Floor Statements

Madam President, the main reason I wanted to come to the floor today is another resolution we hope we will be able to get passed before we leave having to do with Darfur. I have had the habit of bringing attention to situations and conflicts in places around the world that get little attention. However, in the case of Darfur, it has had all the attention. When people ask, what are the problems with Africa, they always talk about Darfur. So while they have received all of the attention, there hasn't been any kind of action that has followed. It is distressing that the situation in Darfur has received so much press and generated so much attention, with documentaries and advocacy campaigns and waves of public support, but it has not spurred the international community to more action.

We have been saddened and horrified at the pictures we have seen and the stories we have heard about the genocide in Darfur that has unfolded since 2003. At least 300,000 people have died, and 2\1/2\ million have been forced from their homes at the hands of violent militias called the jingaweit who have been encouraged and supported by the Khartoum Government, President Bashir. One of the things that is interesting about this is, we recall the tragic genocide that took place in the middle 1990s in Rwanda. People are now aware of that and wondering why we couldn't have done something about it earlier to prevent it. They have now killed about a third the number of people of the genocide that took place in Rwanda, and President Kagame is doing such a great job there. But where were we when we could have helped President Kagame and prevented the genocide from taking place?

It is now up to a third that many in Darfur. So we can do something and do something now to avoid it. Last week we received news that Sudan's central government is launching land and air attacks in Darfur, with many dead and injured. Last month, in August, the Sudanese military and police opened fire on Darfur refugee camps, killing 31 people and injuring a lot of others. The United Nations/African Union hybrid peacekeeping force assessed the incident and concluded that Sudan used an excessive, disproportionate use of lethal force. For the United Nations to come up with that, it has to be bad. They also concluded that the refugees were only carrying sticks and knives and spears while the Sudanese forces were armed with guns. Khartoum insisted that they were searching the camp for drugs and weapons.

In July, The Hague, the International Criminal Court, began the process of indicting President Bashir on 10 charges, including three counts of genocide, five crimes against humanity, two of murder, and masterminding the campaign to annihilate the tribes in Darfur. A senior U.S. official said recently that he expects the ICC, the International Criminal Court, to issue an arrest warrant in the next month--long overdue, I might add. Bashir, who no doubt is beginning to feel the political ground shifting beneath him, continues to resort to more intimidation and violence. One major factor in the ongoing violence in Darfur can be traced to the continued violations of the U.N. arms embargo on Sudan. China is Khartoum's major source of weapons used in Darfur. China has embarked on a new form of colonialism in Africa, grabbing as many natural resources as it possibly can while disregarding the effect on the people. I wish more Members were familiar with Africa and the history of Africa. There are so many books written about that, one of them addressing the Belgium situation there in the early years. They came in, raped the country, took all the natural resources, and left the people there to die. We should be aware that that is exactly what China is doing right now.

Beijing has declared 2006 the year of Africa. It shows no signs of slowing

down in spreading its influence to claim resources. Currently, China's national petroleum company is pumping roughly 500,000 barrels a day from wells in southern Sudan. Keep in mind, China is our biggest competitor for oil and gas around the world. Obviously, we are dependent upon foreign countries, many of them not too friendly to us, for our ability to even fight a war. That is another issue and one we will address. But China is right in the middle of this one, making it more difficult for us. In order to assure continued access to the oil, China has provided weapons to Khartoum and taken a very passive stance toward the government's brutal treatment of the people of Darfur.

Last year Amnesty International reported that both China and Russia had broken the arms embargo by supplying Sudan with attack helicopters, bombers, and weapons. On July 12, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported they had evidence that the Chinese Government provided training and equipment to Bashir's government. In February, the report said that China was training pilots to fly Chinese Fantan aircraft jets on missions from the airfield in southern Darfur. This is a direct violation of the U.N. arms embargo which covers training, not just the supply of weapons, equipment, and military vehicles. The BBC also investigated weapons that China sold to Sudan in 2005 and found postembargoed trucks that carried antiaircraft guns. This news, although not a surprise, comes at a time when Khartoum is using force against refugees with the very planes and weapons that China is supplying.

China is not the only problem there. Russia is actually a problem also. Russia is to blame for violating the arms embargo. During the last couple of weeks of attacks, Darfur rebels stated that the government used four helicopter gunships and two Russian-made Antonov airplanes. Russia's continued disregard for crimes perpetrated by the Khartoum Government in Darfur and the selling of arms to carry out such violence against the people of Darfur is inexcusable and needs to be stopped immediately.

I hasten to say there are many other problems I have come to the floor and talked about over the last 12 years in Africa. Darfur is one that has captivated everyone's attention. But I assure my colleagues, there are problems in other areas. Right now, as we all know, China is currently Zimbabwe's largest investor and President Mugabe has destroyed the economy in Zimbabwe. We can all remember when they were considered to be the breadbasket of all of Africa. It is amazing that Zimbabwe is able to buy military articles such as their recent purchase from China that included $240 million in fighter jets, in light of their dying economy. When I say ``dying economy,'' they don't even talk anymore about the value of their currency because their currency has no value. So the only ones eating in Zimbabwe, the area that used to be the breadbasket of all of Africa, are the ones who are subsistence farmers, able to grow what they and their families can eat.

In 2005, I gave a series of speeches detailing why I believe China to be a threat to our national security. From what we have talked about today, we know China is also a threat to other countries' national security. I challenge my African friends to be wary of current and future Chinese involvement in their countries. It seems that much of the power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe has been reached with Mugabe remaining as President and opposition leader Tsvangirai taking over the day-to-day running of the Government as Prime Minister. I hope it works out, but I am not optimistic that it will.

We have a problem there. We have a country that had been the breadbasket of sub-Saharan Africa and is now unable to provide anything.

As to other threats in Africa, I have been quite distressed for some time that as we get the squeeze in the Middle East and al-Qaida and the various terrorist elements down through the Horn of Africa, but we have finally made a good decision in this country to assist Africa in building five African brigades, located north, south, east, west, and central. This is going to be necessary for them to take care of the problems. As to other problems in Africa, it has been 30 years now since western Sahara was kicked out of their homeland, and they have been out in the desolate areas now for more than 30 years. It is shocking to me that we don't do anything to help them get repatriated and sent back to their proper areas.

In northern Uganda, on several of my trips there, I have become familiar with what President Museveni has been trying to do for a long period. Frankly, President Museveni has been doing a great job. He was a warrior before he became President of Uganda. But the problem in Uganda is every bit as bad as it is in Darfur, and it is a problem everybody knows about, though it is totally different. We have a guy up there named Joseph Kony, who heads the Lord's Resistance Army. You have heard about the Children's Army and how he goes and trains these little kids, these little boys who are 12 to 13 and 14 years old, how to use automatic weapons. They have to go back to their villages and murder both their parents and all of their family. If they do not do it, they mutilate them. They cut their ears off.

I have been up in the northen part of Uganda and have been able to see it. What have we been able to do about that? Very little. He is still loose. Just recently they put him on the list of global terrorists for the United States, but that did not really resolve anything major. So we have that problem. And we have Joseph Kony, who is still to this day killing and mutilating little kids.

I guess I am a little sensitive to that. We had a great experience in my family. We found a little girl in Ethiopia when she was 3 days old, and her health was not very good. As we might expect in Addis Ababa, in Ethiopia, there is a great need for nurseries and health care for kids, but the health care just isn't there.

I remember looking at this little girl. As the weeks went by and she started developing--escaping death time and time again--she finally grew up and she became a very attractive little girl. I have said on this Senate floor several times that my wife and I have been married 49 years, and we have 20 kids and grandkids. Well, this little girl shown in this picture is one of them now because my daughter Molly, who had nothing but boys, wanted to have a girl, so she adopted this little girl, Zegita Marie, and she has turned out to be an outstanding little girl.

So there are these problems. One of the problems with adopting in Africa is that culturally some countries do not approve of adopting. They think the village should be able to take care of the children who become orphans. The problem with that is, with such things that are taking place right now in Darfur, with such things that have taken place in Rwanda, the villages cannot absorb the killing and mutilating of a million people in a short period of time. That is what has happened in Rwanda.

So I am glad several Members of this body, including Mary Landrieu from Louisiana, have been interested in helping with the adoption of some of these kids so that other children like my little granddaughter are not left there to die in a country in sub-Sahara Africa but can find a loving family.

Anyway, right now, the subject is Darfur. The subject is Darfur because what is going on there right now is kind of in the early stages of what we witnessed taking place in Rwanda. That genocide can be stopped, and it can only be stopped by us along with anyone else in the international community who cares enough to save lives in sub-Sahara Africa. Certainly, the southern part of Darfur is a crisis right now that needs to be dealt with.

So I would ask my colleagues to join Senator Bill Nelson of Florida and me in asking for the adoption of a resolution that should take place today. It is one that is going to establish a specific position for the United States of America. The resolution is S. Res. 660, which we have submitted this week. It condemns the ongoing sales of arms to belligerents in Sudan and calls for both an end to such sales and an expansion of the U.N. embargo on arms sales to Sudan.

As Russia and China provide Khartoum with more weapons and materials, they continue to fuel the conflict and violence and drive a peaceful solution further away from reality.

Countries that want to do business in Africa, or anywhere for that matter, must be held accountable for their behavior. One of the things I have observed in Africa, no matter what country you go into--if it is an oil-rich country--anything that is new and shiny, whether it is a bridge, whether it is a colosseum, a sports arena, it is always built by China. So they have the inside track, and it is going to be up to us to join together to stop that type of mutilation of the population in countries such as northern Uganda and the Sudan.

So I urge the adoption of this resolution today and hope it will become a reality so we have a new position for the United States of America to save little girls like this one in countries that are involved in genocide.

