a lower standard of living.

You will not, in my judgment, long remain a world economic power without addressing this issue directly. My hope is sooner, rather than later, my colleagues will join me.

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

Mr. President, this is a debate that is worth having. There has been a great deal of discussion about this nominee for the lifetime appointment to the Federal bench.

There is no entitlement, of course, to a lifetime appointment to the Federal bench. The Constitution provides how this is done. First, the President shall nominate a candidate for a lifetime service on the Federal courts, and, second, the Congress shall provide its advice and consent, and determine whether to confirm the nominee. So the President nominates, sends a name, and the Congress does what is called in the Constitution advise and consent, says yes or no.

In most cases, the Congress says yes. This President, President George W. Bush, has sent us 218 names of people he wanted to send to the Federal courts for a lifetime. This Congress has said ``yes'' to 209 of the 218. That is pretty remarkable, when you think about it--209 out of 218 we have said ``yes.'' There are a few we have delayed and held up and have been subject to cloture votes. Some have said they haven't gotten a vote. Yes, they have gotten a vote. The procedure on the floor, of course, is there is a cloture vote, and they didn't get the 60 votes, but 60 votes is what requires consensus in the Senate. It has been that way for decades and decades.

I have voted for the vast, vast majority of the 209 Federal judges that the President has nominated, including, incidentally, both of the Federal judgeships in North Dakota which were open. Both of which are now filled with Republicans. I was pleased to support them. I think they are first-rate Federal judges. I am a Democrat. The names that came down from the President to fill the two judgeships in North Dakota were names of Republicans. I am proud of their service. I testified in front of the Judiciary Committee for both of them and introduced both of them.

So the fact is this is not about partisanship. It is about nominating good people, nominating people in the mainstream of political thought here in this country.

I take no joy in opposing a nominee, but I do think that if Members of the Senate will think carefully about the views of this nominee, they will decide that she really ought not be put on the second most important court in this country for a lifetime of service. Let me go through a few things that this nominee, Janice Rogers Brown, has said.

Let me say to my colleague who was speaking when I came in, this is not innuendo, not argumentative; these are quotes from the nominee. Facts are stubborn things. We are all entitled to our own opinions, but we are not all entitled to our own set of facts. Let me read the facts, and let me read the quotes that come from this nominee.

This nominee, Janice Rogers Brown, says that the year 1937 was ``the triumph of our own socialist revolution.'' Why? In 1937, that is when the courts, including the Supreme Court, upheld the constitutionality of Social Security and the other major tenets of the New Deal. The triumph of socialism? I don't think so. What planet does that sort of thinking come from, a ``triumph of socialism''?

This nominee says that zoning laws are a ``theft'' of property, a taking, under the Constitution; therefore, a theft of property. Well, we have zoning laws in this country for a reason. Communities decide to establish zoning laws so you don't build an auto salvage yard next to a church, and then have somebody move in with a porn shop next to a school and a massage parlor next to a funeral home. But this nominee thinks zoning is a theft of property. It is just unbelievable, it is so far outside the mainstream thought.

Here is what she says about senior citizens in America.

Today's senior citizens blithely cannibalize their

grandchildren because they have a right to get as much free

stuff as the political system will permit them to extract.

I guess she is talking about maybe Social Security and Medicare. I don't know for sure. All I know is that a good many decades ago, before there was Social Security and Medicare, fully one-half of all elderly in this country lived in poverty.

Think of that. What a wonderful country this is. This big old planet spins around the Sun, we have 6 billion neighbors inhabiting this planet called Earth, and we reside in the United States of America. What a gift and blessing it is to be here. But think, in 1935, one-half of America's elderly, if they were lucky enough to grow old, to age to the point where they were called elderly, one-half of them lived in poverty. One-half of them lived in poverty. So this country did something important, very important. We put together a Social Security Program and a Medicare Program. What did this nominee say about that? She said:

Today's senior citizens blithely cannibalize their

grandchildren because they have a

right to get as much free stuff as the political system will

permit them to extract.

Really? I wish perhaps she could have been with me one evening at the end of a meeting in a small town of about 300 people. A woman came up to me after the meeting and she grabbed a hold of my elbow. She was probably 80 years old. She said: Mr. Senator, can you help me?

I said I would try.

Then her chin began to quiver and her eyes welled up with tears and she said: I live alone. And she said: My doctor says I have to take medicine for my heart disease and diabetes, and I can't afford it. I don't have the money. Then she began to get tears in her eyes.

I wish perhaps Janice Rogers Brown understood something about that. She thinks this old lady, this elderly woman, struggling to find a way to pay for medicine to keep her alive, is cannibalizing somebody? I don't think so. I think it is incredible that someone would say this.

Now the President wants to put this nominee on the second highest court in the land for a lifetime of service.

She says again:

We are handing out new rights like lollipops in the

dentist's office.

I guess I never thought the basic rights that we have in this country ought to be antithetical to what we believe is most important in America. I have traveled over most of this world and been in countries where there aren't rights. I have been in a country where, if people have the wrong piece of paper in their pocket and they are picked up, they are sent to prison for 12 years. I have seen the tyranny of dictatorships and the tyranny of communism. I happen to think basic rights that exist in this country for the American people are critically important; that ``We the people,'' the first three words of that document that represents the constitutional framework for this country's governance, is not something that ought to be taken lightly.

Let me read a couple of other things that this nominee has said. She was the only member of the California Supreme Court to conclude that age discrimination victims should not have the right to sue under common law. Age discrimination victims should not have the right to sue?

She was the only member of the California Supreme Court who voted to strike down a San Francisco law that provided housing assistance to displaced and low-income and disabled people.

