Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for as much time as I consume.

Mr. President, as this country tries to pull itself out of a very significant economic crisis in which millions of Americans have lost their jobs, lost their homes, lost hope, there are a number of things we have to do that also threaten the future of this country, in addition to trying to restore some economic health, and those include health care to be sure--we are working on this issue of health care; the second is an energy policy that makes us less dependent on foreign oil, where we are far too vulnerable and far too dependent; and the third is the relentless march of increased Federal budget deficits. All three of these issues, in my judgment, threaten our country's future. I wish to speak about them in the coming days. Today, I wish to talk about health care specifically.

Let me again say, I do that with the understanding that first and foremost we have to pull this country out of the difficulties we are in with the general economy and try to find ways to promote economic growth and put people back to work with jobs that pay well and give them the opportunity to care for their families. That is what gets America moving again. But when we do that, when we begin to restore this economy to economic health, the vulnerabilities that will remain are health care, energy, and the Federal budget deficits far into the future. So let me talk about health care just a bit.

I know there is a lot of discussion in the committees, the two relevant committees, the Finance Committee and the so-called HELP Committee, both of which are writing pieces of the health care reform bill.

It is true that increased health care costs--the increased cost of insurance for families, businesses, and governments--are on the march. Now it consumes over 17 percent of the domestic product of this country. Of all the goods and services we produce, over 17 percent of that is consumed by health care. And the rate of increase is unsustainable. Families will not be able to pay the extra cost year after year after year. We are told that nationally it now costs about $12,000 for a family health insurance policy.

So what do we do about this? Well, we hear a lot of discussion on the floor of the Senate, when we start talking about health care, where people will say: Well, now you are talking about a government-run health care system in which a bureaucrat is going to make decisions about how much treatment your doctor can provide to you personally.

That is just absurd. That is not what this discussion is about. But if we can get back to some thoughtful discussion rather than thoughtless discussion on health care, maybe we can all reach an agreement of how to improve this system. I personally think this system needs improving. Let me describe some things I think we should do.

First of all, we do not have a health care system so much as we have a sick care system. We do not pay any attention in this country to the things that can keep you from being sick or getting sick; we just pay a lot of money to put you into acute-care beds once you have gotten sick. That makes no sense at all. We ought to change the entire model to say it is much, much less costly to do the preventive things than it is to pay for acute-care beds in a hospital once someone gets sick.

This is all about behavior in many respects, and nobody wants to talk much about that. But behavior is a very important part of this. We are told that two-thirds of the American people are overweight and one- third are obese. Just that alone imposes unbelievable costs on this health care system of ours.

By the way, attendant to that issue of obesity and being overweight is the march of diabetes. The incidence of diabetes in this country is unbelievable. It just ratchets up and up and up every year.

Now, you wonder about that, wonder about America's children and the number of children who are overweight and obese. Walk into a school and then find out that in a number of schools in our country, they have decided to make money by allowing the soda machines, the pop machines, from the largest manufacturers in this country to sell Coke and Pepsi and other soft drinks in the school hallways. You can buy not only a soft drink full of sugar, you can then buy, perhaps, a bag of Doritos to go with it in the middle of the afternoon at school. So what kind of message is that in a country in which a substantial number of the people--especially children--are vastly overweight and in which we, by the way, minimize physical fitness in our schools because we have become very obsessed--and necessarily so--we care now more about math and sciences and getting out of our school system more engineers, more people steeped in the maths and sciences. But should that be at the expense of physical fitness? What kind of a brain is walking around without a physical being to propel it? How about some physical fitness in our schools? How about moving soda machines or the soft drink machines and the Doritos and Cheetos out of the school hallways? Those things are just common sense. It is about personal behavior, and it is about what we do in this country.

By the way, the reason those machines are there is, if they can put machines in the hallways of schools, the companies will provide money to the schools. So that is how we are going to fund our school system these days--through soft drinks and chips? It does not make much sense to me.

With respect to this issue of personal responsibility and behavior, let me describe a meeting we held about a week and a half ago with the CEO of Safeway corporation. I know he has met with groups of Republicans and Democrats here in the Congress. He said something very interesting, and I am using numbers that I think approximate what he said. They may not be precise, but I believe he told us there are between 40,000 and 50,000 employees at Safeway corporation who are nonunion. He began a project with those 40,000 and 50,000 people in health care, and now he is beginning to try to move that into the union contracts.

Here is the project. That company says to its employees: I want responsibility for four areas in exchange for lower cost health insurance. We believe behavior is an important part of controlling health care costs. No. 1, if you have high blood pressure, we want you taking medicine to control your high blood pressure. No. 2, if you have high cholesterol, we want you taking medicine to control your high cholesterol. And I believe he said the company is paying for that. No. 3, if you are smoking, you have to have stopped or be on a program to stop. No. 4, if you are overweight, you have to be on a program to deal with that issue.

Cholesterol, high blood pressure, weight, and smoking--in each case, from a baseline of the cost of health insurance policies, those who are engaged in behavior that addresses these four issues have gradations of lesser costs for their health insurance premiums. In other words, it is about personal behavior and taking responsibility for addressing the things that can keep you healthy.

He indicated to us that they have had flat costs for 5 years in that body of employees dealing with this criteria in health care. That is a success. If that is the model he is using, saying: You have a responsibility.

By the way, even in their cafeteria, where they have partially subsidized company food during the lunch hours, just as an example, he said: We still serve unhealthy things. But we charge much, much more for it--once again trying to induce the behavior to take a healthy alternative.

So I think what Steve Burd, the CEO of Safeway, has suggested represents something we need to consider as we write our health care legislation.

There is another element that was brought to my attention recently and I think has been brought to the President's attention and Members of the Congress, and that is a New Yorker article written by Atul Gawande, a doctor from Harvard. He visited McAllen, TX, and El Paso, TX, and wondered why in one city you have the highest

costs per capita for health care and why the other city is just average. What caused this? He has a lot of conclusions, and I think very interesting conclusions, about overutilization in health care, and the movement of doctors' ownership with respect to the business side of health care. The doctors' ownership in a cancer clinic, ownership in a new heart clinic, those kinds of things that he suggests promote substantial overutilization.

