Floor Statements

Madam President, reserving the right to object--and I will object because of my concern of the way the given legislation is being handled--this is an issue on which the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee and I have had some difference. At the same time, I clearly recognize the phenomenal commitment of the chairman to veterans and, in this case, to Filipino veterans who served us so gallantly during World War II.

It is my understanding there is a conflict in the House at this minute relating to the passage of legislation the Senate has moved. This is an effort to avert that conflict and bring the bill to a conference committee in a different form by using a House-passed bill. It is a tactic I hoped we would not use to address this important issue. The Senate can and should revisit this issue at another time. I hope we will.

It is with that intent that I object to this unanimous consent request.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to introduce the Idaho Efficient Vehicle Demonstration Act of 2008. I am pleased that my colleague, Senator Crapo, is fully supportive and an original cosponsor of this bill, and that an identical bill will be introduced today in the House of Representatives by our colleagues, Representatives Mike Simpson and Bill Sali.

This is a bill that is very important to the State of Idaho. It is a bill that will improve the efficiency of freight movement within the State, provide significant economic benefits to a variety of local natural resource-based industries, and establish a record attesting to the safety of heavier, more efficient vehicles.

The State of Idaho has long recognized the need to provide a more productive means of freight transport. In light of that, the Idaho State Legislature created a pilot project in 2003 to allow vehicle combinations weighing up to 129,000 pounds on designated routes within the State highway system. As a result of this pilot project, Idaho has realized significant economic benefits and has established a strong record of safety while utilizing more efficient vehicles.

Idaho's sugar beet, potato, grain, dairy and phosphate industries reported that participation in the pilot project resulted in reduced fuel consumption and equipment maintenance and increased productivity based on estimates of five to eight percent savings in freight costs. Amalgamated Sugar Company reported 30,000 fewer truck trips, resulting in an estimated savings of just under $300,000.

This pilot project has been in effect for 5 years and no safety concerns have been raised by the participants or by the Idaho Transportation Department in their initial report last year. In fact, survey responses from pilot project participants found that safety was the same or greater due to the reduced numbers of trucks on the road. Similarly, the pilot project has not been found to create a significant change in pavement conditions when compared to previous years.

In light of this 5-year record, I believe it is appropriate and necessary to make a very small, targeted expansion of this project by adding limited stretches of Federal highway to the existing State pilot project to help connect our State and Federal roads so that the movement of goods can proceed more efficiently in the future.

This small expansion is necessary for several reasons. Idaho's neighboring States of Montana, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming do not have such stringent limits on their Federal highways due to grandfathered rights. This puts Idaho at a distinct competitive disadvantage and slows the free flow of freight between neighboring States. This bill would help to even that disparity in weight restrictions among our neighbors. It will also provide valuable data and information to the U.S. Department of Transportation as to the net beneficial effects to our infrastructure by requiring that road, bridge and accident information is gathered and reported.

This bill has the strong support of Idaho Governor Butch Otter, the Idaho Transportation Department, and the business community, including both shippers and motor carriers. The Idaho Trucking Association has specifically endorsed this proposal as have numerous shipper companies that are based in my home State.

I recognize that there are significant challenges facing the freight industry and, by association, our natural resource-based industries that rely heavily on trucks to move their freight. Changes in truck emission requirements, a seemingly perpetual driver shortage, sustained high fuel costs, and increasing insurance premiums are only a few of the challenges that face truck companies and struggling industries in Idaho. With that said, this is one step that can be taken to relieve some of the burden on our freight industry, and do so in a safe, economic and environmentally friendly fashion.

If enacted, this bill will improve safety by reducing the number of trucks on Idaho roads. It will have a positive environmental impact by reducing diesel consumption and emissions. It will provide an economic boost to the State by reducing wear and tear on Idaho highways and improving the competitiveness of our natural resource industries.

In light of the enormous task of reauthorizing our Nation's surface transportation policy next year, it is important that proposals of this nature be allowed time to be discussed and vetted at length. Ultimately, it is my hope that we might be able to make some targeted changes to Federal weight restrictions in order to achieve significant environmental and economic gains while still keeping the highest regard for safety.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate to move forward this important issue.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to introduce the Idaho Efficient Vehicle Demonstration Act of 2008. I am pleased that my colleague, Senator Crapo, is fully supportive and an original cosponsor of this bill, and that an identical bill will be introduced today in the House of Representatives by our colleagues, Representatives Mike Simpson and Bill Sali.

This is a bill that is very important to the State of Idaho. It is a bill that will improve the efficiency of freight movement within the State, provide significant economic benefits to a variety of local natural resource-based industries, and establish a record attesting to the safety of heavier, more efficient vehicles.

The State of Idaho has long recognized the need to provide a more productive means of freight transport. In light of that, the Idaho State Legislature created a pilot project in 2003 to allow vehicle combinations weighing up to 129,000 pounds on designated routes within the State highway system. As a result of this pilot project, Idaho has realized significant economic benefits and has established a strong record of safety while utilizing more efficient vehicles.

Idaho's sugar beet, potato, grain, dairy and phosphate industries reported that participation in the pilot project resulted in reduced fuel consumption and equipment maintenance and increased productivity based on estimates of five to eight percent savings in freight costs. Amalgamated Sugar Company reported 30,000 fewer truck trips, resulting in an estimated savings of just under $300,000.

This pilot project has been in effect for 5 years and no safety concerns have been raised by the participants or by the Idaho Transportation Department in their initial report last year. In fact, survey responses from pilot project participants found that safety was the same or greater due to the reduced numbers of trucks on the road. Similarly, the pilot project has not been found to create a significant change in pavement conditions when compared to previous years.

In light of this 5-year record, I believe it is appropriate and necessary to make a very small, targeted expansion of this project by adding limited stretches of Federal highway to the existing State pilot project to help connect our State and Federal roads so that the movement of goods can proceed more efficiently in the future.

This small expansion is necessary for several reasons. Idaho's neighboring States of Montana, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming do not have such stringent limits on their Federal highways due to grandfathered rights. This puts Idaho at a distinct competitive disadvantage and slows the free flow of freight between neighboring States. This bill would help to even that disparity in weight restrictions among our neighbors. It will also provide valuable data and information to the U.S. Department of Transportation as to the net beneficial effects to our infrastructure by requiring that road, bridge and accident information is gathered and reported.

This bill has the strong support of Idaho Governor Butch Otter, the Idaho Transportation Department, and the business community, including both shippers and motor carriers. The Idaho Trucking Association has specifically endorsed this proposal as have numerous shipper companies that are based in my home State.

I recognize that there are significant challenges facing the freight industry and, by association, our natural resource-based industries that rely heavily on trucks to move their freight. Changes in truck emission requirements, a seemingly perpetual driver shortage, sustained high fuel costs, and increasing insurance premiums are only a few of the challenges that face truck companies and struggling industries in Idaho. With that said, this is one step that can be taken to relieve some of the burden on our freight industry, and do so in a safe, economic and environmentally friendly fashion.

If enacted, this bill will improve safety by reducing the number of trucks on Idaho roads. It will have a positive environmental impact by reducing diesel consumption and emissions. It will provide an economic boost to the State by reducing wear and tear on Idaho highways and improving the competitiveness of our natural resource industries.

In light of the enormous task of reauthorizing our Nation's surface transportation policy next year, it is important that proposals of this nature be allowed time to be discussed and vetted at length. Ultimately, it is my hope that we might be able to make some targeted changes to Federal weight restrictions in order to achieve significant environmental and economic gains while still keeping the highest regard for safety.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate to move forward this important issue.

