Floor Statements

Mr. President, I fully support many of the changes that H.R. 4040, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, makes to ensure that America's consumers are safe. However, one of the main goals of the bill is to provide the Consumer Product Safety Commission, CPSC, with the tools and resources it needs to protect American consumers. Although this conference report does take some steps towards that end, it simultaneously hurts businesses without providing commensurate benefits to consumers. For this reason, I will vote against the conference report.

The CPSC was created in 1972 to establish a single set of product safety regulations for manufacturers and distributors to follow throughout the country. This conference report, however, includes a section that would expand the power of state attorneys general to bring actions on behalf of their own states against businesses they believe violate federal consumer protection statutes mandated by the CPSC. Giving 50 attorneys general discretion over consumer product safety laws would lead to 50 different interpretations of the law, and, thus, a confusing patchwork of safety standards that would make it more difficult for the CPSC to enforce uniform, national policies. Moreover, in recent years, some State attorneys general have used their positions to garner national attention to advance their careers. I am worried that this conference report leaves enough discretion to the state attorneys general to enforce CPSC rules that would tempt some to file frivolous lawsuits that could ultimately undermine the effectiveness of the CPSC.

The conference report also keeps intact a requirement for the CPSC to create a public database of product-related complaints. This public database provides the opportunity for parties to post false information online, and allows minimal oversight by the CPSC or an opportunity for manufacturers to defend themselves. Inaccurate information about a company's product on a government-endorsed website could irrevocably harm a company's reputation, and I cannot support such a provision.

I also oppose the section in the conference report that would extend new whistleblower protections to millions of employees of consumer product manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. Under this bill, once an employee notifies the CPSC of an action he ``believes to be'' a violation of a consumer product safety regulation, the employer faces a fine if it discharges or takes any negative action against the employee. Including such a provision would grant any disgruntled employee a powerful incentive to report erroneous or unsubstantiated information as an alleged product safety violation in order to insulate himself from unrelated disciplinary actions. There is no reason for such a provision except to dramatically unbalance the employee-employer relationship, and the failure to fix this section after repeated attempts causes me even greater concern that it has little to do with legitimate whistleblowers and more to do with hamstringing employers from dealing appropriately with problem employees.

It is unfortunate that I am forced to vote against this conference report because I do believe the CPSC's resources ought to be bolstered. However, this conference report carries with it too many of the problems that existed when the bill left the Senate.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Domenici), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Domenici), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Domenici), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning) would have voted ``nay.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Domenici), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. President, would my colleague from Texas be willing to answer a couple of questions I would like to pose to him?

Mr. President, the first question I have for my colleague is this: The Senator from Texas and I both serve on the Judiciary Committee, which considered this so-called media shield legislation some months back.

Does my colleague recall that when the bill was brought to the committee, it was brought with the suggestion that it was pretty perfect as written and that we shouldn't change a comma of it or we would be roundly criticized by editorial boards around the country? In point of fact, I was.

Does my colleague recall--and maybe you can refresh my recollection. My recollection is that we adopted 10 or 12 pretty serious amendments to that legislation in an effort to try to improve it and that most of the amendments that were adopted were overwhelmingly in their support. Is my recollection correct on that?

Mr. President, the second question: When we passed that bill out of the committee, there were explicit assurances that we would continue to work on it because of the recognition that it was not, in my words, ready for prime time, but it was clearly in need of additional work. It is complicated. We would continue to work on it, A; and B, is it also correct that the Senator from Texas, as well as others, including my staff and myself, have been engaged in a lot of discussions since then, including, as the Senator from Texas noted, trying to figure out how to define who is a journalist and who would be protected?

Mr. President, if I could just pose two other quick questions.

So would my colleague from Texas agree that at such point in time as this legislation is brought to the Senate floor, we are going to need to continue to make improvements on it that will, first, necessitate debate and amendments? Also, would my colleague agree that it would be a huge mistake to try to bring this bill to the floor under a scenario in which we are pushed up against the recess, we are trying to do an energy bill, we are trying to do a tax extender bill, and that it would take far too much time in terms of amendments; that presumably, if cloture were invoked and this bill were to be brought up, the parliamentary procedure would be such that we wouldn't be able to offer any amendments, and that would be a mistake in the way this bill would be considered? Would my colleague agree with that?

Mr. President, just one final quick question. Is my colleague from Texas also aware of an editorial in the USA Today magazine on Monday, July 28, by the DNI--the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell--who joined with the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Secretary of the Treasury, and, as he put it, every senior intelligence community leader in expressing his strong belief that this bill will greatly damage our ability to protect national security information?

