Floor Statements

Mr. President, I believe Senator Stevens is going to speak, but I ask unanimous consent that he be recognized on the completion of my statement.

Mr. President, obviously the issue of energy is at the center of everybody's concern.

Does the Senator from Alaska wish to go forward?

Mr. President, I ask to reserve my time and ask that I be recognized at the completion of the presentation by the Senator from Alaska.

Mr. President, it is my understanding that I have 10 minutes to speak as in morning business?

Mr. President, I rise to participate in this discussion on energy. I agree with the Senator from Alaska, and I agree, in part, with the Senator from North Dakota, that there has to be an addressing of the issue of speculation.

I think any deal that takes shape on this floor will help if we do that. In addressing the issue of speculation, there are a lot of different factors, however. One of them is that we make sure to maintain control over these commodity markets, and we not create an atmosphere where these commodity markets move offshore and therefore we lose any regulatory control on our part.

But, in addition, I do not think we can repeal the laws of common sense. The essence of the law of common sense is that you have India and China moving toward fairly developed nations and creating massive increases in the demand for oil. There are 2.5 billion people in those two countries. We have 300 million people in our country. We still use the majority of the world's oil. But the simple fact is that demand for oil has radically increased, and we are not going to be able to reduce our energy costs in this country unless we produce more American resources, and also conserve more. That is the simple fact. It is a function of supply and demand. And part of producing more means that we have got to look at those places where we have sources of energy. Two of the key places we have sources of energy are offshore and also oil shale. Both of those resources and, in fact, in the case of oil shale, those resources, the reserves of oil there, exceed the reserves of Saudi Arabia by a factor of two or three. In both of those instances we can recover energy by exploring and drilling in a manner that is environmentally safe. We have proved that beyond any question relative to offshore drilling, when you see that Hurricane Katrina came right up the gulf coast and destroyed one of our great cities but at the same time there was essentially no oil leak or no gas leak from any of the production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico.

We have proven we can produce this energy in a safe and environmentally sound way, and we need to produce it. If you want to see the price of energy drop in this country, you have got to show the world community that we as a nation are willing to step forward and produce and conserve more energy. The way you produce more energy is by drilling, drilling offshore and using the underground resources of oil shale which exceed the reserves of Saudi Arabia. So if we want to address the cost of energy, we should do it, and we should do it now. We should not be waiting.

That is why I congratulate the President for lifting the moratorium. The Senate should lift the moratorium that was put in place by the Senate, by the Congress, on both oil shale and offshore drilling.

(The remarks of Mr. Gregg pertaining to the introduction of S. 3279 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

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

I want to talk about the specific reason I have come to the floor, which is to talk about the fear, quite honestly, in colder States in this country about how we are going to get through the winter. The price of home heating oil, which is the dominant form of energy in our State, the way people keep their houses warm and habitable in the winter, has tripled. People who are working for a living, and low-income individuals, have no idea how they are going to meet the cost of their energy bill this winter. It is going to overwhelm us as a region. We need to do something about it. There are a couple of levels where we need to act. We do need to increase significantly the funding for low-income energy assistance. This is a crisis. The simple fact is we should increase that funding.

At the same time, we do need to do that in a responsible way, by paying for that increase in funding so we do not end up putting the cost of buying energy to heat homes today on our children and our children's children tomorrow. That is not fair to them. So we ought to come forward with a proposal. What I am going to do today is introduce a bill which increases home heating oil assistance by $2.5 billion, which will double that program, but pays for it in a reasonable way, essentially by repealing the section 199 regulation that gives certain deductions to energy production companies which they no longer need with oil being at $130 a barrel.

It is a significant increase in funding. It is a level that Senator Sanders has introduced in a bill, freestanding, that is not paid for, which I have also cosponsored, because I hope when that bill comes forward, I will be able to offer my pay-fors to it. But it is the number we need and we clearly have to have in order to have any chance this winter of making sure that low-income people in New Hampshire and throughout the Northeast and the country can survive this winter in a reasonable way.

Secondly, we need to address the issue of middle-income Americans, people in New Hampshire who are working for a living and who do not meet these low-income thresholds, who have an equal amount of fear about how they are going to pay for the energy to heat their home, when they see the cost of their energy bill double or triple or maybe even quadruple.

I hope to have next week a tax credit that will be available to those working families who are of moderate income, who have an income which they cannot adjust enough in order to be able to absorb the huge cost of this event of the runup in the cost of energy. I hope to be able to introduce that in the near future. But today I am introducing this bill, which increases home heating assistance, the LIHEAP program, by $2.5 billion and pays for it, which is the responsible way to do it. In addition, I am strongly supporting Senate initiatives which will increase our commitment to the production as a nation and conservation. Because by doing that, we will draw down, we will significantly reduce the price of gasoline and the price of oil in our country. Because that speculation, which is legitimate, which is based off the projected demands and the lack of supply, will adjust to the fact that greater supply is going to come into the market. That will reduce the forces which are forcing the price demands up and as a result have a positive impact on reducing the cost of a barrel of oil.

We need to do a lot around here. We do need to address speculation when it is there and when it is inappropriate and when it is driving up the price in an arbitrary and unfair way. We also need to address the issue of more production and create more production. We are looking for energy where we can do it safely and energy efficiently and also in an environmentally sound way, such as offshore or with oil shale.

We have more oil shale reserves than Saudi Arabia--three times Saudi Arabia's reserves we have in three States: Wyoming, Idaho, and Colorado. And we should not be sending our hard-earned money to countries, which in many instances do not even like us to purchase their oil products. We should be buying it here in the United States where we can produce it. In addition, of course, we need to aggressively pursue a course of conservation and renewables.

I wish to note that the title of this bill is the Home Energy Assistance Today Act, or HEAT. Obviously, the purpose of this bill is to make it possible for citizens throughout the country, but especially in New England, who are of low income, to be able to heat their homes this winter and to afford the cost of the energy it takes to heat their homes.

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

Madam President, is the regular order now that we are to proceed to a vote on a series of amendments?

Is the first amendment my amendment relating to the inspector general?

Madam President, I will go forward, and I guess the Senator from Indiana will close.

This amendment seems to me to be eminently reasonable in the sense that all it does--it is certainly not partisan in any way--is set up an independent inspector general for this specific program. Why does this program need an independent, specific inspector general? It is because under the present law, where we have over $15 billion being spent over 5 years, we have five different inspectors general looking at these programs, and it has been pretty clear that they haven't had time to do it very effectively. Only one inspector general has spent any time, in fact, and that has been the USAID inspector general. By requiring the program to increase threefold, we are dramatically increasing the responsibility relative to spending money, but the USAID inspector general isn't going to have time to increase their efforts significantly in this account. So it is very important that we have an independent inspector general.

This is especially true because almost every country that these dollars are going to go into is a country which rates very low on the international evaluation of transparency, integrity, and functioning of the government in a way that we would deem to be efficient and effective. We cannot afford to have U.S. tax dollars wasted, and we certainly don't want to have them going to processes which are corrupt. The way to avoid that is to set up a specific inspector general for this account.

I wouldn't ask for it if we weren't expanding it so dramatically. But when you take a program and triple its size, you better have someone looking over the shoulders of the folks spending that money. That is why we need an independent inspector general relative to this account.

I yield the remainder of my time, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Thank you, Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 5081.

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

Mr. President, this amendment, I do not know why we are taking up this amendment at all. It is an amendment which is going to try to make funds spent under this bill be responsibly spent. It sets up an IG to review how these funds are spent.

We are taking a program which we presently spend $15 billion on and we are tripling it, we are doing more than tripling it, we are taking it to more than $50 billion. I know the taxpayers of America would hope and expect that when we take a program and radically expand it in this manner, we would expect that those dollars be spent efficiently and effectively.

Now, we put inspectors general into a lot of different programs around here. There are programs which spend less than $20 million that have inspectors general tied to them. It is only reasonable that if you are going to take a program and radically expand it, the way this program is being expanded, which will lead to significant pressure to push money out the door, and, unfortunately, that quite often leads to instances where the money is not well spent, that you should have someone looking over the shoulders of the folks who are spending the money and saying: Is this money being spent for what, first, it was intended to do, which is to help people in nations who are suffering from the plague of AIDS, specifically, and, secondly, that people who are the recipients of those dollars are handling those dollars in a way where the dollars are not being wasted or handled in a corrupt manner.

Now, one of the unfortunate factors involved in the PEPFAR Program is that many of the countries which receive PEPFAR funds are countries which have governments which are not all that committed to integrity and are not transparent at all. In fact, a corruption index by Transparency International took a look at the various countries around the world to determine which countries are basically corrupt and which are not; which have governments that function under the rule of law and which do not, and which governments end up with a large amount of patronage, waste, and fraud when they manage their funds.