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

Madam President, we may be hours or a day away from adjourning for the August recess. At the same time, many of us have said there is no more important issue for this Senate to be dealing with than the issue of energy and the price of gas at the pump. For the last year, the American consumer has gone through increasing price shocks as they have seen more and more of their family budget left at the service station or gas station every time they fill the family car. First it was $15, then $20, then $25, then $30, $40, $50, and in some instances now and in certain locations $60 to fill the family car. If that family car is also the vehicle in which they commute to their workplace and they have to fill it several times a week, it has become a dramatic hit on the American family in a way that has now clearly registered in polling across our country and in what we are hearing every day in our phone calls coming in from those distressed Americans out there who are paying more for energy than they ever have before.

That is just one side of the energy equation. Our whole world, our whole economy runs on energy. The cost of that energy in that economy has to be felt--whether it is in the heating of the home or the processing, manufacturing, or growing of food. All segments of our economy feed on energy and feed, basically, on gas or hydrocarbons that are reduced into gas and diesel and oil and plastics and the refining of energy. All of them have also become factors for which the average American--and certainly the average Idahoan--is paying now at a higher price than they have ever paid.

In my great open Western State of Idaho, we travel long distances. The majority of our people do not live downtown, don't live in the suburbs. They live out in the countryside. Going to town is a trip that is not unusual to rack up 50, 60, 70, 80 miles. I grew up on a ranch that was 30 miles from the nearest community. It was not unrealistic, when my mother went to town to acquire groceries or do the family shopping, to travel 60 or 70 or 80 miles in one round trip. That still goes on today in many of our Western States. So the cost for that family has gone up dramatically, also, simply by the character of where we live.

Yet, for the last 2 weeks, in an effort to try to deal with this issue on the floor of the Senate by allowing the offering of amendments that would in many ways cause production to begin once again in this country in locations where we know oil exists today but they have been taken off limits for political reasons--in that debate over the last 2 weeks, the leadership, the Democratic Party, the majority leader has stopped us from doing so on at least six different occasions.

Why, I am not sure--why any leadership of the great Senate would stop this Senate from doing what the American consumer and the American voter are asking for is largely beyond me. I could speculate--and I have, on numerous occasions, in speeches on the floor over the last several weeks, as have my colleagues. But one thing is clear: On six occasions, the majority leader, the Democratic leader, has said: No, we will not proceed to offer amendments to allow or to cause this country to become once again a producing nation.

Now we are about ready to try a seventh time. I am told that on the Defense Authorization Act, cloture has been filed. That is a procedure we use here in the Senate ultimately to force a vote on whether we will proceed to go to Defense authorization. We could vote on that today if we all agreed or we could vote on it tomorrow, as the cloture motion ripens--the term we use here in the Senate when all time has run out. I know what our vote is going to be. As important as Defense authorization is, we are going to say no. There is something even more important today to every American than that Defense authorization; that is, the price of energy at the pump which is literally sucking the family budget dry.

What do we do? My guess is we are going to adjourn for the August recess having done nothing. Every Senator here is going to go home. I hope they go home to explain to their voters and to their State why they would not vote for increased production; why they will not allow this great country of ours to get in the business of producing energy once again.

The President has responded. He removed the moratoria he had placed on Outer Continental Shelf drilling. Prices dropped a little as a result of that. Yesterday, the Interior Department initiated a 5-year oil and gas leasing program for the OCS. They are preparing, if we act, to expedite and allow these areas in which we believe production can go on to go on there sooner. We have heard the argument here on the floor that it is 5 or 6 or 7 years away. No, it is not. In many areas, it could be as short as 2 or 3 years. And the anticipation of coming into the market in 2 or 3 years, in nearly everyone's opinion who understands oil markets--they would tell you it would bring the price of that product down now in the market.

The price already is coming down--not because of our actions but because of a beleaguered consumer out there who simply cannot afford the price anymore. That consumer and his or her family are already making decisions to shrink their travel and shrink their gas budgets. They are doing so.

In the last 4 months comparable to the 4 months of a year ago, the American family has driven 40 billion fewer miles. They didn't want to, they didn't want to alter their lifestyle, but they did. The reason they did is they just simply did not have the money to go forward. The price began to drop. Across America today, the gas price in many States has now dropped below $4 a gallon.

You see the marketplace is out there, and what we have said about supply and demand is true in the market even though here in the Senate the action to deny production is to deny that the marketplace exists. What is going on today across America is living proof that market exists.

What can we do? If we were able to act as we have asked our majority leader here in the Senate to allow us to do, we could gain access to what we believe is about 30 billion barrels of known oil reserves in the Outer Continental Shelf. We think there is an additional 85 billion barrels of undiscovered resources out there, simply, if we are allowed to explore and develop the resources we know are there that are off limits today--if.

If I were allowed to offer an amendment, here is the amendment I would offer. I would go to what we call the eastern gulf that is now off limits and I would say: 50 miles out from the shoreline along Florida in the eastern gulf, this would be open for leases. We believe there are over 2 billion barrels of oil out there and trillions of cubic feet of gas. Right across here are the pipelines and the infrastructure we could connect to, which would go into

the refining areas in Louisiana and Texas.

Doesn't that make sense? Even Floridians who once said: No, we do not want any drilling, are now by their latest polling saying: Yes, we do, because we, too, are going broke at the pump. We want an opportunity to do so.

Of course, what Floridians know is that if oil is discovered here, they will share in the money that comes from it, and that can go into their educational programs and their State budgets and potentially reduce the tax burden on the average Floridian, along with bringing the price of gas down at the pumps in Florida.

I have offered that amendment. I filed that amendment at the desk. Yet the majority leader of the Senate has said no, that amendment will not be offered.

Ultimately, it will be offered. Ultimately, someday the voter is going to say: We have had enough of this. We are not going to stand by and let the Senate of the United States block us from the resources that are ours as a nation, that need to be developed, that can bring the price of energy down.

It is a pretty simple equation and, as many of us have said, this is an interim solution. Many of us have called it a bridge to the future. The Energy Policy Act we passed in 2005, and the new Energy Policy Act we passed in 2007, already the Senate of the United States was recognizing that the day of a nation living exclusively on oil as a form of transportation energy was a day that would ultimately end and that we would invest in hybrids and electric-powered cars and new technologies.

I am very proud, in my State of Idaho, that, in part, we have led those kinds of technologies in our national energy laboratory in Idaho Falls. Hydrogen cars and hydrogen initial combustion vehicles and full- sized electric cars have been experimented with and are being developed at that laboratory and in other facilities across the Nation.

But that is not going to be available tomorrow. It takes billions of dollars and 10 or 15 years for a lot of this new technology to come online and be available to the American consumer. So do we sit idly by and allow the family budget to be drained away? Do we sit idly by and buy from foreign nations the billions of barrels of oil we currently buy from them and pay $1.2 billion a day to a foreign nation and drain not only our family budgets dry but our national treasure?

It is a phenomenal dilemma we have put ourselves in. As you note, I used the word ``we'' put ourselves in because it is folks on the floor of the Senate and the House of Representatives across the Rotunda from us who have put these properties off-limits, who have put Alaska's oil off-limits, all in the name of the environment.

We caused this crisis, and American families now know it. Eighty percent of American families and consumers out there are saying: Congress, fix it. For 3 weeks we have been on the floor trying to do that, and every time we try it, we are denied that opportunity in the raw name of politics.

Well, we are about to go home. I hope in the raw name of politics, America's voters rise and say to their politicians: Go back to Washington and do your work and do it in a way that allows this great Nation of ours to once again become a producing Nation, not just a consuming Nation.

We know the resources are there. Our national geologic survey says they are there. We know they are there because they have been put off- limits in the name of the environment years ago when gas was cheap. But many of us who have worked in this area for a long while said the day would come when there would be a break point and no longer would America be sitting with cheap energy available in an unlimited way. That day is here.

Yet, politically, we are bound up. We cannot move. I guess we will now not move to do what we ought to be doing for the American consumer, acting and allowing these resources to become available so we can develop them in a safe and clean environmental way for the American consumers to use.