Mr. President, if my colleague will indulge me for another 10 seconds, I hope that on the basis of this information, our colleagues would agree that whatever the view on the energy legislation, we should not be turning to the media shield legislation,

and, in point of fact, if we are going to do something about gas prices, we need to keep our eye on that ball and get that work done before we leave here on Friday.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the op-ed piece I referred to printed in the Record at this point.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker).

I wish to note that the energy tax extenders would have been law as of 7 a.m. this morning if they had not been taken out of the housing bill by the Democratic majority. We should be aware of the fact that one of the reasons why this issue remains is the strategy from the majority on the housing bill.

I note that 88 Senators voted in favor of that approach dealing with this subject.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker).

Mr. President, I will answer that question, but I will decline to take the position as an expert on financial matters. I will turn to a paper with which I don't always agree and yet it is one of the leading newspapers in the country. The New York Times editorialized on this issue yesterday. Therefore, I will perhaps answer by quoting about four sentences from this July 28, New York Times editorial, called ``Gas Price Follies.'' The bottom line is they agree with the Senator from Tennessee:

Yet all evidence suggests that speculation has little to do

with the rising price of crude. From rice to iron, commodity

prices are all rising, even without much financial

speculation, due to a variety of factors, including a weak

dollar and growing demand from China and India.

They go on:

A report by government agencies--including the Commodity

Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Reserve and the

Treasury and Energy Departments--found that speculative

trades in oil contracts had little to no effect on the rise

in prices over the last five years.

They concluded with this:

Oil futures are financial contracts for future delivery of

oil. Their price has been responding to the same factors:

growing world demand in the face of stagnant supply and

the expectation that this dynamic will continue.

So it is precisely the point the Senator from Tennessee was making. These buyers, investors on the market, look to see whether demand is going to be greater or less than supply. If it is going to be greater, the price is obviously going to go up. That is the bet they place when they buy futures contracts.

The best single thing we can do to respond to this and drive the price down is found on the chart of the Senator from Tennessee: find more and use less. The Times makes that point, by the

way. If we can reduce consumption, that will reduce demand, but, far and away, the biggest answer is to find American energy sources to solve the American energy crisis. We have a huge volume of both natural gas and crude oil right here in the United States, primarily off our shores, which is why both the Senator from Texas, the Senator from Tennessee, and I, and most of my colleagues here support more offshore drilling to expand the production of American energy to meet this crisis.

Would the Senator yield for a question?

Would it be fair to characterize the Republican approach to this as, in effect, all of the above, and that we recognize there is a role to beef up the agency that deals with speculation and make sure they can do their job, and to provide as much new production as possible offshore or oil shale--anywhere we believe we can find that production--and that we also appreciate the fact that there is another side to this, not just transportation, which is energy production, electricity production. We are going to see our electricity costs go up and, clearly, nuclear power is a key factor in that, as well as, potentially, coal liquification or gasification. As part of all of these--the ``use less'' part, which is to try to eventually convert at least our automobiles to battery-powered vehicles--obviously, it would be more difficult to do that with jet planes and our shipping right now. But we could begin that process.

So the Republican view is literally all of the above--to have a balanced approach that recognizes there is no one single thing but that offshore drilling would be the best, most immediate way to increase our production. Would that be a fair characterization?

Mr. President, if I may respond briefly, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal, I believe, yesterday. In any event, the point of the article was that while we may not have technically been in a recession, the definition of which is two quarters of negative economic growth consecutively, the reality is that because of inflation, primarily fueled by high fuel costs, which reflects itself in everything from higher food prices to higher transportation costs, which find their way into the products we buy--because of that inflationary pressure, the reality is that for most Americans, we are feeling the same effects as if we were in a recession, and at the heart of this is the energy problem.

If we could solve the energy problem in a balanced way, from electricity production, through nuclear power, and offshore drilling, and reducing our demand, that would affect our future economic health and every American family in this country.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) and the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Stevens).

Mr. President, the question the Senate is facing this evening and again tomorrow morning is whether we are going to stay focused on the issue that is of the most importance to the American public, and that is doing something about this incredible energy crisis in our country causing us to not just pay higher prices at the pump but also higher prices for almost everything else because of the high cost of transportation to transport goods across this country. Our airlines are hurting, shipping, trucking, all families, and we have seen inflation rise in this country, among other things, and probably primarily because of the fact that we are not producing enough energy-- enough American energy.