I don't understand the President sending us this nominee. Is it the case that this administration really wants to put on the Federal bench for a lifetime someone who is opposed to the basic tenets of the New Deal that have lifted so many people out of poverty in this country, that represents, in many cases, some of the best in this country-- telling old folks that when you reach that retirement age you don't have to lay awake at night worrying about whether you are going to be able to go to the doctor when you get sick because there will be Medicare; or telling people that Social Security will be there when you need it--you work, you invest in it, when you retire, you can collect it. Do we really want to put someone on this circuit court who believes that is a triumph of socialism? I don't think so.

There is a kind of arrogance here these days that is regrettable. I was here in the 1990s, and I watched 60 Americans who were nominated for judgeships never even have the courtesy of a day of hearings, let alone get to the floor of the Senate for a cloture vote or a vote up or down--60 of them. We are not even given the courtesy of a day of hearings. The President sends the name down in the 1990s. The majority party said, tough luck, we don't intend to do anything about it; you will not have a hearing; you will not have a vote. This name will not advance.

We did not do that. This caucus has not done that; in fact, just the opposite. Of the 218 names that have been sent to this Congress from this President, the Senate has approved 209 of them. Those who did not get confirmed had a cloture vote in the Senate. They had a day of hearings. They had an opportunity to testify before the Judiciary Committee. Their name was brought to the floor. We had cloture votes.

Now we have Members coming to the Senate on the other side saying, look, our policy is, everyone needs an up-or-down vote; not a cloture vote, an up-or-down vote. These Members did not hold that view at all in the 1990s. In fact, they did exactly the opposite. There are terms for that which I shall not use here.

The fact is, we are proceeding on the Janice Rogers Brown nomination because of an agreement made 2 weeks ago. I hope, however, having read what I have read about her views on a wide range of issues, that we will have sufficient colleagues in the Senate to say to this President, this is so far outside the mainstream, we will not approve this nominee.

It is not unusual for a political party to tell its President that you cannot pack the court. The members of Thomas Jefferson's own political party told Thomas Jefferson that. Members of the political party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt did the same thing, in his attempt to pack the Court.

My hope with respect to this nominee is that we will have sufficient numbers on the majority side--moderates and others--who will take a look at this record and say this is not the kind of record that we believe should commend someone for a lifetime of service on the DC Circuit. This is not what we should be doing.

I conclude as I started. I take no joy in coming to the Senate and opposing someone. I would rather be here speaking for a proposition, speaking for someone. It was Mark Twain who once was asked if he would engage in debate. He said, sure, as long as I can take the negative time. He was told, we didn't tell you the subject. He said, the negative side will take no preparation.

I am mindful that it is very easy to oppose. Let me say this: On this issue, on this nominee, this is not a close call. This is not a close call. I wish I could be here to support this nomination. I will not support the nomination of someone who believes the elements of that which has made this country such a wonderful place in which to work and live represents a triumph of socialism. It is not the triumph of socialism. It is a reflection of the interests of this country, we the people of this country who said we will lift the senior citizens of this country out of poverty. And we have done that. We went from 50 percent in poverty to less than 10 percent in poverty. Why? Because we did something important in this country, Social Security and Medicare.

With respect to environmental issues, with respect to workers' rights, with respect to a whole series of issues, this nominee is profoundly wrong. She has a record, a long record, an aggressive record of activism in support of what are, in my judgment, outdated and discredited concepts.

My hope is that in the remaining hours in this debate--I think we will vote on this tomorrow--my hope is there will be sufficient moderates on the other side who will understand this record does not justify confirmation to the Federal bench for a lifetime. I hope the next time I come to the Senate to speak on a judicial nomination, I will be able to speak in favor of a nomination that is a strong candidate.

This President has nominated some good people. I mentioned two from my State. I will say it again: both Republicans, both terrific people, both people I was proud to introduce to the Judiciary Committee and proud to support. While we might disagree on some issues, these are extraordinary jurists. I am proud they are Federal judges in my State. I felt the same way about some of the other nominees.

But this President has sent us a handful of nominees who do not deserve the backing and support of this Congress. It is long past the time for this Congress to stand up and speak with an independent voice. This Congress is not some sort of subsidiary of the White House. It is not an adjunct to the Presidency. This Congress is a separate branch of Government under this Constitution. The President nominates but we advise and consent. It is up to the Senate to determine whether judicial nominees are confirmed or not. My hope is we will make the right decision with this nomination.

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

Mr. President, because truth in labeling is important these days, let me just simply label this as some old- fashioned bragging about my brother.

In last Sunday's Fargo Forum, a column by Jack Zaleski described the work of my brother Darrell in an extraordinary way and I wanted to share it far and wide.

Darrell has been a journalist, filmmaker, a writer, a historian and now a builder. It is already a remarkable career and much is yet to come.

But today I am reprinting for my colleagues the newspaper column that describes his latest project: the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame. It will be dedicated to the history of ranch life and cowboy life on the northern Great Plains. His work is an inspiration to those who have a passion about honoring our history.

From the Indians, to the settlers and ranchers, to the rodeo cowboys and the bucking horses, the stories will be brought to life in the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Medora, North Dakota beginning next month.

It is a tribute to the dreams and hard work of Darrell Dorgan and many others who share in this accomplishment.

Congratulations to all of them.

I ask to have the attached article entitled ``Long Ride to Cowboy Hall of Fame'' from the May 22nd edition of the Fargo Forum printed in the Record.

The article follows.