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

Mr. President, I rise to honor two great Oklahomans, Rick and Kathy Clarke, who are in Washington, DC, for the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute's annual Angels in Adoption Gala. I was pleased to select Rick and Kathy as 2008 Angels in Adoption because of their great commitment to adoption at both a personal and professional level.

When Rick Clarke served for 5 years as a judge in juvenile court, working with abused and neglected children every day, both he and his wife, Kathy, formed a desire to help children who are most in need-- those without families. Today, Rick dedicates part of law practice to adoption cases. He serves as a volunteer attorney through Tulsa Lawyers for Children, as a guardian ad litem through court appointments, and is on the board of Heritage Family Services, a Tulsa-based adoption agency. Kathy has served as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for children. She also currently works on special education issues and is a member of the PTA.

However, it is this family's personal story that sets it apart. The Clarkes have personally participated in the adoption process for 13 years and have adopted nine children. Throughout these years, the Clarke family has faced tragedies, hardships, and obstacles. Yet they continue to grow as a family, both in number and in character.

The Clarke's first adopted child was a 3-year-old boy from Oklahoma. The next two young children joined the family from Russia after being diagnosed with medical complications. The Clarkes later adopted three unrelated girls--aged 15, 13, and 8--through Oklahoma Department of Human Services. Lastly, they provided homes to two sisters from Liberia and an older boy from Ethiopia.

The faith and perseverance of Rick and Kathy Clarke enables them to overcome the challenges of providing a permanent and loving home to so many children. Remaining steadfast in their dedication and belief that God has a special plan for every child, Rick and Kathy have raised each of their nine children to be productive, healthy, and strong leaders in their schools and communities.

The Clarkes truly represent the blessings and the power of adoption. I am pleased to congratulate Rick and Kathy Clarke, Oklahoma's 2008 Angels in Adoption, and to welcome them to our Nation's Capital for this special honor.

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

Mr. President, we have had two ceremonies today: one at the Pentagon and one on the west steps remembering what happened 7 years ago. I think everyone remembers what they were doing at that time 7 years ago. It happens that was the time I had the State chamber of commerce from my State of Oklahoma in. I was speaking with them. I remember so well being on the ninth floor of the Hart Building where we had a panoramic view. They were looking at me, and I saw all this smoke going up, not having any idea what it was. I actually witnessed what happened at the Pentagon.

Today as we think back, most of us know someone or have a friend who was killed on that fateful day in the greatest, most significant raid on our land in our country's history. Seven years later, we continue to fight for the oppressed and, more importantly, help the oppressed to fight for themselves. With our coalition of partners and allies, we continue to take the fight to the enemy of our place of choosing, keeping them there instead of here.

I had the privilege--and it really has been a privilege--to be in the area where the terrorists were, I think, more than any other Member. I have made some 18 trips, maybe more than that, to Africa, the Horn of Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan, and that area. We have taken away al-Qaida's base of operations, freedom of movement, forcing them into the no-man's land between Pakistan and Afghanistan. We have trained the Afghan National Army as they have grown to 65,000 troops. I am proud of this accomplishment. It was Oklahoma's 45th in charge of training the Afghan Army. I was over there, and I saw the pride in the faces of the Afghans as they were learning to defend themselves, learning to fight, learning to fight with dignity. We have trained the Afghan National Army as they have grown to 65,000 troops, and they are on track to meet their mandated strength of 82,000 by 2009.

We have defeated the Taliban in every encounter and have killed or captured over 60 of their senior leaders. We helped Afghanistan rebuild its infrastructure with over 1,000 bridges and 10,000 kilometers of roads. There are now more Afghan children in school than at any other time in history.

That is something we seem to forget, turning to Iraq, what is happening right now and the impact this is having in the Middle East where for the first time in the history of that country there are women going to school. They have been liberated from a tyrannical leader.

I was honored back in 1991 to be on what was called the first freedom flight. It was Democrats and Republicans. Tony Coelho was there and several others. But also the Ambassador from Kuwait to the United States was there. This was in 1991 at the end of the first gulf war. It was so close to the end of it that Iraq did not know it was over yet. They were still burning the fields off.

The Ambassador and his daughter--he had a 7- or 8-year-old daughter-- wanted to see what their mansion on the Persian Gulf looked like because they had not seen it during the war. When we got there, we found it was used by Saddam Hussein for one of his headquarters. The little girl wanted to go to her bedroom and see her little animals. Saddam Hussein had used that bedroom for a torture chamber. There were body parts there.

During that period after 1991, many of us had the opportunity to look into the open graves, to see what a tyrannical person this was, hear the stories from firsthand observers who said people were begging to be dropped into the vats of acid head first or into the grinders.

Weapons of mass destruction were used on the Kurds up north, and hundreds of thousands of people were killed. The way he killed them with the type of gas, it was like burning yourself up from the inside. People described what the people went through.

Some on this floor and a lot of people on the campaign trail say no terrorists were in Iraq prior to the liberation. Evidence has shown the contrary. I say this because, first of all, if there had never been even a discussion of weapons of mass destruction, just the things that this guy had done to the hundreds of thousands of people was enough justification for going in. We, as a free nation, cannot allow that type of thing to happen.

Now we find, yes, there were terrorist training camps there. Sargat was an international training camp in northeastern Iraq near the Iranian border. It was run by Ansar al-Islam, a known terrorist organization. Based on information from the U.S. Army Special Forces, operators who led the attack on Sargat said it is more than plausible that al-Qaida members trained in that particular area. The Green Berets discovered among the dead in Sargat foreign ID cards, airline ticket receipts, visas, and passports from Yemen, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Morocco, and many other places.

Salman Pak was the name of another city there. That is where we found the fuselage of a 707. That is where they were training people--all the evidence was there--to hijack airlines. That was a terrorist training camp. That is in Iraq.

I don't think we will ever know whether the perpetrators of the tragedy 7 years ago today were trained in Salman Pak. I don't think there is any way of ever knowing that. Certainly, that is what they were doing at that time.

So in the aftermath of September 11 we have worked together to do things to preclude this kind of attack from happening--the PATRIOT Act, we created the Department of Homeland Security, the position of Director of National Intelligence to try to coordinate.

One of the things I remember when I came to the Senate from the House in 1994 is my predecessor was David Boren who happened to have been the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He said: I am hoping you may be able to do something I have never been able to do, and that is to get all these competing intelligence agencies--such as DIA and others--to work together. That wasn't happening until 9/11. That shock treatment is what it took to get people to work together. In doing so, we know many potential attacks on our country have been prevented.

When we look at what we are commemorating today and the people we know, the loved ones we lost, we recognize we have done some things we should have done before probably. Those of us who have traveled to Israel know they live from day to day not knowing if, when they are sitting in a coffee shop, it is going to blow up or when getting on a bus there are going to be bombs going off. They have learned to live with it. We now have

learned the lesson of 7 years ago. We have taken precautions. We have prevented attacks from happening. We have evidence of all kinds of things--water systems that were going to be contaminated--and we think of the tragedy of 7 years ago today.

If we look at the potential tragedy of an incoming missile hitting a major city in America, we would be looking at maybe 300,000 people. That is what it is all about now: making sure nothing of this dimension or anything else will happen again.

This is a very special day, and it is one that is very meaningful to most of us--I think to all Americans. One thing we can do is remember, remember that terrorists are still out there. I was asked on a radio show this morning: There are so many people out there saying, why don't you just forget this thing? That was 7 years ago. Why keep bringing it up? Why keep stirring it up? Why can't we get beyond that?

My response was we cannot do that because of what happened to so many people. But more importantly than that is this is a constant reminder. Every year we need to be reminded that there are terrorists still out there. They hate everybody who is in this building, and they hate this building. You think about what could have happened 7 years ago if those very brave people in Pennsylvania hadn't stopped what was happening. This dome, most likely, would not be here. It was an easy target. That is the reminder.

The terrorists are still out there. They still want to kill us. They are still cowards. They still have no country and they have no cause, except to destroy us. So this reminder is here today, and I just, at this time, want to pay homage once again to the families of all those who lost their loved ones in the tragedy that took place.

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

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

Mr. President, I regret that we had hearings all morning in the Environment and Public Works Committee on another crisis; that is, we are going to have to do something about the trust fund to get it jarred loose before we can get out of here. There is going to be a serious problem in the Nation's infrastructure, and it was necessary that I be there. However, I regret that I missed the discussion of the Vitter amendment.

Many members of the Armed Services Committee are very concerned about the ability of the missile defense system. Some of us have been around long enough to remember back in the Reagan administration when this whole thing started. At that time, there was an attempt to denigrate the threat that was out there, calling it Star Wars and other things. But, in fact, the problem was very real. It took a lot of vision. That administration set about to give us the capability that we would need, when the need was there. We were pretty much on course.

Missiles have become a key component to the militaries of many countries now that were not a problem back at that time. Our enemies are advancing their ability to reach out and hit us, our allies, and our forward-deployed forces in a devastating way. We have a different threat now than we had at one time. People are now aware of it.

I can recall that I disagreed with President Clinton when he took a lot of the money out of the national missile defense system. I think it was the 1996 Defense authorization bill he vetoed. The veto message said that we are spending too much money on a threat that is not out there for the foreseeable period. Now I think we realize this problem is there.

This is a complicated subject. One of the problems we have--and I have this with a lot of my conservative friends--

is that people will look at it and say: We don't need to have all this redundancy in a missile defense system. Right now, we are talking about the boost phase, the midcourse phase, and the terminal defense segment. In these areas, we need to have at least two capabilities such as the airborne laser and the kinetic energy booster in the boost defense segment. So people who say that perhaps we don't have that need and that it is redundant don't think of the consequences.