This map shows that conclusion of that index. The darker the colors get on this map, the more problematic is the nation relative to the issue of transparency and integrity in their government. Well, as you look at this map, you maybe cannot see it, but there are little yellow stars on the countries which are going to be receiving most of the PEPFAR funds or are presently receiving PEPFAR funds.

Almost all those countries are nations which have serious issues on transparency and where the governments have some questions about integrity and management and waste.

So it is very reasonable that we should put in place an inspector general within the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator to make sure these dollars, which are fairly significant--in fact, they are dramatic when you look at the increases--are being spent well. You know, American taxpayers and most Americans are extremely generous people. We as a nation are generous. There is no other nation in the world that has stepped up to the AIDS fight, especially in Africa, the way we have. I congratulate this Administration for taking the lead on that. I congratulate Senator Lugar for being one of the leaders on this effort and Senator Biden.

They are reflecting, the President and the leadership of the Foreign Relations Committee are reflecting the inherent nature of the American people, which is to try to help people out who have problems. We recognize AIDS is a scourge, and it is a terrible situation, especially in these African countries.

But the American people also expect that when they are generous with their dollars, as they are being under this program, and have been under this program, that these dollars are going to be well used; they are not going to end up in the pocket of some cousin of somebody who is going to be running the program; or not end up in a Swiss bank account or not end up going for somebody's new Mercedes or, alternatively, they are not going to go into an NGO, a nongovernmental organization, which rather than being an efficient provider of care, turns out to be simply a place where a lot of money is spent on administration, instead of a lot of money being spent on trying to cure or address the problem of

Will the Senator yield for a question?

It is my understanding that presently the inspectors general for Defense, for Labor-HHS, the State Department, and the USAID all have line responsibility for PEPFAR; is that not true?

It is also my understanding that every one of those agencies which I have listed has billions--and in the case of HHS and Defense, hundreds of billions of dollars--to be sensitive to as to how they are being spent.

The only IG who I believe has done any reports of those five who theoretically have been charged with that responsibility of overlooking PEPFAR spending is, as I understand, USAID, which is using a small number of its membership to do that, and spending, I think, less than $1.5 million a year on that program.

So doesn't it make sense that we should acknowledge the fact that these very large entities--Defense, Labor-HHS, USAID, and State-- probably on their radar screen of relative issues are not going to place PEPFAR very high and we should have, instead, an individual in an office which does place it right at the center of its responsibility to make sure the money is being spent well?

That was a question.

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, I was seeking recognition.

Mr. President, I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. President, I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

Well, Mr. President, I am not sure what has happened here, but I was seeking recognition. I do not believe I had lost the floor, and I think it is inappropriate that I was taken off the floor. I am not going to continue this debate at this point, and I will yield to the Senator from Louisiana and let her proceed.

Madam President, are we in morning business?

I will speak on the bill. I wish to associate myself with the comments of the Senator from South Carolina. I am not sure why, when it is costing $4.40 to put a gallon of gas in your car, when we are looking at a winter where energy prices may be as high as $5 a gallon, which is going to just overwhelm and create a horrific situation in parts of the country like my own, where people's ability to survive depends on their ability to buy heating oil, why we would be moving to a bill which essentially, dramatically expands an AIDS program in Africa.

Now, the PETFAR Program has been a success, and I congratulate the administration for initiating it. We, as a people, are very compassionate. We have made a commitment to Africa and the nations there to help them with this terrible AIDS epidemic they are dealing with. There is no question but to take a hard look at this program and making some good decisions on improving it is appropriate. But certainly on our list of priorities it should not be above doing something substantive on the issue of how we increase supply in the area of energy in this country and how we energize more conservation in the area of energy in this country.

We, as a people, need to pursue a course of more production--American production--and more conservation. There is much this Congress can do to assist in this area. It needs to be done now because--at least in production--there is significant lead time. But the one thing we could do which would affect the price of oil and which would impact the speculation in the marketplace that is occurring today is to make it clear that we, as a government, are going to support initiatives that are reasonable, environmentally sound, and will produce significant amounts of new energy through production. That will have an immediate impact on those folks out there who are driving up the price of oil.

The price of oil is driven up as a result of people presuming that supply will be stagnant and will not expand and, therefore, demand, as it goes up, will increase price. If we can put in place policies which increase production, and therefore supply, and make an American product, we will do two very good things: We will reduce the speculation in the price of oil and thus cause it to go down. Secondly, we will actually be producing American product and spending American dollars--hard-earned dollars--in America rather than sending them over to nations many of which don't like us to begin with.

So there are at least three major areas of production we should be pursuing and which we need legislation on to pursue. The first is drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf. We know we have years and years of supply in the Outer Continental Shelf. But it is locked up by legislation that was initiated by the other side of the aisle, which essentially took off limits almost all the new, available resources on the Outer Continental Shelf. What has been proposed and what is a reasonable approach is that States that believe they are willing to pursue drilling off of their shores--over the horizon, by the way, 50 miles out in most instances--following the example of Louisiana, for example, and Mississippi and Alabama which already do this, States such as Virginia, for example, which has said they may be willing to pursue these resources, that they be given the option to do that and not be told they cannot do it, which is what the law says now. That is reasonable. It will open a huge amount of potential supply of both oil and natural gas.

In addition, we know we have more oil reserves in oil shale in three States--Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah--than all of Saudi Arabia has. We have three times the amount of reserves Saudi Arabia has, and the oil shale can be recovered in an environmentally sound way, and the recovery doesn't require anything to happen at the surface. It is all done under the surface. The technology is there and it is viable and it is economically viable when oil exceeds $70 a barrel or maybe $60 a barrel. We know we can do it.

But we are stopped from doing it by rules and regulations put in place by the Congress and by the prior administration. We ought to revisit those. We ought to debate those on the floor of the Senate. We ought to be willing, in my opinion, to pursue programs that will, in an environmentally sound way, use that oil resource, which is so huge-- huge--and which is American oil. We will be using American product rather than product that comes from nations that not only don't like us but, in some cases, want to do us harm.

Thirdly, we have the issue of nuclear power. France gets 80 percent of its energy from nuclear power. China is adding new nuclear powerplants all the time. We have not added a new nuclear powerplant since the late 1980s. Nuclear power is clean energy. People who are concerned about the environment--as many of us are, and I think most people are--and about the issue of global warming, nuclear power is an energy source that has no impact at all on global warming. It has no emissions.

We know how to make nuclear powerplants that are safe. Nobody has ever died in a nuclear accident in this country. More important, when you look at nuclear power as an energy source, it is American made, American produced, and it means that instead of having to buy product from overseas to produce our electrical energy, we can produce it here with American product, made in America through nuclear powerplants. We should be adding nuclear powerplants. We made some improvements in the regulatory process, but it still is an extraordinarily long process to bring on line nuclear powerplants.

In fact, in France, I think it takes something like less than 2 years to license and get a powerplant on line. In the United States, we are looking at 4\1/2\ years, or something like that, to license it, to get the plant under construction. It takes longer to construct them, obviously.

So there are things we can do in this area. Those are the areas of production we should be aggressively looking at. They are controversial, and they should not be at a time when oil is at $140 a barrel and gasoline is costing us $4.50 a gallon and home heating oil is costing as much as $4.85 a gallon. At a time like this, we should be looking at those resources that can be produced in the United States and that will take the pressure off of our economy.

One of the big problems with the price of oil and energy and gasoline, beyond the fact that it is stretching the average American's budget, people are legitimately worried and fearful about what will happen to them this winter. One of the other consequences of the price is that we are taking a huge amount of American capital, hundreds of billions of dollars' worth a year, and instead of retaining it in the United States where it can be used and reinvested and produce jobs, it is being sent overseas on a daily basis. Some of it is coming back through investments in our bonds, but we are then paying interest to foreign governments and foreign individuals.

It would be much smarter of us to try to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by increasing domestic production. We need to aggressively pursue programs of conservation and renewables also. That is why the Ensign-Cantwell bill on extending renewable tax credits is so important. I am sorry we have not been able to get to that and it has been blocked. That should be passed. Clearly, conservation needs to be aggressively pushed.

So we should be producing more, and we should be using less. What we should be producing more of is American product. I think next week, rather than debating whether we should expand a foreign aid program by three times--the program was initially a $15 billion program, and it is proposed to take it up to $50 billion--rather than debating that, an authorization bill, we should be focusing on what America really needs to have done today, which is address the energy needs.

I understand the Senator from Texas may make a unanimous consent request here. If he does, I certainly hope it will be accepted. It is reasonable that we should be pursuing and addressing those in the Senate--how we are going to produce more and use less.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, there is obviously a great need to correct the problem of what will occur if we do not fix the doctors' reimbursement schedule.

But there are also more ways to do this than one, and the one that is being proposed is the House-passed bill by the majority leader. We would suggest that since the Senate should be heard on this matter and have the opportunity to put its ideas on the table, Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus should have a chance to work on the Senate proposal; that we would rather proceed with an extension of the present Medicare provisions so doctors are not subject to a reduction in reimbursement for 30 days and allow this to happen.