[From the Forum, May 22, 2005]

Long Ride to Cowboy Hall of Fame

(By Jack Zaleski)

I've known Darrell Dorgan for 30 years. He's a member of a

shrinking cadre of journalists and former journalists who got

started in this business in North Dakota at about the same

time. Most of them still are at it. Dorgan (a former

journalist) is a contemporary of Grand Forks Herald editor/

publisher Mike Jacobs, Bismarck Tribune managing editor Ken

Rogers, North Dakota Public Radio news director Dave

Thompson, and me.

These days Dorgan is executive director of the North Dakota

Cowboy Hall of Fame. A few years ago he wrapped up a career

in broadcast journalism during which he established himself

as one of the most knowledgeable, dogged reporters in the

Bismarck press corps. His work for Prairie Public

Broadcasting was some of the best ever done for public

television. For his efforts he won nearly every award a

broadcaster can win.

But history was calling--specifically the history, legend

and lore of western North Dakota. A bona fide expert on the

exploits and foibles of Gen. George A. Custer, Dorgan

eventually found a way to fold his love for the state's

history into a craft and a living: filmmaking. His videos on

such topics as Lewis & Clark in North Dakota, Fort Abraham

Lincoln and Custer's 7th, and Sheheke, Ambassador of the

Mandan have won praise and plaudits across the nation and in

Europe.

It wasn't a big leap when Dorgan took on the task of

raising funds to establish a North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame

in historic Medora in the Badlands. As executive director, he

worked tirelessly for several years to raise public and

private money to fund the $4 million western heritage and

cultural center. His efforts have paid off: The hall of fame

has a sneak preview scheduled May 28 during the Cowboy Poetry

and Art Show. The center will open officially in mid-June. A

dedication celebration, complete with induction of hall of

fame candidates, will come in early August, at about the time

of the Champions Ride rodeo near Sentinel Butte, one of the

state's premier bronc riding and roping events.

Dorgan would be the first to say he didn't do it alone. And

of course, a lot of people deserve a measure of credit for

the success of the project. But without his vision and focus

on the task, the hall would still be a wish. It takes a point

man to raise that much money. It takes perserverance.

I know there were times when Dorgan was discouraged. But he

knew North Dakotans would respond to a center where cowboy

and ranch life could be enshrined. He understood how deep

western roots are planted in the state's history and

heritage. He realized that the unique saga of North Dakota's

cowboys, ranches and rodeos needed to be gathered in one

western place and told through the eyes and by the voices of

the men and women who lived the stories.

It was an ambitious vision from the start. It's been a long

ride on a sometimes skittish horse. But Dorgan stuck with it,

and this summer the hall of fame will open.

Not bad for a former newsman--and a broadcast journalist at

that . . .

Mr. President, it has always been a great privilege for me to come to the floor of the Senate and engage in debate. I graduated from a high school senior class of nine students--in the top five, by the way. I come from a town of 350 people in the southwest ranching corner of North Dakota. I think it is a great privilege to be here, and a wonderful opportunity.

The reason the Senate is such an extraordinary opportunity--and I have had the privilege to serve in both the House and the Senate--is that the Senate is the place of debate, unlimited debate. Yes, there is the opportunity for a filibuster in the Senate, but that is what forces compromise in the Senate. Unlike the House, there is a forcing of compromise, which is what makes Government work.

I have been listening to this discussion. It is quite remarkable. This is a big issue. This is a serious issue. I have been listening attentively to the speakers. Our former colleague, the late Senator Moynihan, once said, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they are not entitled to their own set of facts. What is happening here is the continuation of the development of a book of fiction by the majority side.

They come to us and say the filibuster with respect to judicial nominations is very unusual, it is unprecedented, it is unconstitutional. Total fiction. How can they say that with a straight face? At least you would think they would laugh from time to time about what they are trying to pull over the American people.

They have filibustered. They have delayed. They have blocked forever judicial nominations when there was a Democrat in the White House.

Let me read a few names: Snodgrass, Whitfield, Shurin, Bingler, Greer, Sundram, Stack, Wattley, Beaty, Rodriguez, Lasry, Klein, Freedberg, Norton. I could read 60 of these. These are the names of lifetime appointments to the bench the President sent down to this Chamber in the 1990s, most of which never even got 1 day of hearings, not 1 day of hearings. Some of them, by the way, were filibustered, but most were not even given the courtesy of 1 day of hearings because the majority party did not like them, and did not want them confirmed. So they used their control of the Judiciary Committee to make sure they were not confirmed. There were over 60 of them.

Now, the current President, President George W. Bush, has sent 218 names for a lifetime appointment on the Federal bench. We have approved 208. Yes, that is right, 218 names the President has sent and we have approved 208.

The Constitution says something about this. It is not what my colleagues have described. They misread the Constitution. The Constitution provides a two-step process for putting someone on the Federal bench for a lifetime: One, the President nominates; and, two, the Congress decides. That is called advice and consent. It is not the President who decides who goes on the Federal bench for a lifetime. It is a two-step process. The candidate for a lifetime appointment must survive both, must get a Presidential nomination and then must be approved by the Senate.

My colleagues say there is a requirement in the Constitution that there be an up-or-down vote that you cannot filibuster. First, unlike my colleagues on that side of the aisle, many of whom have voted for filibusters--and I will not embarrass them by reading their names, but I could because they have voted for filibusters previously on judicial nominations. Unlike those circumstances, we have voted on all of these judges. The 10 who were not approved had a vote in the Senate on a motion to proceed, on a motion to invoke cloture. It required 60 votes and they did not get the 60 votes so the nomination did not proceed.