The fact is, in our part of the country, where it is reasonably sparsely populated--the northern Great Plains--almost every hospital of any size wants to have a cardiac surgical unit so they can do open- heart surgery. They do not all need to do that. In fact, it duplicates services, which then ends up costing more because you are duplicating services. But every hospital wants it. So many of our States have more than is necessary of cardiac surgical suites.

This weekend, I was reading about two hospital groups merging, and one of them indicated that one of the advantages would be they would be able to then perform perhaps procedures they do not now perform, citing especially heart transplants. Why would we want duplication of a lot of facilities doing heart transplants? It does not seem to make sense to me. There are not so many done in the United States that we should not at least try to suggest that you do not need too many heart transplant centers.

Some say: Well, then who should tell them they cannot do that?

Well, if you just decide that overutilization is all right; whatever it costs, it costs; whatever it pays, it pays, I think I can tell you that you cannot solve this issue. Again, I am not suggesting government-run health care, but I am saying we ought to be reasonably smart about what we are doing, and that has not always been the case.

I wish to talk about one of the fastest rising areas of health care costs for a moment; that is, the issue of prescription drugs.

By the way, maybe they ought to tone down some of this advertising or knock it off. You get up in the morning and brush your teeth. If you have a television set near and have it on just for listening purposes, you are no doubt going to hear a commercial that says: Do you know what, you should go ask your doctor whether the purple pill is right for you. I do not know what a purple pill is, but they have described a purple pill that is going to do something for you, and they ask you to go ask your doctor if you should be taking the purple pill because you cannot get it unless a doctor thinks you need it.

We have massive amounts of advertising on prescription drugs in this country. In fact, some have indicated that the promotion and advertising and marketing of prescription drugs exceed research and development by the companies that manufacture prescription drugs. Frankly, for anything that is prescribed only by a doctor and capable of being prescribed only by a doctor, why do you have direct-to- consumer advertising? Most nations like ours do not allow it. I believe there is only one other of the industrialized nations that does-- something to consider about perhaps reducing health care costs.

But I want to talk about the other side of prescription drugs.

Mr. President, if I might by unanimous consent show these two bottles.

Lipitor is one of the most popular prescription drugs in the United States, I believe, for lowering cholesterol. These bottles are identical. One is blue and one is red. They look identical because they are produced by the same company. It is produced in Ireland. Lipitor is produced in Ireland and shipped around the world. The difference between these two bottles is not the medicine inside. It is the same pill, made by the same company, in the same place. The difference is it is shipped to different places. This one is shipped to Canada, and this one is shipped to the United States. The U.S. consumer has the pleasure of paying twice the cost as the Canadian consumer. But it is not just Canadian. It is French. It is Italian. It is British. It is that almost every other industrialized country pays a fraction of the price we do. Why should the American consumer be charged the highest price in the world for this prescription drug? Because those who apply the price have the ability to do it.

Some of us--Senator McCain, myself, Senator Kennedy, Senator Grassley--Republicans and Democrats--Senator Snowe, especially, my cosponsor on the importation of prescription drug legislation--some of us believe the American people ought to have the ability and the advantage of the world marketplace to purchase that identical prescription drug--FDA approved, produced in an FDA-inspected plant--to be able to purchase it from anywhere in the world at a fraction of the price.

We put together legislation that dramatically improves the safety of our domestic prescription drug supply and the drugs coming in.

By the way, a lot of the prescription drugs we take are imported. Lipitor is imported into this country. The pharmaceutical industry-- which has always opposed our legislation because they want to charge the highest prices in the world to the U.S. consumers--they say: Well, if you do this, if you allow Americans to import FDA-approved drugs, there is a greater possibility of counterfeiting. Our legislation actually will dramatically improve safety because we require pedigree-- we do all kinds of safety mechanisms that do not now exist with respect to our prescription drug supply.

So my point is, this is not rocket science. Do you want to reduce health care costs? I would say to the Finance Committee, and the HELP Committee, make sure you put this piece in your legislation because some of the fastest rising costs in this country are prescription drugs, and we know how to solve that. If we pass the legislation Senator Snowe and I have introduced, with broad bipartisan support, that allows the importation of FDA-approved prescription drugs by American consumers, it will require the pharmaceutical industry to reprice their drugs and allow our consumers to have fair prices for the prescription drugs they take.

By the way, our legislation is actually a winner. It is $50 billion dollars in cost savings and deficit reduction, according to the CBO evaluation.

So the fact is, there are a lot of things we can do and a lot of things that represent common sense. I know some will want to put together a health care proposal that would look like a Rubik's Cube with all kinds of moving pieces. It need not be that complicated. I just described some of the things we can do that represent common sense.

Let me make one more point. Medicare has been a very successful program. When Medicare was started, the fact is, they established a base funding for Medicare that represented the cost for health care delivery at that time from that place. The result is, those areas with the highest costs got the biggest reimbursements. And it is still true today that some of the States--including my State--measured with some of the highest quality of health care in this country get the lowest reimbursement because they are the most efficient. That is preposterous. Whatever we do on health care, it has to address that issue. Let us at least, after nearly 40 years, begin to decide we will not reward inefficiency and we will not reward higher costs.

I am not suggesting this is unbelievably simple; it is not. In many ways, I kind of wish we could hearken back to the old days, but in the old days we didn't have the medical miracles and the medicine we have now. In my hometown of 300 people--a small town--we did have a doctor. He came as a young man and stayed until he died, and he provided health care. There was no Medicare. He provided health care to anybody who needed it, and if they couldn't pay him, he would take some chickens or a hog or a side of beef. If he was out on a ranch or a farm and delivered a baby and they didn't have any money, and somebody else had money, he would charge a little extra to make up for the people who couldn't pay, so he administered his own health care system.