I will be required to object to this on behalf of the leadership over here and myself. Then I would like the courtesy of the majority leader to ask unanimous consent for a 30-day extension.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of a 30-day Medicare extension that is at the desk; that it be read a third time and passed; that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

I think the point is, there are serious reservations on our side of the aisle, and I think legitimately other places, on the way the House has handled elements of the Medicare system in this bill and that is to undermine the ability of many seniors to participate in what is known as Medicare Advantage.

We think there is a better way to do it. We think the Senate can do a better job of this bill, and we think 30 days to work on it makes some sense.

Mr. President, I want to speak on the bill, not in morning business.

I am concerned we are not getting to a lot of the issues in this bill we should get to. Although I am supportive of the underlying bill, one of the issues we are not getting to, and I do not understand it, is the need to extend the renewable tax credits.

Senator Ensign and Senator Cantwell have brought forward an amendment to accomplish this. The renewable tax credits are those tax credits which create an incentive for using things that are more energy efficient: making your home more energy efficient, using solar, using wind, using wood pellet stoves, things which are basically alternative sources of energy, or doing additions to people's homes which make their homes more energy efficient.

At a time when gas prices are extraordinarily high, and oil prices are going through the roof, especially home heating oil--in fact, it is estimated home heating oil will be about $4.77 this week--it is essential that we do whatever we can as a government to encourage the use of alternative sources and renewables and to encourage people to be more energy efficient as they either build a new home or they refurbish and renovate their old homes.

That seems to be common sense to me. It has such common sense that this proposal, the extension of the renewable tax credits, passed this body with 88 votes. However, for some reason it is not being allowed to be brought up on this bill.

It is very appropriate for this bill, it is even germane to this bill, as I understand it, which is a pretty heavy test to pass. But it is not being allowed to be brought up for a vote. I cannot understand that. This is such an important action from the standpoint of giving consumers and people who are struggling with high energy cost options. It is something we should rush to do. It is not something that should be delayed by the leadership of the other side of the aisle. But that is what is happening.

I join with Senator Ensign and Senator Cantwell and strongly encourage the leadership of the Senate Democrats to allow a vote on this amendment and let it pass. If the House does not want to take it, that is their choice. But I suspect the House will, because, again, it is common sense, and commonsense ideas usually lead to common ground, which leads to something happening around here.

When you have got 88 votes for something, it should be done. In the larger context of the energy crisis which we face, this type of step is critical. It is not going to solve the whole problem, we know that, but it is certainly part of the matrix of moving to a more positive result and getting our energy costs under control.

People in New Hampshire--this is true across the country, but people in New Hampshire are thinking about next winter and the cost of home heating oil is going to be extraordinary. It looks as if this will add tremendous stress, especially on people who live on a fixed income but even those who were able to adjust their income through working are going to find it difficult. They are going to find it difficult, because at $4 a gallon, if they have to commute to work--and most people in New Hampshire have to commute; it is a rural State from the standpoint of moving around--they are going to find it much more expensive to commute. Most people use oil to heat their homes, and with home heating oil at over $4.50 a gallon, you are talking about a doubling of the oil costs from last year. That is going to overwhelm the pocketbooks and the economic situation for a lot of people in New Hampshire. It is going to be a real hardship. We need to do something which will relieve that.

This is one element of extending the renewable energy tax credits. But another major element of it is for us to have an energy policy at the national level which essentially promotes American production of energy. We should produce more American energy and obviously we should consume less. There is no question that conservation is a critical element, as are renewables. But on the production side, there is no reason that we as a nation have locked up our capacity to use our resources in order to relieve the pressure on America's people who are now having to pay these outrageous prices for energy, and with the revenues from those purchases going overseas, in many instances to nations which do not like us all that much.

In addition, obviously every time we send a dollar overseas, it is a dollar that can't be invested here in more jobs, in more economic activity, and the fact that we have now tripled what we are exporting in the way of resources, in the way of dollars, again to countries in some instances that do not have a great deal of admiration for us, in many ways are antagonistic to us--the exportation of those huge amounts of dollars, over $300 billion a year, is money which we need here in America to make ourselves stronger.We are heading down a very dangerous road here when we do not recognize that we need to produce American energy and keep those dollars in the United States, rather than shipping them overseas.

Now, from the other side of the aisle we heard these proposals, we heard it from the Senator from North Dakota, that the way to address this is to litigate; the way to address this is to regulate; the way to address this is to tax.

Well, none of those initiatives add more resources to the mix. And this is, in large part, an issue of supply and demand. The world is expanding. India and China have a population base of almost 2.5 billion people between them. We have 300 million people. They are growing economically, and they are using a lot of energy to do that.

We have to recognize that if we are going to remain competitive and productive and strong, we have got to produce energy here, we have got to conserve it--we have to produce more of it, and we have to use less.

As part of that initiative, we need to look at ways and places that we can produce more, areas such as oil shale, for example. We have more reserves in oil shale, three times as much reserves in oil as Saudi Arabia. The estimate is between 2 and 3 trillion barrels of reserves in oil shale alone. We have huge

reserves in Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas. But both of those types of resources are being locked down by opposition, again regrettably by the other side of the aisle, which says we cannot drill in the Outer Continental Shelf except in the Gulf of Mexico, and we cannot use the oil shale reserves which are available.

In fact, 100 percent of the oil shale reserves have been put off limits by policies of the other side of the aisle, supported by their national Presidential candidate, Mr. Obama, and 85 percent of the oil in the lower 49 that is potentially out there on the Outer Continental Shelf has been put off limits, again, by the other side of the aisle and, again, supported by Senator Obama. That is a huge amount of reserves which we are leaving in the ground while we buy oil at exorbitant prices from Venezuela, a country led by an individual who hates America; oil from Iran, a country where the entire government hates America and anything western.

Why do we do that? That makes no sense at all. Clearly, we have these reserves here, and they can be recovered in an environmentally safe and sound way. The example on the Outer Continental Shelf was shown when we saw Katrina, a horrific disaster, a force 5 hurricane that came up the Gulf of Mexico and wiped out one of our great cities, New Orleans. Virtually no oil or gas was spilled as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Yet it went right across the Gulf of Mexico where all the major oil and gas rigs are. That proved beyond any question that gas and oil can be produced on the Outer Continental Shelf with environmental safety.

There is a lot of it out there that has been locked down. Eighty-five percent of the potential leaseholds are no longer available because of the position taken by the other side. In the area of oil shale, these huge reserves which may be available to us are recoverable by drilling underground and by doing almost all the effort to recover that oil underground so that what actually comes out of the ground is virtually the product that is used. We could essentially get all the oil we need in order to operate the armed services of the United States, the biggest consumer of oil in this country, simply from oil shale because it is a heavy oil which is diesel-like fuel. Yet that is locked down; 100 percent of that is locked down by the policies of the other side of the aisle.

We can move on, of course, to another source that we need to use, which is nuclear power. Nuclear power is essential if we are going to produce the electricity necessary to make this country productive and prosperous and to meet the need to reduce greenhouse gases which are creating problems for us as a culture and for the world. The other side of the aisle has resisted and stopped construction of new nuclear powerplants. We are uniquely familiar with this in New Hampshire. We had the last nuclear powerplant that went on line, Seabrook. It took us an extra 10 to 15 years to build that plant beyond what it should have required. It cost us almost $1 billion more than it should have cost, and almost all of those costs and delays were a function of protests undertaken by very activist elements led primarily by the Democratic Party within the State of New Hampshire.

There has never been an apology for what they did to the people of New Hampshire--over a billion dollars of extra energy costs put on the people of New Hampshire, a direct tax, and yet Seabrook, once it was turned on, has delivered power for almost 18 years and has delivered it safely and at a fair price, to the point where New Hampshire actually exports energy to surrounding States as a result.

We know nuclear power can be safe. Nobody has ever died from nuclear power as compared with other types of power sources. We should not bar its development; we should encourage its development. We need new nuclear powerplants. We need new sources. We need to find and explore for new sources of energy such as are available on the Outer Continental Shelf and in oil shale.

Yet, regrettably, what we run into here is that everybody can agree on the need for conservation, but it doesn't appear we are going to agree on the need for renewables because that amendment is being stopped. But the idea that we should go out and produce more American energy so we are not buying energy from Venezuela and from Iran, that is rejected, regrettably, by the other side of the aisle.

The policy presented in their energy plan was taxation, litigation, and regulation. We heard it again today. We just regulate our way into a surplus of supply. That is not going to happen. You can't take a trial lawyer and stick him in your oil tank, in your house, and get energy. The simple fact is, giving the trial lawyers the ability to sue Venezuela isn't going to produce any more energy for the United States.

What it is probably going to do is create an atmosphere where countries that dislike us within the OPEC group are going to say: The heck with you. You want to create a lawsuit against us, we don't have to sell you the energy or, when you send us your money, we don't have to reinvest in the United States. It is cutting off our nose to spite our face. It is a policy that is virtually absurd on its face because it will have so little productive effect on the price of energy.

