Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged and the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 625.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 775, H. Con. Res. 318.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I understand that S. 3430, introduced earlier today by Senator Coburn, is at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Mr. President, I now ask for its second reading and object to my own request.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I come to the floor this afternoon to join my colleague from Washington State to talk about--I actually say it is an energy issue. Yes, it is also about the Air Force and Department of Defense air refueling tanker program, but I believe it fits well into this debate today because we are talking about energy and the high cost of energy.

This week, I am sending a letter to Secretary Gates, along with my colleague, Senator Murray, to make sure the Pentagon is doing its job and eliminating the evaluation errors identified by the GAO to make sure we have a fair competition and an even playing field when it comes to the air refueling tanker program.

The fact is, our military's air refueling requirements are already well known. The original requirements were developed with input from the warfighting combatant commanders and approved by the Air Force Requirements Oversight Council and the Joint Oversight Requirements Council. According to the Federal rules, major changes to these requirements cannot be made without going through this process again.

I think failing to account for what are full life-cycle costs and estimates or changing the requirements in the RFP would be another colossal failure in this long process. This was an evaluation problem, not an RFP problem. I am here to say that if the Pentagon fails to learn the lessons from the GAO decision and changes the requirements that have already been set, then I am sure they will hear from many of my colleagues and myself here in Congress. There may even be another GAO protest.

The American people do not want to have an amended RFP that will result in a protracted protest rather than the tanker procurement we are all seeking. Therefore, the new competition should be based on the requirements that were reflected in the original Request for Proposal dated January 29, 2007. The world our warfighters are operating in has not changed since those requirements were set. I see no need for them to be changed.

We are here on the floor now talking about the high cost of energy. The Boeing Company worked hard to meet the Air Force requirements for the tanker bid process. It picked the 767, the platform that best matched those Air Force requirements. If the Air Force had called for a larger tanker, Boeing could have offered a bigger plane, the 777, with far more fuel capacity. But the plane that Boeing picked, the 767, is a much better match for us, the American taxpayer, and for our environment.

The Air Force currently uses more fuel than any other branch of the military, and the Boeing 767 plane burns 24 percent less fuel than its competitor and would have saved the taxpayers approximately $30 billion over the life of these tanker planes.

As my colleagues are talking about what to do about the high cost of fuel, I ask them to consider one of the Government's largest users of fuel--the Air Force--and whether we should make sure fuel efficiency is integrated into the Air Force's procurement decisions.

The Air Force uses more than half of all the fuel the U.S. Government consumes each year, and aviation fuel accounts for more than 80 percent of the Air Force's total energy budget. In 2006, the service spent more than $5.8 billion for almost 2.6 billion gallons of jet fuel--more than twice what it did in 2007.

The American taxpayers obviously cannot afford their own higher fuel costs. I do not see how the American taxpayers can afford the U.S. Air Force running up a higher cost energy bill as well.

An Air Force Assistant Secretary told the House Armed Services Committee that it wants to leave a greener footprint, with more environmentally sound energy resources. He testified that the rising gas and oil prices had forced the Air Force to take a harder look at the budget to find ways to save money while maintaining a high operations tempo in the war on terrorism.

Assistant Secretary Bill Anderson said this:

The increasing cost of energy and the Nation's commitment

to reducing its dependence on foreign oil have led to the

development of the Air Force energy strategy, to reduce

demand, increase the supply and change the culture within the

Air Force so that energy is considered in everything that we

do.

I believe the Boeing 767 would have been a much better choice for the Air Force in energy savings and fuel efficiency. As I said, it burns 24 percent less fuel than the alternative that was put on the table. The Air Force did not give full consideration to the national security impact of these fuel efficiency issues when it made its decision on the tanker.

Given that the Air Force, as I said, uses more than half of all of the fuel the U.S. Government consumes, I hope they are thinking about the big picture issue when it comes to making sure our Nation reduces its dependence on foreign oil.

This 767 has greater operational flexibility. It can land on shorter runways and it can be based at more locations worldwide with existing infrastructure instead of making us, the taxpayer, pay for more and more infrastructure costs.

Boeing's medium-sized 767 tanker makes a lot more sense than the oversized option that was originally outlined by Northrop Grumman/EADS, and its greater operational flexibility.

The tanker size was determined in the original requirements. And so the fact this plane, the 767, is more fuel efficient, can land on shorter runways, can have more base operations, in fact, over 1,000 more base operations worldwide, and the fact that the other costs to the taxpayers in the long run are lower compared to the other offer the Air Force is considering, we must make sure we are doing our job here on the floor of the Senate to make sure these issues of cost savings to the taxpayer are considered.

I want to make sure the Department of Defense takes a hard look at these issues and weighs the loss of critical skills in the U.S. manufacturing base. In this time of challenge, America wants to know it can rely on a workforce and manufacturing base here in the United States for our preparedness for whatever conflict comes in the future.

I want to make sure that the problems identified by the Government Accountability Office are corrected and that we move forward. But failing to account for lifecycle costs on fuel, on infrastructure, on maintenance would also be another failure in this process.