As tragic as 9/11 was, I am sure all of us have thought about what could have happened or what could have been or might have been prevented as a result of the increase in some of our collection systems to prevent a missile from coming in. We know countries have missiles. They have weapons of mass destruction, and they have delivery systems. The combination is varied. We are talking about potentially hundreds of thousands of people or millions of people who could be killed. There are a lot of areas where the midcourse defense segment was the only one that would be effective in knocking down an incoming missile. We are working hard now on the terminal defense segment.

I applaud the Missile Defense Agency and the work they have been doing because they have been able to analyze this and see where the threat is, why it should be dealt with. When they developed a budget, they put the amount of money in there they thought was necessary to keep on course to get us to the point where we would be able to adequately defend America against an incoming missile. I think they have done that.

We took some 400, I believe, out of that amount, and the Vitter amendment is trying to reinstate that. In 1993, the Clinton administration cut $2.5 billion from the Bush missile defense budget request for fiscal year 1994; terminated the Reagan-Bush Strategic Defense Initiative program; downgraded national missile defense to a research and development program only; cut 5-year missile defense funding by 54 percent from $39 billion to $18 billion; and reaffirmed a commitment to the ABM Treaty, saying any defense must be ``treaty- compliant.''

A lot of people honestly in their hearts--and I respect them for having a different opinion than mine--think that the answer is not in missile defense system but in arms control. This is what we went through during the middle 1990s. But we have reached a level of sophistication now where we have watched our tests become successful. People used to ridicule those of us who were for this program a long time ago: You will never be able to hit a bullet with a bullet. But we have done it now. So the technology has come along. To not stay on track is something that would be devastating.

Right now, we are looking at countries such as North Korea and Iran developing ballistic missile capabilities and delivery systems. There should not be any doubt that these countries would actually use them. The only way to deter that is to have a defense system.

I think it is wise for us--and I think all of America agrees that the threats are out there; we need to have the capability of deterring when it comes in--that we do what is necessary to meet that test. We have relied upon the experts in the Missile Defense Agency and those of us who have studied this to determine what it should cost. Making a mistake here is not like making a mistake in some other area. If we make a mistake here and are incapable of knocking down something that is coming into a populated area, that is a disaster that is beyond description. As tragic as 9/11 was, multiply that by 100 or whatever it might be in the case that we don't stay on course.

So what I would encourage us to do is to go ahead and adopt the Vitter amendment. What he has done is said: Take it from other areas. It will be covered. But this shows that there should be that priority. I believe that priority is certainly justified.

As we follow through what has happened over the past few years, what happened in 1998 when they opposed and helped kill the legislation that called for the deployment as soon as technologically possible--we remember that well. Those of us on the Armed Services Committee have watched that moving target as time has gone by. But that is really the key, to be sure we have a national missile defense system deployed as soon as technologically possible because we know what other countries are doing. We know people are trading technology. We know that China is trading technology, that North Korea is trading technology, and countries such as Iran are rapidly gaining this capability. Our enemies out there don't like America. This is the most defensive program we should have in defending my 20 kids and grandkids and all of America.

I strongly encourage in this process that we reinstate the amount of money that the experts say is necessary to stay on course to defend America.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, right now the pending business, as I understand it, is the Bill Nelson amendment, is that correct?

Let me first compliment Senator Nelson for bringing this up. This has been something we have been wrestling with now for more than 8 years and we are finally going to have an opportunity to make it happen. It is a long overdue fix in the Survivor Benefit Plan and I am honored to be a cosponsor of this amendment. It clearly states that a surviving spouse and dependents of our veterans should receive the full value of the SBP and the Dependency and Indemnity Compensation--DIC-- without an offset.

Here is what the problem has been in the past. They would receive one or the other, but the other would be offset against it so our surviving spouses would not have the full benefit. Let's look at what it is. They have distinct purposes. The DIC, the Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, is tax free and it compensates for a service-connected death and the resulting economic loss. That is what that stands for.

The SBP, the Survivor Benefit Plan, is more like a life insurance policy. Survivors are qualified for SBP only because their spouses bought it with monthly premiums.

It is time we gave back these benefits to families of those who have served bravely in the defense of our Nation. I think it is an insult to their honor and their memory to do anything else.

Many of us have fought for years to ensure the SBP pays survivors as it was intended. I, along with 38 colleagues, sponsored the SBP Benefits Improvement Act of 2001. We are talking about quite a number of years ago. It amended the Federal provisions concerning the Military Survivor Benefit Plan to adjust the basic annuity amount for surviving spouses of former military personnel and adjust similarly the authorized percentage amounts of SBP supplemental annuity authorized for such spouses.

Again, I cosponsored, with 45 colleagues, the Military Survivor Benefits Improvement Act of 2003 to accomplish the same thing.

We have worked diligently to change the laws covering the concurrent receipt and have been successful. This legislation is the logical expansion of the same principle, acknowledging that the surviving spouses and dependents should not be left behind. Every year for the last 3 years we voted to include this legislation in our version of the National Defense Authorization Act. We have the authorization bill--I should say the reauthorization bill--every year. We put it in. Then, somehow, in conference it comes out.

As the Chair knows, we cannot discuss what happens in conference other than we know the results. The results were this was something we wanted to do, we had it in, it came out. In 2006, 2007, and 2008, we agreed to repeal this SBP/DIC offset and every year it has been dropped by the conference committee.

Again, that is something nobody knows why. I, frankly, do not know why and I am on the conference. With this amendment we rectify a longstanding injustice to widows and dependents whose spouses or parent died, of a military service-related cause, who are sacrificing a dollar of the DOD Survivor Benefit Plan for every dollar of the VA Dependency and Indemnity Compensation they receive.

Finally, after all these years it is going to become a reality. I applaud the Senator from Florida, Mr. Nelson, for bringing it up. I encourage everyone to agree to this amendment. I think it will be agreed to because it has had favorable treatment from our defense committee, our Armed Services Committee, for a number of years now.

With that, I yield the floor.

That is correct. I say to the Senator from Virginia, we have been working on this, you and I together, along with several other Senators on both sides of the aisle, for 8 years now that I know of. This should be the day that we come to the happy conclusion and make sure it does happen.

I wonder why things that are so right are so long in coming. He and I both know, after the years we have served, it is not all that easy sometimes. I thank the Senator for all of his support for the survivor benefits and all the things we have done since--actually prior to 2001.

I thank the Senator from Virginia.

Madam President, first of all, let me thank the distinguished ranking member for the fine work he is doing on the Defense authorization bill. We have to get this done at a later time because there will not be time.

Right now I would like to address some of the comments that were made in the last few minutes about what some people misinterpret as not a successful operation in Iraq. I think it is amazing that you can be successful, all of our troops over there bathe in the success we have had in Iraq and still refer to it as an invasion instead of a liberation. Later on I will address those remarks.

Right now it is my understanding--I would ask if it is accurate--that the chairman and myself, the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, will be involved in about either 1 hour or 90 minutes equally divided, I would ask the Chair. This is on the highway trust fund fix.

I don't object, Mr. President, but I would also like to be included in that particular order just given.

Mr. President, we do not have a UC on the majority side, but we do on the minority side. So our next speakers will be in the order of 10 minutes for Senator Gregg, 10 minutes for Senator Coburn, and then I will wind up the final 10 minutes.

Mr. President, seeing no one on the other side of the aisle, I yield to the junior Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Coburn, for 10 minutes.

Mr. President, let me conclude on our side and then, hopefully, we are going to go to Senator Murray after that and then to a voice vote. Where we are right now is, last Friday I was notified by the Department of Transportation that the highway trust fund would run out of money sometime in the next 2 weeks. As recently as this summer, DOT said it was going to be all right for another year. We understand. A lot of people don't understand this.

The Federal gas tax is not a percentage, it is a centage. That means for every increase that we have in the price of gas, the revenues go down. Consequently, they have gone down in such a way that could not have been anticipated at the time. That, combined with the busy construction season, caused the trust fund's balance to go from $4.2 billion at the end of July to less than $1.4 billion in the beginning of September.

In my State of Oklahoma, our director is Gary Ridley, who I believe is the best director in the United States of America. He was forced to take dramatic action--and I think prudent action--when he said we would have to cut by $80 million the projects in August that were postponed.

Here is what we are up against. These are projects that have already been bid, people have been hired, the shovels are in their hands ready to do something, and all of a sudden they have to stop doing it which creates all kinds of problems.

Furthermore, at the point the trust fund officially runs out of money--which will be within the next 8 days unless we do what we are doing today, which I am confident we will--work on countless projects currently under construction will be halted. In other words, projects already under construction will be stopped.

The uncertainty over the Federal Government's ability to make good on financial promises made in law is forcing States to substantially disrupt their highway programs. It is a lot more serious than just stopping programs because if you stop programs, you are breaching contracts. You will have lawsuits and penalties that will come in and end up costing a lot more money. This is why we say what we are facing is, indeed, a crisis.

Once a project is canceled or delayed and jobs are lost, it is not as simple to restart the project, as there will be penalties to the States and, in many cases, a new contracting process.

Despite the arguments to the contrary, in my opinion, H.R. 6532 is not a raid on the general fund. In fact, the opposite is true. Let me go over this point to be sure we all understand.

I do not find disagreement with anything my three Republican colleagues said here. They are talking about a lot of things that had very little to do with this bill. I certainly agree with my junior Senator in his discussion about the United Nations, about the Social Security trust fund problems, and spending in general. What happened here--and I was mistaken not too long ago. I said it was the 1998 Balanced Budget Act. It was not that. It was actually in TEA-21. Nonetheless, back in 1998, they took $8 billion out of the trust fund and put it into the general fund. That is critical, we understand, because this is a moral issue. Probably the most popular tax in America today is the tax we have on our highways because people know when they buy a gallon of gas, that money is going to go to repairing highways, bridges and overpasses and make them safer for everyone in America. That is fine, but when they find out we have raided that trust fund and have taken $8 billion out and put it into the general fund, that is morally wrong.