The majority party is upset about that. They believe democracy is one-party rule, the same party in the White House, the House, and the Senate. They want their way and if they do not get their way, they intend to violate the Senate rules to change the rules. They will not ask the Parliamentarian when they make the motion. Why? Because they are wrong and they know it, and they will violate the rules of the Senate, so they put their person in the Presiding Officer's chair, the President of the Senate, and by 51 votes they will violate the rules of the Senate for the first time in 200 years. Why? Because their nose is bent out of shape because they have not gotten every single judge on the court they wanted. They have only gotten 208 out of 218.

Let me describe some I have opposed. I actually opposed one who was sent to us by President Bush who wrote that he believed a woman is subservient to a man. I voted against that one. I guess I don't want someone on the Federal bench for a lifetime who believes a woman is subservient to a man. One of the keenest, finest minds of the 18th century, but not someone suited to go to the Federal bench for a lifetime now, in my judgment. That person actually did get through the Senate, I regret to say.

Let me talk about a couple because the majority has brought them to town recently and they have been on television. Let me describe the record of a couple of these nominees.

First let me talk about Janice Rogers Brown. She did not get the 60 votes. Let me describe why. Ms. Brown, as described by the last speaker, has a wonderful life story, but she has served at some great length in the State of California, and her views are so far out of the mainstream that one wonders what would have persuaded the President to send her name down.

Let me give an example. She believes zoning laws represent theft of property. Let me explain that to you. Zoning laws decide if you move into a residential area and you have a house in a residential area and the lot right next door to you is empty, you can have some confidence they are not going to move a porn shop into that next lot. Or there is not going to be a massage parlor in that next lot, or somebody is not going to bring an automobile salvage company and put it on the lot next to your house. Zoning laws. She thinks zoning laws are a theft of property.

Do Americans want someone who believes there ought not be zoning? Or if you decide you should not have a porn shop next to a school, you ought to pay the person who owns the property in order to avoid having the porn shop locate next to a school? Or a massage parlor next to the nursing home? That is so preposterous. What on Earth is that kind of thinking and why do we have a nomination of someone who thinks like that?

That same nominee says, by the way, the Medicare Program and Social Security Program are the last vestiges of socialism, the last of the New Deal socialistic impulses of our country, and says that these are cannibalizing from our grandchildren. That we are cannibalizing from our grandchildren because we have things such as Social Security and Medicare.

Am I pleased to oppose a nominee with those views? Of course I am. We have a right in this Chamber and that right is in the Constitution to prevent someone such as that from going on the Federal bench. The majority party says no, you do not have that right. They say they have what is called the constitutional option.

Let me ask, in the hours in which we debate this, if one Member of the Senate, just one--I am not asking for five, three or two, just one member of the Senate will come to the Chamber of the Senate with the Constitution in their pocket. Yes, you can put it in your pocket. It is a rather small document. If you cannot read it, we will get remedial reading or have someone read it to you. Come down to the Senate and tell us where it says that the minority in the Senate does not have the right to invoke the rules of the Senate to prevent someone from going on the bench for a lifetime? Where does it say that in the Constitution?

I was on a television program with one of my colleagues from the other side. That colleague was saying it is unconstitutional for us to filibuster a court nominee. That very colleague has previously voted to filibuster a court nominee. I wonder how they can stop from grinning-- at least? I understand where a full-bellied laugh would not occur on the Senate floor--but how can you avoid grinning when you stand up and perpetrate these fictions?

They know better.

Again, as my colleague, the late Senator Moynihan said, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but not everyone is entitled to their own set of facts. Let's at least deal with the truth in the Senate.

There is much we ought to do in the Senate. My colleagues on the floor are colleagues most often who stand up and talk about the real issues. I am talking about Senator Kennedy and Senator Dayton and others on the issues of jobs, the jobs going overseas at a record pace, health care, health care costs that are devastating to people and to their budgets and to businesses. Energy, the price of gasoline, the fact we are held hostage by the Saudis and Kuwaitis and Iraqis and Venezuelans for oil we put through our transportation system and through gasoline that we run through our fuel injectors, and yet is there any discussion of that in the Senate? No, no, not at all. Not at all. This is an agenda driven outside this Chamber by interest groups that have forgotten the Ninth Commandment. Yes, there were Ten Commandments, and the Ninth says: Thou shalt not bear false witness.

I ask my fellow citizens, turn on your television and see what they are running on television: advertisements coming from religious organizations that fundamentally misrepresent--and they know they misrepresent--the facts with this issue. The Ninth Commandment says: Thou shalt not bear false witness. The truth is this. The truth is, that this Congress has a right to an equal voice in who spends a lifetime on a Federal bench. The truth is, we have cooperated to an extraordinary degree with this President. We have approved 208 Federal judges. Let me say, two of them are sitting on the Federal bench in North Dakota. I was proud to work for both of them. They are both Republicans. I am a Democrat. I am pleased they are both on the Federal bench. I worked with the White House to get them there. I supported them, as I have done with most of the nominees coming from this President.

But we have every right to decide, when this President sends us the name of a nominee so far outside the mainstream--and that is the case with the two they are talking about now, one from Texas, one from California--we have a right to decide not to advance those names to give them a lifetime appointment on the Federal bench.

To those who stand up on the floor of the Senate and say: Well, there has never been a filibuster before--you know better than that. If they keep doing it, I am going to come down and read the names of all of them on the majority side that have voted for the filibuster. And I will read the names of all 60 judges into the Record--I should not say 60 judges--60 nominees the last President sent down here that, in many cases, did not even have the courtesy of a hearing.

This position is hypocrisy, and it needs to change. This so-called nuclear option is called ``nuclear,'' and it was coined by the majority party. It is called ``nuclear'' because nuclear relates to almost total destruction. And some of them are gleeful now that they are headed toward a nuclear approach on the floor of the Senate.