This is a challenge for all of us, but it is a challenge we are capable of meeting if we simply surpass the politics of the moment and get on with the business of this great country.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I understand there are no further Republican speakers, so I yield back the remainder of our time.

Mr. President, for the next few moments, I wish to change the pace of our debate on the floor of the Senate. I am pleased the Senator from Montana is now the Presiding Officer in the Senate because I want to tell that Senator I am a cosponsor of a piece of legislation he and the Senator from Wyoming have introduced that would provide grants to Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, and to tribes and other States, at the discretion of the

Secretary of the Interior, to support landowner actions to prevent livestock predation, and to compensate landowners for a loss of livestock by gray wolves and other predator species.

Why would I come to the floor of the Senate and want to talk about wolves? Well, let me tell you what happened in the States of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming in 1995.

In my opinion, the Secretary of the Interior at that time, Secretary Bruce Babbitt, Secretary to the administration of Bill Clinton, did something that I said at the time I believed to be a direct violation of Federal law and congressional intent. He allowed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to go into Canada, collect Canadian gray wolves, bring them into the lower 48, and in the late fall or early winter of 1995, he dropped 15 of those wolves into a wilderness area in Idaho-- certainly satisfying the wishes of a lot of environmental interests, but, in my opinion, directly violating the language of an Interior appropriations bill, language that I and the then Senator from Montana, Mr. Conrad Burns, had put in the bill saying: None of these moneys shall be used for the purposes of introducing gray wolves into Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

Well, Bruce Babbitt did it, with great fanfare, with great public attention, and with a very large smile on his face.

Then, in 1996, he introduced another 20 wolves into central Idaho. What is the end result of what happened? This was the effort to do what we called the introduction of an experimental number of wolves back into a habitat that wolves once roamed wild in. It was supposed to be a limited experiment of what we called an experimental herd or pack, or packs, of wolves, an experimental species, and it was to be limited. We said at that time that when the number reached a certain number--at least 100 breeding pairs in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming--it would no longer be experimental, and it would no longer be endangered, and the extraordinary protection of the Endangered Species Act would come off.

That simply did not happen. Today, we literally have thousands of wolves roaming the States of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Some would say: Oh, isn't that wonderful, and isn't that exciting, and isn't that natural? Well, it may be natural in relation to 1880 or 1890, and it may be wonderful for some who behold the dream of an unoccupied great West. But to those of us who live in the West today, who live in an occupied area, where domestic livestock graze, and where the human species loves to camp, we have a problem. Our problem is quite simple. Wolves protected have no predator. The human species is the only predator. And in the absence of our ability to control them, they multiply very rapidly in an unlimited area with an unlimited feed source. Their feed or food source--their prey base--happens to be what was once the great elk herds of Idaho along with our deer population. And now, as they have begun to decimate those populations, they are beginning to pick off domestic livestock, both cattle and sheep, that graze on these public lands.

This map I have in the Chamber demonstrates, from the 35 wolves that were dumped into Idaho in 1995 and 1996--in approximately this area-- the phenomenal spread that has occurred across the entire State of Idaho, into Montana, and down into Wyoming, in areas where we believe there could well be more than 3,000 wild roaming wolves.

So the Department of Interior then said: It is now time we delist these wolves. We thought that was going to work until again a judge, who probably knows nothing about wolves, listened to a couple environmental groups, and said: I don't think we ought to allow that to happen. As a result, all of that effort was stopped. But still the taking of domestic livestock--both cattle and sheep--continues to this day.

I have served on the Appropriations Committee. In the absence of us doing the right and responsible thing, I kept adding money every year not only for the management and the shaping of these wolf populations, but also to offer some compensation to ranchers--both cattle and sheep--who were losing their livestock.

The Senator from Montana, who is presiding at this moment, the Senator from Wyoming and I have joined--they have introduced the legislation; I am a cosponsor--to hopefully bring about a stabilized fund to offset the literally hundreds of thousands of dollars our ranchers are now losing, all in the good name of Secretary Bruce Babbitt of the Clinton administration, who had the wonderful dream that he could take a West once unoccupied by the human species and repopulate it with a wolf.

Need I say more? A wolf is not a kind, sweet, and cuddly little animal. They are large. They are aggressive. They drag down elk, moose, deer. And they are now beginning, as I have said, to take domestic livestock.

A week ago, a young man, who was out training his hounds by chasing bear, ran into a pack of wolves. The wolves chased the guy off and killed all the hounds. Some of these well-trained hounds are worth $4,000 and $5,000 apiece. There was absolutely nothing that gentleman could do. Could he shoot the wolves? No. No, it is against the law, the Federal law, that he dare touch them. So he had to watch his beloved dogs eaten.

That is happening more and more every day in Idaho, as this map grows more and more covered with incidents of packs and individual and collective numbers of wolves. It is true in my State of Idaho. It is true in the State of the Senator from Montana. It is certainly true in Wyoming.

As we try to bring these wolf populations under control, we have interest groups and a Federal judge who raps his gavel and says: No.

The State of Idaho is attempting, under this Secretary of the Interior, and others, to take reasonable and responsible control of them, and to once again shape these populations of wolves so wolves can once again be in Idaho and, at the same time, to recognize the need to maintain populations of elk and deer is what we want to do. And it is what the Idaho Fish and Wildlife Commission and Fish and Wildlife agencies were doing in a responsible way--until, once again, a Federal judge intervenes, who knows little to nothing about the species itself, or probably the law, and says: I guess maybe that environmental group is right. Maybe we need more wolves so we get a genetically clear balance. We are more interested in the genetics of the wolf than we are the decimation of the elk herds, the deer populations, and the domestic livestock.

I have said with great trepidation, but I say in all sincerity: Do we have to wait until a wolf drags down a human species before there is a sense of alarm? Because they have now penetrated all of Idaho. They are literally in our backyards. Yet the romance goes on about this great dream of a wild West where you can hear the lonesome wolf howl at night. And they are howling. They are howling loudly right in our backyards. And a blind Federal agency and a blind Federal judge and a romantic environmental theory says that is OK.

It is tragic for the wolf because, ultimately, these populations will have to be brought under control. It is tragic for Idahoans and folks in Montana and Wyoming to see their pets and their domestic livestock dragged down and killed, with little if anything they can do about it.

I hope my colleagues would support S. 2875, as a minimal stopgap to provide these domestic livestock operators with some compensation for the losses they are now taking because Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior under the Clinton administration, had a wonderful and wild western dream.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes, to be followed by Senator Whitehouse from Rhode Island for 30 minutes, to be followed by Senator Brownback for 10 minutes.

First and foremost, let me thank the Senator from Rhode Island for his courtesy. We have been moving back and forth throughout the last number of days of debate. My presence on the floor allowed him to offer the courtesy--and I greatly appreciate it--to speak for 10 minutes ahead of him. He would be entitled to be next. I thank him for that.

Let me speak to what Senator Grassley has spoken to briefly in saying that the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee has spoken very clearly on the critical nature of tax policy to the economy. While that is valid, there is a tax at this moment in time that is being charged every consumer in America who buys gasoline at the gas pump. It is the tax of nonproduction. It is the tax of public policy that has denied our great country its continued ability to produce the necessary supply of energy to the phenomenal economy we have.

As a result of our failure to continue public policy that allowed production over the last 20 years, Americans are paying a higher price, a higher energy tax today at the pump than ever in our history; $4.10, $4.15, $4.20 gas is at this moment the No. 1 issue in America, not only taxing the pocketbooks of the average consumer but taxing the average family in a way that they not only feel less secure today because their energy bill has gone up over 20 percent this year but because we have a Congress stalled out at this moment. We have a Senate that is denying its responsibility to the American people to pass public policy that will allow us to continue to produce and, hopefully, drive down the price of oil.