I argued since that time--I can remember being on the floor 10 years ago, in 1998, saying this is wrong, we shouldn't be doing it. I have been trying to rectify that problem since 1998.

We are in a position where we can look at it this way: that we are rectifying something that should not have happened 10 years ago. We are giving back the $8 billion to the trust fund. That is not fiscally irresponsible. I think it is the right thing to do.

While I agree with my colleagues the highway program has grown to include things that are not in the Federal interest and doing nothing to save lives or reduce congestion or relieve the problems of transportation, which is a crisis in America, these issues are more appropriately dealt with in the national highway reauthorization bill for 2009.

I plan to play a very important, significant role. I will continue to be one of the big four, as Senator Boxer referred to it, during that time. I have felt for a long time--and I agree with my junior Senator-- that there are a lot of items that should not be in a Transportation reauthorization bill. Over the years, more and more projects have crept in.

It is interesting that Senator Boxer, who is considered one of the most liberal Members of this body, and myself, who has been ranked recently as the most conservative Member of this body, agree in this area. While I am conservative, I have said I am a big spender in two areas. One is national defense and the other is infrastructure. That is what Government is supposed to be doing.

Talk to anyone, and they will tell you it is a crisis out there with our bridges. Oklahoma is dead last in the condition of our bridges. They don't realize it, but we are No. 3 from the top in terms of number of bridges, only exceeded by Texas and California. Yet we are a relatively small State. So we have this problem. We have to deal with it, and Government has to do it.

When the Federal highway system was chartered back in 1953 during the Eisenhower administration, I believe, we have been doing highways and funding them the same way since that time. Up until about 7 or 8 years ago, we always enjoyed a surplus in the highway trust fund. That is why people

are always targeting it, saying there is a surplus there, let's throw in the bike trails, let's throw in all these other projects about which Senator Coburn was talking. I agree with him they should not have been there.

One of the ways we are going to meet this crisis--and I am going to try to do it--is to make sure everything we do is directly related to safety on the highways and safety in transportation. Intermodal, sure, we have to consider we have channels, we have barge traffic, we have trains, we have all these things that are important. But we do have a serious problem, and anyone who doesn't think we have a serious problem in transportation in America has not been out driving around.

I don't argue with those who feel this process is not right. I don't like this process. I was hoping we would be all right when we passed the 2005 Transportation reauthorization bill. I was elated. I knew we were going to be in good shape on that bill. All these things happen, but when they happen, we have to correct it. You can't say this is the wrong way to do it. I have to do it and whatever way is right. That is my opinion. Maybe I am in the minority, but when we are defending America and working on infrastructure, Government has to perform.

I would only say I do not disagree with my colleagues who do not like the way this happened. I don't like the way it happened either. I wish it did not happen that way. I can tell you we are going to have to do something. I don't agree this is a bailout. I don't call it a bailout. I think it is one of the two prime responsibilities of Government, and we are going to have to do it. What we are doing now is not enough.

Let me speak to my colleagues who have complaints about what is in a highway reauthorization bill. When the 2009 reauthorization bill takes over from the 2005 bill, I will expend as much energy as I can to keep on the track of safety and moving America and not all these other things special interest people want. I think those things are fine, but they should stand on their own two feet. I believe we have the opportunity now to get this done.

While I don't like the way it happened, I can tell you it had to happen. We cannot stop construction in America at a time that is already a crisis. In the absence of passing this bill today, that is exactly what will happen.

I encourage everyone to vote for it. I hope we are going to be able to do it on a voice vote. I understand other speakers wish to be heard. I will go ahead and set an example and yield back the remainder of our time on this side, hoping we can get to the vote.

Mr. President, I was pleased to join Senator Lautenberg yesterday in introducing S. 3416, The Federal Aviation Administration Employee Retention Act. I am supporting Senator Lautenberg in his efforts to correct what I believe is a very unfair process imposed upon employees of the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, by Congress.

Essentially, S. 3416 will correct the collective bargaining process Congress established for FAA employees in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 1996--Public Law 104-264--in which we inserted ourselves as arbitrators in labor disputes. Under the 1996 act, if the FAA and the union with whom they are in negotiation can not reach an agreement, then Congress has 60 days to intervene and if we do not, the FAA is able to impose its terms on the employees. Mr. President, this is not fair, it has not worked and it is time that we correct it.

In addition to the widely published dispute between the FAA and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, NATCA, the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, PASS, also have been unable to negotiate a new contract with the FAA. Furthermore, in my State of Oklahoma, there has been an 8-year disagreement between the FAA and the FAA Academy Instructors represented by the Professional Association of Aeronautical Center Employees, PAACE. It is my understanding from PAACE that FAA has basically refused to come to the bargaining table, which has resulted in year to year extensions of an 8-year-old contract. This is not right.

The very reasonable procedure established by S. 3416 will provide both sides in a labor dispute with a means to resolve disagreements by allowing FAA employees the same collective bargaining protections that employees covered under the National Labor Relations Board currently have. The bill provides the option of resolving disputes through the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service or through mutual agreement on an alternative procedure. If no agreement is reached, then matters of disagreements will be presented to the Federal Services Impasses Panel for binding arbitration.

Finally, the bill would require both sides go back to the negotiating table for any ``personnel management system implemented'' by the FAA Administrator on or after July 10, 2005. In

other words, contract negotiations between FAA, NATCA and PASS are restarted with a 45-day deadline. If no agreement is reached, then there is an additional 90 days for binding arbitration.

As a pilot I am well acquainted with the exceptional work done by the employees of the FAA and I know firsthand that our aviation system is only as good as these employees. They deserve the right to bargain in good faith on their employment contracts. This bill will give them that opportunity.

Thank you, Senator Lautenberg, for introducing this bill, and I hope we get an opportunity to debate it very soon.

Mr. President, all of us know what happened at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. We have seen and read about the brave men and women who fought that day. Today, I rise to pay special tribute to one of those men, Kenneth M. Taylor a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general, a fighter pilot, war hero, and, of course, a Sooner.

Seventy years ago, Ken Taylor graduated from high school in Hominy, OK, and entered the University of Oklahoma, as a pre-law student. Like many college students in 1938, he was enjoying life with his fraternity brothers but could not avoid thinking about what was happening in Europe, the South Pacific and Asia. He believed America would be going to war in the next year or two and wanted his first choice should his country go to war. He joined the Army Air Corps in 1940 and graduated from the U.S. Army Air Corps Training Center at Brooks Field near San Antonio, TX, on April 25, 1941. Second Lieutenant Taylor requested to fly fighters and, in June 1941, he was assigned to the 47th Pursuit Squadron at Wheeler Army Airfield in Honolulu, HI.

After arriving at Wheeler Field, Lieutenant Taylor met another pilot, George Welch, from Wilmington, DE, and they became close friends. Taylor and Welch were both assigned to fly the Curtiss P-40B Warhawk, a single-engine, single-seat, fighter and ground attack aircraft. On the ground, they were seen as goof-offs and a nuisance to West Pointers. However, the commander of the 47th Pursuit Squadron, Captain Gordon Austin, said he immediately recognized their extraordinary skills as pilots and made them flight leads.

About 3 a.m. on December 7, Taylor and Welch were just returning from their Saturday evening on the town. Just before 8 a.m., Taylor was awakened by low-flying planes and explosions. He jumped out of bed, quickly put on his tuxedo pants from the night before, and ran into the street to see Japanese planes firing and dropping bombs on the base. He called Haleiwa Auxiliary air field where 18 P-40B fighters were located and, without orders, he told the ground crews to get two P-40 fighters armed and ready for takeoff. Enroute to Haleiwa, Taylor and Welsh were strafed by Japanese aircraft as they made their 10 mile trek to Haleiwa in Taylor's new Buick. At the airstrip, they climbed into their Curtiss P-40B Warhawk fighters and headed towards Barber's Point at the southwest tip of Oahu. Unfortunately, the aircraft only had .30-caliber gunnery practice ammo.

Initially, Taylor and Welsh saw an unarmed group of American B-17 Flying Fortress bombers who were arriving from the mainland but then spotted twelve Japanese torpedo dive bombers near Ewa Mooring Mast Field, a Marine base near Pearl Harbor. Lieutenant Taylor shot down two dive bombers and was able to damage another before running out of ammunition and returned with Welsh to Wheeler Field to rearm with .50- caliber bullets. On the ground at Wheeler, several senior officers climbed up on the wings of their aircraft and told them to disperse their aircraft and do not go up again. Luckily, as Lieutenant Taylor explained later, a second wave of Japanese aircraft flew over and ``the brass'' ran for safety. With fuel and ammo, Taylor and Welsh took to the air again straight into the wave of Japanese aircraft attacking Wheeler Field.

As Taylor headed for a group of Japanese aircraft, he found himself in the middle of a line of Japanese planes. A bullet from a plane behind him came through his canopy about an inch from his head, hit the trim tab, went though his left arm and exploded. One piece of shrapnel went through his left arm and another piece went into his leg, ruining his tux pants. Taylor reflected on the injuries in a 2001 interview, saying ``It was of no consequence; it just scared the hell out of me for a minute.'' A few years after the interview, he received two slugs from his crew chief that had been found behind his seat. Welch saw Taylor's predicament and shot down the plane on his friend's tail, likely saving his life. Both pilots continued their aerial combat until they had chased the Japanese planes off the north shore and again were out of ammunition.

Fourteen different American pilots were able to take off during the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and recorded 10 Japanese aircraft kills. Lieutenant Taylor was credited with two kills and two probables. On December 13, 1941, the U.S. War Department named Lieutenants Taylor and Welsh as the official first two heroes of World War II and both were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross on January 8. When asked about his actions that day, Taylor reflected, ``I wasn't in the least bit terrified, and let me tell you why: I was too young and too stupid to realize that I was in a lot of danger.'' Lieutenant Taylor went on to a record total of six career kills, designating him as a flying ace.