This is a great institution. I am proud to be part of it. But this is not a proud day. America's greatest moments are not found in circumstances such as this. America's greatest mistakes are often wrapped in the zeal of excessive partisanship, and that is what we find here. And America's greatest mistakes are almost always--almost always--preceded by a moment, a split second, when it is possible to change your mind and do the right thing.

That moment, that split second exists now for the majority leader and those who feel as he does, that they ought to exercise the total destructive option they call the nuclear option.

We ought to, in my judgment, work together. Mr. President, 208 of 218 judges means we have worked together and done the right thing. There are no apologies from this side for exercising our constitutional right to make sure we have men and women on the Federal bench whom we are proud of, who represent the mainstream of this country. We have done that time and time and time again with President George W. Bush, and will continue to do that. But we will not give up the right to exercise our responsibilities here on the floor of the Senate on these important issues.

Mr. President, I believe my time has expired. I believe the Senator from Massachusetts follows me today. I yield the floor.

I thank Chairman McCain for his leadership in introducing the Indian Health Care Improvement Act Amendments of 2005. I have been pleased to work with him in constructing this legislation. He and I are united in our agreement that getting the Indian Health Care Improvement Act reauthorized this year is the Indian Affairs Committee's top priority.

This legislation was last reauthorized in 1992. Since 1999, the director of the Indian Health Service and his staff have worked with a national steering committee of tribal leaders and representatives of Indian health organizations, as well as with the congressional authorizing committees, on reauthorization of and amendments to the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.

The bill that we introduce today reflects many elements of these discussions and negotiations over recent years, as well as testimony received at a number of hearings held by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and House Resources Committee. It is important that we begin as soon as possible to receive the views of Indian Country, the administration and others on this legislation.

I am sure that in the course of this Congress, there will be changes to the bill that is being proposed today. As Chairman McCain knows, I am committed to addressing the serious issue of teen suicide that is epidemic on several Indian reservations, in North Dakota and other areas of the country. I hope that the recommendations of Indian parents, students, tribal officials and health professionals may lead to additional provisions in the Act to deal with this very serious problem.

I look forward to the comments of the administration, especially the Indian Health Services, as well as other committees of the Congress, tribes and tribal organizations, urban Indian entities, and others to help us craft legislation that will provide creative and effective solutions to address the health care needs of American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

I thank Chairman McCain for his leadership in introducing the Indian Health Care Improvement Act Amendments of 2005. I have been pleased to work with him in constructing this legislation. He and I are united in our agreement that getting the Indian Health Care Improvement Act reauthorized this year is the Indian Affairs Committee's top priority.

This legislation was last reauthorized in 1992. Since 1999, the director of the Indian Health Service and his staff have worked with a national steering committee of tribal leaders and representatives of Indian health organizations, as well as with the congressional authorizing committees, on reauthorization of and amendments to the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.

The bill that we introduce today reflects many elements of these discussions and negotiations over recent years, as well as testimony received at a number of hearings held by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and House Resources Committee. It is important that we begin as soon as possible to receive the views of Indian Country, the administration and others on this legislation.

I am sure that in the course of this Congress, there will be changes to the bill that is being proposed today. As Chairman McCain knows, I am committed to addressing the serious issue of teen suicide that is epidemic on several Indian reservations, in North Dakota and other areas of the country. I hope that the recommendations of Indian parents, students, tribal officials and health professionals may lead to additional provisions in the Act to deal with this very serious problem.

I look forward to the comments of the administration, especially the Indian Health Services, as well as other committees of the Congress, tribes and tribal organizations, urban Indian entities, and others to help us craft legislation that will provide creative and effective solutions to address the health care needs of American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

Mr. President, I intend to introduce a bill and speak about it briefly. I will do that with the proviso that if someone comes and wishes to speak about their amendment on the highway bill, I will be happy to relinquish the floor.

Is the Senator from Iowa wishing to speak on an amendment?

I am happy to defer. I know this highway bill is important to get passed as soon as possible. I am happy to yield the floor and perhaps, following the Senator from Iowa, if there is an opportunity, I will make my statement.

Mr. President, again, I seek permission to speak as in morning business. I will relinquish the floor if somebody wishes to speak about the highway bill.

Mr. President, I am introducing some legislation today, along with Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina to construct. It deals with the issue of piracy or counterfeiting of goods by China. It relates to the substantial loss of U.S. jobs, and $200 billion in harm to the U.S. economy as a result of the piracy and counterfeiting that is going on in China.

What is our Government's reaction to this problem? Our government's reaction to date can be characterized as somewhere between looking worried, a deep frown, or thumb-sucking. Essentially, it is doing nothing to stand up for this country's economic interests.

Let me describe the problem. The U.S. Trade Representative has concluded that: ``China has not resolved critical deficiencies in intellectual property rights protection and enforcement and, as a result, infringements remain at epidemic levels.''

In short, the Chinese are cheating, counterfeiting American goods and robbing jobs from our country. Chinese fake goods coming into the United States grew 47 percent last year. The Chinese government is not doing anything about it. Investigations of counterfeiting in China, as you see, have taken a nosedive. The vast majority of products in the United States that are counterfeits or pirated are Chinese; 67 percent of the counterfeit products in this country are Chinese counterfeit products.

The question is, What are we going to do about it? Senator Lindsey Graham and I are offering a sense of the Senate resolution--and we will ask the Senate to vote on it at some point--calling for the immediate launch of a WTO case against China for gross violation of U.S. intellectual property rights.