Republicans believe we need to stay focused on this issue until we deal with it, and we can deal with it. We can deal with it before this body leaves for the so-called August recess. I know this: It is not recess when we go home and start visiting with our constituents and every one of them is going to ask us: What did you do to drive down the price of gasoline? What did you do to deal with this energy crisis?

Earlier today, I quoted from the New York Times in an editorial yesterday in which the editors of the Times noted that the problem in the United States is not one of speculation, which is the subject of the bill the Democratic majority has brought forward, but it is a problem of supply and demand. What they say is all speculators or investors do is take a look into the future and ask a question: Five years from now or 5 months from now, where is demand going to be compared to supply in the world? Right now, everybody can see that the demand is going to far exceed the available supply of energy. As a result, of course, that puts pressure on prices which continue to go up.

The fact that the President announced he would remove the moratorium on certain offshore production has had a salutary effect in helping to reduce prices a little bit because those futures markets decided that maybe we were serious about doing something about energy production in the future.

That is the test. That is the commitment. That is what the Senate has been focused on this last week and is going to be focusing on again tomorrow.

My colleagues are talking about legislation that the Senate needs to pass and, indeed, the last bit of legislation the Senator from Oregon was talking about is a subject which we will deal with. Everybody agrees we need to deal with it. My guess is the bill will pass, if not unanimously, close to unanimously, if and when we can get a bipartisan so-called tax extenders bill to the floor of the Senate. But Republicans are not going to leave what we are doing now to take that up and who knows what else.

As a matter of fact, one of the issues I wanted to speak about briefly is another bill they want to go to. It is called the media shield legislation.

Tomorrow morning, we are going to have two votes. The first one will see

whether we will forget the energy crisis, leave the Energy bill, and take up the media shield legislation. I daresay we will do the same thing with that that we have done with the other bills we have considered in the last couple of days, and that is, we will say no, we are going to finish energy first. Then we will have this next tax extenders bill. That will be the fourth time that bill will be before us. Once again, we will say: Let's finish energy first and then we will take it up.

I hope as we speak that Senators Baucus and Grassley, the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Finance Committee on which I sit are talking to each other about the way to put this bipartisan tax extenders bill together so we can bring it to the floor and complete action on it before the August recess. That is possible to do. The two of them work very well together. I think they are very close to reaching an agreement on what this program would look like, and if they can reach such an agreement, it will be possible for us, once we have concluded work on energy, to then bring up that bill and get it passed before we go home. But we are not going to decide we have talked about energy long enough, even though we haven't done anything about it, and it is time to move on to other priorities. Our priority is energy. Our priority is getting gas prices down.

It is not just a matter of filling up at the gas pump. Last week, I filled up and it was $70 and the tank still had a third in it when I filled the tank. That is hard to take. That is not the bottom line. The bottom line is what it does to our economy and national security. It used to be we produced most of the energy we use. Now we import most of the energy we use and, unfortunately, we are getting it from places that can create real problems for us.

If you talk about Iran, for example, all Iran has to do to make more money on the oil it produces is drive some of its speedboats around the Strait of Hormuz and threaten the shipping there. About 40 percent of the oil goes through the Strait of Hormuz, and that unsettles the market to the extent it drives up the prices. They have it within their power to make more money just by creating problems for us.

Why don't we rely more on the energy resources we have right here in the United States of America? We are the third largest producer of oil and gas in the world. We could be producing a lot more American energy for American needs and not have to rely on these other countries which, as I say, can create huge headaches for the entire world and drive up the price of energy.

We can produce more. What Republicans are saying is, let's open some of the areas that have been closed by law to more production, starting with offshore in the deep waters of the gulf, off our coasts. We also have energy that is tied up in Alaska, in the oil shale in the Rocky Mountain West, and in other places.

We have suggested a balanced approach. We need to use less. We need to reduce our consumption. We need to rely on so-called renewable fuels. We obviously need to do more with nuclear energy. But almost everybody agrees that the starting place is more drilling to produce more American oil for the American economy. That is what we want to get some votes on before we turn to other legislation.

Let me briefly comment about the first vote we are going to have tomorrow because this is new. We have already dealt with the so-called tax extender program three times now. Tomorrow morning will be the fourth time. We are not going to have any different result than we have had in the past. So I suggest we get on with the bipartisan negotiations to complete our work on that legislation so we can get it passed.

Media Shield

Something we haven't taken up yet is this so-called media shield bill. I am not going to go through all the arguments about it, but simply to point out the history of it and describe what it does and why it is so problematic.