Then we couldn't look inside the human body. We didn't have the miracle medicines through the NIH and PhRMA and others that allow us to stay out of an acute care bed. We didn't have all of those things. So now health care has become much more complicated. According to the New Yorker

magazine article, which I recommend to everybody, when we have decided to make health care a ``business proposition'' where you can get several doctors together and open a cancer center, that becomes something in which you promote overutilization. And it is happening in parts of our country. We need to be concerned about that and try to evaluate what can we do together to deal with it.

One final point. Some of my colleagues march to the floor every single day and allege that a bill that doesn't yet exist is going to be a government takeover of health care. Well, apparently they are clairvoyant, because we don't yet have a bill. When that bill exists, they have every right to come to the floor and describe the facts about the bill. One would hope in this debate we could stick to those facts, but there is not yet a fact that allows somebody to say there is a government takeover of health care, because there is not yet a bill out of either of our committees. There have been some introductions of topics and legislative proposals, but that is far different than a bill from a committee. We will have undoubtedly a robust debate on this, and we should. Health care is a very important element in this country's economy. It is growing, and growing too fast, and we need to deal with it to make sure all Americans have access to health care. A sick child should not have to wonder whether they get to see a doctor depending on how much money their parents have in their wallet or their bank account. That is not what health care ought to be in this country. So we can and will do much better.

I indicated I wish to talk about the future threats to this country, one of which is the march of health care costs. The second, in my judgment, is our unbelievable vulnerability on foreign oil and energy. The third is deficits. I will talk about the following two in the coming days as well.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, we are to report the pending legislation.

Mr. President, the legislation that is now the business of the Senate, on which we will have a cloture vote at 5:30, is legislation that probably demonstrates that agreement is near impossible in this body.

If you cannot agree on tourism, what can you agree on? Tourism ought not to be the subject of very substantial controversy. Yet it is.

Last week, in an article in Roll Call, it says ``Senate GOP still saying no.'' The quote is:

When they bring bills up, we are going to extend the debate

as long as we can, block everything.

So this legislation is simple, and it is bipartisan. Republicans and Democrats have both supported this legislation. I was the author of it. We have Republican and Democratic cosponsors. It is the Travel Promotion Act. Why should we promote travel?

If you watched the U.S. Open Golf Tournament today, you might have seen the country of Turkey advertising during that golf tournament. They were running an advertisement saying: Come to Turkey. We want you to travel to Turkey and see the wonders of our great country.

Why would they do that? Most countries are now aggressively involved in trying to attract international destination tourism to their country. Why is that the case? We know on average that an international traveler spends about $4,500 per trip, and that means they are purchasing hotel rooms and car rentals and going to see exhibits and parks and all kinds of things. The fact is, it is job creating in a country where international travelers visit. So most countries are now very active trying to attract people to their countries. Japan is, as are Great Britain, Italy, Turkey, France--you name it.

I have some charts. Here is an example of what is happening out there. This is an advertisement: ``Sweet secrets from Japan.'' To learn about Japan and its culinary arts and traditions, this is an advertisement saying: Come to Japan. Come and travel in the country of Japan.

Here is an advertisement from France. Picasso, Normandy Landings. Come and see France with the Eiffel Tower.

Here is one for Belgium. ``Travel to Belgium where fun is all in fashion,'' they say.

Brussels, ``Sophisticated simplicity, the capital of cool.''

This one says: ``One special reason to visit India in 2009. Any time is a good time to visit the land of Taj. But there's no time like now.'' Come to India.

The list goes on and on.

Here is Ireland. ``The Emerald Island. Go where Ireland takes you.'' And here is a beautiful picture of Ireland saying: Come to our country.

Finally, we have Australia. ``Arrive for an experience to remember. Depart with an adventure we'll never forget.'' Come to Australia.

I describe these and the fact that Turkey advertises on a golf tournament because here is what happened to visitors to the United States since 2000: Between 2000 and 2008, we have had a 3-percent decrease in visitors to our country from other countries. Mr. President, 633,000 fewer people have come to the United States to visit per year that existed in 2000. Over 8 years, we have actually lost ground and had fewer people visit the United States. Contrast that with the number of international visitors around the world, which is up 40 percent. The United States is down 3 percent.

We have constructed--Republicans and Democrats together--a piece of legislation, which I have brought to the floor, that attempts to get our

country into the game to say let's compete with Australia, France, Italy, Turkey, and Belgium and ask international visitors and travelers to come to our country to see the wonders of our great country. Spend some money here to create jobs here and create economic development here. We are not doing that now. We are not even in the game.

So we suggest a private-public partnership we believe could be very helpful in attempting to stimulate international visitors to our country. The Travel Promotion Act will encourage visitors from all around the world. We establish a corporation for travel promotion.

We fund it with a very small charge on international visitors coming to our country, as most countries do, by the way, a $10 fee on those who are coming from the countries that had the visa waiver provision with our country.

Here is what has been said about our country recently, and here is perhaps why fewer people are visiting the United States. The Sydney Morning Herald said, ``Coming to America is not easy.'' I think there was a feeling around the world post-9/11, we are very interested in trying to keep some people out of here. Obviously we wanted to keep terrorists out. But we made it pretty difficult for people to come visit, get a visa, stand in line, wait for months. The Guardian said, ``America, more hassle than it's worth.'' The Sunday Times in London says: ``Travel to America? No thanks.''

So a group of us, a large group, over 50 in the last Congress, put legislation together saying: Let's find a unique way to promote our country. We put together the Travel Promotion Act. And by the way, unlike almost every other piece of legislation that comes to the floor of the Senate, that costs money and would increase the deficit if not paid for, the Congressional Budget Office says: Enacting this bill would reduce budget deficits by $429 million--that is almost a half a billion dollars--between 2010 and 2019. So this would reduce the budget deficit. We are not talking about something that spends money. This reduces the budget deficit over 10 years by nearly $500 million.