In the absence of that kind of policy, what has happened in the last 6 months as energy prices have gone through the roof? American consumers have driven 40 billion less miles. They are voting with their feet at this moment and voting to stay away from the gas pump. As they stay away from the gas pump, as they drive less, as they conserve, not only are they changing the economy of our country, they are changing their lifestyles. I don't think they are very happy about it. In fact, those I talk to back home in Idaho are very angry about it. But they are having to do something to avoid the phenomenal tax energy has placed on the American family.

What happened in the last 2 weeks? Oil prices, world oil prices have begun to drop. They are dropping not because of increased supply, not because the Senate has done anything, but because the American consumer has said: We can no longer afford this. They are backing away from the pump and changing their lifestyle. It is truly an issue of supply and demand. Supply hasn't gone up in the last several months but demand is dropping.

Not only is demand dropping in our economy, it is dropping in Western Europe. It is dropping in Spain and Denmark, where there are significant recessions or downturns in the economy underway. In China and India, which have become the new large consumers of oil, our economy's slowdown is going to situate a slowdown in the Chinese economy, which has become a major supplier of goods to the American economy. That is just around the corner.

So are we going to be lulled into a sense of false security if energy prices over the course of the next several months drop below $4 a gallon and into $3 a gallon? Will the American consumer heave a sigh of relief and say: Crisis over?

I hope they don't. Here is why I hope they don't. It is very clear from this graph. This is a graph from 1890 to 2030 about the overall supply of oil in this country. Starting in about 1950, a very interesting pattern emerged that grew rapidly until today, when we buy our oil, 70 percent of it, from some other country; in other words, we don't supply it. We could supply it. We have the oil reserve under the ground. But for political purposes, we have denied ourselves, our market, our producers the right to go there and get it. Here is what has happened. The dependency has grown so that we are now nearly 70 percent dependent on foreign sources of oil. We are less secure today. We get whipsawed in the world market because oil is priced as a world commodity and now, in the last decade, China and India have entered the market in ever greater demand.

What I want to show next is a bit of a complication but it is true in the oil markets of today. Why do I know about it? I have been in Congress 28 years. I have spent a fair amount of time dealing with energy. All during that time, I have argued that if you don't produce, someday something would happen--it is called a breakpoint--that breakpoint would occur, and American consumers would all of a sudden find a phenomenal ramp-up in the price of energy at the pump, that tax I am talking about, that 20 percent hike in the cost of energy that American public policy produced for the American consumer in the last year.

Here is the chart. The dark area is U.S. production from 1970 to 2005. That is what we were producing. I shouldn't say just U.S. production; it was overall world demand production. What is interesting about it, this little green margin at the top was surplus supply. In other words, it was available. The market wasn't demanding it, but if the market demanded it, you could turn on a pump, turn a valve on a well somewhere in Saudi Arabia, probably, or maybe Venezuela, and you had spare capacity in the market. But as you will notice, this green margin, this spare capacity margin in world supply began to rapidly narrow starting in about 2000 through 2005. That is when China and India were entering the market at ever greater capacity because their economies were growing. They were becoming more wealthy, and they were using oil as a part of the energy supply to produce the goods and services they were selling to the world market. During that time, we were not expanding world capacity. So the margin, if you will, the bumper wasn't there anymore. Come 2005, we were nearly at a breakpoint. Beyond that, here is the rest of the story, and we know it today. There is no spare capacity out there. There is no way we can offset increased demand. So consumers in America and all over the world are starting to compete for the substance of oil by higher prices.

That is why for the last 2 weeks we have been on the floor talking about the ability to increase supply against ever-growing demand. But the market forces are at work. That demand has slipped off a little bit. Why? Because of that high tax at the gas pump. That doesn't mean it will go away, not at all. China and India are still consuming at ever-higher rates. They are simply going to grab that which we are not using today in the world market. So when our consumers want to come back to the market, when prices drop a little bit, will there be more oil in the market? There is a strong possibility there may not be, unless this Congress recognizes the error of its ways and allows us to get into the business of production again.

We have put off limits all around the United States vast quantities of oil that I and the world believe we ought to be producing. Guess what the American consumer is saying. In the State of Florida, where maybe a year ago or 2 years ago, 70 percent of Floridians would have said: Don't drill off our shore, I am being told by legitimate polling today that 70-plus percent of them are saying: Drill, produce. In fact, we believe that by the end of the week or early next week, the American people will see credible polling data that says nearly 80 percent of the American people are saying: You go produce that oil. Why are you asking foreign nations to supply it? We have the oil. Why aren't we drilling it?

You hear the argument here on the floor: My goodness, it would take 4, 5, 6 years to bring that oil online. I suggest that it wouldn't take 4 or 5 or 6 years. We know the oil is there, maybe 2 billion barrels of oil and literally hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of

gas. Here are the pipelines. Here are refineries. Here is the infrastructure that could take this oil immediately out of what we call the eastern Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Florida, and bring it into production within 2 to 3 years.

What does the marketplace say? What does that buffer out there, that green line on that other chart say, if, in fact, we were to do that? It would say: My goodness, there is now potentially spare capacity in the market, and prices begin to drop. No, we can't produce our way out of a crisis, but we can lessen the crisis while the American economy and technology are taking us to new forms of energy and to new ways to supply transportation.

I hope the Senate faces the reality that we have to get this country producing again. If we do, we can say to the American consumer: We will lower your tax burden at the gas pump, and we are going to create once again the kind of flexibility the American consumer has in their family budget. You lower the gas price, you lower the tax at the pump. That is the reality of what we are doing. It is a very real tax today. It has frightened the American consumer, and it has put our Nation in a state of insecurity.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, my colleague from Missouri has just spoken very clearly about a fundamental problem facing the American consumer and

the American family, and he has used the word ``crisis.'' I totally agree with him that $4-a-gallon gas or more at the pump today is truly a crisis for the American family and for the budget of every American household.

He joined with me in cosponsoring an amendment, and he spoke of that amendment a few moments ago that we would like to offer to the bill the majority leader, the Democratic leader, has brought to the floor, S. 3268, a bill to allow drilling in this area of the gulf where we know there is substantial oil potential. The Senator from Missouri spoke of some 3 billion barrels, or somewhere near that, available in this yellow zone off the coast of Florida and down from the coasts of Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana.

It is critical that the American oil industry be allowed to lease that land and begin development and exploration. Why? Not only do we believe the oil is there, but it is immediately adjacent to pipelines, refineries, and the facilities that will immediately process that oil and put it into the American distribution system.

Many are saying: Well, it is going to take 5 years, 6 years, 7 years, or 8 years if we drill now in the Outer Continental Shelf. It will take some time. But in this area, it will take potentially a great deal less time because we know the oil is there and it is immediately adjacent to the distribution system of this country and the refinery capacity in the Gulf States.

The American consumer today goes to the pump and pays $4, $4.10, $4.15, nearly $5 in some States and asks the question: Why? Here is what has happened in the American oil supply system that answers that question.

Starting in 1950, as the rate of use of oil in our country grew, we began a slow but very aggressive spread between our supply and the demand. As you will notice here, starting in the 1990s, we actually begin to supply less of our own oil into the market and we begin to buy more and more oil from foreign countries.

This debate today is about a supply-and-demand issue. Yes, there could be--pointed out yesterday by our Federal Trade Commission--a small amount of speculation in the market, and we ought to address it. But the reason there is so much activity in the market is the equation right here--the dramatic difference between what supply is entering the market and the demand from use, world use, in the market.

It really is that fundamental a problem. When we are using more than we are producing in the world market--and it is a world commodity-- then, of course, prices begin to escalate, as they have dramatically over the last several years and now in the last year even more so.

Why are we saying to the rest of the world: Drill your oil; we don't want to drill ours. Produce from your oilfields; we are going to keep ours off limits. I don't understand and I don't think the average consumer in any way understands that kind of an argument. Yet, for the last 15 years, that has been largely the public policy of this country--to put off limits known oil reserves while we ask the rest of the world to supply for us.