This basically says that reporters don't have to disclose their sources if they don't want to. You can imagine a lot of bad things will happen as a result of that. People break the law for disclosing very highly classified information. The reporter says: I am not going to tell you, Mr. FBI Agent, who did that. Yes, I know who did it--it is against the law--but I am not going to tell you. And this bill would provide the protection for that.

The first problem is it doesn't even define media in a way with which everyone can agree. We don't know whether a blogger, who is trying to put material out on the blogs, is in the media, whether a reporter for some kind of terrorist newsletter is a member of the media or what. They have tried and tried to get a good definition. It is very difficult to do.

When the bill was in the Judiciary Committee, on which I sit, it was not a perfect bill. Back then people said: Yes, we need to pass this; we need to not change a comma in it. I think there were 10 or 12 amendments adopted that day. Clearly, it needed work. Most of those amendments had strong bipartisan, if not unanimous, support, and we agreed at the end of the process that it needed more work. Since then, there have been a lot of meetings held to try to refine the bill.

I take my hat off to Senator Arlen Specter who has tried very hard to find a way to resolve some of the problems that have been raised. At the end of the day, the Attorney General of the United States, Attorney General Mukasey, the intelligence community, and the White House have all raised very serious doubts and problems about the bill.

Let me refer to some of the things that have been said about it. The Secretary of Defense, Secretary Gates, wrote at the end of March this year that ``the Department of Defense is concerned that this bill will undermine our ability to protect national security information and intelligence sources and methods, and could seriously impede investigations of unauthorized disclosures.''

The problem I just identified. Because of that, of course, President Bush is expected to veto the bill.

Very recently--I think yesterday--the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, published in USA Today an op-ed in which he described some of the problems he has with the bill, one of many commentaries. Here is what he said:

I have joined the attorney general, the Secretaries of

Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, and Treasury, and every

senior intelligence community leader in expressing the

belief, based on decades of experience, that this bill will

gravely damage our ability to protect national security

information. Unauthorized disclosure of classified

information disrupts our efforts to track terrorists,

jeopardizes the lives of intelligence and military personnel

and inhibits international cooperation critical to detecting

and preventing threats.

It is not just our intelligence community and Government sources. Last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers circulated a letter expressing ``deep reservations with the way the current version of the media shield bill, S. 2035, applies to the private sector. As drafted, it would have significantly adverse ramifications on the ability of Americans to legitimately protect personal and proprietary information and we must oppose the bill in its current form.''

It is interesting, despite all of these issues that have been raised by a variety of private groups and all of the national defense and intelligence community of our Government, there has not been a single hearing during the 110th Congress on this legislation, let alone a hearing on the general need for the media shield legislation. It is obviously not ready for prime time.

Let me mention one problem--and I will speak more on this tomorrow-- to illustrate some of the other problems the bill has, one illustration of what additional work needs to be done. This is one that could easily be resolved, and I don't understand why the sponsors of the legislation would not be willing to deal with it.

The bill fails to provide an exception to the privilege for information necessary to investigate a terrorist attack. Let me repeat that. You could not investigate a terrorist attack under the exclusion that is provided in the bill. The committee-reported bill would only provide an exception in section 5 for ``protected information that a Federal court has found . . . would assist in preventing an act of terrorism,'' or ``other significant and articulable harm to national security.''

I raised this question in a hearing. The exception makes no mention of information that would assist in investigating a terrorist attack or other significant event. It only talks about preventing. This is the kind of thing that could be fixed, and I don't understand why the authors of the bill wouldn't be willing to fix it.

Under the form in which it would be brought forward, obviously the majority leader would fill the parliamentary tree, there would be no opportunity for amendments, and we would be stuck on a take-it-or- leave-it basis with a piece of legislation that is highly flawed, totally criticized by the intelligence community and many in the private sector, as well.

The point, of course, is that the Democratic leader is simply throwing legislation out on the floor with the hope that somehow or another we will be able to divert attention from the subject of energy, the bill we are currently on. We should neither vote for cloture for the media shield bill nor the tax extenders bill nor any other piece of legislation, as I said, until we complete our work on energy. We could do that in a matter of 2 or 3 days. We can clearly do it before we leave here in August. But under no circumstances should we leave the important Energy bill to go off onto a piece of legislation such as this media shield bill.

I hope when we have the cloture vote tomorrow, my colleagues will join me in voting no on cloture on this legislation so we can deal with the No. 1 priority of the American people, and that is our energy crisis in America.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Allard), the Senator from North Carolina (Mrs. Dole), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Sununu), and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Allard), the Senator from North Carolina (Mrs. Dole), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), the Senator from Arizona (Mr.