The same could be said for taxation. We are going to create a confiscatory tax on companies that produce energy, American companies. Those companies only control about 6 percent of the world's reserves. The rest of the world's reserves are controlled by nations such as Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Iran. They are not going to be subject to that tax, their companies. So that puts our companies immediately at a competitive disadvantage.

What do these companies which have been so vilified around here and such easy targets for the online press release really do with those profits? They do two things: They reinvest them in trying to find more energy, which will hopefully be American-produced energy, which is good because more supply reduces cost, or they distribute those profits to shareholders. Who are the shareholders? Most Americans are shareholders, and most American shareholdings are in these companies.

If you have a 401(k), if you are a member of a pension fund, if you are a union employee and you have a pension fund, the odds are good that pension fund is invested in one of these companies that are going to be subject to this brand new taxation coming from the other side of the aisle. There will be less money to explore and less money to distribute back to working Americans through their pension funds and dividends. That is not going to produce any more energy; in fact, it will produce less. That, again, accomplishes nothing except putting out a press release which has nice cosmetics, but when you look behind it, it has no substance as to addressing the fundamental issue.

The fundamental issue is this: We, as a country, need more American energy production, and we need to consume a lot less. There are two sides to the coin. We also need a renewable policy that works. That is why this amendment offered by Senators Ensign and Cantwell, and which has such broad support here, should be voted on. It is a no-brainer. Let's at least move this part of the package of responsible energy policy. I cannot understand why it is not being voted on, especially since it is relevant to the housing bill. We should pass this in a nanosecond because it will at least help in a small way toward moving our energy policy in the right way, which is toward more renewables as we address the issue of production and conservation along with it.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, I intend to speak on the bill, and I presume it will be for about 10 minutes, but I am not sure.

Mr. President, I am seeking recognition on the bill in morning business, but first I will comment on the oil issue. I am rising primarily to speak to the bill, which has been brought to the floor by the Senators from Connecticut and Alabama--and I congratulate them--at a time when there hasn't been a lot of effort to do business in a cooperative way to produce positive events for our Nation or Government. They have done it, and they deserve a tremendous amount of praise for that. I have not had a chance to read the whole bill, but I have listened to what they are planning to do. We have worked with their staffs. Up until a couple of weeks ago, we were working reasonably close, and Senator Shelby has been a force for progress. In my opinion, they appear to be on the right track. I want to get into the specifics of why I feel that way in a second.

Offshore Oil Exploration

First, I wish to talk about the oil issue, about whether or not we explore offshore. The proposal we have seen for energy that has been brought to the floor so far, primarily by the other side, has been to do three basic things. One is to litigate; sue the oil cartels. If you are the Saudis, and America gives American attorneys a new right to sue you, or if you are the Emirates States or some other oil-producing nation, you are going to be affronted by the fact that the United States would suddenly turn to its legal community and say: You can sue these other nations. I suspect my reaction, were I running a government of one of those countries that had oil reserves, would be to say, A, we don't need you, we don't need to sell you this oil; or, B, reinvest in your economy with the proceeds from purchasing this oil.

Our economy, to a large degree, is dependent upon people being willing to invest in it, both domestically and also internationally. Obviously, the petrodollars that are floating around the world because of the price of oil are a significant part of the investment capital in this world, and we are shipping overseas massive amounts of our capital to purchase oil. That is one of the biggest problems with the fact that we are buying all this foreign oil at ridiculously high prices.

We should not take an action that essentially would be cutting off our nose to spite our face by saying: We are going to sue you if you don't do what we want relative to our laws and relative to cartels. Their laws don't bar cartels. They don't have to invest in the United States. I suspect they would limit their investment through their sovereign funds in the United States were we to take that action. That would not produce more energy for us.

The second proposal is to take a percentage of the profits of our domestic oil companies because, I guess we believe that as a Congress we can spend those profits better than those domestic oil companies. First off, those domestic oil companies don't make up the majority of producers in this world. In fact, only 6 percent of the proven reserves in the world are controlled by publicly held companies. The rest are controlled by companies that are managed by governments, the Saudi company being the biggest. But you have Venezuelan companies, Chinese companies, and the Russians, and you have a series of nations, of course, that have control over their supply. So supply is not controlled by these private companies. And their profit, if we take it as a government, is not going to give us the capacity to produce more oil. We are going to take that money as a Congress and spend it on whatever interest group we think is important today. We will probably spend it on some program to help out people who are trying to buy their energy. But that is not going to produce more oil. That is not going to produce more exploration.

Remember, these companies are owned by Americans, for the most part. They are owned by Americans through pension funds. People who work for unions own these companies, people who work in businesses own these companies, people who have a job and have a 401(k) own these companies. The profits flow back to two different actions: One, exploration; or two, dividends--dividends running to American citizens, most of whom are retired, or many of whom are retired. So to simply say, well, their profits are too high and we are going to grab them as a government and spend that money because we can spend that money more efficiently and better than those companies--because they are evil, they are oil companies--is, again, cutting off our nose to spite our face.

It won't produce more exploration. It will produce less. It will take from Americans who have invested in those companies through their pension funds and their dividends. That makes no sense.

The things that make sense are: More conservation, more renewables-- both of which I strongly support--and also more exploration in the United States. Produce more American energy--clean energy, hopefully. One way to do that, of course, is to expand nuclear power. But another way is to look for reserves where we have reserves, and where we can look for them in an environmentally sound way. One way is to take a look at oil shale. That is a great opportunity. We have more oil reserves in oil shale, three times more in oil reserves in oil shale, than Saudi Arabia has in plain oil. We have over 2 trillion barrels of reserves in oil shale, and we are not using it. We are not using it because it is on public lands and we have been barred by the activists and the environmental communities from using that oil. Remember, the way you produce that oil is underground. You don't produce it aboveground. So there is no destruction of the surface area of the ground.

Secondly, there is the fact that we have proven we know how to drill. We know how to explore in the ocean. The greatest example of that was Katrina. Here is the largest hurricane to hit the American shore in history, as far as damage is concerned--it wiped out one of our great cities, New Orleans, then came right up the Gulf of Mexico--and

not a barrel of oil was spilled, even though the Gulf of Mexico is filled with drilling rigs. Why is that? Because we know what we are doing. We have the technology to drill and to produce from the Outer Continental Shelf in an environmentally sound and safe way, even in the face of a force 5 hurricane.

So of all that has been proposed here and that makes sense is let's look for other places where we can produce oil, American oil, off our shores, if States agree to it. That is the caveat: If a State agrees to it. Now, if Florida doesn't want to do it, that is their choice. Louisiana does want to do it, Mississippi does want to do it, Alabama does want to do it. Virginia wants to do it, but Virginia is barred from doing it because we have a Federal law saying even if Virginia wants to do it, they can't do it. That makes no sense.

Why should we be buying oil from people who hate us, who want to destroy our civilization and do us in, when we can produce it off of States, where the States agree, where the people of those States agree they are willing to explore because they know it can be done in an environmentally safe and sound way? That makes no sense.

I am sorry to get off on that tangent, but I had to, because this is a topic of current concern and the Senator from Florida raised a number of issues on this question.

To return to the issue at hand, however, the bill brought to the floor by Senators Dodd and Shelby, whom I just finished praising for their excellent effort here--as a conservative, it is not my inclination to have the Government step into the marketplace. In fact, that is anathema to me in most instances, and I am fairly resistant to it. I think I have as good a record on trying to keep the Government out of unnecessary interference in the marketplace as anyone else around here, and certainly have a very conservative fiscal record. But I have an experience here which I think lends some knowledge on what is happening and what we need to do.

I was Governor of the State of New Hampshire in the late 1980s and early 1990s when we went through a massive real estate bubble meltdown. It was incredibly destructive to the Southwest and to New England. The Southwest's was caused by a large amount of fraud, regrettably, and in New England it was caused by excessive speculation, especially in commercial real estate development. As a result of that, we had seven major banks in New Hampshire in late 1989 and five of them went bankrupt. The other two would have gone under, except they were owned by larger banks from outside of New Hampshire that were able to come in and give them the capital to sustain themselves. Numerous other smaller banks, community banks, went under. Lending contracted, people's home values, as a result of the bubble bursting, dropped by between 30 and 50 percent. It was a horrific time for our citizenry in New England, and it was an incredibly difficult time economically.

How did we get out of this? There were a lot of things done, but one of the key things that was done was the Resolution Trust Corporation. The leadership of the FDIC at that time, led by Bill Seidman, and the Federal Government came in and intervened. It essentially came in underneath the failed banks and said they would be there to backstop the deposits and liquidate the assets so they became marketable again and so the economy could move forward.