This is a larger picture of exactly what we are talking about. We are producing oil in this area of the gulf now. Our largest domestic volume of oil is coming from that area. But look at this area here, almost equivalent in size and potentially as rich in oil, and yet it is off limits. It is politically off limits. We can go there and we can explore and we can develop it if we have the political will to say yes to it. And the amendment I am offering--or I would like to offer to the bill that is on the floor--would allow us to do that and create a 50- mile safe zone for the citizens of Florida. But we are not given that opportunity. That is really the fundamental issue at hand.

The bill that we refuse to let go any further until we get the opportunity to offer amendments is this bill, S. 3268. As I said yesterday, look, not one drop of oil in it, not one drop of oil to satisfy the supply side of a very aggressive, demanding market. The only way we are truly going to bring prices down at the pump is to send a very clear message to the marketplace that we are going to allow a greater volume of supply to enter that market. While we are doing that, over the next 5 to 10 years, we are going to make every effort, through loan guarantees, through new types of technology, to reduce the demand side of our market. That is what we ought to be about here as we shape public policy for our future--to assure that we have the abundant supplies we need, while we recognize that it is a finite item and that there will be a day when there will be substantially less oil out there than there currently is and that we ought to be going toward the new technologies--the electric cars, the plug-ins, the hybrid, and all different kinds and versions of that.

I am one of those who now believe we ought to be looking at every possible source of energy for the energy supply of our country. But we shouldn't be openly denying known supplies today, and that is exactly what is happening here on the floor of the Senate. For the last 2 days, or nearly 3 days now, the leader has simply refused to allow the process to go forward, to allow my amendment and other amendments by my colleagues that would ensure a public policy allowing us to go into this area and develop it and to go into other areas we have taken off limits for political purposes only and put them within our limits again. Our technology is there. The technology we have for the deep water of the gulf is truly the finest in the world, it is the safest, and it is environmentally by far the soundest of any other country in the world. Yet we deny ourselves the right to use our own technology to supply our own energy to the American household.

No, I suspect the average person listening can't quite figure out what is going on here on the floor of the Senate, and it is really a fundamentally simple argument: The Democratic leader will not allow this country to produce in the areas where we have known oil reserves that we can get to the quickest and that we can bring online the fastest. I hope the phones start ringing as Americans grow angry with a politician who denies them the supply to the marketplace that would bring down the price of oil at the pump. S. 3268 is the vehicle with which we could do that if we were allowed to amend it, if we were allowed the normal process of the Senate.

Republicans unanimously said today that we ought to have the right to amend it, that we ought to stay here all next week working on it, until we can say to the American people that the energy crisis isn't over, but we have done everything within our power to bring down the price and lessen the burden on the family budget.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, for the last 36 hours now, we in the Senate have been attempting to move forward on substantive policy that would produce more oil and bring it into our systems to offset and, hopefully, lower the price our consumers are paying at the pump. But nothing has happened. It is interesting, the majority leader says we don't have time to do it, and yet we have been here 36 hours doing nothing but talking when amendments could have been offered that might have been substantive as it relates to taking down the Federal moratorium that exists over many of these properties where we know there are known oil reserves.

I find it fascinating that this morning in the Wall Street Journal, an editorial speaks about Speaker Pelosi of the House and Harry Reid, our majority leader, and other liberal leaders on Capitol Hill being ``gripped by cold-sweat terror. If they permit a vote on offshore drilling, they know they will lose when Blue Dogs [Democrats that are more conservative over in the House] and oil-patch Democrats defect to the [Republican] position of increasing domestic energy production.''

What would be wrong with that? It would be an admission on the part of Democratic leaders that their position of the last 20 years to deny increased production, all in the name of environment and conservation, hasn't worked. They simply cannot let that dirty little secret out. Except there is one real problem: The American people are beginning to figure out that it didn't work. Why have we gone from 30 percent dependency in 1980 to 70 percent dependency today on someone other than a U.S. producer, something other than a U.S. reserve? The reason is because we quit producing.

The debate today, while it is embodied in S. 3268, called a speculation bill, is really about production. Republicans have simply said: Allow us to

amend that. Allow us to bring to the floor amendments that would, by potential of opportunity, produce increased production.

I wish to talk about one of those amendments that deal with offshore drilling.

Several years ago, I introduced a term that is now being used by many, called the ``no zone.'' By that, I simply meant that of these areas around the coast, shown on this map here of the United States, where we have geographical authority--meaning our territorial water--in which we are denied the right to go and explore because of a political decision, because of policy made out of politics, not substance, we believe that within those areas there are literally billions of barrels of oil. We don't know that for sure. We only know that, based on old geological surveys, there is a great potential. We do know that where we were allowed to drill down in the gulf, that is where a majority of our current oil supplies are coming from, even in the deep water. But on the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington, and off the coast of Florida, the Carolinas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia, it is: No, heck no. The politics won't let us go there. So we would like to offer a few of those amendments. We would like to change the character of the ``no zone.''

Let me tell you about an amendment I would offer if I were given the chance to come to the floor on this bill and offer an amendment for full debate. We think it is a constructive amendment. It is an amendment we would call the Domestic Offshore Energy Security Act of 2008. It would take all of this yellow area on the map and allow it to go out to bid for the purpose of production.

Just a year and a half ago, the Congress--when gas was at $2-plus a gallon--decided we would let this little piece go into exploration and development. It was called lease sale 181. We debated it for weeks, negotiated for weeks. Finally, we brought all of us together to agree. Well, we believe there is a substantial amount of product out there. We don't know for sure, but the leases are going forward. It is believed that there are 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas and maybe between 185 million and 200 million barrels of oil. The advantage of this sale is that it is very close to all of the known refineries and the infrastructure that can bring it to the market very quickly.

My amendment would bring this whole area into play, where there literally could be billions of barrels of oil and multitrillions of cubic feet of gas. But the answer is no. The Democrat leader says: No, can't do that, won't do that; politically, we are not going to go there. The American consumer is asking: Why? In fact, I am told that the polls in Florida, by a majority, are saying: Drill it. Do it right, do it responsibly, do it cleanly, but drill it. We want the royalties that would come to the State of Florida that would pay for our education, but more importantly, we want to bring down the price of gas because it is really breaking the family budget.

What happened when the President announced a few weeks ago he would lift an Executive order on a moratorium, when the market began to show that this year the American consumer was consuming less than last year because of prices? Oil prices began to fall, from the high of $140 a barrel down to, today, about $122 or $123 a barrel--nearly a $20 drop per barrel--on the reality that the marketplace was working, demand was going down.

If you keep allowing demand to slide but you work on bringing up production, you bring the price down. You save the American family's budget. But here on the floor of the Senate, it is: Oh, no, we can't go there. The leader of the majority party will not admit that his policy--their policy over the last 20 years of denying production has now brought this crisis on. That is exactly what the editorial of the Wall Street Journal basically said.

Why not let the debate go forward? Why not allow amendments to be offered by anyone, for that matter? Why not allow those debates to go forward?

There is another interesting article from this morning. I ask unanimous consent to have the Wall Street Journal editorial and this U.S. Geological Survey Report printed in the Record.

Here is the headline: ``90 Billion Barrels of Oil and 1,670 Trillion Cubic Feet of Natural Gas Accessed in the Arctic.'' That is called ANWR, folks, and other areas in the Arctic. Once again, it is politically off limits. The oil is there, but the law says you cannot go there.