Ken Taylor served for 27 years of active duty before joining the Alaska Air National Guard in 1967. He has commanded at all levels, retiring as a brigadier general in 1971. His Pearl Harbor experience was portrayed in the 1970 film ``Tora! Tora! Tora!'' and the 2001 film ``Pearl Harbor.'' Ken passed away on 25 November 2006 just a few days shy of his 65th birthday. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

I am honored to be able to present this small tribute to an American hero whose leadership and bravery ensured our Nation and its people remain free and strong. We must never forget the sacrifices of those who have gone before us as well as those who are sacrificing today. I offer my sincere thanks and appreciation to Ken Taylor and his family for his service to our great Nation.

Mr. President, a marginal well is defined as one which produces 15 barrels or less of oil per day. Yet, according to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, IOGCC, these marginal wells contribute nearly 18 percent of the oil and 9 percent of the natural gas produced in America.

In fact, marginal wells produced more than 335 million barrels of oil in 2006. That's equivalent to more than 60 percent as much as the United States imports annually from Saudi Arabia or 67 percent as much as the Nation imports annually from Venezuela. In my own State of Oklahoma, it is the small independents, basically mom-and-pop operations, that produce the majority of oil and natural gas, with 85 percent of Oklahoma's oil coming from marginal wells.

In addition to reducing our dependence on foreign oil, a producing well provides both State and Federal taxes, pays royalties to land and mineral owners, and keeps jobs and dollars on American soil and in American pockets. A plugged well provides none of this. On the contrary, the IOGCC reported that in 2006, plugged and abandoned marginal wells resulted in the loss of $1.77 billion in economic output, $369.2 million in earnings reductions, and 8,223 lost jobs.

These statistics testify to the importance of America's marginal well production. With gasoline prices at record highs, Congress must ensure that government policies do not discourage, and instead prolong and enhance, production from these low volume wells.

That is why today I am glad to join with my fellow Oklahoman, Congressman Dan Boren, to introduce the Marginal Well Production Preservation and Enhancement Act. This bill will streamline and clarify government regulations, prolong economic feasibility, and enhance production volumes from marginal wells. Every onshore oil and gas well in the Nation eventually declines into marginal production. The Marginal Well Production Preservation and Enhancement Act ensures that the Nation's policies recognize and reflect the economic importance of marginal well production. It's good for America's small producers, as well as America's consumers.

Mr. President, a marginal well is defined as one which produces 15 barrels or less of oil per day. Yet, according to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, IOGCC, these marginal wells contribute nearly 18 percent of the oil and 9 percent of the natural gas produced in America.

In fact, marginal wells produced more than 335 million barrels of oil in 2006. That's equivalent to more than 60 percent as much as the United States imports annually from Saudi Arabia or 67 percent as much as the Nation imports annually from Venezuela. In my own State of Oklahoma, it is the small independents, basically mom-and-pop operations, that produce the majority of oil and natural gas, with 85 percent of Oklahoma's oil coming from marginal wells.

In addition to reducing our dependence on foreign oil, a producing well provides both State and Federal taxes, pays royalties to land and mineral owners, and keeps jobs and dollars on American soil and in American pockets. A plugged well provides none of this. On the contrary, the IOGCC reported that in 2006, plugged and abandoned marginal wells resulted in the loss of $1.77 billion in economic output, $369.2 million in earnings reductions, and 8,223 lost jobs.

These statistics testify to the importance of America's marginal well production. With gasoline prices at record highs, Congress must ensure that government policies do not discourage, and instead prolong and enhance, production from these low volume wells.

That is why today I am glad to join with my fellow Oklahoman, Congressman Dan Boren, to introduce the Marginal Well Production Preservation and Enhancement Act. This bill will streamline and clarify government regulations, prolong economic feasibility, and enhance production volumes from marginal wells. Every onshore oil and gas well in the Nation eventually declines into marginal production. The Marginal Well Production Preservation and Enhancement Act ensures that the Nation's policies recognize and reflect the economic importance of marginal well production. It's good for America's small producers, as well as America's consumers.

Mr. President, the Senate has been in session all week and held one vote Tuesday and two votes this morning--all procedural votes. We have considered a bill this week concerning the number one issue in America today--the price of energy. Instead of allowing a full debate on the bill and, most importantly, a full opportunity to allow amendments to actually open up supplies and provide Americans with options, the Democratic majority has closed debate and prohibited any opportunity to amend the bill.

Now, the Senate Democratic Majority, after wasting an entire week, is engaged in a stunt to keep the Senate in session this weekend in some false demonstration they are serious about now addressing the issues that concern Americans.

Tomorrow, the Senate is expected to vote on a massive housing package that continues to grow as it has been amended going back and forth between the House and Senate. At this point, this bill proposes raising the national debt limit to $10.6 trillion, an $800 billion increase. The bill continues to contain $3.8 billion in community development block grants to allow government entities to purchase foreclosed houses and creates an affordable housing fund which simply funnels funds to groups like La Raza and ACORN. The legislation allows the FHA to take on up to $300 billion in troubled mortgages into the taxpayer-backed program. In the bill, the value of an eligible loan under the FHA bailout is $550,000. The nationwide average value of a home is roughly $200,000. Someone with a $550,000 mortgage pays approximately $3,300 a month on housing alone, assuming a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at a 6.35 percent interest rate. That comes to $39,600 per year in mortgage payments alone. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, average per capita income in the U.S. for 2007 was $38,600. Therefore, someone with a $550,000 mortgage will be spending around $1,000 more on their house alone than an average American makes in an entire year.

The Congressional Budget Office warned that 35 percent of the loans refinanced through the program will eventually default anyway. It is simply bad policy to put taxpayers on the hook for borrowers who took on more than they could afford and lenders who made bad loans to begin with. It's entirely unacceptable to have the government put taxpayers on the hook for someone who qualified for a loan more than two or three times what the average American can afford. The American taxpayer, and taxpayers in Oklahoma, should not be put in the position where they are ultimately responsible for the irresponsible decisions of others, and they certainly should not be put on the hook for relatively well-off individuals not to mention large companies who made poor financial decisions.

I have previously opposed holding American taxpayers responsible for the decisions of others, and will not attend the vote tomorrow since I would vote ``no'' and request this statement appear in the Record prior to the vote tomorrow morning on the housing message from the House of Representatives.

Mr. President, the Senate has been in session all week and held one vote Tuesday and two votes this morning--all procedural votes. We have considered a bill this week concerning the number one issue in America today--the price of energy. Instead, of allowing a full debate on the bill and, most importantly, a full opportunity to allow amendments to actually open up supplies and provide Americans with options, the Democratic majority has closed debate and prohibited any opportunity to amend the bill.

Now, the Senate Democratic majority, after wasting an entire week, is engaged in a stunt to keep the Senate in session this weekend in some false demonstration they are serious about now addressing the issues that concern Americans trying to proceed to legislation to add $1.2 billion for the LIHEAP program. LIHEAP is a federally funded grant program that is implemented by states to give low income people funds to pay home energy bills. Generally, the primary beneficiaries of LIHEAP are users of natural gas, heating oil, and propane, and most of the assistance is confined to the NE United States.

Instead of simply placing more funding into a grant program, we should have used this past week to address increasing energy supplies to meet our long term national energy demands. I have previously opposed simply providing more funding for a grant program which does not address our energy needs, and will not attend the vote tomorrow since I would vote ``no'' so I request this statement appear in the Record, prior to the cloture vote on the motion to proceed.

I have been listening to the debate. We need more supply. We need to have about 10 Democrats come along and help us to pass the legislation, the amendments that we have that would allow us to go out and drill and bring in energy.

Mr. President, I have two unanimous consent requests. First of all, I ask unanimous consent that my statement be reflected in the Record tomorrow on the LIHEAP, S. 3186 vote; and, second, my statement pertaining to the housing, H.R. 3221 vote tomorrow be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, yesterday I drew the Senate's attention to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. It said that liberal leaders in Congress are ``gripped by a cold-sweat terror. If they permit a vote on offshore drilling, they know they will lose. . . .''

Today's Washington Post featured a similar editorial, which you normally don't get that would be favorable to the conservative view. They said:

Why not have a vote on offshore drilling? There's a serious

debate to be had over whether Congress should lift the ban on

drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf that has been in

place since 1981. Unfortunately, you won't be hearing it in

the House of Representatives--certainly, you won't find

lawmakers voting on it--anytime soon.

This same editorial ended with another good question. It said:

If drilling opponents really have the better of this

argument, why are they so worried about letting it come to a

vote?

That is critical.

The distinguished senior Senator from Florida and the junior Senator from Colorado were talking about: Let's all get along. Let's work together. Let's have a bipartisan solution.

I think we should. All you have to have for a bipartisan solution is a vote. For those people--and I am sorry to say it is right down party lines--ever since the veto took place back in the middle 1990s, when we, the Republicans, were the majority, we tried to open everything for exploration: the Outer Continental Shelf, ANWR. And, of course, we have those huge other reserves that if we had been able to do that, we would not be faced with this problem today. Yet all we want now is a vote.

So I do not know why becoming self-sufficient for America should be a partisan issue. Look at the reserves. Look at the possibility of what is out there, what we would be enjoying today if it had not been for that veto.

Now, that is not the worst part. The worst part is that if you go to my Web site, epw.senate.gov, you will see I have called up every vote that has taken place since that 1995 veto; and right down party lines, Democrats refused to increase the supply of oil and gas in America.