When you have a contraction such as that, which is what we are seeing in our market today as a result of the subprime meltdown in States such as Florida, Arizona, and California--and it is spreading, regrettably, to some instruments that weren't subprime--when you have a meltdown such as that, what happens is the banking and the lending industry of the Nation start to have to rebuild their capital quickly because they are taking huge losses. And the only place a bank can rebuild its capital is by calling in essentially good loans. So even though somebody might have a good idea and know how to make a business work and have a real estate proposal which makes sense and is going to have a positive cashflow, it is extremely difficult for them to get a loan-- extremely difficult--because the banks are trying to build their capital and they are not lending. That is what we are seeing today. We are seeing that type of contraction.

On top of that, of course, we have the meltdown. We have the major investment house of Bear Stearns, which was reacted to appropriately by the Federal Reserve, by opening the window so other investment houses would be able to have resources, but we still have this serious issue of liquidity. That is what it all comes down to. It comes down to the ability of the lender to be able to take the loan and sell it and move it in the marketplace so they can actually lend some more money by taking money in and by selling the loans which they have on their books. That is what it comes down to. What we have today is a market that is contracting because they do not have that capacity. The lenders do not have that capacity.

That being the case, what is the role of the Federal Government? I am hesitant to have the Federal Government step into this, beyond what it has already done, but I think setting up a backstop is appropriate, and that is essentially what the bill that is brought to us by Senators Dodd and Shelby does today.

First, I congratulate them for the regulatory reform they put in for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, very important reform. But going to the part which is the essence of the bill beyond the reform, which is very important, the question of expanding FHA authority to basically become a backstop for these mortgages and basically a force for making these mortgages liquid is the key element of this bill.

As I understand it--and, again, I haven't been able to read the whole bill--the way it basically works is for these loans, for the FHA to step in and insure refinanced mortgages, the loans first have to be written down to 90 percent of the market value of the house; second, the home has to be owner occupied, so it is not a speculative home; and third, all the secondary liens that might be on the property have to be cleared so it is basically the single underlying primary first mortgage that is being underwritten. That is the proposal as I understand it.

The possible effect of this, in my opinion, will be that the lenders, the banks specifically, the people who have made these insured mortgages, may be able to move these mortgages off their books, unlike mortgages which are not moving right now, in a way which will free up the marketplace and allow them to relend money to other people who want to buy a home.

Equally important, of course, is that the homeowners, who find themselves caught in this subprime web of having taken on a mortgage which they couldn't afford because the adjustment in the ARM went up so quickly and so radically in an unexpected way, will be able to stay in their home and make their payments, if they have the capacity to do that. That should be our goal. Our goal shouldn't be to have foreclosures occurring all across this country. Our goal should be to keep the homeowners in their homes, those who do have the wherewithal to pay for their mortgages, as long as their mortgage is properly priced. That is what this bill will accomplish in many ways.

What is the cost of this bill? That is of primary concern for me, and I know it is a primary concern for Senator Shelby, because he is probably even more of a skinflint than I am around here.

CBO is saying the ability of people to take advantage of this may be limited because of the fact you have to clear all the second liens off the home, so there may not be as much use of it as one might think. But I think there will be more use of this option than CBO thinks, because the lender and the borrower will see it as an opportunity for the borrower to stay in the home and for the lender to get the loan and move it off the books so they can get more liquidity and rebuild their capital.

I think that will be the outcome of this language, should it go into place: A lot of homes will be saved.

Secondly, as I understand it, a lot of the money to support this is going to come out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I may be wrong about that, but I think that is the way it works. That is appropriate, because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have an unfair playing field here. They get a tilted rate benefit because of the fact they are perceived as being backed up by the Federal Government, even though they

aren't. So this will level the playing field a little bit, and it will take resources which aren't coming into the Treasury anyway to support it.

Thirdly, and I think this is probably the most important part, the economic slowdown we are in today I believe will be relieved to some degree because there will be a mechanism in place. It is not a magic wand. It is not the absolute full response to the problem. In fact, there is only one end of the pyramid that needs to be built here. But it is a response which will help the economy recover quicker and with more energy.

I opposed the original stimulus package we passed, and I opposed the housing bill that was on the floor earlier this year because I didn't think either one was going to do a heck of a lot to help the economy move forward. This bill, however, if it is in the form that I think it is in, does something to accomplish that goal. It will help the economy because it will free up the market. It will make the market more liquid, which is what we need, and it will also give people the capacity to avoid foreclosure, which is very important to the mindset and the psychology of the economy.

I do think this will be part of the effort to raise the economy of this country as we continue in this rather significant--and I do not think we are out of the woods yet--severe slowdown in the area, especially, of the financial industries.

Again, I hope I understand the bill. I am not sure I fully understand it. I wouldn't claim I do. But I think I understand its concept, its purpose, and I agree with its concept and its purpose, and I congratulate the leadership of the Banking Committee.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes from time that is reserved for the leader or, alternatively, from time that is available at this point that is open.

I ask the Chair if there is time presently available?

Mr. President, I rise to raise my concerns about the procedure and about the substance. We all know there has to be a fix relative to the doctors. We all know we cannot have this sort of reduction in payments to physicians. That is just a fact.

My own personal preference is that we fix this permanently. It is going to cost a lot of money, but that is the way it should be done. We should not be fixing this every year. And, in fact, it is becoming a geometric progression which is spiraling downward, with every year becoming a much more difficult effort.

We should basically do Medicare reform. But short of that, we should do a permanent doctor fix so that the physicians in this country know they are going to get a reasonable upgrade of their reimbursement every year. We should not have to go through this.

However, this bill does not accomplish that. In fact, this bill aggravates the problem significantly. I genuinely wish the bipartisanship effort which Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley had been pursuing had been the effort that had come to floor, but it did not.

What has come to the floor is a partisan effort; regrettably, it is not a very good one. It has a couple of practical problems, and then it has a very substantive problem. The substantive problem is that it spends $2 trillion that we do not have, not to fix the doctor problem but to add new benefits in certain elements for certain recipients under Medicare Part D. Well, Medicare Part D is already $36 trillion in debt, unfunded liabilities. Put $2 trillion more on top of that, it means we are passing a huge cost on to our children. It is not fair. It is not appropriate.

The practical problem this bill has--I find it incredible that we are being asked to vote on it, quite honestly--is that it has blanks. This is the first time I have ever seen this. This bill literally has blanks in it. We are being asked to vote on a bill where the numbers, which are operative relative to how much this bill is going to cost, are left out. There are actually parentheses with nothing in them. There are lines where there is a blank. And we are being asked to vote to close the debate on this and move to final passage on this without even knowing what the numbers are going to be which are to fill in those blanks.

This is so egregious, so egregious, that the CBO, which is the independent scorekeeper around here, which is the fair umpire around here, has written us and said: They cannot score this bill. They cannot give us a cost estimate since the introduced version has blanks.

The Congress should not work this way. The Senate should not work this way. This is totally inappropriate. It is a terrible precedent. It is worse than a terrible precedent. It is an incompetent precedent to set to bring to the floor a bill that does not tell us how much it is going to spend because the other side of the aisle does not want to tell us how much it wants to spend or, alternatively, because they are not competent enough to put numbers into the bill.

It is incredible to me that we would be asked to vote cloture on a bill that the Congressional Budget Office says they cannot estimate the cost of, which is their responsibility, because it has blanks.

I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss further this issue of energy which is, of course, a massive and important priority for us as a nation and for people simply trying to get through the day--driving to work or whatever they have to do that uses energy--with the price of gasoline at over $4 a gallon and, at least in my part of the country, the fear of oil prices next winter--which is the primary source of heating fuel for us in New England--being well into the middle $4 price range and potentially higher. That is something most people find almost inconceivable but, more importantly, it is extremely hard to afford and it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the family budget.

The question becomes: How do we address this as a culture and how do we address it as a Congress? We have had a proposal brought forward by the other side of the aisle which seems to ignore the concept of supply and demand and turns basically to trial lawyers and to taxes to try to address how you produce more energy. That is unlikely to encourage or to address this issue in a positive way. The simple fact is to set up an American procedure where you are now allowed to sue Saudi Arabia or the Gulf Emirates or Iran over their production of oil is cutting off your nose to spite your face. These are independent nations. The idea that you are going to resolve the issue of production and availability and price by suing these nations, some of which--for example, Venezuela--have great antipathy for us to begin with; at least their leadership does--is absurd on its face. It is plain absurd. It may make a good press release, it might make a good hyperbolic statement, but it certainly does not do anything to produce more energy for us as a nation at a more affordable price. It may make a few trial lawyers happy, but that is about all it is going to do.