We fund this, in large part, with a small $10 fee from the visa waiver countries in which visitors are traveling to our country. As I have described, Australia has a $37 departure fee; Guatemala, $30; the Philippines, $15; United Kingdom, $80 to $160. The fact is, this goes on all around the world. We are proposing a very modest fee on visitors from visa waiver countries.

Newspapers all across this country have supported this. Dallas Morning News: The Travel Promotion Act is a sensible first step toward putting the welcome mat back on America's doorstep.

The Detroit Free Press: Doesn't it make sense to encourage, at no cost to taxpayers, foreign visitors to come here and leave us some of their money? There is no good reason not to pass this bill.

The Los Angeles Times: Considering that the U.S. spends hundreds of millions of dollars on public diplomacy with dubious results, and nearly nothing promoting tourism, we might do well to invest a little money in wooing travelers.

The Sacramento Bee: This country needs to reclaim its status as a global magnet for visitors, even in the post-9/11 climate. And Congress could help by passing the Travel Promotion Act by the end of this year.

This ought to be something that we bring up and almost pass by unanimous consent. Guess what kind of a tortured journey this bill has been on. First and foremost, the bill is reported to the floor--and you have got to have a motion to proceed. You cannot just bring it to the floor. If someone insists, no, no, you have got to have a debate and then a vote on whether you should even proceed to the bill.

So we did. Not because we should have had to do that, just because someone said: You know what, we are going to decide to be a human set of brake pads and slow down everything that happens in the Senate and prevent anybody from getting anything done.

So on a travel bill, the Travel Promotion Act, that actually reduces the Federal budget deficit and tries to attract international visitors to our country, which would be a good thing--there is a lot here to see and experience, and almost everyone who leaves after visiting the United States of America has an unbelievably good opinion of what we are about. This is a great country, yes, with a lot of attractions, but a country whose culture and character is something we need to exhibit to everybody in this world to say: Here is who we are. Here is what America is about. Here is the grand idea that is the most successful democracy in history. Come here. Visit here. Become a part of what we are experiencing on your international travels.

We are not doing that now. But we suggest we should. The bill that is broadly bipartisan to do that is to be brought to the floor of the Senate. We are told: No, you cannot do that. First you must have a debate, and then a vote on the motion to proceed.

So we have to file what is called a cloture petition, which takes 2 days to ripen. You lose 2 days. Then we have a vote. And the vote is 90 to 3 in favor of it. The implication there is we should not have had to have a vote and waste a couple of days. But we did.

Then, after the cloture vote, 90 to 3, we were told: No, you cannot go to the bill yet, there is 30 hours postcloture, and we insist on burning all 30 hours postcloture.

We had 2 days for the cloture petition, then a 90-to-3 vote, then we had 30 hours wasted time postcloture. Why? Because someone insisted upon it. And so now all of a sudden we are on the bill.

Well, last Thursday and Friday, I worked, Senator Reid worked, and many others worked to see, all right, we are on the bill. Now can we figure out what kind of amendments are going to be offered.

We had a discussion over there in the middle of the aisle with Senators McConnell, Reid, Martinez, and others. We agreed we would begin with amendments on each side. Perhaps we started with three and two, then we said five amendments on the Republican side and three amendments here at least to start the process.

Can you give us a list of your amendments? We got a list of the amendments, five amendments on what is called the TARP program, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, having nothing at all to do with this bill. We said: That is fine. Okay. You want to have five debates and votes on TARP. Okay.

Here are our three amendments, two of which had to do with the studies. The other was an amendment by Senator Sanders that said to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that we want them to use all of the authority they now have, plus any emergency authority, use the authority you now have to start finding a way to shine the light on these unbelievable speculators who are running up the price of gasoline. Not a very controversial amendment. It does not give the CFTC any new authority. It deals with the question of the runup in the price of gasoline. It does not give anyone any new authority. But the Republican side said: Nope, we are not going to allow you to offer that amendment. We are going to tell you which amendments we intend to offer. We said, okay, that is fine, whatever amendments you have, God bless you, go ahead and offer them.

But they say, but you cannot describe to us a set of amendments, three, five to three, and if the three includes an amendment to try to see if you can shut down some of the excess speculation using the authority that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission now has, we are not willing to do that.

Most people would listen to all of this and say, it is the same old thing. Nobody can agree on anything. But, you know, in every circumstance where there is disagreement, there has to be someone who is holding out. Right? We come to the floor today without an agreement on amendments, so the majority leader had to file a cloture petition. We have a cloture vote at 5:30 today.

This Congress cannot even agree on tourism, for God's sake. Unbelievable to me. How dysfunctional can a legislative body become? You cannot agree on tourism.

But let me at least talk for a minute, before I talk about the importance now of having a cloture vote and requiring to have a cloture vote on this, let me talk about what the other side objects

to with an amendment that my colleague wants to offer. I agree that the amendment does not relate to the bill, but their first five amendments had nothing to do with the bill either. So why should the minority be telling the majority what kind of amendments they can offer?

But here is the amendment. People remember when the price of oil went from about $40 up to $147 a barrel in day trading; went up like a Roman candle, then came right back down. The same hotshots, the same speculators, who made a fortune pushing up the price of oil, made a fortune on the upside, the same folks made a fortune on the downside. The victims are the people who drive up to the gas pump having to pay $4, $4.50 for gasoline.

Let me show you what has happened. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission--I mean nobody knows what that is much outside of Washington, DC, CFTC. We have all of these acronyms. Well, it is a group of people who have done their level best imitation of a potted plant for a long time. They decided to do very little in areas where much was needed.

The oil futures market is a very important market. You need to hedge, we understand that. The futures market is established for a very specific reason, and it is an important market. But speculators have broken the back of that market. Here is what happened. Thirty-seven percent of the trades in the oil futures market were by speculators in 2000. Now it is 80 percent. That is what caused the price of oil to go up to $147 a barrel. They were speculating on the way up; they turned it and were speculating on the way down and made money on both sides.