Look at the Outer Continental Shelf. We have been talking about that. That is what all these editorials are about. Look at ANWR. That is not as much as a lot of people think, although anyone who has been to ANWR, who has been up there, they don't come back saying it is a pristine wilderness, because it is not. It is a frozen tundra. Everybody up there wants to explore there. We know. We have a pipeline ready. That could be coming down here.

The Rocky Mountain oil shales--that is the biggest of all reserves out there. Right now we are under a Democrat-sponsored moratorium that keeps us from getting at those oil shales. We are talking about 2 trillion barrels. It is huge.

The Senate has been in session all week. It held one vote Tuesday and two votes this morning. Those were both procedural votes. All we want to do is consider amendments.

When my good friends from Florida and Colorado say: We want to all cooperate with each other, all we have to do is bring out amendments and vote on them, I would love to have the Senator from Colorado have the opportunity to vote in favor of expanding the supply of oil and gas in America.

A lot of people have tried to denigrate the idea of supply and demand, and yet there is no one I know of in America who has gone through the high school level who has not studied supply and demand. It is a very simple thing.

The Senate Democrat majority, after wasting an entire week, is engaged in a process, a scheme, to go ahead and have some votes tomorrow.

By the way, let me share, as I did once before earlier, the two bills that will be voted on tomorrow are bills that I have opposed in the past. I think it is very interesting, when they talk about LIHEAP, when they talk about doing something about supplying gas to heat homes in the Northeast, instead of subsidizing, let's open the supply line, let's start producing gas and oil, and bring the price down so we do not have to subsidize it. It is a very simple thing. So I am going to vote ``no'' on that. I oppose it. In fact, I do not even think I will stay here for that vote.

The other one--the housing vote--I respectfully disagree with some of the comments that were made. Of course, we do not have some of the problems in Oklahoma they do in other places. But, nonetheless, the idea is we could have been doing these all week long, but we also could have been doing amendments. We could have been voting on amendments.

We have consistently tried not only to go out there and explore and to develop the resources we have--we are the only country in the world that doesn't export our own resources--but we also have to have an increase in refinery capacity. I have to say this: We have--I personally have in legislation not just opening it up for exploration so that we can increase the supply but also refining it. If we had all the supply in the world, we wouldn't have the refining capacity because of some of the stringent requirements we have in this country and the unwillingness to allow new refineries in the United States. We wouldn't have the refinery capacity. So I have what is called the Gas Price Act. I introduced it some time ago--I guess 3 years ago now--and we never have been able to get it passed. It divides right down party lines. The Democrats will not allow us to increase our refining capacity. This is a bill no one should be opposed to.

A lot of people know what the BRAC process is, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission. What we have had an opportunity to do is to close some of these bases, these military installations that are not performing a function commensurate with the cost. What do the adjoining communities do when this happens? They are in dire straits economically because they don't have anything to do with that property. Yet this would allow them to do it and have EDA grants to attract refining operations in these areas.

That is what the Gas Price Act was all about. That is what we have currently in legislation that we hope will be considered before very long.

We are presently considering a bill to impose new rules on speculating, claiming that speculators have been driving up the price of oil. It is always easy to find somebody to blame when we have not done the responsible thing as legislators. I know it is tough for some Democrats to face up to some of the extremists, the environmentalists, and agree to go ahead and develop the resources we have and explore and produce and drill for oil. However, if you talk to the smart people out there who are looking at this bill--this bill we are talking about is trying to blame everything on speculators. T. Boone Pickens, who has had a lot of attention recently, says:

Speculation doesn't have anything to do with it. You have

85 million barrels of oil available in the world and demand

is at 86.4.

Warren Buffett:

It is not speculation, it is supply and demand.

Walter Williams. This is a good one. He says:

Congressional attacks on speculation do not alter the oil

market's fundamental demand and supply conditions.

Then the International Energy Agency says:

Blaming speculation is an easy solution which avoids taking

the necessary steps to improve supply-side access and

investment.

I see the Senator on the floor who will be able to go into some other aspects of this. I think this debate is very significant, but the debate in absence of votes is really meaningless, except we are letting the American people know that it is the Democrats in the Senate and in the House of Representatives who are not allowing the Republicans to pass legislation that will increase the supply and will bring down the price of gas at the pumps. I will be going back tonight to my State of Oklahoma, and I can assure you, the No. 1 problem in the Nation is the price of gas at the pumps.

Let me clarify one thing before I yield the floor. I have known Boone Pickens for a long time. Let me tell you, he is not very pleased with the misinterpretation that the Democrats are coming down and attributing to him. When he ends his ad saying, ``We can't drill ourselves out of this problem,'' he is talking about, we have to drill everywhere. This is his statement. We need to drill on the Outer Continental Shelf. We have to drill in ANWR. We have to have the Rocky Mountain oil shales. We have to preserve access to the Canadian oil sands. We need it all. Even after all of this, we still need to do more. I agree with that. I have another piece of legislation that will help him in taking the compressed natural gas so it can be used to get a more immediate response to this growing problem in America.

So I would only say we need to keep talking about this. The American people need to keep listening until they realize and accept the fact that the Democrats are blocking the Republicans from increasing the supply of oil and gas, and we are not going to be able to bring down the price at the pumps until we are successful and have enough public support to get this country back producing again.

It is interesting. If you look at the polling data, one State--I won't mention the State because it is quite a liberal State philosophically--2 years ago, only 28 percent of the people in that State wanted to drill on ANWR and the Outer Continental Shelf. Today, it is 68 percent. So with that, I think it is a very simple solution. We need to get busy with it to increase our supply.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, might I inquire of the Chair: It is my understanding now that the Republicans will have 30 minutes; is that correct?

All right. Mr. President, I am going to go ahead and take the first 15 minutes. Then, it is my understanding that the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Chambliss, wants 5 minutes, and Senator Craig wants 10 minutes after that. I would like to lock that in with a UC.

Mr. President, I would like to draw the Senate's attention to an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal and particularly the first sentence. It says:

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and other liberal leaders on

Capitol Hill are gripped by cold-sweat terror. If they permit

a vote on offshore drilling, they know they will lose. . . .

The editorial goes on to point out what the Democrats' plan of action is for this problem: to cut off debate. We have been in session this week. We have held one vote. We are considering a bill relating to energy, but the Democrats are not allowing us to offer any amendments to find new sources of energy, when the editorial points out that at least 65 percent of America's recoverable oil and 40 percent of America's natural gas is under moratorium.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the end of my remarks the editorial be printed in its entirety in the Record.

What they are talking about are those areas where we have huge supplies that we can access, except we cannot do it because there are moratoria, such as exists right now in terms of the Rocky Mountain oil shale, with 2 trillion barrels; the Outer Continental Shelf, for which 85 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf is under an order that the Democrats have on there, so we are not able to explore, to produce, to drill in those areas. You hear the argument quite often that there are 68 million acres that could be explored right now and they are not doing it. They are not doing it for one reason, and that is because there is no oil there.

Throughout this week I have heard a number of my Democratic colleagues come to the floor and express their support for increased drilling. Apparently, this has all been some kind of misunderstanding. I have taken their consistent votes against increasing domestic production as being against new drilling. If we all agreed that new domestic production is part of what we need to do, then let's get on with some votes and get them underway.

My Web site is epw.senate.gov. EPW stands for Environment and Public Works. What I have done is gone back and gotten all of the votes we have had that would cause us--allow us to expand our supply in America in areas such as this. Right now on party lines they have been killed-- killed by the Democratic Party. This is a problem. Somehow, the Democrats are trying to convince the American people that supply and demand is not alive and well in America. It is interesting that the other day in the newspaper, it was either an op-ed piece or it might have been on the editorial page of the Washington Post, they said even Congress is not going to be able to repeal the law of supply and demand.

The American people understand the need for new domestic production. Recent polling has shown 67 percent of the American people now support offshore drilling with only 18 percent opposed. Sixty-four percent believe that if offshore drilling is allowed, gas prices will go down. Well, that is a natural conclusion you can come to.

Another poll found that 81 percent of Americans support greater use of domestic energy sources. Both papers in my home State of Oklahoma have weighed in on this issue with recent editorials. The Tulsa World and the Oklahoman have weighed in, pointing to how new production can be done in an environmental manner. The Tulsa World wrote:

President George W. Bush made the correct decision when he

lifted the White House's 18-year ban on offshore drilling . .

. No one wants the environment damaged. This work could be

done safely. It could be done over the long term only if

Congress had the good sense to act.

The Oklahoman wrote--this is in Oklahoma City:

Democrats reacted to President Bush's lifting of an

executive ban on offshore drilling by vowing to keep in place

congressional prohibitions dating to the 1980s. The debate

over energy policy just keeps getting better and better. For

years the Democratic Party has blocked efforts to

significantly increase production of America's sources of

offshore oil and natural gas, citing potential dangers to

beaches in California and Florida and dismissing any new oil

finds as too far in the future to help U.S. energy needs.

Both arguments have less persuasive steam with the current

oil prices. Certainly, if drilling offshore had gotten

underway a decade ago or more--instead of being stymied--

Americans know it would be online now and helping to absorb

some of the current price increase.

This is the interesting thing about it. We know what is happening in Prudhoe Bay. We know what the reserves are in ANWR. We know we have a pipeline. If we had a pipeline filled and if the President--at that time Bill Clinton--had not vetoed the bill that would have allowed us to go into ANWR.

New domestic production should happen and can be done in an environmentally appropriate way. No country on Earth has exploration technology as advanced and environmentally sound as ours. I have to say also that we are the only country--I can't think of another country, and I hope if someone has the name of a country that would be an exception--there is not another country in the world that doesn't exploit their own resources. Certainly, these resources alone are enough to make us totally independent of any foreign importation of oil and the prices would come down.

I have highlighted some of the amounts of domestic reserves previously, but I think it is important to continue to point to the amount of reserves in the United States. There they are, right there, and we have actually enumerated them for the purposes of the Record.