In fact, it will have the opposite reaction. If I led a country and the U.S. Congress passed a law that said they could sue my country, I would simply say to the United States: You can go pound sand. We don't have to ship you any oil at all. We certainly don't have to take the revenues that we generate from those oil shipments and reinvest them in the United States, which is critical to us as a society for our own capital formation. So this policy is counterproductive and, as I say, is cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It is followed closely by an equally incoherent policy from a standpoint of substance--maybe not from a standpoint of politics--which is the idea that you are going to tax American corporations at excessive rates over which you tax other corporations because they make profits that are deemed by Members of the other side of the aisle to be excessive. Basically the philosophy of this position is: Well, we in Congress know how to spend your profits better than you, the company that produces those profits knows how to spend them, and that somehow we in Congress are going to produce more oil and, as a result, reduce the price of oil if we simply take control over your profits so you can no longer invest those profits in the exploration for new oil or for new energy sources or for alternative energy sources. The idea that Congress could in any way efficiently handle these dollars has been proven to be a fallacy, of course. Congress would simply take those dollars and spend them on whatever political issue we happen to feel the most appropriate and whatever constituency we want to benefit the most--dollars which could be much more efficiently used. Remember, most of these dollars, these profits, don't end up going to some pie-in-the- sky exercise; they either go back to the exploration to produce more energy or they go to stockholders through dividends. Most Americans are stockholders. Working Americans are invested in pension funds through their place of employment and they are stockholders. In fact, well over 65 percent of senior citizens receive dividend income. Of course, those dividends are a function of profit for the companies that pay the dividends. The money flows back to the employees of those companies and to the people who own pension funds which have invested in those companies, whether it is an auto worker or somebody working in a factory in New Hampshire or a high-tech individual who has a 401(k). So those profits usually get reenergized into the economy to produce more economic activity. They certainly are more efficiently used in that manner and through exploration than they would be for us to basically confiscate those profits through an excessive tax because some Members of the other side think it is good politics and as a result wish to target these companies which they see as good political fodder.

A much more logical approach to production and reducing the cost of energy in this country would be to actually do something about producing more available energy for the American people. Unfortunately, on every attempt to do that, we have been stonewalled by the majority party--stonewalled on the issue, for example, of producing more nuclear power. We have a unique experience of this in New Hampshire. New Hampshire was the last State to bring online a nuclear powerplant. It came online years after it should have come online at a cost which was dramatically more than it should have cost because of the opposition of the left--aggressive and very effective opposition in stalling--in bringing that nuclear powerplant online, Seabrook.

What has happened since it has been brought online? It has produced a lot of good, clean energy, not only for the people of New Hampshire but for the people of New England who have benefited from that nuclear powerplant. Unfortunately, the people of New Hampshire have been stuck with a bill of almost $100 million which is the result of cost overruns driven almost entirely by the left by delaying tactics which were put upon the plant and the production of this energy. That attitude hasn't changed much on the other side of the aisle. There is still genuine opposition to nuclear power. Nuclear power is a clean form of energy and it is something we should be turning to.

France--a country which is not often held up as an example around here for policy, but it should be on this issue--has 80 percent of its energy coming from nuclear power. We as a country should be equally aggressive in that area.

Another area we need to be aggressive in, for those States that feel it is appropriate, they should be allowed to do over-the-horizon exploration for oil and for gas off their shores. It works in Louisiana. Ironically, one of the few things that results from Katrina that you could look at as positive--and Katrina was a horrific disaster--was

the fact that there wasn't one barrel of oil spilled as a result of that hurricane--a level 5 hurricane--coming up the gulf and going through New Orleans. It wiped out the city of New Orleans, but all the oil rigs that were functioning--and there were a lot of them in the Gulf of Mexico--survived without a leak, without a spillage of any kind. That shows that drilling in deep water can be done in an environmentally safe way.

Yet the other side of the aisle resists and stops any attempts to allow other States that might wish to pursue this course of over-the- horizon exploration for oil and gas from pursuing that course. Virginia has expressed interest in doing it, and Virginia may have a very large potential energy source right off its coast. It may be fairly far out, and it will be deep water, but it may well be there. There is no reason we should not look at that type of approach and produce energy there.

We need to produce more American energy because we cannot rely--and this is fairly obvious--on energy from nations in the Middle East especially.

Another example is oil shale. The technology for the recovery of oil shale has gotten to the point where it is extremely sophisticated and, again, environmentally safe. All the activity occurs below ground. There is virtually nothing occurring above the ground, other than the actual pumping out of the final product, which is a kerosene-type product that can be used for jet fuel. We have a reserve of oil from oil shale that exceeds the reserve of Saudi Arabia. Think about that. We have, in our Western States, enough oil from shale, which can be recovered by underground methods and have no insignificant environmental impact, to actually produce more oil than Saudi Arabia. Are we able to pursue that? No. Why? Because the other side refuses to allow exploration for participation in oil shale in the West.

Those are a few examples of the type of expansion and approach we should take toward producing more American energy, which is totally resisted, regrettably, by Members of the other side of the aisle who are speaking for aggressive groups on the left.

We are not going to produce more energy or reduce energy costs by setting up a regime to sue Saudi Arabia or Venezuela. We will probably have the exact opposite effect. Certainly, it will affect the willingness of those countries to invest in the United States. We are not going to produce more energy or reduce energy costs by putting a confiscatory tax on companies that produce energy and taking money that can go to individuals through dividends, working Americans, or can go to greater exploration out of the pipeline and giving it to people in Congress to spend on special interest groups.

The only way we are going to get more energy and reduce our reliance on foreign energy is if we produce more in the United States, which we can do; we have the reserves. We are not allowed to use them. We can pursue nuclear, for example, and we can pursue renewables. They can have a positive effect, but they cannot obviously overwhelm the entire need, or carry the entire need. We also, of course, should look at other areas, such as conservation and using a different type of vehicle or engine--something that is either a hybrid or an all-electric engine. But to drive an all-electric car, you have to have electricity produced, which means you have to have more electrical plants, and you have to make sure they are clean and not putting carbon, nitrogen, and sulfates into the air.

We should be using nuclear power and promoting clean coal technology. So you need specific initiatives that will actually produce something in the way of energy, not political statements that produce something in the way of hyperbole. Senator Domenici has proposed a bill that would carry a number of those issues--expansion in the effort of nuclear, the opportunity to pursue over-the-horizon exploration, and using shale oil through underground recovery. Yet that bill has been held up and stopped by the other side of the aisle. So the question today becomes, how do we better improve our position and make sure we have less dependence upon foreign oil and begin to bring down these prices of gasoline and home heating oil? The answer is simple: Beyond conservation and the renewable issue, which there is agreement on, the answer is to produce more American energy and make it clean energy, such as nuclear.

I believe if we want to progress in this area, we need to take a hard look at over-the-horizon drilling for offshore oil and gas off the States that are willing to pursue that. Maine, which has the Gulf of Maine, is not going to be willing to do it because of the fisheries and neither will New Hampshire. If Virginia wants to do it, they ought to be able to do it. It can be done safely.

Second, oil shale is a reserve that can be produced, again, underground and without environmental harm. These are substantive, specific approaches, which we need at this time.

I yield the floor, reserve the remainder of our time, and I suggest the absence much a quorum.

Mr. President, I had the fortunate opportunity to travel to Africa and South America over the Easter recess, and I want to take a moment to share some of my observations with my colleagues.

Mali receives significant U.S. foreign assistance totaling $45 million in fiscal year 2007, $55 million in fiscal year 2008--and $461 million in Millennium Challenge Corporation, MCC, funding.

While Mali appears headed in the right direction, I worry that the MCC is going down the wrong path, specifically by funding a $90 million renovation project for Bamako airport's runway and terminal. I understand that this project may have been formulated through a consultative process, but it seems to me that it should be funded through the African Development Bank or by private investment. I expect the MCC to justify to the State, Foreign Operations Subcommittee the necessity for U.S. taxpayers to fund the airport project, and to consult on the reprogramming of funds required by the derailed $90 million industrial park project.

The funding disparity and contrast between our traditional development agency--the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID--and the MCC was glaring in Mali. Where USAID--could benefit from a slight increase in overall funding, the MCC was struggling to determine how best to reprogram $90 million. I am very concerned that MCC may not live up to its billing as a more effective aid delivery program, and its deep pockets may create unintended opportunities for corruption.

I had the opportunity to visit the U.S. Embassy and learned of the loss of air conditioning for a lengthy period of time which was a burden to American and local staff. This is not the first time I've heard of problems at our newly built embassies, and I encourage the State Department to make sure that no patterns exist at these facilities because of subpar contractors or equipment.

Like Mali, Nigeria receives significant U.S. assistance primarily through a new initiative, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, PEPFAR. Assistance in fiscal year 2007 totaled $350 million and $491 million in fiscal year 2008, of which $282 million and $410 million are for HIV/AIDS activities, respectively.

On paper, Nigeria is wealthy country with significant oil reserves, and, we were told, an estimated $57 billion in an excess crude account. Corruption is unfortunately a cancer that stymies development and political progress in that country; Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, 2007, ranks Nigeria 147th out of 179th.