McCain), and the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Sununu).

Mr. President, I will take the leader time, if Senator McConnell is not here.

Further, that the remaining time on the Republican side be allocated as follows: Senator DeMint, 20 minutes; Senator Hutchison, 5 minutes; Senator Domenici, 7 minutes; Senator Shelby, 7 minutes.

No, Mr. President. I would take not to exceed 10 minutes right now.

I am not requesting an extra 10 minutes. Following my 10 minutes of remarks now, the other time is allocated to complete the total of the Republican time, the time allocated to our side.

Mr. President, we are engaged in a somewhat rare Saturday session this morning. One might ask, what is the purpose for this session? In addition to voting on important housing legislation, the other vote the Senate will cast today is a very important vote. It is whether we are going to end our discussion and our effort to deal with America's biggest challenge on the domestic front--namely, the high price of gasoline and high price of fuel, which drives prices of everything else--or whether we will move on to other matters, other matters that are, at least in the eyes of the American people, far less important than dealing with this important energy crisis. There is no question that the American people believe our biggest challenge right now, a challenge that should be faced up to by Congress, is dealing with high gas prices. The Democratic majority would like to move on.

The second vote we have this morning is to move on, to move off of the energy and gas price debate and to move on to another bill. If that is unsuccessful, then next week they intend to move on to something else. Republicans will say no. We need to stay here and complete our work on this important gas price reduction legislation, and we should not leave here until we act.

Yesterday, the Washington Post had a somewhat critical editorial of the Democratic majority's position in the House and Senate. The title of it was ``No Drilling, No Vote.'' It begins:

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.

It concludes:

If drilling opponents really have the better of the

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

vote?

That is our view. Why shouldn't we have a vote?

The Republican leader came to the floor earlier this week and asked unanimous consent that we consider six or seven amendments, the very first one of which was to enable us to drill offshore. The majority leader objected to that request. It is fairly obvious that the amendment or something like it would pass because there are Members on both sides of the aisle who appreciate the fact that the first thing we should do to resolve this crisis is to have more American production. Republicans don't believe this is the only solution. Nobody believes drilling solves the problem. But most experts would agree it is the biggest first step, the one thing we could do that would make the most difference. We believe it is important to produce more and use less, meaning, to produce more by offshore drilling in the deep waters off the Gulf of Mexico, to take advantage of oil shale we have available, the vast resources in Alaska, and other resources that are American resources that can solve this American problem and get us off dependence on foreign oil.

There are other sources for electricity. We support increased nuclear production, wind, solar, and coal gasification and liquefaction. We also support more conservation. That is the ``use less'' component, including being able to transport ourselves in automobiles that use battery technology. The Democratic bill, on the other hand, deals with one subject: it puts the blame on so-called speculators and says that is where we should solve the problem. Not one drop of oil would be produced, not one bit of natural gas would be produced by the Democratic legislation.

Republicans agree that the CFTC, the regulatory body, needs more resources. It demonstrated its ability to work by announcing this week that it is going after some people who are trying to manipulate the market. We agree that they need all of the funding and employees to do their job as possible, but clearly, it is not the answer to the problem.

Here is what is happening. The market looks out a few months and says: What will the supply be; what will demand be? What it has seen is that demand is increasing dramatically, and it sees supply either flat or declining. It sets the price accordingly. It sets the price going up. My colleague John McCain is right: When the market sees we are serious about increasing production, market prices will go down accordingly.

We have American energy. We need to free it up for the American people. But the Democrats' game here is a very cynical one: Let's just have two amendments. Let's have a face-off between a Democratic proposal and a Republican proposal. It is the same old politics. Neither side wins, and that is the way it is set up. The American people lose.

Republicans have a better idea. Let's work on a bill one bite at a time. If it is too tough to do this in one giant swallow, then let's build consensus from the bottom up with people on both sides of the aisle agreeing to the components of the legislation. We can do this in a bipartisan way, and we can do it within a week. But until we get somewhere on gas prices, we shouldn't quit and move on to something less important in the eyes of the American people.

I ask unanimous consent that, at the conclusion of my remarks, a short statement be printed in the Record that deals with the contribution of a weak dollar to high oil prices.

This makes the point that there is a direct connection between the weak dollar and the high oil prices Americans are having to pay at the pump. It makes the point that if the dollar were stronger, it would take fewer dollars to buy the same amount of gasoline. That is something additional we can do. That is primarily not a congressional matter but a matter for the Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury, primarily the Federal Reserve.