On April 29, last month, the U.S. Trade Representative released a report finding that China had broken its promises to crack down on this piracy and counterfeiting. They have done nothing. They promised the moon, and they have done nothing. The question is, Will this country stand up for its own economic interests?

Mr. President, let me give you specific case that I think is interesting. Time magazine wrote recently about a new car produced by Chery, an automobile company in China--that's right, not Chevy, but Chery the Chery Automobile Company.

A Chinese firm called the Chery Automobile Company has stolen production-line blueprints for a new GM car called the Chevrolet Spark. The Chery Automobile Company is going to be producing that car, which they call the QQ, and they plan to sell five models, including an SUV, in the United States. Chery has teamed up with the man who brought the Subaru to America in the 1960s. Their plan is to import up to a quarter of a million Cherys starting in 2007.

GM is now in court. General Motors filed an action alleging that their production-line blueprints were stolen.

But it is not just that. It is so many different products. Take a look at the products that all of us know--films, publishing, software, electric equipment, automotive parts, on and on--have been counterfeited and pirated. It means American lost jobs and a higher trade deficit to the tune, we are told, of $200 billion in piracy and counterfeiting.

Now, given that we had specific promises by China that they would begin to crack down on this with respect to their entrance into the World Trade Organization, and the fact we know they have done nothing-- our own U.S. Trade Ambassador says they have done nothing, that it is ``epidemic''--when will this country take action?

Winston Churchill once told a story of being taken to a carnival by his parents. He was speaking to his adversary in the House of Commons, and he told the story about seeing the sideshow's big canvas sign that says, ``Come Inside and See the Boneless Wonder,'' a man apparently born without bones. Winston Churchill said he was with his parents that day; his parents thought it was too traumatic to take a young boy into a carnival sideshow to see the boneless wonder. He never got to see it until that day on the floor of the House of Commons. When he addressed his adversary, he said, ``Finally, I see a boneless wonder.''

Boneless wonder is a good way to describe, in my judgment, those involved in trade policy in this country, who fail to stand up for this country's economic interests, who don't have the backbone to stand up and say it is in our country's interests, in the interest of our jobs, to take action against those who pirate or counterfeit American intellectual property. I have talked often on the Senate floor about trade with China and Japan and Korea and with Europe. There has been a lack of spine on many fronts. In this case, I am speaking specifically about counterfeiting and piracy by the Chinese, with whom we have the largest trade deficit in history.

Now we see that the USTR says it is in epidemic proportions--piracy and counterfeiting--and yet nothing is being done. The question is, Will we do something? Will we finally have the nerve to say we want a WTO case to be commenced against the Chinese?

This is a sense of the Senate resolution asking that the USTR commence a WTO case against the Chinese. Again, it is not me who says that the Chinese have cheated. The U.S. Trade Representative said himself that: ``China has not resolved of the critical deficiencies in intellectual property rights protection and enforcement and, as a result, infringements remain at epidemic levels.''

That amounts to massive wholesale stealing going on. It affects this country in a very detrimental way. Will we begin to finally take action? I have mentioned before that part of our trade problem is due to the incompetence of our trade negotiators. There is no other way to describe it. In the bilateral trade negotiation that occurred with China about 5 years ago, our negotiators agreed that China would impose 25-percent tariff on any American cars we tried to sell in China, and we would impose only a 2.5-percent tariff on Chinese cars coming into this country. That is fundamentally incompetent. I don't have any idea who would have agreed to that, but it obviously pulls the rug out from our country's interests.

Now, we hear that General Motors has filed an action against Chery Automobile Company in China for producing a car called the QQ, which General Motors says was stolen from the production blueprints of General Motors for one of their vehicles. And cars like these are headed to our market soon, where the floodgates are wide open.

It all comes around. Incompetent negotiators on our side, piracy and counterfeiting on their side, and unwillingness on our side to stand up for this country's economic interests; and meanwhile we watch the exodus of American jobs and the sapping of our economic strength because of trade rules, trade agreements, and the lack of enforcement that represents a basic unfairness to the producers and workers in this country.

So the question remains: When will our Government stand up for American workers? When will our Government stand up for American producers? I am talking about unfair trade, and about a Chinese Government that does nothing about it. It is past the time--long past-- when our country should expect action. The citizens of our country deserve a Government that does better for them in demanding fair trade.

So my colleague and I will introduce the resolution today. It is a sense of the Senate resolution that calls for a WTO case to be filed by our Trade Ambassador against China for gross violations of U.S. intellectual property rights.

There are so many examples of piracy and counterfeiting that I will not begin to chronicle them, but I will say this: I know that many U.S. companies that are victimized by counterfeiting do complain mightily, but they are also very nervous about an action being filed against this kind of stealing and cheating. It is time for them to decide whether they are interested in solving the problem or just complaining about it. If they are interested in just complaining about being victims, then they are going to ultimately be happy if the trade ambassador continues to do nothing. But in my judgment, it is a disservice to our country's interests at a time when we have the highest trade deficits in history, at a time when we are trying to hang on to American jobs, trying to stem the flow

of American jobs outside of our country that are moving abroad in wholesale numbers. It is a disservice to our country's interests for us not to stand up when we see unfair trade and take action against it.

That is why Senator Lindsey Graham and I have submitted this resolution today. That is why I hope in the coming days and weeks we will be able to have an opportunity for the Senate to express itself. Does the Senate believe we ought to have our trade ambassador file an action with the WTO, or does it not believe that? Does it believe this is a serious problem, or does it think it is simply an annoyance?

I hope most Senators will agree with Senator Graham and myself that this is a very serious problem and one that deserves an opportunity to be corrected.