Nigeria is a PEPFAR focus country, with a 3.9 percent prevalence rate among adults. Given Nigeria's significant natural resources, it is imperative that the AIDS Coordinator begin a process of transitioning from U.S. to Nigeria-funded programs. America can help the Government of Nigeria spend its health dollars, but I question the efficacy of U.S. funding for HIV/AIDS programs in that country. I will have more to say on this issue when the Senate considers the reauthorization of PEPFAR, perhaps later this year.

Namibia is also a PEPFAR focus country, and received $86.9 million in fiscal year 2007 and $103 million in fiscal year 2008 for HIV/AIDS programs. Unfortunately, other programs for Namibia, specifically support for democracy activities, has been in steady decline over the past few fiscal years and is being zeroed out. Given that the ruling SWAPO party is no longer a monolith, and splinter parties are forming, the Administration's reduction in assistance to Namibia may be ill timed and ill advised.

My staff and I are exploring ways to ensure that sufficient funding exists for non-HIV/AIDS programs for Namibia, including immediate support for domestic election monitoring activities in that country, and like Nigeria, I encourage PEPFAR personnel to explore sustainment strategies for U.S.-funded HIV/AIDS programs.

I am also concerned that the United States is not supporting enough exchange programs with countries in Africa. I intend to increase these programs in upcoming appropriations bills.

South Africa is also a PEPFAR focus country and received $398 million in fiscal year 2007 and $547 million in fiscal year 2008 HIV/AIDS funding. South Africa is running a budget surplus--in this case totaling $2.4 billion.

I am very pleased that our U.S. Ambassador understands the need for South Africa to assume greater financial responsibility for HIV/AIDS programs, and it is unfortunate that certain South Africa government officials have not been aggressive in addressing this issue. Any future support for HIV/AIDS programs in South Africa should be conditioned on the development and implementation of sustainment strategies to ensure that the Government of South Africa assume the care for its infected populations.

Crime remains a significant challenge to everyone in South Africa, and given the increased personnel requirements associated with PEPFAR, it may make sense to allow the use of PEPFAR funds for administrative and operational expenses at the U.S. Embassy, including for security purposes. New initiatives create increased desk

and office space needs, and I've asked my staff to take a closer look at this issue in anticipation of marking up the fiscal year 2009 State, Foreign Operations Appropriations bill.

I also intend to continue to work with Secretary of State Rice on resolving travel issues impacting members of the Africa National Congress, which is an unnecessary irritant in U.S.-South African relations.

Finally, although Argentina is not a major recipient of U.S. foreign assistance--some $2 million was provided in fiscal year 2008--relations between our countries have been historically good. I encourage my colleagues to continue to follow counterdrug and counterterrorism developments in that country--and region.

Will the Senator yield?

I was going to say: in the world.

Mr. President, let me thank the majority leader and the chairman for their kind words. They would have done the same thing were they in my position, if somebody on our side were ill. I know they would have, because I know the type of people they are, and I thank them for their generous comments relative to my willingness to help on that issue.

I especially want to acknowledge, as they have, Senator Warner and Senator Domenici. This is Senator Domenici's last vote on the budget, and Senator Domenici and the budget are inextricably identified together. He basically wrote the Budget Act along with Senator Byrd, who regrettably can't be here and whom he is pairing with, and for 30- plus hours now, he has been overseeing the budget as the godfather of it. For him to pair on this matter on this last vote on the budget is a very gracious act, as Senator Conrad has pointed out.

I also thank Senator Conrad and his staff for their courtesy and their professionalism. It is always afforded to us as Republicans by the majority staff and we very much appreciate it. We obviously disagree fundamentally on where this budget is going, but that doesn't mean we can't proceed in an orderly manner. As I have said before, although I strongly disagree with this budget, I feel equally strongly that this Nation needs a budget, even though in this instance it is something I will point to as a mistake. But we could have done a lot better.

As a practical matter, I respect the efforts put in by the majority and the majority staff, and especially the chairman of the committee who worked tirelessly on this and defends it very effectively. He has said I will say this is the largest tax increase in the history of the world. Let me confirm that, and let there be no mistake about it--there is the largest tax increase in the history of the world in this budget. We are talking trillions here, which is hard to understand for anyone. It is a concept that is alien to all of us. But this budget talks in the trillions.

This will be the first budget that pushes debt over $10 trillion. That is a lot of money. Two trillion dollars will be added to the debt as a result of this budget. This will be the first budget that takes non-emergency discretionary spending over $1 trillion. I suggested we draw the line and say, at least for 1 year, we will hold back and not go over $1 trillion. That idea was rejected.

This budget has buried in it a $1.2 trillion tax increase. Yes, it would not occur this year, but it is assumed in the budget. That is how they get to balance in the budget. It is assumed in the outyears. That tax increase will translate, when it kicks in, in 2011, into real increases in taxes for Americans. Although most of us cannot understand $1 trillion, we can understand the fact that for families earning $50,000, with two children, their taxes, under this proposal, over the next 5 years will go up $2,300. For retired people--and there are 18 million of them--their taxes will go up over $2,000. For 47 million small businesses in America today--the engines of the economy, of economic growth, the people who create the jobs in this economy--their taxes will go up $4,000. That is a lot of money. That is money they should be able to keep, and it should not come to the Federal Government. That tax increase should not go into place.

This bill has taxes in it that presume that the capital gains tax will essentially double for many Americans. The dividends tax will definitely double. Rates will jump dramatically. The 10-percent rate will be repealed. The estate tax will jump dramatically.

This bill essentially assumes a major tax increase on working Americans and on small business. In my opinion, that is a huge mistake. The other huge mistake that this budget has in it is it makes no effort at all to control the accounts that are going to essentially bankrupt our Nation for our children, which are the entitlement accounts. We know we are sending this Nation over a fiscal cliff. We know that if we don't act, our children and grandchildren will not be able to afford this Government because of the cost and burdens of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

We know the baby boom generation is alive and is going to be moving into retirement. Yet this bill takes no action--no action at all--to try to remedy this very serious fiscal problem, which is going to occur on the watch of this bill. This is a 5-year budget. So this is a very serious failure of taking responsibility on a key issue of fiscal policy.

In addition, of course, we have strong differences over the amount of spending in the bill. It crosses the trillion-dollar line. The Senator from North Dakota named some of the important things to spend money on. Yes, they are important, but we need to set priorities. Rather than simply increasing spending, we ought to look at programs now on the books, which are not as high a priority as we need, and move the money from those programs into the programs we want to spend more money on. This budget assumes that of all the Federal programs on the books--$1 trillion of discretionary spending--none will be eliminated, not one.

Let me tell you, there are programs we can eliminate, and we should have made that tough decision. So we have strong opinions that this budget doesn't go where it should go. It fails in the issues of tax policy, entitlement policy, and spending policy. Obviously, the other side of the aisle is the majority--and, remember, they were in the majority last year too--so they have the right to pass their budget. I point out that last year they claimed they were going to give us a tax cut, and they didn't do it. They took credit for the amendment that said they were going to give a tax cut, but it was never passed. This year, they are taking credit for the same amendment, and I suspect it would not pass again.

What will pass is the tax increase of $1.2 trillion in this bill on working Americans. That will come to fruition because the majority assumes this budget event. This budget doesn't work without those new revenues. It is a failure, in our opinion, and that is why we oppose it.

I yield back the remainder of my time and ask for the yeas and nays.

Reserving the right to object.

If the Senator would add me for 15 minutes on that list, I would appreciate it.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for his courtesy in finding a spot for me to speak.

This is obviously a bill of immense proportions and implications for us as a nation, for our economy, for consumers, for our place in the world, and for how we deal with the passing on of the quality of life that we have to our children so they can live in an environment that will sustain them and be sure that we do not overly pollute our world or atmosphere.

I think the Senator from California needs to be congratulated for moving the initiative forward. It is my opinion that this is a debate that needs to be pursued aggressively. I respect all the different parties' views on this. There has been an excellent discussion of how to proceed in this area.

In the past, I have strongly supported initiatives that are similar to this effort, in the sense that they tried to reduce the amount of pollutants we put into our atmosphere through a variety of different means. The Lieberman-McCain bill and the Carper-Alexander bill, both of which I have supported, had attempted to do this also.

This bill, however, is much more comprehensive, much more extensive, and the implications are far greater to our economy and to our quality of life in the United States.

It is safe to say that were this bill to become law in its present form, it would impact our future as much as anything that we could do-- after addressing the issue of defeating global terrorism as they attempt to try to destroy our culture--and making sure we are fiscally solvent as a result of the cost of programs we already have on the books, such as entitlements. So it is a tremendous issue and deserves serious and thoughtful consideration, which it is getting so far in this debate.

I respect both sides of the argument. I find myself, on this issue, in a variety of different camps because I am attracted to parts of the bill, and I find parts of the bill to be very difficult. I am not going to get into all the different elements. I am concerned about the effect on our competitiveness internationally. I am concerned that if we put limitations on our economy in place, economies such as India and China, which will not be subject to these limitations, will simply pursue courses that will end up polluting at a rate that overwhelms whatever we save and that, as a practical matter, we may significantly undermine our competitiveness.