Before I show what has happened to the price of oil now--by the way, it is starting again. Demand is down because of the recession, and the supply of oil is up, and the price is going up.

What does that tell you? It tells you the same shenanigans are going on. And the CFTC, which is supposed to be our agency, that is the referee with the striped shirt and the whistle, supposed to be watching what is going on and taking action to shut some of it down, once again, not much going on. Senator Sanders says: We ought to ask them, at least ask them, to use all of their authority to shut it down.

We have a government agency called the EIA, Environmental Information Administration. It costs about $100 million a year, actually over $100 million a year. Their job is to know everything there is to know about energy, and to make the best estimates they can make. I want to show a chart that shows the runup to the $147 a barrel for oil.

This chart shows 2007-2008. The yellow line is the estimates by our agency, the EIA, saying: Here is where we think the price of oil is going. Each yellow line--this, for example, is January 2008. They said: Here is where we think the price of oil is headed. March 2008: Here is where we think it is headed. Of course, this was the price.

One would ask the question, and reasonably so: Who are these best informed people at EIA who are supposed to give us an estimate of what is going on? Well, what is going on now? What we see now is an EIA projection made in January of this year, the yellow line.

The EIA says: Here is where we think oil is going to go now. But, of course, anybody who drives a car and has stopped at a gas pump recently understands what is happening to the price of oil. The price of oil is something now over $70 a barrel, on the march from $37 a barrel. That is happening at a time when demand is down and supply is up.

I taught economics in college ever so briefly. But the supply-demand curve is something you can learn the first day. When supply is up and demand is down, price is not supposed to go up. If it is going up, there is something wrong. There is something happening. And that is what is happening now.

Where will it go? Will it go to $90? I notice one of our big investment banks thought it would go to $90. I would love, if I had subpoena capability, to find the position that investment bank was holding in oil futures as they made that announcement. But that is an aside for another day.

The question is: Is it reasonable to have an amendment by Senator Sanders to say: We want the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use all of their authority to try to understand what is going on? The other side says: Absolutely not. We do not intend to allow you to offer that amendment.

I mean, I do not understand why. Whose interests would they be supporting or protecting? The speculators? Big investment banks? Those who are holding oil offshore in ships? Those investment banks that actually have bought oil storage for the first time in history to take oil out of supply and store it, and wait as the price goes up and make money? Is that whose interests are at stake here?

Let me come back to the point I was making. We tried very hard Thursday and Friday to reach an agreement on amendments on both sides. We said: Absolutely. You want amendments. You want all five amendments on the TARP program? It has nothing to do with the bill. By all means, feel free. Start offering. We are ready. And the other side said: Well, you give us all we want, but we do not intend to agree to much of anything you want, kind of a one-way agreement that they would have known was destined to fail.

Again, I do not understand how we have gotten to a point on a piece of legislation that should be so noncontroversial, sufficient so that with a 90-to-3 vote on the motion to proceed, it is brought to the floor of the Senate, a bill that had over 50 cosponsors last year here in the Senate, a bill that deals with travel and promotion of travel and tourism, that we now have this unbelievable impasse.

We had to have 2 days with a cloture motion on a motion to proceed that passed 90 to 3 and then have 30 hours postcloture. Then we were going on this merry-go-round last Thursday and Friday with an absurd proposition that the minority wants to decide what amendments the majority can have, despite the fact that the majority says: You can have whatever amendments you want. They must have missed the last couple of elections. They apparently think they run the Senate.

What runs the Senate is consensus--consensus by people who care about getting things done on important issues. If you cannot do something on tourism, how on Earth are you going to do something on health care and energy and climate change and a lot of things that matter a lot about this country and the future? If you cannot do a tourism bill, what can you do? It is pretty unbelievable to me.

I know we can have people come and explain, even until they are completely out of breath, why they object to everything. I just described: Senate GOP still saying no. Democrats need to know when bills are coming up, we are going to extend the debate as long as we can--on and on and on.

How about just picking out one or two little issues--one or two issues--that would advance the country's interests and say: Do you know what, on this issue we will just park the politics at home. We have to leave the politics back in the office. We will come to the floor and say: What is good for the country?

I will tell you what is good for the country here on this issue; that is, in a very troubled world, where a lot of people have looked askance at this country and we have gotten some bad reputation around here and there--and some bad information about America--I will tell you what is good: to have people come to this country and just be around for a bit and experience this great country of ours and understand when they hit our shores this is a citadel of freedom. You can do everything you want.

This is an unbelievable place, and we need people in the world to understand it and to understand especially this: You are welcome to come here. We want you here. We want you to come and see and sample and understand what America is about. That is what this bill is. If we cannot even agree on that, how on Earth will we agree on the big issues of the day?

We will have a cloture vote at 5:30. My guess is, the minority will say: We believe this vote needs to be a leadership vote. All of you have to vote against cloture because we haven't offered the first amendment. Do you know why you have not offered the first amendment? Because you would not agree on anything. We tried Thursday. We tried Friday. You would not agree on anything. We agreed on all your amendments, and you would not agree on a thing. So here we are--I and

my Democratic and Republican cosponsors on this bill we have worked on now for 2 years--coming now to a cloture vote in which some will say to others: You can't vote for cloture because we haven't had any amendments.

I hope perhaps between now--10 to 4 o'clock--and 5:30, if there are well-meaning people in this Chamber who really wish to make progress for our country, we could have an agreement on amendments and then just go forward. Let's do that.

I was there when Senator Reid said to the minority leader: Look, let's just at least start. We do not have to have a whole list of all the amendments. Let's just start. If you want the first five amendments--whatever it is you want--bring them on. We will have the amendments. And we will give you three of ours. Let's just start the process.

We could not even get that done Thursday and Friday.

The American people deserve better than that from all of us. They deserve a Senate that works. And if the Senate cannot work on bipartisan legislation dealing with tourism, can you name a subject where it will work?