It is really quite that simple. Who are lawmakers? We are. We are the policymakers. Why aren't we on the floor today debating the amendments? Why aren't we offering those amendments in a responsible fashion? Why don't we deal with what the American public

needs at this moment; that is, to see their Congress being responsive to their greatest problem, the single greatest problem at this time, which is the price of oil and the price of gas at the pump. It will create greater problems if we don't deal with it quickly. It is permeating the economy and shoving up the price of nearly everything we touch. Energy is the underlying force of this economy. If energy prices continue to go higher, the economy itself is weakened. Why isn't the Congress and the leadership of the Senate moving forward? Why are we stalled out and wringing our hands and saying there is no time? There is no time to fix the American family's budget. There is only time to divert our attention to terms like ``speculation.''

Let me tell you, here is the bill. Here is S. 1368. There is not one drop of oil in it. See that. Not one drop of oil is in this legislation. But in the amendment I would offer, there could be millions, if not billions, of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of gas. That is the reality of what we are talking about.

Why, why, why, Mr. Leader, are you denying the Senate, the greatest deliberative body in the world, the right to offer these amendments and vote on them? We are stalled out because of the leadership. We are stalled out and told we cannot go there. I don't think the American public in any way understands the politics of this one.

Politics is quite simple: If you for 20 years were wrong and the market now shows it, how can you admit you were wrong? That is the issue at hand.

Mr. Leader, it is time you admitted it and we got on with the business of becoming once again a great and productive nation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the Senate has engaged over the last day and a half or two in probably one of the most important debates and, I hope, series of votes and actions this Congress can take this year. For the future years ahead, it may be precedent setting as to whether this country will return to its ability to produce not only traditional forms of energy but will grow to expand into new and alternative sources of energy so we can become increasingly less dependent upon foreign sources.

Great nations--and ours is a great nation--do not depend, in a way that they become dangerously at risk, on other nations' resources for their strength and their vitality. The great strength of our country has always been we could feed our people during a time of war and emergency, that we could take care of our own because we had an abundance of resource. It was also true of energy--all forms from energy--from the day we discovered the use and the effective use of whale oil as a form to light our houses and illuminate our worlds, to a progression from there to petroleum products, coal and then kerosene and then diesel and now, of course, gas and diesel and a myriad of products that flow from the hydrocarbons our Nation so abundantly produced.

I came to this Congress in 1980. At that time, we were about 35 percent dependent for our hydrocarbon needs on foreign nations. The rest of it we produced ourselves. As a result of that, we had flexibility and we had little to no liability, and, therefore, little risk, that we could be held hostage or that our economy and, therefore, our people and their will could be shaped by a foreign power. That time has changed because, over the last two decades, we made a concerted decision--a political decision--to stop producing. We began to put vast known oil reserves off-limits in the name of the environment, and we began to increasingly buy from foreign production and foreign-producing powers. Today, we stand at a near 70-percent dependency, and for any great nation to be 70 percent dependent on someone else other than themselves, that great nation is a nation at risk.

Today, the United States of America is at risk because we don't control our energy destiny. We have to react to it. We send our President to foreign countries with hat in hand, asking them to produce because we have grown so rich and so arrogant we refuse to produce ourselves. That game plan or that scheme, while it wasn't working, at least was reasonably well accepted, until other consumers began to enter that world market of oil: China and India and other developing nations. They began to consume from that finite pool of resource from which we were the large takers. The price began to change.

I remember a few years ago I thought: Well, gee, at $2, that is a

break point. The American consumer will finally react. We went by $2 a gallon for gas as if it didn't exist. Well, at about $2.75, I began to get phone calls from some of my farmers and large consumers saying: Larry, it is getting pretty pricey out here. But the average consumer still wasn't reacting. Last year, we went by $3 a gallon as the world began to recognize we were consuming more and more and producing less and less of a very important product--crude oil. In the high dollar, the $3-and-some-odd-cents range, my phones began to ring. Idaho consumers, who are large consumers of energy--because we travel long distances in big, expansive, Western rural States such as Idaho--were saying: Larry, this is expensive stuff. We are having trouble. That was at $3.50 or $3.60. Then, all of a sudden, it hits four bucks and everybody's phones light up. America asked us--the politician, the public policy shaper--what happened? Why are we here? Why was this allowed? Why are you standing in the way of the ability of the marketplace to drill and produce? That is the debate we are having right now. It is a very important debate.

The majority leader, the Democratic leader, Harry Reid, has brought S. 3268 to the floor saying: It is speculation. Somebody out there in the marketplace is profiteering; therefore, this is the bill that will fix it. Well, I am saying: Harry, that is fine. There might be some slight maneuvering in the market, so let's debate the bill, but we also know it is clearly a supply-and-demand situation and maybe we ought to figure out how markets work. A few of us know about that. Others try to deny it; that is: If you have more being consumed than you are producing, you create a new value to the commodity or the product being consumed.

So what I am saying and what other Republicans are saying is: We will debate S. 3268, but we want an opportunity to add to it a production concept. We want to be able to produce, to turn this great Nation on to production. Guess what they are saying over here. No, no, no, no. We have built our political base on nonproduction over the last 20 years. We have said let's be green. Let's don't produce anymore. Let's take it off-limits.

It didn't work, did it? No, it didn't. If you are paying four bucks today and you are angry about it, there is a clear answer why you are: This Nation quit producing. We didn't quit consuming. We began to consume what the rest of the world had, and the rest of the world wants it now as badly as we do. That is the reality of the problem we are in. This Senate ought to spend all the time it takes to produce a bill that deals with speculation, if it is there, and allows this Nation to produce once again.

We have done it. We did it in 2005. We were responsible. We brought a bill to the floor, we spent 2 weeks, we had many amendments, we debated them up or down, they passed by 50 percent plus 1 or more votes, and those that didn't failed. We produced one of the better energy bills our Nation has seen. When we started that debate, there wasn't a nuclear reactor on the drawing board for design. Today, there are 33--a direct result of a responsible action on the part of the Senate and the House in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Then, in 2007, last year, another energy bill--because the Senate was somewhat awakening and public policymakers were awakening to the reality of the need that had not hit us full force in 2008. We passed a bill that had a new renewable fuels standard that allowed increased production in biofuels. Today, the Department of Energy said if we didn't have ethanol in the market, the gas at the pump would be 25 to 40 cents more a gallon. So we have done some things there, and there are those who oppose it. There were some on the floor who opposed it, but we handled it in a responsible fashion. We brought the bill to the floor. We allowed it to be amended. We debated it. There was no filibuster. There is no filibuster today. It is simply a majority leader of a party that has based their politics on a nonproducing policy, and they can't allow the consumer to understand it or see it. So when we come to the floor and say: Let's amend it, let's add production to it, the answer is: Oh, no. Politically, we can't go there. There is an election out there. Let the American consumer and his pocketbook burn down.

Well, if that is the policy of the day, it is the wrong policy. It should not be allowed. I am one who will refuse to allow it to go forward. We are either going to debate energy in a full-blown, responsible fashion; we are going to allow amendments that are going to be up or down, we will win or we will lose, but America deserves to see a robust, proproduction, proconservation, proalternative, antispeculation debate and bill produced on the floor of the Senate. Anything less isn't acceptable. I hope the American people are listening today. Anything less than that isn't acceptable.

My time is nearly up, so let me conclude because others are on the floor to debate this important issue. Two years ago, I introduced this chart to the lexicon of the debate on American oil production. Then I called it the ``No Zone,'' and others are now using it, and I am mighty proud they are, because this red area was where American politics said you cannot drill. We called it the ``No Zone.'' Well, we know there is potentially billions of barrels of oil there, but oh, we dare not touch it, for whatever political reason, I am not sure. But guess what Americans are saying today and what is incorporated in the opportunity to debate and amend a bill here on the floor: That is to allow effective and responsible exploration in areas where oil is known.