I am concerned about how this cap-and-trade issue is going to work. I am concerned that NOX and carbon are not addressed. I am concerned that we are looking at an issue of how the science is not up to speed with the requirements being put on the industries that must reduce their pollution, or NOX itself. There is a legitimate question of whether we are putting the cart before the horse relative to the science of the capacity to deliver these savings. For example, in the area of savings and the reduction of pollutants, I believe strongly that we need to pursue a much more aggressive policy in the area of nuclear. But the question of whether we can bring on line the nuclear generating capacity necessary to meet the requirements of this bill is very much an issue and very much in doubt, simply because of our permitting procedure in this country, coupled with the fact that the industrial complex in this country doesn't have the capacity to produce the nuclear plants in the timeframe necessary in order to comply with what would be the reduction necessary in this bill. Those are some of my concerns.

Again, I come back to the fact that I think the concept of cap and trade, as proposed in the bill, is a path we need to seriously consider going down. However, on a parallel path, I have a very severe concern, serious concern, and that is that this bill, under its present structure, is going to generate value of approximately $6.7 trillion over its life. Over the next 10 years, it is estimated that the sale of these allowances will approximately be a billion dollars. Most of this will come into the Federal Treasury--not all of it--and then under this bill it gets spent, for the most part. There is $800 million set aside, theoretically, but it is done by a sense of the Senate, as was noted. The vast majority of the money gets spent by creating new programmatic activity and expanding the size of the Federal Government.

Now, this $6.7 trillion is costs that will be passed on to the American consumer in the form of increased electrical bills. I think the American consumer is willing to pay a higher price for electricity if they feel they are significantly and positively impacting the reduction of the emission of greenhouse gases that are affecting our climate. I am willing to vote for putting that type of cost into place. But what I am not willing to vote for is taking that money and using it to radically expand the size of the Federal Government.

If you look at the proposals in the bill, it essentially becomes the most massive exercise at earmarking we have ever seen. It dwarfs the farm bill, which is hard to do, when it comes to earmarks. As a very practical matter, that is not fair to working Americans. Working Americans, under this bill, are going to be hit with a new consumption tax. That is what this bill does. It creates a massive new consumption tax, called allowances, which get sold, but the price of paying for those allowances will go back into the rate base and will raise the cost of electricity and will be a consumption tax.

Americans, working at their jobs and trying to make ends meet, trying to take care of their families, are going to see their energy bills go up because they will get hit with this new consumption tax. I believe very fervently that if we are going to go down this road of creating this massive new consumption tax, the purpose of which is to promote the reduction of greenhouse gases, which will reduce our negative impact on the global climate, we need, at the same time, to reduce for working Americans the burden of their taxation in other places. This should be a one-for-one trade, very simply. If we are going to say to working Americans that we are going to increase your consumption tax by $6.7 trillion, or if you take out the money that is under here and represented as a sense-of-the-Senate tax reduction, it will be around $4-plus trillion--if you are going to have that type of major tax impact and essentially shift the economy to a national consumption tax--and many States have those consumption taxes, but there is no national one. If you are to shift to a national consumption tax, then you need to take those dollars and reduce the burden on working Americans, one for one, so you mitigate the impact on their quality of life, on their ability to be productive citizens, and on their ability to pursue a lifestyle they can afford.

There are a variety of ways to do this. You can reduce income taxes. You can take the consumption tax, which is going to flow into the Treasury, and move it to the reduction of income tax rates or you can take the consumption tax, which is going to fall under the Federal Treasury through these allowances, and you can use it to reduce the FICA tax, the Social Security tax, which is an across-the-board tax that all Americans pay or you can take the consumption tax, which is going to be generated by this bill, and you can use it under some sort of rebate proposal such as that which has been proposed by the Senator from Tennessee, where people making less than $150,000 would get a rebate reflecting the amount of money coming into the Treasury under the allowances.

Have I used 10 minutes?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for another 5 minutes.

Then, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 more minutes.

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, what we should not do with this major new consumption tax is use it to expand the size of the Federal Government, to put in place a series of initiatives that are essentially being used for the purpose of building constituencies that will support this bill. That is the way legislation passes here, but it is wrong--wrong when we did it in agriculture and especially wrong when we do it in the energy production area.

American consumers should not be hit with this tax and have no tax cut or rebate coming to them on the other side of the ledger to try to mitigate the impact of this consumption tax.

I yield the floor.

According to the earmark list I have, $191 billion goes to worker training, $171 billion goes to mass transit projects, $237 billion goes to natural resource and wildlife adaptation, $288 billion goes to Federal programs of natural resources, $342 billion goes to international climate change, $300 billion goes to agriculture and forestry, and $368 billion goes to reforestation. Under these numbers, only $136 billion out of the trillions of dollars goes to energy efficiency block grants, and that is for local governments.

That is what I worry about.

Mr. President, if the Senator will yield for a brief intercession.

I agree. In fact, the Senator from California clearly states my position, which is I support initiatives in this area. I support mandatory initiatives in this area. What I am concerned about is that these allowances--which really are a consumption tax, in my opinion--will essentially be used to greatly expand the Government. If we were to take that section out of the bill and just basically take those dollars and give them back to the taxpayers without having this huge section which essentially creates huge new initiatives in all sorts of different areas, I think you would have a very workable bill.

If the Senator will yield further, Mr. President.

If we are going to limit dollars spent to technology advancement, I guess I could be receptive to that, some percentage. But the vast majority of the dollars--that is not going to take that many dollars compared to the money we are dealing with here, $6.7 trillion. If you want to take some percentage of that and use it for expansion of technology purely on the technology side, that may make sense. This bill goes way beyond that. It has all sorts of initiatives in here which are only at the margin of the issue of technology, in my opinion. Where the dollars really should go is to reduce the tax burden for the people who are going to have the higher energy prices.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Mississippi yield me 4 minutes off the bill.

I rise to speak about one specific element of the next four votes which has been come to be known as the Webb GI bill; a sincere attempt and a positive effort to try address to the issue of updating the GI benefits.

I regret that that bill is being brought up in isolation and is not being juxtaposed with the Graham-Burr-McCain bill which also does the same thing, only does it in a much better way. I strongly support the Graham-Burr approach, which does not undermine retention while expanding benefits, the GI benefits to veterans.

The problem with the Webb bill, as the Secretary of Defense has said, and

senior leadership in the military have said, is the bill will undermine our ability to retain personnel in the military. That has also been the conclusion of CRS. The reason is because it has such a high incentive for people to leave the military after their first tour of duty in the military in order to take advantage of the educational benefits.

The Graham bill, on the other hand, takes a different approach. It gives even more generous benefits, in many ways, especially to the families of GIs, people serving in the military, but at the same time it increases those benefits with the more years you serve.

So the benefits go from $1,500 after 3 years of service, up to $2,000 after 12 years of service, and the ability to take those benefits and give them to your children or to your spouse is also authorized in the Graham bill, which does not occur in the Webb bill.

That seems to me to be proper approach here. We do not want to undermine retention as we address the issue of improving benefits for people who serve in the military for us. This does not seem to me to be rocket science. It seems to me we should be able to get these two bills together, merge them in a way that produces this sort of a positive response where we significantly expand the benefit to people who have served us, for the ability to get educational benefits after they leave the service but at the same time do it in a way that does not undermine the capacity of the military to retain quality people.

When the Secretary of Defense says this is going to cost us quality people, he is talking about national defense. These are the folks who have been trained to have the skills, who are extraordinary professionals whom we want to encourage to stay in the military. We do not want to create a system where we actually encourage them to leave the military.

The Graham-Burr bill takes the approach of encouraging these folks to stay in the military and allow the benefits to accrue and grow so they can use them or their family members can use them. Thus, I think that is a much more positive and appropriate approach. So setting up the Webb bill as a freestanding vote without any amendments--that is the structure we have got here on the floor, no amendments to the Webb bill; it hasn't gone through committee, it has not gone through regular order, it is being brought to the floor to make a political statement-- basically is not constructive to getting the best product and the best benefits for our GIs, and also the best bill to make sure we have the strong and vibrant military in order to defend ourselves and have a strong national defense.

Regrettably I have to vote against the Webb bill until we can get it in a posture where it addresses the issue of retention, where it addresses the issues raised by the Secretary of Defense, raised by the military leaders who work for the Defense Department, and raised by our own congressional study groups. Hopefully we can step back from this issue and do it right and do it in a cooperative way that will actually accomplish the goals which we all want, which is to significantly extend and expand benefits for education to people who serve us in the military, and at the same time encourage retention, at the same time allow these benefits to be passed down to the children of the persons serving us if that is their choice.

I wanted to make that point clear prior to this vote. I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from Mississippi.

I yield back to the Senator from Mississippi any time I have. I yield the floor.