My hope is that in the next hour and a half, perhaps some will come to the floor who have the interest and the ability to reach an agreement, so we can begin the amendment process and finish the bill this week. We can do that. We should not defeat this cloture motion. In fact, we should vitiate the motion--if we could get the leadership of the other side to come to the floor and say: We agree with what you proposed last week.

Let's start. Let's start now. Let's have some amendments tonight and have some votes. We can do that.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, at 5:30 we will be having a cloture vote, and the cloture vote deals with the underlying legislation called the Travel Promotion Act. As I said earlier this afternoon, if the Congress cannot agree on something such as tourism, what is to become of the issues of health care, energy, climate change or so many other significant controversial issues that come before us?

This underlying bill is very simple. It is bipartisan. Over 50 Members of the Senate have cosponsored this bill in the last Congress. It actually reduces the Federal budget deficit by close to a half billion dollars. As I indicated, it should bear no controversy at all. It is simply the development of a public-private partnership that would begin to market our country, as most other countries are doing, in order to attract destination international tourism to our country.

All the other countries are doing this. If you watched the golf tournament today--the U.S. Open--in the middle of the golf tournament, they broke to a commercial. It was the country of Turkey saying: Come to Turkey. Come and visit the wonders of Turkey.

Well, good for Turkey. They are out trying to promote international tourism. But the same is true with France and Italy and Japan and India and Great Britain--so many other countries.

Why are they doing that? They are doing it because it is unbelievably job creating to have international tourism come to your country. On average, an international tourist spends about $4,500 on hotels and cars and tourist attractions and food. So it is unbelievably job creating and boosting to the economy of the host country.

But even more important than that, our country needs to do this. From 2000 to 2008, we now have 633,000 fewer visitors per year from overseas than we had 8 years ago.

Why is that the case? It is because some people believe we do not want them to visit our country. Quite the opposite is true. So we suggest, rather than to keep losing economic opportunities from international tourism, let's at least join the discussion and get in the game by promoting tourism to our country as a destination for international tourism. Let's at least get in the game.

So our bill creates this public-private partnership and establishes the capability to begin promoting our country. Why is that important? Well, obviously economic development and jobs. But even more important, at a time when there has been so much controversy about our country and actions abroad, and so on, to invite people to our country and have them come here and visit this country is to have them leave with a wonderful impression about the United States of America. There just is not any way to visit our country and leave with a bad attitude about what the United States is and what it means.

This is a great place, the greatest democracy in all of history, with unbelievable freedoms that many people in the world do not have. But it is a wonderful country, full of natural resources and wonderful people. To come here and visit is to leave and believe very positive things about our country. That, it seems to me, makes a lot of sense these days.

Madam President, a colleague was on the floor just a bit ago saying, well, he could not vote for cloture at 5:30 because he was not allowed to offer his TARP amendment. Of course, TARP has nothing to do with the underlying bill. We said that he could offer the amendment. The rules of the Senate allow somebody to offer a TARP amendment. He says, however, that the majority--that is us--is saying: We are going to obstruct your right to amend the bill.

This colleague must not have been around last Thursday and Friday when we were negotiating to try to get an agreement. Their side would offer the first five amendments. We said you can offer your first five amendments. All of them were so-called TARP amendments--the troubled asset relief program. Well, TARP amendments--having nothing to do with tourism and travel, but that is fine. We said: OK, you can offer that.

So how is it somebody comes to the floor of the Senate now and says they are being obstructed? We said: You can offer them. But then what they said was: Well, we want five TARP amendments, and here are your three amendments. One of your three amendments is one by Senator Sanders that we will not allow you to offer. We object to that.

What was the Sanders amendment? It was pretty simple. The Sanders amendment would require that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission use existing authority to begin trying to tackle this question of what is happening in the runup of oil prices. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has acted like a potted plant for a long time. Oil prices went to $147 a barrel in mid-2008. Yet, the CFTC was explaining to us: Well, that is just supply and demand.

That is total nonsense--total nonsense. It had nothing to do with supply and demand. It had to do with speculators breaking that oil futures market. So the CFTC did nothing about it.

Right now, the supply of oil is up; demand is down; and the price is going up. Once again, there is something wrong. So the Senator from Vermont wanted to offer an amendment. So I included it in the list of the amendments we would offer to the Republicans last Thursday and Friday, saying: OK, you want to offer five amendments that have nothing to do with the bill. That is fine. You can do that. Here are the three amendments we propose to start with.

They said: No, no, no. You cannot offer the Sanders amendment.

Wait a second. The minority is going to decide what the majority can offer? We have just said to the minority: You can offer your five TARP amendments that have nothing to do with this bill. That is fine. So now we have somebody coming to the floor this afternoon saying he has to vote against cloture because the majority says: We are going to obstruct your right to amend? Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, the decision by the minority has put us in this position. So apparently we will have people coming to the floor of the Senate with the belief that somebody obstructed their right to amend the bill. But the TARP amendments they proposed were agreed to by us, that we would allow them, they were fine to be offered. Everyone thought that was the case. We will have some people come to the floor apparently deciding to vote against cloture on this bill because they say somebody obstructed their right to amend. That is just totally without foundation. It is Byzantine to me that here we are in the Senate on a piece of legislation called the Travel Promotion Act, which is designed to promote tourism, to create jobs and to promote this country's interests. It is

widely bipartisan. It has been around now for 2\1/2\ years or so, with no great controversy I know of. We have before us a bill for which we were required to file cloture and wait 2 days for a cloture vote just on the motion to proceed to it. Once we got to the motion to proceed, we had a vote--and guess what. Ninety to three we said: Yes, let's proceed to it.

Then the minority said: And, oh, by the way, no, you can't proceed yet because we are going to insist on the 30 hours post-cloture. So you have to wait 30 more hours. Total, complete, thorough delay.