All of these are ways we can deal with the problem of the high cost at the pump. We need to address all of these issues. But until we have addressed them, we should not move off of the legislation and take up something that is less important. The only exception to that is the housing bill we will vote on next. We have complete agreement to do that. Then when that is concluded, we will move back to the energy debate we have been having, the debate on how we can reduce the cost of gasoline at the pump. The American people expect us to do that, and we should complete that work before we leave for our August recess.

Exhibit 1

S. 3268 ``Stop Oil Speculation Now''

A Weak Dollar Contributes to High Oil Prices

At $124 a barrel, oil prices are still close to record

highs, and the weakness of the American dollar has a lot to

do with it.

Often the increase in oil prices can be attributed to

political turmoil in the Middle East or a significant supply

issue (as occurred after Hurricane Katrina). While these are

factors today, there is another reason you could see an

increase in the price at the pump.

Since January 2007, while oil prices have more than

doubled, the American dollar's

value has decreased by approximately 13 percent. As the

economy has slowed, the Federal Reserve has dropped the

Federal Funds rate numerous times over the past year--a total

reduction of 3.25 percentage points since January 2007.

Dropping the interest rate is meant to stimulate the U.S.

economy, but it also weakens the dollar.

The American dollar is the currency used by the

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the

conglomerate of oil producing nations that sets global oil

prices. Thus, any fluctuations in the value of our dollar are

reflected in the price of oil.

As our dollar falls in value relative to the euro, yen, or

price of gold, the price of oil goes up. Since oil is priced

using the American dollar, what Americans pay for oil will

increase to compensate for this change.

At the same time, however, other nations are shielded from

the same oil price increase because their own currencies are

more valuable than the dollar. European and Asian countries

(among others) are importing their oil for significantly less

than what Americans are paying. Europeans pay just 79 euros

for a barrel of oil while Americans pay more than $124.

Returning the U.S. to a ``strong dollar policy'' would

greatly reduce the price U.S. consumers pay for oil.

Confidence in the value of the U.S. dollar is also vital to

American financial competitiveness. A weak dollar makes

investment in foreign markets more attractive, particularly

for those who seek to diversify their portfolios as our

economy slows. Further dollar weakness could precipitate a

dramatic shift of money from domestic to foreign markets.

The key idea to understand here is that the value of our

American dollar is an important consideration to the investor

and consumer confidence. Without this confidence, our economy

will have a difficult time avoiding recession.

So these are several reasons why it is in our nation's best

interest to support a stronger U.S. dollar. Economist David

Malpass wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, ``A

strong, stable currency is itself one of a country's most

valuable fundamentals, not a byproduct of other fundamentals.

Our fundamentals haven't been nearly as bad as the dollar's

seven year slide. More likely, the weak dollar trend is

itself a bad economic fundamental, masking health

elsewhere.''

The Federal Reserve Should Focus on Fighting Inflation

There are two things that can be done to better the dollar.

First, the Federal Reserve should switch its focus from

maintaining economic stability to fighting inflation. In

periods of slower economic growth the Federal Reserve

traditionally responds by reducing short-term interest rates,

but that can exacerbate inflation, which has increased

substantially--growing at 4.9 percent in June from the same

time a year ago.

Note that while the dollar has fallen, the euro remains

relatively strong because the European Central Bank (ECB) has

not only refrained from lowering interest rates due to their

concerns about global inflation but actually raised their

target interest rate to 4.25 percent on July 3rd.

The Federal Reserve needs to follow the ECB's lead and

resist the political pressure to cut interest rates in order

to stabilize the value of the dollar.

The second thing would be for Congress to begin to make our

current, relatively low, tax rates permanent.

Our currency is the foundation for our economy; without a

strong dollar our economy will not be able to achieve the

stability that is necessary to control oil prices or the

economy.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Allard), the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from North Carolina (Mrs. Dole), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning) would have voted ``nay.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Allard), the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from North Carolina (Mrs. Dole), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner).

Further, if present and voting the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning) would have voted ``nay.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Allard), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), and the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Stevens).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) would have voted ``nay.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Allard), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), and the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Stevens).

Mr. President, in a recent column for the Arizona Republic, ``Rescuing Fannie Mae or Freddie is Nonsense,'' Bob Robb exposed some of the flaws in H.R. 3221, the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, specifically, the bailout for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Mr. Robb argues, ``This plan isn't about mitigating today's housing difficulties. Nothing in the plan gets a mortgage paid that wouldn't otherwise be paid. Nor is the rescue really about today's credit crunch, except for the minor effect a doubt about the reliability of Fannie and Freddie guarantees might have on the capital of other financial institutions. Instead, it's about enabling Fannie and Freddie to continue to do even more of the same in the future, and that's a bad idea.'' Mr. Robb calls this plan for what it is--an overreaction to Fannie and Freddie's self-inflicted financial wounds.