The potential energy development from the Rocky Mountain oil shale is truly massive with reports estimating up to 2 trillion barrels, but once again, Democrats are blocking development. The Consolidated Appropriations Act last year established a 1-year moratorium on the necessary funding to complete the final regulations for commercial leasing of oil shale.

Look at the size of this. We are talking about not 10 billion barrels we would find in ANWR, not 14 billion barrels as we see on the Outer Continental Shelf, but 2 trillion barrels. Without congressional action, a 1-year delay could end up lasting much longer and, like the Outer Continental Shelf appropriations moratorium, continue year after year.

The RAND Corporation estimates that as many as 1.1 trillion barrels are recoverable and at prices as low as $35 to $48 a barrel within the first 12 years of commercial scale production. At current rates of consumption, 1.1 trillion barrels equals more than 145 years of domestic supply. This number would nearly double assuming the Department of Energy's estimate of nearly 2 trillion potentially recoverable barrels. Finally, development is ongoing in the Canadian oil sands where proven reserves are about 179 billion barrels. We need to continue to do that. Right now, they are in jeopardy. Congressman Waxman has put on a prohibition in the Department of Defense using oil from those oil sands. If anyone were tempted to try to expand that so that no one else in the country could use it, that would be devastating. So that effort could be underway as we speak.

In an effort to hide their true record of blocking access to America's own resources, the Democrats are engaged in a campaign of shifting blame, claiming there are 68 million acres in America where oil and gas companies have the right to drill but are not drilling. Some 44 percent of the leases that have been

issued are already producing oil and gas, and energy companies are in the process of exploring the remaining leases to determine the energy potential of those lands. Unfortunately, when you get out there and you explore and you try to determine how much potential production is there, there are some places in the United States and anywhere in the world where there simply isn't any oil. This is the problem they have. We need to open the other 85 percent that currently we are unable to access to allow us to go after it. Again, we are talking about some 14 billion barrels that are out there.

We are presently considering a bill to impose new rules on speculating, claiming that speculators have been driving the price of oil to record highs. Even if speculators are having a negative effect on the price of fuels, I am concerned that the wrong congressional action could actually exacerbate the problem. Rhetoric on the impact of speculators simply lays the groundwork to once again implement price controls. Looking back to the 1970s, we now know that price controls lead to shortages, rationing, and long lines at gas stations. Over the last few days, the name of Boone Pickens has been invoked many times. When asked what he thought about the speculation, he recently said that:

Speculation doesn't have anything to do with it. You have

85 million barrels of oil available in the world and the

demand is at 86.4. I don't think that guy over in China

paying $140 for oil is blaming Wall Street speculators for

what is happening to him. Everybody tries to place the blame.

And the blame is our own lack of leadership over the last 40

years on energy.

Now, I have a list of quotes I am going to actually, if there is a little bit of time--I don't have time to read them, but a list of quotes from people who are the knowledgeable people in this country such as Walter Williams, the economist for George Mason University:

Congressional attacks on speculation do not alter the oil

market's fundamental demand and supply conditions. What would

lower the long-term price of oil is for Congress to permit

exploration for the estimated billions upon billions of

barrels.

The International Energy Agency says that:

Blaming speculation is an easy solution which avoids taking

the necessary steps to improve supply-side access and

investment.

So I ask unanimous consent that this list of economists be listed, along with their statements concerning speculation, at the conclusion of my remarks.

Republicans have consistently tried to do something about the high prices. One of the things that people don't think about is if we had all of the production, all of the crude oil, we would still have to refine it to use it. We have a real refinery crisis in this country. Right now we are looking at a situation where we would not be able to refine it with the refining capability we have.

I introduced 3 years ago the Gas Price Act which is something that would work very well. It actually took these closed military installations that were BRAC closed--Base Realignment and Closing Commission-closed installations--and allowed the surrounding communities to apply for EDA grants so they would be able to attract refineries. This would be a good idea because for one thing, those closed bases, you would not have to actually have a cleanup to playground standards, so the Federal Government has saved a lot of money by doing this. I don't think there is any justification in the world for people to oppose such an effort.

I have also introduced my Drive America On Natural Gas Act. This is something that is very significant, because this is something that is part of T. Boone Pickens' ideas. Let's keep in mind Boone Pickens said we need to drill everywhere. We have to drill and we have to keep on drilling, but we also need to explore all kinds of renewables. His idea is to release some of the natural gas so we can use it for compressed natural gas. The price today in my State of Oklahoma for compressed natural gas is 90 cents a gallon. Ninety cents a gallon. In some places it is as high as $2. Nonetheless, it does show that it is out there.

There are certain obstacles to being able to do what needs to be done in allowing the conversions. One is we have to effect the regulations of the EPA and the other one is we have to give the same benefit to natural gas as we do to other renewables. If we were able to do that, it would open it up very rapidly. In fact, yesterday, the Republican leader offered a unanimous consent request that seven Republican energy amendments be considered in order for consideration in this legislation, and this was one of those.

I don't want to take up more time right now because I want to yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Georgia, but I will only say this: You can stand on the floor and say over and over and over to the American people that supply and demand doesn't work; you can say that Democrats are not opposed to increasing the supply. Yet if you go to the Web site I suggested--epw.senate.gov--we have looked at every vote that has taken place since the middle 1990s, and in every case, every time we tried to increase the supply of petroleum products for America, whether it is drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf, ANWR, Rocky Mountain oil shales, or preserving Canadian oil sands, the Democrats, to the very last one, have voted against it.

We have to increase supply. We have to keep saying it. People understand it. Even some people with basic educations know that supply and demand is alive and well in America. It is just that we have too much demand and not enough supply. We have to open it.

I yield the floor.

Exhibit 1

[From the Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2008]

Democrats Against Drilling

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other liberal leaders on

Capitol Hill are gripped by cold-sweat terror. If they permit

a vote on offshore drilling, they know they will lose when

Blue Dogs and oil-patch Democrats defect to the GOP position

of increasing domestic energy production. So the last

failsafe is to shut down Congress.

Majority Leader Reid has decided that deliberation is too

taxing for ``the world's greatest deliberative body.'' This

week he cut off serious energy amendments to his

antispeculation bill. Then Senate Appropriations baron Robert

Byrd abruptly canceled a bill markup planned for today where

Republicans intended to press the issue. Mr. Byrd's

counterpart in the House, David Obey, is enforcing a similar

lockdown. Speaker Pelosi says she won't allow even a debate

before Congress's August recess begins in eight days.

She and Mr. Reid are cornered by substance. The upward

pressure on oil prices is caused by rising world-wide

consumption and limited growth in supplies. Yet at least 65%

of America's undiscovered, recoverable oil, and 40% of its

natural gas, is hostage to the Congressional drilling

moratorium.

The Democratic leadership is trying to smother any

awareness of their responsibility for high prices. They are

also trying to quash a revolt among Democrats who realize

that the country is still dependent on fossil fuels, no

matter how loudly quasimystical environmentalists like Al

Gore claim otherwise.

Exhibit 2

Dems Cite Speculation Stats That Don't Match the Facts

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV): ``Academics, economists say that

the costs of oil is 20% to 50% speculation.'' (Sen. Harry

Reid, Remarks on the Senate Floor, 07/22/08

``Academics and Economists'' Actually Say ``It's Not Speculation, It Is

Supply and Demand''

Warren Buffett: ``It's not speculation, it is supply and

demand. . . . We don't have excess capacity in the world

anymore, and that's what you're seeing in oil prices.''

(Warren Buffett, Chairman & CEO, Berkshire Hathaway, 6/25/08)

Walter Lukken, Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading

Commission: ``We haven't evidence that speculators are

broadly driving these prices.'' (``Hitting Rock: Dems

Oblivious on Oil,'' Union Leader, 7/13/08)

Chairman Ben Bernanke: ``If financial speculation were

pushing all prices above the level consistent with the

fundamentals of supply and demand, we would expect

inventories of crude oil and petroleum products to increase

as supply rose and demand fell. But, in fact, available data

on oil inventories shows notable declines over the past

year.'' (Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, 7/15/

2008)

Craig Pirrong, Member of the CFTC Energy Markets Advisory

Committee: ``There's no evidence of speculative influence.

Speculators are not contributing to the demand for physical

oil as they almost always roll positions prior to delivery.''

(Craig Pirrong, Professor of Finance at the University Of

Houston, Member, CFTC Energy Markets Advisory Committee, 6/

24/08)

Walter Williams, Economist George Mason University:

``Congressional attacks on speculation do not alter the oil

market's fundamental demand and supply conditions. What

would lower the long-term price of oil is for Congress to

permit exploration for the estimated billions upon billions

of barrels of oil domestically available, not to mention the

estimated trillion-plus barrels of shale oil in Wyoming,

Colorado and Utah.'' (Williams, Walter E. ``Scapegoating

Speculators.'' The Washington Times 9 July 2008.) http:// www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/10/scapegoating- speculators/ Paul Krugman, New York Times Columnist: ``On any given day,

expectations determine the price; but the spot market also

has to clear, and the way this happens is that excess supply

must be added to physical stocks. Even with fairly inelastic

supply and demand, any large speculative deviation from the

``fundamental'' price should show up in a noticeable increase

in inventories.'' (Paul Krugman, New York Times columnist, 6/

28/08)

International Energy Agency: ``There is little evidence

that large investment flows into the futures market are

causing an imbalance between supply and demand, and are

therefore contributing to high oil prices . . . Blaming

speculation is an easy solution which avoids taking the

necessary steps to improve supply-side access and investment

or to implement measures to improve energy efficiency.''