Mr. President, let me now take a moment to congratulate Senator Inhofe and Senator Jeffords for their work on the highway bill. This is business that has been around the Senate for over 2 years. Most all of us wished--and I know no one more than the chairman and ranking member--we had passed a highway bill a long while ago, but it has taken some effort to get the kind of highway bill to the floor of the Senate that they have been able to get here.

I very much appreciate their leadership. Is this bill perfect? No, but it is an awfully good bill. Tomorrow, hopefully, when we finally pass this legislation and get to conference, my hope is the conference will have the wisdom to accept the Senate bill. There is a very big difference between the Senate bill and the House bill. My thoughts go with the chairman and ranking member and the conferees as they go to conference because this is a very important piece of legislation, and I compliment them.

Finally, all the papers warned us this will be some momentous week with respect to the so-called nuclear option and other issues. Just as I think all of us feel good about talking about a highway bill which is important and which strengthens this country, I think all of us would much prefer to be on the floor of the Senate talking about jobs, health care, energy, and about all the other issues that are so important. My hope is at the end of this week, we will get back to those issues as well.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, if the Senator will yield for a question. I agree with what Senator Inhofe has described with respect to the Chinese, and I think he would agree neither of us is attempting to paint the Chinese as an adversary. Our intention is to make China a long-term friend of our country, but for that to happen, the Chinese need to do the right thing on trade and security issues.

I have described today with respect to piracy and counterfeiting some very troubling issues, and Senator Inhofe knows and I know and others know there are some very serious and very troubling issues with respect to international security. That is the movement of critical materials and technology to the wrong parts of the world, the purchase of that technology by the Chinese.

Our intention and our hope is to work with the Chinese. But I think a country cannot sit back and say, whatever happens happens, whatever you are doing, that is fine. You have to stand up to things you find troubling. People take advantage of you if you let them take advantage of you. The same thing is true of countries, whether it is trade or international security. We have a responsibility to speak out with respect to issues, whether it be the Chinese or others, when we think they are an affront to our economic interests and our long-term national interests.

I appreciate the comments of Senator Inhofe.

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

Mr. President, I have an amendment I would like to have considered. My amendment is No. 652, which I have filed and is at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, first, we are deliberating in the Senate about

a highway bill. I appreciate the work the chairman of the committee and ranking member have done on this piece of legislation. It has been a long and tortured process to get this piece of legislation to the floor of the Senate. While I may not agree with every single line in the bill, I admire their work. I think their work is commendable, and it will advance this country's interests. For that reason, I intend to support the legislation.

I think with respect to this country's future, its economy, future opportunities in expanding our economy, there is nothing that more quickly expands the country's economy or more quickly provides opportunity all across this country than the investment Congress makes in a program that provides for highway and bridge construction and road maintenance and repair. It is a sure way to put people to work immediately all across this country.

This highway bill has been long delayed, but now while it is on the floor, I also want to not only commend the committee for its work, I want to offer an amendment that deals with something that relates to it.

Let me discuss briefly the amendment and then describe why I want this amendment considered on this bill. My amendment simply deals with the price of gasoline and asks the FTC to, within 90 days of the legislation being enacted, conduct an investigation of gasoline prices in this country. Let me describe a bit of the background for this. I don't allege there is corruption, price fixing, or collusion. What I do know is this: When big companies get bigger and more companies become fewer companies, there is a capability to influence the marketplace in a significant way. I chaired the hearings in the Senate that investigated the Enron situation. Now, having sat in the chair investigating what Enron did with respect, not to gasoline, but with respect to electricity sales on the west coast, the creation of strategies called Death Star, Fat Boy, Get Shorty--all of which were strategies to literally steal from the pockets of people living on the west coast. They bilked people out of billions of dollars by manipulating and overpricing with respect to the electricity market. We know that now and we also know that some executives from that company are on trial, about to go on trial, or have finished their trials, and some have been sentenced to 10 years of hard tennis at a minimum security prison. Others will get a stiffer penalty. It was wholesale stealing from the American people. Why? One, because they could; and, two, because there are people who are corrupt in their hearts engaging in these practices.

I don't allege the same exists with oil. I don't have any idea with respect to oil and the price of gasoline. I understand that the circumstances with oil are complicated. Sixty percent of the oil we use in this country--incidentally, the increased usage substantially is for transportation--comes from off our shore. The pricing for oil coming from the spot market relates to supply and demand, I am sure, but the supply largely comes from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Venezuela, and others. Now, we are really fooling ourselves if we think it is not holding America hostage and our economic future hostage with 60 percent of our oil coming from off our shores and most of it coming from troubled parts of the world.

If, God forbid, terrorists should interrupt the flow of oil into this country tomorrow night, our economy would be belly up very quickly. So that calls for and begs for a new energy policy, instead of simply saying that our exclusive energy policy is digging and drilling, which we must do; but if that is our exclusive policy, that is a ``yesterday forever'' policy. We need a new energy policy on the floor of the Senate.

I also think even as all of these events are occurring--the price of oil increasing, the spot market showing the price of oil is $50 or $52 or $55 a barrel, and the price of gasoline is increasing at the pumps, and you drive up to a gas pump someplace and somebody is driving a 6,500- or 7,000-pound car, perhaps a humvee, and you wonder a little bit about how all this works. When I drive up next to a humvee and everybody has a right to drive a humvee I think of the Latin term, ``totus porcus.'' I am not sure why I think of that. When somebody sits there with a 7,000-pound vehicle, with one person in the vehicle going to work, you wonder about that. The marketplace probably takes care of some of that, although somebody who is going to buy a humvee probably doesn't care much about the price of gasoline.