I ask unanimous consent that his column be reprinted in the Record, and I urge my colleagues to consider his thoughtful views.

Mr. President, many homeowners in my State of Arizona and across the Nation are having a hard time making their mortgage payments, but the legislation Congress is considering is not aimed at helping them. Rather, it is designed to help mortgage lenders and the two big Government enterprises ``Freddie Mac'' and ``Fannie Mae.'' In fact, the bill we are considering will place an immense financial burden on every American taxpayer for a long time and waste billions of dollars in misguided efforts to help lenders deemed ``too big to fail.'' Therefore, I will vote against H.R. 3221, the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008.

One of the few provisions in the bill that I support is the much needed reform of the government-sponsored enterprises, GSEs, that establishes an independent regulator to ensure that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are properly managed and financially sound. The reason they are in trouble is that they have taken too many risks, something I have been warning about for 3 years. These two GSEs hold more than $5 trillion in liabilities composed of mortgage-backed securities and other debt that enjoy an implicit guarantee by the Federal Government. This legislation makes that guarantee explicit for the first time.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's role is to promote liquidity in the mortgage industry, but due to the downturn in the housing market, poor oversight, and reckless portfolios, Fannie and Freddie have incurred losses of more than $5 billion in the past year, the first loss for these two GSEs in 25 years. Fannie and Freddie have also seen their stocks sink more than 80 percent in value over the past year. Congress should have passed this much needed reform years ago to avert the erosion of Fannie and Freddie's portfolios, and it should be stronger now, given their resistance to reform.

Because Fannie and Freddie enjoy this Federal Government guarantee of its debts, both the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve recently proposed various administrative and statutory actions to stabilize the GSEs. The actions included in this bill would allow the Federal Reserve to grant both Fannie and Freddie access to its discount window, temporarily remove the $2.25 billion cap on Fannie and Freddie's lines of credit at the Treasury Department, thereby allowing them to borrow an unlimited amount of taxpayer money if needed, temporarily permit Treasury to purchase equity in the institutions to ensure that the two GSEs have access to sufficient capital, and provide the Federal Reserve authority to gain access to information and perform a consultative role in the new GSE regulator's process for setting capital requirements and other prudential standards that this bill mandates. The Congressional Budget Office, CBO, estimates that the proposal could cost American taxpayers $25 billion over fiscal years 2009 and 2010; however, there is a chance that a further deterioration of Fannie and Freddie's finances could require an infusion of $100 billion or more. We simply do not know how much this proposal will cost--a gamble with taxpayers' money that I am not comfortable making.

In addition to the possible costs of the proposal to help Fannie and Freddie, the provisions of H.R. 3221 intended to deal with foreclosures would cost taxpayers billions and do little to help struggling homeowners. For instance, a key component of the bill is the HOPE for Homeowners Program, which would allow subprime mortgage holders to refinance their mortgages into Federal Housing Administration backed loans if the lender agrees to write down the value of the mortgage. This represents a huge risk to American taxpayers. The program would allow lenders to cherry pick up to $300 billion of their worst loans and refinance them into FHA guaranteed loans. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that a third of the mortgages refinanced under the HOPE for Homeowners Program will enter into default.

But even more troubling to me is the burden this program will place on the FHA considering its current financial woes. The New York Times reported in April that the FHA will face a deficit for the first time in its 74-year history; the deficit is largely blamed on the risky mortgages that the FHA already holds in its mortgage portfolio. I don't see the rationale for expanding FHA's liability with this $300 billion program when the agency cannot sustain its current portfolio and when American taxpayers will bear any losses that the FHA incurs because of the HOPE for Homeowners Program.

This bill also includes a new tax on the GSEs--estimates range up to $600 million a year--to pay for the HOPE for Homeowners Program for 3 years, and thereafter, for a new affordable housing trust fund. It simply does not make sense for Congress to impose a new tax on Fannie and Freddie at the same time that the Federal Government thinks it must bail them out by infusing cash and equity into the institutions. It is also likely that Fannie and Freddie will simply pass along the cost of this new tax to consumers, which obviously would not help lure buyers back into the housing market.