So come on, Harry Reid. Give America a chance to save some money. Give America a chance to get back into production. It is quite that simple. I will conclude by saying: How simple? Use the bill you have. Allow it to be amended. Allow a full debate. Allow Senators to work their will, and we can produce something that in time will allow production to flow and the American consumer to be once again advantaged by a robust energy market.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. President, I came to the floor on June 19 to address my colleagues and the Senate about energy prices, as many of us have, because there is no question that the Senator from Colorado and I, when we go home on the weekends, hear as the No. 1 concern on the part of Coloradans or Idahoans their energy bill--the price of gas at the pump.

We are big western States. We travel long distances. When you roll into a gas station with your Ford F-150 and you start filling it up and you drive away, because it has dual tanks on it, having paid over $100 to fill it, you have a problem. You have a problem because you had bought that vehicle to facilitate your ranch or your farm or your job and you had anticipated that the most you would probably ever pay was $25 or $30 to fill up. That is what you budgeted. That is what you understood the economic impact of that vehicle, necessary to your job or your business, would be on your job or your business. But in less than a year, that changed.

That is the working man or woman's side of it. What about the soccer mom who travels around all over the community every day, dropping off her kids and going to the store and picking up goods and services and coming home and all of a sudden having an energy bill in the family budget that she and her husband had never anticipated would be there. We all know their salaries or their jobs are not going to compensate them because they are going to spend $500, $600, $1,000 or $2,000 more this year on their energy bill. That is only at pump, let alone at the meter that monitors the electricity at their home that is going to be going up; and the natural gas that is going to go through and into their heating systems and their stoves. That is going to be going up. There is no way for them, other than taking money from something else in their life, to offset that impact.

Those people such as myself who spend a good deal of time, and have for 28 years, on the issue of energy, were very fearful that a day such as today would come, a day of reckoning, a day when our country that, almost 20 years ago, decided it would no longer be a producer but because of environmental policy and political attitude, we began to change. We decided we would try to offset production with conservation and, in large part, we said to the energy-producing segment of our economy it could no longer drill in America, go elsewhere.

I will never forget meeting with the President of Amoco in Los Angeles about 15 years ago. He opined to me that the day would come when his company would have to leave this country because it could no longer produce in this country--and that is what happened. And doggone it, that is the truth. You can document it. You can see it happening. It happened. We put millions of acres off limits for one reason or another but largely because of an attitude in this country that somehow we were going to muck it up a little bit environmentally and we ought to leave it alone and it ought to be pure and it ought to be pristine. And, oh, by the way, energy is cheap. It was inexpensive at the time and we could buy it from somebody else. So basically we set the rest of the world to producing and we became increased consumers and increased buyers of foreign oil.

During that last 20-year period, something else began to happen. The oil we were consuming was no longer owned by companies we had interests in, it was owned by nations. It was owned by nations that were sometimes friendly to us, sometimes not so friendly to us, but nations that began to recognize they could gain the wealth of America by selling it oil because America no longer wanted to produce. We grew from about 35 percent dependent upon oil when I came to Congress in 1980, to, today, nearly 70 percent dependent. And those nations have us right by the gas nozzle today. They can do what they want. They are reaping our wealth at unprecedented rates--$1.2 billion a day--and they are turning around and buying back our companies and buying back our real estate with our money. But it is now under their ownership.

The greatest wealth transfer in the world is taking place as we speak, as America drains itself dry for the need of energy, and a Congress unwilling to act responsibly and having failed to act responsibly for the last 20 years. It is a dilemma unparalleled in American history.

When I came to the floor on June 19, I said there is an old country western song that says ``a little less talk and a lot more action.'' That was June 19. Now we are into mid-July. Oil prices went up nearly $15 more a barrel during that period of time and gas went from about $3.90 on average to $4.11 on the pump nationwide. Guess what. We still got a lot more talk but very little action.

Why is America angry today at their politician? Because their politician is fearful of action.

I once voted to lock up ANWR. I once voted to put off limits drilling out on the Outer Continental Shelf. It was for all my environmental friends. How do I change? How do I shift the political gears to meet the American people today who are saying simply go where the oil is, explore and develop and bring it on line. We need it desperately. It is draining our pocketbooks dry.

That is the domestic economics side. What about the national security side, when we are 70 percent dependent on foreign oil? So it is a national domestic economic issue and it is a U.S. national security issue. Guess what, folks. A lot more talk and hardly any action. So when the President stepped up a month ago and said why don't you in Congress lift the ban on Outer Continental Shelf oil drilling, I turned around and called the White House and said: Why don't you, Mr. President? You did it by Executive order a couple of years ago for the politics of Florida. Why don't you act?

He did act. He acted last week, in a responsible fashion, to lift the Executive order that limited the exploration

and development in the Outer Continental Shelf. Guess what happened. Between the combination of a realization that Americans were consuming less in the summer of 2008 versus the summer of 2007--down by nearly 15 percent because they simply can't afford the oil and the gas anymore-- coupled with the President saying to the marketplace, there is a potential for development and more production, the oil price began to slide. In the last few days it has dropped from $147 to $134. If it continues to do that, we might see gas prices at the pump slip 15 cents or 20 cents. But I doubt that it will unless this Congress acts.

The majority leader, the Democratic leader, came to the floor yesterday with a bill, 3268. What is it about? He says it is about speculation. What is speculation today? Is speculation the futures market that anticipates that gas may be going up so you hedge your investment against the future so you can offset the expense of new energy? Is that speculation or is that wise investment? I don't know. But I do know this, that in the legislation the Democratic leader has put up, there is not one drop of new oil in it; not one gallon of new gas in it; not one oil rig worth of new production in it.

We listened to two experts today who came to the Senate to talk about energy. They said there is no easy way out. You have to have some production, but you need conservation.

OK, look at the speculation side. Create greater transparency. Do all of those things. But it is truly a supply-and-demand market today and we are supplying less and demanding more. In this country in the last 10 years, our demand curve went up dramatically as everybody rolled out in their F-150 Ford pickups--and I don't mean to be picking on Ford Motor Company or their big SUVs--and they were getting 12 or 15 or 16 miles to the gallon and it was $2 and aren't we having fun, until it hit $4. Now they are mad and frustrated and angry and fearful of their future--and they have a right to be.

Many of us believed this day would come; we just didn't know what day on the calendar it would occur. Because the old principle of supply and demand in the marketplace, you can't divert. It happens. When you are supplying less and demanding more, it happens.

Here is a simple formula. Take every oil field in the world today that is producing, that has those big rigs on it pumping the oil--it depletes, meaning it uses up the oil in the strata that is underneath, at a rate of 4 percent to 5 percent a year. So the ability to have a field to continue to produce at the level it is begins to decline.

On top of that, the world is demanding about 1.5 percent more oil every year than it did the year before. Why? We are growing, we are buying big cars, our economy grows--but something else has happened. There is a new economy across the Pacific known as China. All of a sudden, they became consumers of oil. They begin to buy in the world marketplace.

Then there is another country further on across Asia known as India. They are consuming more and they are buying out of the same pools we are buying out of. All of a sudden the perfect marketplace storm occurred. We began to consume a great deal more than we were willing to produce. In this country we were consuming a great deal more than we were willing to produce, so the marketplace looked at it and said: Oh, we have a problem here. All of a sudden those who look at markets began to try to protect their future by buying into the future through the system--with no indication from us that we were going to do what was not politically correct, from the standpoint of our politics back home, but what was politically right for the American consumer; and that is, to get us back into the business of production.

So I am telling the majority leader, you can bring a speculation bill to the floor, but this is a Senator who will not support it and will not vote for it if it does not have production in it. We cannot talk our way out of this one, we cannot manipulate our way out of this problem. We have to produce our way out of this problem, and we have to conserve our way out of this problem.

Is it not interesting that when the world market began to discover that Americans had tightened their belts because they could no longer afford the gas at the pump and the consumption rate from last summer to this summer is down 15 to 20 percent and you have a world leader, this President, our President, stand and say: America, I am taking the limits off, in the ability of my office as President, through an Executive order, I am taking the limits off the Outer Continental Shelf, where we know there could be oil.