So it does not sit well with me for anybody to come here to say that somebody is being obstructed.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that unless a member of the minority comes to claim time, that we be allowed to continue, I be allowed to continue. If a member of the minority does come to the Senate floor, I certainly would relinquish the time.

Madam President, it does not wash at all for somebody to suggest somehow they have to vote against cloture because they are denied their right.

Over in that aisle, on Thursday, we had a discussion--Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, myself, Senator Martinez--and then back and forth in the cloakrooms. We offered amendments back and forth just to get started on the bill. It was not a final list of amendments. It was just a way to try to get started. For all five of the amendments proposed to be offered by the minority, we said: Fine, they have nothing to do with the bill, but that is fine. If you want to offer them, offer them. But don't come to the floor on Monday saying the majority is obstructing your right to offer an amendment, which we said you could offer. How do you explain that contradiction?

Again, my point: If this Congress cannot even agree on tourism, how is it going to agree on anything. How are we going to make progress on health care? How are we going to make progress on comprehensive energy legislation or climate change or a range of difficult international situations? How are we going to reach some sort of understanding that we represent one interest in this country, and that ought to be the public interest in the United States of America?

We all work for the same people. Not everything has to be partisan. There is so much rancid partisanship these days. I was with the majority leader when we stood there. I understood what he was saying. He was saying to the minority: Let's get started. If you want amendments, fine, offer amendments. There was nothing but agreement by our majority leader to say to the Republicans, offer some amendments. Give us some amendments you want to offer and then go ahead and offer them.

I am happy to yield.

Madam President, rather than yield for a question, let me yield the floor so the Senator from Vermont can explain his amendment, and then reclaim the floor if there is not a Member of the minority present.

Madam President, as I have indicated previously, the underlying bill on which we are going to have a cloture vote is bipartisan. There were over 50 cosponsors here in the Senate in the last Congress. Republicans and Democrats alike have supported it. We are apparently going to have a cloture vote that some--judging by what one of my colleagues said earlier--will feel they have to vote against. They will vote to stop this bill because they feel their right to amend was obstructed, despite the fact that their right to amend was explicitly agreed to. Working on bad information is not a great way to vote, in my judgment.

Let me make an important point. I indicated earlier this is one of the few pieces of legislation that will be brought to the floor of the Senate that actually reduces the Federal budget deficit by $425 million. That is pretty unbelievable, but there are two other big issues. One is at a time when we are seeing hundreds of thousands of Americans a month losing their jobs, losing their homes, losing hope because we are in a deep recession, at a time when we have all of this unemployment, we should be voting to move forward with a piece of legislation that tries to boost employment by increasing travel to our country by overseas visitors. These visitors are going to spend a substantial amount of money--$4,500 per tourist. And we know we now have 633,000 fewer international tourists coming to America than we did 8 years ago. Why is that the case? The decline in tourism began after the terrible, tragic attack on this country on September 11, 2001. Following that, we obviously decided we wanted to try to keep terrorists out of this country. But we also made it harder for regular tourists. It was harder to get a visa. There were longer lines. Then the Iraq war began and a lot of people were upset with our country for unilateral actions in Iraq, and so on. We have gone through nearly a decade now in which people are traveling around the world more and more often, but they are going to Spain, France, Great Britain, Turkey, India, and Japan--all of which are advertising aggressively internationally to say, come to our country, be a part of our experience. See the beauty of India or Japan or Australia. But our country is not involved in that competition, and we should be, because there is no better place on this Earth. I know I am not objective about that, but to come here is to love this country and to understand the great character and culture that exists here.

This piece of legislation will create jobs and opportunity in this country, but even more important, it will create goodwill all across this world from people who visit here and go home and have a better understanding of what America is about. At a time when we are in a deep recession, do we want to create jobs? I hope so. At a time when we care about what the world thinks about us, do we want to improve our standing in the world? I hope so.

We will have a cloture vote in 3 or 4 minutes. I am told now, some who have cosponsored the bill, even, will probably come down and vote against cloture because they will claim they don't have the right to offer amendments. Well, they surely do. We agreed they could offer their first five amendments last Thursday. It is just that they said we can't offer our amendments because they object, for example, to the Sanders amendment.

We said: You can offer five; we will offer three.

They said: That is fine, except we won't allow you to offer the Sanders amendment. We won't agree to that.

Again, my question: If the Senate has come to the point where it can't agree on tourism, what hope is there for big, controversial, and important issues that we will confront later this year?

My hope is that perhaps some will understand the goodwill with which the majority leader and I and others offered the minority the right to offer the amendments they chose to offer. It was the minority that decided they didn't want to agree. It would be difficult for me to see some of those who were given the ability to offer the amendments come to the floor and vote against a bill they support because they say they weren't given an opportunity to offer amendments. It is pretty hard to square that circle, and my hope is they will understand that before they vote. It will be very nice if perhaps on this one vote, it wouldn't be considered a leadership or a partisan vote and it wouldn't be based on misinformation, but instead we decided that this is about tourism, it is about promoting jobs and economic opportunity in our country, and it is about boosting the reputation of this country around the world by having people visit the United States and understanding the full breadth of what the American experience is about.

I yield the floor, and I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

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

Madam President, if the Senator will yield for a question.

Last Thursday, the majority leader and I stood in that aisle. The question was going to be, under what conditions would this Travel Promotion Act come to the floor of the Senate? We said: You know what, tell us what amendments you need. Tell us which amendment you wish to offer and we will give you some. So it ended up five amendments on their side, three on ours, as a start. It was not going to be a limit, but we were going to start with five and three. They showed us their five. None had anything to do with this bill. We said: Fine, you can offer those five, no problem. They were all about TARP, troubled assets and so on. We said fine. Then we showed them the three to be offered on this side, and they looked at three of them and said this one we will not allow to be offered. All of a sudden, the minority was deciding they could offer all of theirs, but they will not allow the majority to offer one amendment that deals with the issue of the price of gasoline.