Not only do I oppose taxing the GSEs' profits, but I also question the efficacy of the affordable housing trust fund that would be funded by the GSEs. The bill would direct 65 percent of the money it taps from the GSEs to the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD. Under vague guidelines in the bill, the Secretary of HUD would then have the discretion to establish grant criteria that could favor certain States. Once the money is allocated by the Secretary, State and local politicians would be able to disburse the money to favored organizations and for-profit groups that share their political agendas. The remaining 35 percent of the money that the bill takes from the GSEs would be distributed to nonprofit groups selected by the Secretary of the Department of the Treasury. This, too, could allow the politicians in power to divert Federal dollars to their favorite housing causes. I cannot support a bill that essentially creates a slush fund for politicians.

I also oppose the nearly $4 billion in funding the bill allocates to the Community Development Block Grant, CDBG Program because the funding would go to local officials to buy foreclosed property from the lender that is holding the property. Not only does this create a scenario ripe for political favoritism, it would also bail out the very lenders who offered mortgages their customers couldn't afford. And, again, it does nothing to help the former homeowner. Moreover, the CDBG Program is fraught with inefficiencies and mismanagement. According to a February 2008 report from the White House budget office, the CDBG Program was labeled as ``ineffective,'' and only received a score of 27 out of 100- point scale of achieving results. I cannot vote for a bill that has such a poorly run program as one of its centerpieces.

Finally, I disagree with certain parts of the tax title contained in this bill.

When the tax title was initially drafted, I successfully added a provision designed to protect taxpayers from having property tax relief provided in the bill completely offset by rising taxes at the State and local levels of government. However, when the legislation reached the House of Representatives my language protecting taxpayers from tax increases was dropped. Homeowners and average Americans are struggling to pay their mortgages, higher gas prices, and more expensive grocery bills. State and local governments should not add to these burdens by raising their own taxes and certainly should not try to divert Federal tax reductions intended to help individuals contending with today's economic challenges into their own coffers.

One must understand that the Federal Government already provides a tremendous amount of financial assistance to State and local governments. According to the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, the Federal Government will provide $476.1 billion to State and local governments in 2009, an increase of roughly $10 billion from 2008 and 67 percent more than in 2000. Almost 50 percent of Federal financial assistance is spent on health care. Spending on income security, education, and transportation roughly accounts for the remainder.

In determining the total amount of assistance the Federal Government provides to State and local governments, one must also factor in the foregone revenue that results from tax expenditures which benefit State and local governments. The two largest tax expenditures are the deduction for State and local tax payments and the interest exclusion on public purpose State and local government debt. Combined, these provisions reduce Federal revenue by nearly $60 billion in 2009.

Interestingly, if the Federal Government did not provide State and local governments with assistance, the budget would run persistent surpluses. There would have only been 16 budget deficits over the last 50 years. U.S. debt would have been substantially lower.

I also oppose the $16.8 billion of tax increases included in the bill used to offset the cost of the new spending. In particular, one provision would require the payment card industry to design and build a new computer system so that it can collect merchants' transaction information and provide it to the IRS. It would also require payment card companies to withhold 28 percent of a merchant's reimbursement if it cannot verify the company's taxpayer identification number, TIN.

No hearings have been held on this proposal and now Congress is rushing through an incomplete payment card reporting proposal that has not been adequately vetted. Once implemented, the provision would require the industry to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to redesign their information systems to comply with the new information reporting regime. The payment card industry's current computer records do not contain merchant TINs and other information that the proposal would require to be reported.

If payment card companies do not currently have a system in place to ensure valid TIN information on all existing merchants, errors in TIN matching will subject merchants to withholding, even where merchants have provided TIN information. Withholding 28 percent of a merchant's gross reimbursements would severely disrupt a business's operations and impair its cash flows.

There are programs currently operating that provide responsible relief to struggling homeowners at no cost to American taxpayers. HUD has organized an assistance program, called HOPE NOW, for homeowners in distress to rework their mortgages if both the borrower and lender decide that renegotiation of their mortgages is in their mutual interest. This voluntary program has helped over a million Americans having trouble paying their mortgages, and I fully support these efforts. In less than a year, HOPE NOW has assisted nearly 17,000 Arizonans negotiate repayment plans with their lenders. Additionally, over 6,000 Arizonans have received loan modifications. The HOPE NOW Program was just recently expanded to help even more struggling homeowners in Arizona and nationwide.

I oppose H.R. 3221 because I do not think the benefits of the bill outweigh the numerous liabilities that could be passed to American taxpayers. Congress should not pass a bill just to show it is ``doing something'' to help homeowners who cannot make their mortgage payments or write a blank check to Fannie and Freddie. This bill passes more burden to American taxpayers.

payment card and third party networking