(International Energy Agency, Medium-Term Oil Market Report,

July 2008)

Daniel Yergin, Chairman of Cambridge Energy Research

Associates: ``When an issue is this hot, it would be so much

easier if there was a single reason to blame . . . But

calling it speculation is way too simplistic.'' (Daniel

Yergin, Chairman, Cambridge Energy Research Associates)

John Chapman, American Enterprise Institute: ``The truth is

that increased speculation in oil futures is not a cause of

rising oil prices, but rather an effect of those prices,

which have skyrocketed due to growth in global demand,

geopolitical instability, and constricted supply in several

producing countries. (John Chapman, Researcher at the

American Enterprise Institute, 7/16/08)

Mr. President, I inquire, I believe the Republicans have 13 minutes?

Mr. President, will you please let me know when 6\1/2\ minutes has expired.

Mr. President, it is somewhat humorous to listen to the class warfare that has been coming from the other side of the aisle talking about trying to explain to the American people that supply and demand does not work. It is interesting that the other day, there was an editorial in the Washington Post saying even Congress can't repeal the law of supply and demand. Supply and demand does work, and it is a tough job to try to explain to people and it is going to be very difficult to explain to people who are buying gas at the pumps why increasing supply is not going to bring down the price.

Let me clarify one point. It is always easier to find someone to blame for a quick fix. On this speculation bill, none of the people who are really well informed on this issue believe that would have anything to do--anything to do--with the price of gas at the pumps. Walter Williams, an economist at George Mason University, said:

Congressional attacks on speculation do not alter the oil

market's fundamental supply and demand conditions.

He goes on to say it wouldn't lower it at all.

We have the International Energy Agency saying:

Blaming speculation is an easy solution which avoids taking

the necessary steps to improve supply of oil and gas.

That is what it is all about, it is supply and demand. There is not a person in America who has a high school education who has not already studied the law of supply and demand, and they know, in fact, it does work.

I came down really to talk about something about which I am proud, and that is what T. Boone Pickens is doing right now. He is saying we have to continue to drill, drill, drill everywhere we can--offshore, ANWR, into the shales--do everything we can to produce and increase the supply. But in the meantime, let's try to do something that has a more immediate effect, and that has to do with compressed natural gas.

Let me state to you, Mr. President, that I have introduced a bill that will allow us to use compressed natural gas for automobile use. It simply does three things.

We now have a tax credit for alternative fuels, and we want to add biofuels to that. One of the problems we have currently, if you have a car that has been converted to natural gas, to compressed natural gas, it is not readily available all over. There is a machine you can get now which you hook up at nighttime which will compress it overnight and you can use it. A lot of people don't have that machine. There are some places you cannot buy it. So biofuels vehicles should have the same tax credit as the alternative-fuel vehicles have. If we can do that, then that is going to allow people to have an engine to run on regular gasoline or on compressed natural gas.

The second thing we need to do is to have the mandatory renewable fuels standard include natural gas. If it does that, that is going to be another great advantage.

The third thing is, I was talking to a man named Tom Sewell in Tulsa. He is the one who I believe invented the machine you can hook up to your gas line and compress the gas for use in automobiles. He said one of the major problems is, when you go to convert your car, you have EPA requirements that are the same--if you have one engine that would be in three different manufactured automobiles, such as General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford, and some others, they have to get the same certification for that engine from each source. Certification is around $80,000. If we can pass this legislation, this will knock down the additional cost of converting your car by about $2,000 for each one.

I think this is something that has to be in the mix. I agree with T. Boone Pickens when he says there are some things we can do that would be effective, but in the meantime we have to take the natural gas we are using for other sources and replace it with--he is saying wind energy. I don't care what you replace it with, but let's use that so we can have compressed natural gas or liquefied natural gas. All these buses around Washington, DC, say ``This bus is running on clean natural gas.'' That is liquefied natural gas. Those technologies are here. You don't have to wait.

To answer the previous speaker--he spent 30 minutes trying to explain to people that supply and demand does not work--just look at this and realize that if we were able to open the Outer Continental Shelf, 14 billion barrels; ANWR, 10 million barrels; Rocky Mountain oil shale, which is the big reserve out there, 2 trillion barrels--right now Democrats have a moratorium, so we cannot go to those areas. They are trying to do the same thing with the Canadian oil sands. They already put a prohibition on using that for defense purposes. There are 179 billion barrels out there. This is what we can use. If we should open this, the market would immediately respond. All the smart people say they know that would happen because they know that help would be on its way.

Some of this we don't have to wait 10 years or 15 years for, as the previous speaker wants you to believe, because it can happen in 2 years or 3 years. In the meantime, the market will respond. People who say it would have taken 10 years for ANWR, if you remember back when President Clinton vetoed the bill that would have allowed us to drill in ANWR as well as offshore--that was 1995--we would have all of that. The next speaker from Alaska will tell you that would be coming down through the pipeline today, more than what we are importing now, not just from Saudi Arabia but all the Middle Eastern countries and Venezuela combined.

Supply and demand still works. It is still out there, it is still alive and well, and Republicans want very much to increase the supply. There it is, right there. It is something we can do. All we need is to have 10 Democrats join us, and we will be able to increase the supply of oil and gas in America.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I know we are all under confined time. I have a lot more to say than time will allow. I just listened to these remarks, and I wonder, why do people think the American people are so dumb they don't understand supply and demand?

A couple weeks ago--and no one can ever accuse the Washington Post of being partial to conservatives or Republicans, but they came out with an editorial, and they said: Why do Members of Congress think they can repeal the law of supply and demand? You can say it all you want, but we have to have more supply.

Ever since the 1995 veto of the bill that would allow us to go offshore to increase our supply, go to ANWR, go to oil shale, the Democrats have voted against increasing supply since that time. That was the middle nineties, and now we are paying for it. I can remember coming to the floor of the Senate back then when President Clinton vetoed the bill that would allow us to increase our supply and saying the day is coming when we are going to be sorry we did this.

I am very proud that the other day President Bush called for action by Congress in four areas. One is the Outer Continental Shelf, about which we have been talking. The others are ANWR and America's oil shale.

To give an idea of the capacity, this is called supply. We know what our demand is; everyone is demanding. This is supply. We called for it. We can have all the supply in the world, but if we don't have the refining capacity, we are not going to be able to use it.

We had the Gas Price Act. I thought that was one that would offset any kind of objection to the idea that we should be refining in this country. It was using some of these closed military places, along with EDA grants, to allow them to have refineries in America. We don't have the refining capacity in America, and we need to have it. We need to have the supply, and we need to have the capacity to refine the oil.

Polling--and I think the Democrats should be looking at this--is not where it used to be. The recent polling data from Rasmussen showed that 67 percent of the voters support offshore drilling. Only 18 percent oppose it. The same poll also found that 64 percent believe that if offshore drilling is allowed, gas prices will go down. And they will. There have been several editorials which we have made part of the Record which have shown the market response when things such as this happen. When we open capacity, the market will respond.

Another poll found that 81 percent of Americans support greater use of domestic energy resources. By a margin of more than four to one, Americans surveyed supported the United States tapping into its own domestic energy reserves. We are the only country in the world that does not tap our own reserves.

With regard to offshore, I listened to the arguments, which are really kind of ludicrous. When you stop and realize that offshore we have the capacity of 14 billion new barrels, and people come down and say--I heard the assistant majority leader say a few minutes ago that there are 68 million acres out there that are not being explored, not being produced, not being drilled at this time. There is a very good reason for that--because there is no oil on them. Oil isn't everywhere, but where you know it is, you need to go after it. So 85 percent of the land where there is an opportunity to bring oil in, the Democrats won't let us explore it. It is something I think the American people understand and understand very clearly.

ANWR is another area. It contains 10 billion barrels--back at the time President Clinton vetoed the bill--that would be coming through the pipeline today in resolving these problems we have.

Rocky Mountain oil shale--that is the big one. That is the one that has 2 trillion barrels. Right now, they cannot go after them, they cannot continue technology, they cannot explore for that, they cannot produce it because the Democrats have a moratorium. Yet, if you go to the States where this is located--Colorado, Utah, the Western States-- they all want to do it. It would be great for the economy, it would be great for America, and it would not take any time at all to get this done.

Imports. Opening the Nation's access to reserves on the Outer Continental Shelf, ANWR and oil shale would cut our Nation's trade deficit in half. We have recently been watching T. Boone Pickens, and we should listen to him. He talks about some things we can do with wind energy, but he talks about natural gas, and that is a partial solution to the problem. I have a bill that would allow compressed natural gas to be fully utilized. Right now, there are some obstacles with the EPA and others, but I agree with T. Boone Pickens; that if we pass this bill, we will be able to utilize that. As he said, we need to continue to produce, continue to explore, because we cannot run the greatest machine in the history of mankind on solar and wind power right now. We hope that day comes, but it is not here.

We could cut our trade deficit nearly in half. According to the Energy Information Administration, the United States spent more than $327 billion to import oil in 2007. That is roughly half of the $711 billion trade deficit we had last year. So not only will we get cheaper gas for Americans at the pump merely by increasing capacity, increasing the supply that is out there, but we also would do some great things in terms of our trade deficit situation.

Why should producing America's own resources be a partisan issue? It shouldn't. But the Democrats in Congress refuse to increase the supply of energy, and the gas prices keep rising. We have seen recently that all we have to do is open that and the markets will immediately respond. I feel this is going to happen. I cannot imagine that the polling is going to get much more favorable than it is today.

There is one State--I won't mention which State it is because it is considered to be pretty much a liberal State--that 3 years ago, only 28 percent of the people in that State wanted to drill offshore and in ANWR. Today, it is 68 percent. It doesn't get much better than that.

I suggest, Mr. President, we get the Democrats to join us, increase the supply and resolve the problem, the energy crisis we have right now. The No. 1 problem in America--talk with my wife, talk to any State, they will tell you the No. 1 problem is the price of gas at the pumps. We can solve it with greater supply.

I yield the floor.