Mr. President, how much time remains? Mr. President, I am glad to come to the Senate floor and join my colleagues in talking about the unfortunate votes that were cast this morning--one to go ahead and consider legislation to try to deal…
Mr. President, how much time remains?
Mr. President, I am glad to come to the Senate floor and join my colleagues in talking about the unfortunate votes that were cast this morning--one to go ahead and consider legislation to try to deal with the price of gasoline. That was the first vote where, unfortunately, we rejected the effort to proceed to that bill. The majority of Republican Members chose not to proceed to that bill, which was unfortunate. The second vote was to proceed to a bill that has the effect of extending the provisions that are currently in the Tax Code and particularly to extend tax provisions that are intended to encourage clean energy development. I wish to talk about that second bill in particular because it is one I have been involved in and have followed and supported for some time now.
The incentives we have in current law to encourage alternative energy development--wind energy, wind energy farms, wind turbine farms, solar energy developments in this country--most of those incentives were put into place in the current form in 2005 when we passed the Energy bill. There was great fanfare and rejoicing when we passed that. The President signed that bill in my home State of New Mexico, in Albuquerque. He rightfully took credit for the fact that this was being enacted, and he talked about the importance of these energy tax provisions.
I did not realize when we did that in 2005 that it was the administration's intent to allow those tax provisions to expire at the end of 2008. I thought the idea was that we would keep those in place long enough that we would provide incentives for people to pursue these alternative options.
We have now tried three times in this Congress to extend those energy tax provisions, and we have failed three times. So I rise to express deep disappointment and frustration with that vote. The implications of the vote are profound if we cannot persuade our colleagues to change their position. Clearly, if it is going to be our national policy that we are not extending these tax provisions, then we are going to suffer environmental consequences from continued reliance on power generated from fossil fuels; our efforts to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil will be cut short; our ability to create high-paying green jobs in these new energy sectors will come to nought; and our effort to promote research and development in these new industries will certainly not materialize. It is a sad day for us in the Senate; we are not able to move ahead and do this.
The first time this issue came up, the first time we tried to extend these tax provisions, the argument was that the offsets are the problem; you folks are trying to reduce the tax benefits enjoyed by the oil and gas industry in order to provide revenue to pay for these alternative energy tax provisions, and that is the objectionable part.
I did not agree with that argument. I voted to extend the alternative energy tax provisions and pay for it in that way, but I think the House of Representatives has heard that message and the House of Representatives has now sent us a bill, which is the bill we were trying to proceed to today, which does not try to pay for these extensions of alternative energy tax provisions by reducing tax benefits for the oil and gas industry. It leaves the oil and gas industry alone, and it finds some alternative ways to make up that lost revenue. The alternatives are ones which, to my mind, are very meritorious.
Of course, under our rules in the Senate that we have adopted in the Congress, we have to find a way to make up the revenue being lost. That is why we are pushing to do so, and it is the responsible thing to do. The alternative, of course, is to borrow more money from our friends overseas, to run up the deficit and let our grandchildren worry about it at some point down the road. That is not a responsible course.
One of the bill's offsets that we were trying to proceed to today would delay a tax benefit known as the worldwide interest allocation. That is a tax benefit that has not gone into effect. We would delay the effective date of it, again, for some period. There are a lot of corporations that have indicated to us they would support going ahead and delaying that benefit. This is not a tax increase from current law; this is keeping current law where it is.
The other offset would be to close a loophole that enables hedge fund managers to defer compensation by investing wages in offshore investment funds. This proposal would end that deferral, would require the hedge fund managers recognize the compensation that they receive as income when it is paid. This proposal does not increase taxes; it simply changes the timing of tax liabilities.
Describing this loophole, the New York Times says:
Many hedge fund managers are enjoying not only
extraordinary profits, but the extra benefit of a system
almost encouraging them to set up offshore accounts.
What we were trying to do in this legislation is to say let's not encourage them to set up offshore accounts by giving them tax incentives to do so. That is a reasonable position, and it is one that we should definitely be enacting into law. I know 44 Members of this Chamber voted ``no'' in our effort to proceed to consider this bill.
Madam President, I do not see additional colleagues here. I ask for an additional 2 minutes.
I appreciate it. As I said, 44 Members of the Senate voted not to proceed to consider this bill and instead, I gather, to protect a handful of hedge fund managers from having to pay the normal tax that ought to be levied on each American when they get compensated.
Clearly, I think we have lost sight of our priorities. I know this is an election year. I know there are powerful special interests that are always saying just vote no, always resist whatever is proposed. The simple fact is, if we are going to turn the page, if we are going to turn the corner on our future energy needs, we are going to have to move ahead and put in place some policies that will encourage alternative energy development. We have fallen short in doing that now three times in this Congress. I hope we do not continue to fall short. I urge my colleagues to reconsider this, and I hope the majority leader will find a way to bring this issue back to the full Senate, even this week, if possible, so we can get a positive vote to proceed with this legislation.
Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.