Some of us have said we ought to do the same thing here. Next week there will be plenty of amendments, if the majority leader allows true legislative dynamics on this floor, a bill to come up and a bill to be amended because we will add production to his lots-more-talk and little-to-no-action bill.

We will add production. If we do, and if it makes it to the President and if he signs it, I will bet you the price of oil in the world markets will begin to decline a little. Now, while that is all happening, in the next months and years, we have a lot of other work to do as a country. We have to bring on the hybrids, we have to bring on the electric cars, we have to learn to conserve in other ways.

Last year, I broke stride with the auto industry. I said: Mandatory 4 percent increase in CAFE fleet average standards. I had not done that in 28 years of my politics here. The auto companies came to me and said: Gee, why are you leaving us now?

I said: I have not changed in 28 years and neither have you.

I changed. I partnered with a Democrat, Byron Dorgan. We set a mandatory 4-percent CAFE standard for fleet averages of automobiles in this country. It became law. When it is fully implemented, over a period of time, it is akin to bringing on an oilfield that produces 1.5 million barrels of oil a day because that is the amount that is saved.

So as a Senator who has always been a supporter of production, I also recognize there is a lot that can be saved through conservation. There is a lot that can be saved through new technology. I believe the generation ahead of us, this next 10 years in the economy, is going to be the decade of energy.

I think Americans are going to invest more and understand more about their energy and do more about their use of energy than they ever have in the decades before. Why? Because it is going to cost more. If it is going to cost more, there is probably more profit to be involved. If there is more profit to be involved, there is going to be more investment in it. But Congress, get out of the way. Quit being politically correct. Demand standards. Demand quality environmental procedure. But get out of the way, politicians. Let America produce once again. When we do, our economy will strengthen, the American families will fear less, our national security will be more assured, and we will not let the Venezuelas or the Nigerias or the Saudi Arabias or the Irans jerk us around by the gas nozzle the way they are doing now because, once again, as a great nation, we begin to stand on our own two feet.

We have arrived at that break point in the world of energy. It is time we act, responsibly, directly, and that we deal with a lot more action and a lot less talk because our Nation became a nonproducing nation today because of politics and public policy, not because the oil was no longer there.

Shame on us. Shame on the American politics of the last 10 years that denied production in this country. The American consumer, listen up: Call your Senator or call your Congressman right now and say: Pass a bill that allows us to drill.

It is quite simple. Pass a bill that allows us to drill. The futures market will decline and gas at the pump will begin to drop and the American economy will begin to stabilize. It is going to take some time, but you have to act first. So, Mr. Leader, you can bring a talking bill to the floor but allow us to make it an action bill. Allow us to make it a production bill. Americans, call your Senators and say: Allow us to drill.

It is that simple. That is how we change the world of American politics today, that for the last 20 years has denied the right of the American marketplace to produce the energy necessary to stay independent, free, and reasonable in price.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Colin Jones, a fellow from the Idaho National Laboratory, be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of the Energy bill, S. 3268.

Madam President, today I honor and congratulate one of the most successful athletic programs in the Nation that few people outside of my home State know about: The Lewis-Clark State College baseball team of Lewiston, ID.

This year, head coach Ed Cheff led the LCSC Warriors to yet another NAIA World Series championship. This year's victory makes three championships in a row for the Warriors and 16 overall, all coming in the last 25 years. Those 16 titles are far and away the most in NAIA history, with the second place school having just four.

Despite having only 3,500 students, Lewis-Clark has grown into a national baseball powerhouse under Coach Cheff's tutelage. Since Coach Cheff took over in 1977, the Warriors have put together a winning percentage of 79.8 percent. This year's 58-6 record is the latest and greatest example of his leadership.

And this success isn't just by smaller school, NAIA standards; more than a hundred of Coach Cheff's players have gone on to be drafted by Major League Baseball teams, including four this year.

Idaho does not have a franchise in any of the major sports leagues. We are known for potatoes, not winning championships. But thanks to Lewis-Clark State College baseball--and another successful Idaho college program, Boise State Bronco football--that is changing. LCSC baseball has given Idahoans a team that we can hang our hat on and be proud to call our own.

While sports are perhaps the quickest way for a school to capture headlines, a college or university can thrive only with sustained, high-quality education. Athletics alone do not make a school. The classroom must always be the foundation, and Idaho schools--from Lewis- Clark to Boise State to my alma mater, the University of Idaho--are all institutions of exceptional academic quality.

Madam President, I am proud to see more young Idahoans enjoying success, and I wanted the Senate to be aware of the achievements of the Warrior baseball team. Congratulations to Coach Cheff's team once again.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I am filing at the desk today an amendment to the emergency supplemental that will be coming over, or is already here, from the House to reinsert a provision that the Senate put in our version of the emergency supplemental before it went to the House for their consideration. This amendment includes a 1-year funding for the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. What that simply means is timber-dependent communities and school districts across the country would receive their level of funding for one more year until such time as we can fully reauthorize the act.

The Senate Finance Committee, in the extender legislation, has a reauthorization in it. But we don't know whether that will come immediately following the Fourth of July recess or some time into the summer. Here is the reality of the emergency funding about which we are talking.

There are 775 counties and 4,400 school districts in 42 States that is now making critical hiring decisions for the coming school year that will start at the end of August. These school districts need this money. It is quite simple. They have no other way of raising the resource that is now terminated as a result of our inability to move in the appropriate fashion.

What we are talking about is 9 million schoolchildren who will be affected. In my State, numerous school districts and potentially several hundred teachers are getting their termination notices because there simply is no money to hire or to continue to hire them. What are we talking about? A timber-dependent county, a county where 90 percent of its landscape is owned by the Federal Government and 10 percent is owned in fee simple and pays taxes into the school district, and they have no possible way of raising enough revenue when a third or a half of the revenue came from those public lands originally through timber sales.

Senator Wyden and I some years ago created this legislation. It is known as Craig-Wyden or Wyden-Craig. We have helped these school districts, and we are fumbling here trying to accomplish that. We put it in our version of the supplemental. Now the supplemental comes back. It is not a pure document. It is not exclusively a military funding document. It has veterans money in it. It has emergency money in it for FEMA to handle the disastrous flooding going on in the State of Iowa.

In my State of Idaho, in Clearwater County, we have a disaster. It isn't flooding. It isn't the Clearwater River over its banks. It is a school district that is dramatically having to diminish the quality of education because this Congress has not acted in a timely fashion, and we simply roll over and say: Oh, well, we will probably get it done in July, but then again it might be August.

It is now we must act because in August, that school will be back in operation and that schoolteacher who was teaching some level of academics in that high school or grade school will be gone because the money has not been replenished. I call that an emergency. I call that a need to address the supplemental.

I have talked with the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, I have talked with the ranking member. They, too, view this as a crisis. I know we all have our priorities, but in this case Senator Crapo, Senator Smith, Senator Domenici, Senator Stevens, Senator Murkowski, Senator Bennett, and others agree with me. And there are numerous Senators on the Democratic side of the aisle. I have spoken a few moments ago with Senator Wyden. The State of Oregon will be in crisis if we don't resolve this in a reasonable fashion.

This is simply a 1-year extension of funding at current levels. It is not a new reauthorization. It represents about $400 million in the chairman's mark that moved out of here before. So this amendment, as I speak, will be filed at the desk, and I would hope, in our effort to move legislation and finish the supplemental, the emergency supplemental, that we also recognize there are some domestic emergencies here at home, such as the flooding on the Mississippi, such as tornado-ravaged areas, such as school districts having to fire needed and necessary educators to provide for the quality of education of their children because Congress did not responsibly fund public land, Federal public land-dependent counties, and created the crisis by our inaction.

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