I hope my colleagues will remember this was an evaluation problem, not the RFP. And we hope we will straighten this out as we move forward.

I see I am joined on the floor by my colleague, the senior Senator from Washington. I hope she too can add to the focus of how those high costs are something we should be considering in making sure the Air Force moves forward on the appropriations choice to give the men and women of our country a long overdue air refueling tanker that we deserve.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to speak on an important issue related to my responsibilities as chair of the Coast Guard and Fisheries Subcommittee in the Commerce Committee. I see some of my colleagues on the floor. I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks, Senator Dorgan be recognized for 10 minutes, Senator Murray for 10 minutes, and Senator Salazar for 10 minutes. Knowing that my colleague, Senator Specter, is expected to show, when he shows up we will fit him in the sequence back and forth, depending on when he shows up.

Mr. President, last week over 400,000 gallons of fuel spilled into the Mississippi River near New Orleans after a chemical tanker collided with a fuel barge and literally split the barge in half.

This is a picture depicting the Coast Guard looking at the two halves of this barge that was split in half right in the heart of New Orleans, causing serious damage in the area from diesel and diesel fumes, even impacting the French Quarter.

Now, the second chart shows the impact of that spill on downtown and the seriousness of that spill in the region. This major spill has closed the Mississippi River from New Orleans to the river's mouth, choking off one of the Nation's most important major commercial arteries. Even now, a week later, only a few ships can get through on this 100-mile stretch of the lower Mississippi.

As the picture shows from the night of the accident, the mighty Mississippi was covered with this eerie sheen right in the downtown area of New Orleans. Now, a week later, some of the heavy fuel oil has turned into tar balls, bouncing and sticking and contaminating this waterway. The spill has slowed down New Orleans' normally thriving waterfront, and the economic impact is already being felt. To put this tragedy into perspective, the economic loss from a total shutdown of the port would cost our Nation's economy around $270 million a day.

While the Coast Guard has begun to allow limited essential vessel traffic back into this area, at one time point over 800 tugs and barges were impacted by the spill, and many ships are still waiting to return to this vital transportation corridor that needs to be reopened. We are only now beginning to understand fully the economic and environmental impacts this spill has caused.

Unfortunately, as many of my colleagues know, these sorts of spills are becoming all too frequent. Last November, the Cosco Busan cargo ship spilled 54,000 gallons of highly toxic bunker fuel into San Francisco Bay, costing well over $50 million in cleanup costs.

Hurricane Katrina and Rita caused spills totaling nearly 8 million gallons, released throughout the Gulf of Mexico region.

In December of 2004, the Selendang Ayu broke apart, pouring 350,000 gallons of oil into the waters off the Aleutian Islands, killing countless sea birds and marine mammals and sea otters.

In 2004, in my home State, the oil tanker, Polar Texas, spilled 1,000 gallons of crude oil into the Puget Sound. This spill in the Dalco Passage cost millions of dollars to clean up and was a real wake-up call to many of my Washington constituents.

As I know the Presiding Officer, Senator Lautenberg, is aware, because he has been a great champion over strengthening the oil spill prevention safety net, the oil tanker, Athos, spilled over a quarter- million gallons of crude oil into the Delaware River and its tributaries in November of 2004.

As chair of the Commerce Subcommittee with jurisdiction over oil spill issues and the Coast Guard, I want my colleagues to know the Commerce Committee has been working hard to try to give the Coast Guard the tools it needs to prevent these spills and to respond quickly and effectively when a spill happens. Over the last few years, the committee has held several hearings and has asked for and received information from the Coast Guard and Government Accountability Office, and worked to help understand and update the Nation's oil spill prevention safety net.

We worked hard to develop a thoughtful and balanced piece of legislation that would help prevent more of these tragic spills from happening again. Almost exactly 1 year ago, after months of bipartisan negotiations, the Commerce Committee unanimously reported the 2007 Coast Guard authorization bill, which contains many of these oil prevention provisions. I would like to thank Ranking Member Stevens for his thoughtful improvements and his strong support of these vital provisions, which would update the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.

Even though we have this bipartisan bill before us that has come out of the Commerce Committee, and even though it is critical to our national security and emergency preparedness, it is still being subjected to the same kind of obstructionism from a handful of Senators who don't want to move forward on the legislation, a situation we are becoming all too familiar with on the Senate floor. In this case, the bill is being held hostage by one or two Senators who seem interested in stopping its progress. They do not seem to care that it has the support of the Bush administration's Department of Homeland Security, which stated it ``strongly supports'' this legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the Department of Homeland Security letter to the chairman, Daniel Inouye, and the vice chair, Ted Stevens, from Donald Kent, Assistant Secretary, Office of Legislative Affairs.

Mr. President, I also want to make sure people understand the Coast Guard and its commandant, Admiral Thad Allen, have been working hard to see this legislation passed. In fact, Admiral Allen has made the statement: ``The swift enactment of these provisions would significantly improve safety, security, and stewardship in the maritime domain.''