The result was we now had a vote against cloture on an issue dealing with travel promotion on a piece of legislation that raises $500 million and reduces the deficit $500 million in 10 years. It is pretty unbelievable to me. I asked the question earlier today, if we can't agree on a piece of legislation that in the last Congress was supported by over 50 Senators, Republicans and Democrats, dealing with promotion of tourism and creating jobs and promoting this country's economic interests by asking international tourists to come to this country, you are welcome to come and see America and understand what America is about--if we cannot agree on that, how on Earth will we agree to get amendments on energy, health care, climate change, and so on? It is so disappointing.

Madam President, let me make one additional point. Unfortunately, too much of politics these days is there is my team and your team. On this kind of legislation I would have thought this was about our team, all of us working together on a bill that Republicans and Democrats had cosponsored, on a bill that is actually going to reduce the Federal budget deficit by a half billion dollars and on a bill that, at a time when we are in deep recession, promotes tourists to come to this country, who would, on average, spend $4,500 in this country to create new jobs.

We have a substantial number, hundreds of thousands--633,000 fewer visitors to the United States from overseas than we had in the year 2000. Think of that, 633,000 fewer people visited this country from overseas than did in the year 2000. Every other country is experiencing a very substantial increase: France, England, Italy, Yugoslavia--not Yugoslavia, again, I made the mistake--it is Turkey and Japan and India, so many other countries--Kosovo; they are all advertising, all pushing for international tourism, to come to their country because they know it creates jobs and, more importantly, they understand when you go there you leave those countries with a good impression.

If ever there were a time when we need people to come to this country and leave with an understanding of culture and character of this country and at the same time create jobs in this country by buying gas, renting hotel rooms, buying airplanes seats, going to the tourist attractions, and understanding about America, it is now.

My hope is, in the next day or so, we might be able to find a way to bring those who voted against cloture to understand we have said, you know what, if you want to offer amendments, offer amendments. There is no obstruction anyplace.

One of our colleagues came to the floor and said: I am voting against cloture because I was obstructed from offering my amendment, and that was a colleague who had an amendment on a list we said explicitly yes to. How does one reconcile statements that are not accurate? My hope is maybe we can find agreement in the next day or two.

Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 2:15 p.m. in room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing to examine S. 797, the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2009.

Those wishing additional information may contact the Indian Affairs Committee at 202-224-2251.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for as much time as I may consume.

Mr. President, the business of the Senate, now that we have had the final vote on the supplemental here in the Senate, will be the Travel Promotion Act. That is a piece of legislation that is widely bipartisan. We have passed it by unanimous consent through the Senate Commerce Committee and brought it to the floor of the Senate with very substantial Republican and Democratic support. I am an original author of the legislation called the Travel Promotion Act, but a good many Republicans are cosponsors and colleagues on the Democratic side are as well. It should not be controversial. Yet getting that bill to the floor of the Senate required the filing of a cloture motion, which means, just on the motion to proceed, we had to wait 2 days and then have a vote on whether we could actually proceed to the motion to proceed to the legislation itself. That passed, I believe, 90 to 6. Then we had 30 hours postcloture.

We have been in a waiting position to try to determine can we get to this bill. Let me make the point that this is a piece of legislation that is almost unique, in the sense that, No. 1, it is very bipartisan and, No. 2, the Congressional Budget Office says it is going to reduce the Federal budget deficit.

Let me say that again. The Congressional Budget Office says this legislation will actually reduce the Federal budget deficit by very close to $500 million over 10 years. There ought not be substantial controversy about this legislation.

What we are working on and have been working on for some hours is to try to determine how we get, now, on the bill and agree on amendments. We have had lists back and forth of what amendments might or might not be offered. We have not been able at this point to agree on the list. We are not asking for a finite list, just a list on how to begin. There have been so many amendments that have been proposed that have nothing at all to do with the legislation, so we are working back and forth. It appears we are not going to be able to reach agreement on a list of how we begin with these amendments this evening, but my hope remains that perhaps tomorrow we will be able to have some kind of agreement on a list that would allow us to proceed to the Travel Promotion Act.

Let me mention briefly that this legislation is not controversial. Travel promotion means that our country would begin to address a problem. What is that problem? The fact is, we have many fewer visitors from abroad to this country, in terms of international tourism, which is very job creating, strongly supportive of economic growth because international tourists spend a lot of money. On average I believe they spend somewhere around $4,500 per trip when they come to this country, for hotels and car rentals and airplanes and tourist attractions and so on. It is very job creating.

The fact is, we have far fewer tourists coming to this country from abroad than we had in the year 2000. That is a very serious problem; we have fallen substantially behind other countries that are aggressively marketing their countries for destination by international travelers. Italy, France, Great Britain, Spain, Australia--the list goes on and on of countries that say come to our country, travel here, visit here, be part of the experience in our country. Our country is not involved in that. It is as if there is a competition and we are not competing.

We put together a piece of legislation that would create and promote international destination travel to our country because it will surely create jobs and certainly be beneficial to our economy. As I said, it has wide support throughout the industry, throughout this Chamber, with Republicans and Democrats, and it actually reduces the Federal budget deficit. It is pretty hard to find a piece of legislation such as that.

Despite all that broad support and the fact it passed out of the Commerce Committee unanimously, we are having trouble getting it to the floor in a way that has amendments offered and in the regular order we consider this legislation.

As of tonight we are not able to reach an agreement on a list, but I remain hopeful. As we continue to exchange and have discussions about beginning this process and agreeing to amendments that can be debated, my hope remains that perhaps tomorrow we will be able to agree to such a list.

I believe others will have additional comments tomorrow as these discussions continue. My hope is we will be successful.

I have a number of unanimous consent requests I wish to offer.

I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 79, S. Res. 153.

I ask the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 81, S. Con. Res. 23.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 192, which was introduced earlier today.

I further ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the measure be printed in the Record.

I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes

its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow, Friday, June 19; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and there be a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, there will be no rollcall votes during tomorrow's session of the Senate.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.