The price of gasoline is an interesting phenomenon in our country. As the price of oil goes up, and we hear about it on the news, all of a sudden, that day or the next day the price of gasoline goes up with a blink of an eye, following the price of oil. Then the price of oil comes down a bit, and the price of gasoline doesn't move down with quite the same rapidity. Something interesting is going on. I would like to discuss a bit of it.

Since 1990, the number of major oil and gas companies has gone from 34 to 13. The number of refining companies has gone from 13 to 7. The other day, I noticed that while we have very high prices for oil and gasoline, Exxon Oil had the highest profit ever for a corporation-- record profits. So I am asking myself the question: Why should an oil company have record profits just because the price of oil is high and the price of gasoline is higher? Has the margin between those two prices changed with respect to those that are delivering it? The answer comes in the evaluation of what has happened to total revenues and to net income for the major oil companies. As we have gone from more to fewer oil companies, what we see is now, with the price of oil and gasoline in many cases at near record levels, so, too, are the profits of the oil companies. There have been profit increases year to year of 108 percent, 79 percent, 101 percent, 152 percent, 1,000 percent, 400 percent--these are the major oil companies and the increase in their profits from 2003 to 2004.

Question: Given what we know about what has happened in some areas and in some industries with respect to manipulation of supply and demand and manipulation of prices, should we not have aggressive oversight and investigation to make sure the consumer is protected? I don't have the information to come to the floor to say there is something fundamentally wrong in the pricing strategy, but there are some indications, it seems to me, that some enterprises that have now merged successfully and become larger and stronger and have better capability to be involved in affecting the market in a more deliberate way are increasing their profits because they can, not because there is aggressive and robust competition, but because they have the economic clout to do it.

I am wondering if on behalf of the American consumers we ought not have aggressive oversight and aggressive investigation.

Now, we have seen activities from very large oil companies in the Congress. The House of Representatives, by the way, just passed an energy bill saying we need more incentives for these energy companies to be exploring for more oil and natural gas, at a time when the oil prices are at a record high. Even the President says that doesn't make any sense at all. It is interesting while they are wanting more tax incentives to explore for more oil, they are busy buying up stock with extra profits. That is what they are doing: they are not putting those profits in the ground. I find that interesting as well.

I think the FTC is the appropriate agency to investigate gas prices. I think, on behalf of American consumers, we ought to take a hard look at it, and the FTC is the place to do it. I pulled up at a four-way stop sign near Mohall, ND, one day, and there was an old car in front of me, and it was well used and well worn, with the back bumper kind of askew and not much of a paint job left. It had four or five people in it, and it was belching smoke out of the back end. They had a plain, simple little bumper sticker. The bumper sticker from this old wreck of a car that is now stopped at a four-way stop said: We fought the gas war and gas won.

Well, the message from that old car, ``gas won,'' is a message I think everybody understands. We are talking about a big industry that has consolidated and merged so that there are far fewer companies, with much greater market clout, and I think we need substantial oversight. The basic consumer protection statute enforced by the Federal Trade Commission is in section 5(a) of the Federal Trade Commission

Act. It provides that unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce are declared unlawful. Unfair practices are defined to mean those that:

cause or are likely to cause substantial injury to consumers

which is not reasonably avoidable by consumers themselves and

not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or to

competition.

In the State of North Dakota, a State I represent in the Senate, we actually drive a lot because we are a State that is 10 times the size of the State of Massachusetts. We have 642,000 citizens and we drive a lot. In fact, it is interesting; we drive almost twice as much per person as they do in New York. The average North Dakotan drives twice as much per person per year as a New Yorker, which means of course the burden of the gas tax itself is twice as high, but that is all right. We understand that. We like where we live. North Dakota is a wonderful State. But because gasoline is a significant issue for us and the price of gasoline is important for people who drive as much as we do, it is very important to us that we see that these prices are fair.

It is hard for me to understand how at a time when the oil prices have spiked and gasoline prices have risen substantially, how the profit margin has increased so dramatically for the oil companies themselves if in fact this is a competitive market. If it is not a competitive market, then I think there needs to be substantial investigation to see whether the consumers are being gouged.

Let me say again when I chaired the hearings about the manipulation of the market and the grand theft that occurred with the Enron Corporation bilking billions of dollars from consumers on the west coast, California, Oregon, Washington, and so on, it was unbelievable to see what those companies did because they could. They had larceny in their heart and they decided to profit to the tune of billions of dollars by literally stealing from consumers. As I have said before, I am not alleging that is happening here. I do not have the foggiest idea what the mechanics are for the pricing strategies or what has led to record profits for the oil companies.

All I know is the oil companies are bigger. They have more muscle. They have more capability to affect the marketplace, and I believe when there are fewer competitors and less competition, there is a responsibility on behalf of consumers to ask for a referee to look over their shoulder and see that everything is all right.

I only wish we had done that earlier in the Congress when it was quite clear that the wholesale prices for electricity charged by Enron and others in the west coast marketplace--I only wish we had been more aggressive and we had demanded the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and others to be in there up to their neck in investigating what was going on, but the Congress was late. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was asleep from the neck up. As a result, there was grand theft on the west coast from those markets, particularly by the Enron Corporation. Let us not let that happen with other industries.

Again, I do not allege that is the case here. I do not have the foggiest idea what the ingredients are of these pricing strategies, but I would like the Federal Trade Commission, on behalf of the American people, to take a good hard look. So my amendment would provide that be the case 90 days following the enactment of this legislation, and we would then have the benefit of a formal Federal Trade Commission study of gasoline pricing.

I think on behalf of the American people, given this time, given these circumstances, we ought to expect that and demand that and that is what I do in this amendment.

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