But these Senators refuse to meet with the Coast Guard Commandant who wants to at least have a chance to explain why he needs this legislation to pass so the Coast Guard can do the critical job of securing our Nation's waterways.

Let me take a moment to describe why this bipartisan legislation is so important. First, it would require the Coast Guard to have rules in place for how it needs to respond to any kind of wreckage or salvage operation, such as the wreckage in the Mississippi River from the incident last week. Because no strict guidelines are in place as to the amount of time it takes to respond to oil spill wreckage, a barge, such as the one in the Mississippi, could be left for many days in the middle of the river.

Another section of the legislation addresses human error. We don't know what caused this spill yet, although we know there was not a properly licensed pilot in the tug pulling the barge, and we do know human error is the cause of many spills. In fact, the bill requires the Coast Guard to take into consideration human error causes of spills and how best to address them.

The Coast Guard would also benefit from the fact that NOAA's oil spill response program would get up to an additional $15 million per year from the oil spill liability trust fund. This program is currently on the ground helping with the oil spill in Louisiana, but they are limited in their ability because of severe budget constraints. So certainly having this bill passed would have helped in the response in New Orleans.

There are other significant measures that will help in improving our Nation's oil spill prevention safety net. So I hope my colleagues can help us get this legislation over the goal line because it is critically important we do so before we leave for the August recess.

It provides the Coast Guard with the critical resources and authority it needs in other areas as well--to fight terrorists, to capture drug runners, and to defend our homeland security. So isn't it time to help push the Coast Guard into the 21st century and begin planning for the challenges of tomorrow, rather than continuing to struggle with the challenges of today? And isn't it time we pass this legislation that might actually help prevent another oil spill from happening again, such as the one in Louisiana, and to give the Coast Guard the tools it needs?

Tomorrow, I will be asking my colleagues for unanimous consent to pass this legislation. I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who believe in strong tools for the Coast Guard will talk to their colleagues and ask them to stop blocking this legislation so we can get on with preventing another incident such as this one from happening again.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

I also would like to thank the chairman. In my home State of Washington, the IRS action has threatened a number of innovative housing developments, involving housing for pregnant women, housing for disabled military veterans, and housing for artists that are being used as part of a larger redevelopment strategy to rebuild neighborhoods. The IRS action has been particularly problematic for State efforts to deal with the critical need increase the supply of safe, decent, and affordable housing for migrant and seasonal farm workers. About 10 years ago, Washington established a Farm Worker Housing Program that has led to the creation and preservation of over 1,065 units of permanent housing for farm workers. The IRS's recent position has not only threatened future development of such housing but could potentially result in the recapture of low-income housing tax credits for such units currently in existence, potentially bringing financial ruin to the nonprofit housing providers which have developed and operate this housing.

The language in the bill that this body passed on July 26 on general public use reflects Congress's comfort with the historical application of the general public use requirement prior to the IRS's recent activities, and Congress's intent to remove the uncertainty and risk that the IRS's recent activities have created for the section 42 program.

I thank the chairman for that response and for his work, along with that of the ranking member, on this important issue that would permit housing credit properties to continue to serve special populations provided that the properties satisfy the nondiscriminatory tenant selection criteria and other requirements of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program. I also thank the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Bingaman, for his tireless leadership on this issue.

Mr. President, I wish today to honor the bravery of two fallen Washington State firefighters--Dan Packer and Andrew Palmer.

They lost their lives this weekend battling the dangerous wildfires burning in northern California.

Dan Packer fought fires for decades. He was chief of East Pierce Fire and Rescue in the Bonney Lake area and a former president of the Association of Washington Fire Chiefs.

This weekend, he was supervising the firefighting efforts in California as a member of an interagency emergency management team when his position was overrun by a wildfire following an ``unexpected shift in the wind.''

Andrew Palmer, from Port Townsend, was just 18 years old and on his first day of working the northern California fire line. He tragically lost his life when he was struck by a falling tree. He has been described as ``extremely energetic'' and ``dedicated to his job.''

Both of these men clearly illustrate the courage that firefighters across this country exemplify every time they go to work . . . starting on day one.

An unknown firefighter once said, ``What you call a hero, I just call doing my job.''

So today I ask that all Washingtonians, all Californians, and all Americans pause to think about these two men, their families, and the ultimate sacrifice they made just ``doing their jobs'' to protect their Californian neighbors.

They represent the best America has to offer: courage and selfless action. Their service will not soon be forgotten.

In fact, the deaths of these two brave Washingtonians unequivocally reaffirms the need to continue to work to protect and prepare these brave Americans for the danger they face every day.

Since 1910, more than 900 wildland firefighters have lost their lives in the line of duty. And unless we take action that number will continue to grow every summer we send these brave individuals in to battle wildfires.

We must demand firefighter safety and training programs receive the funding they need.

We must track this training to ensure that every firefighter is equipped with the tools he or she needs to make it home safely every time. It is our responsibility and obligation--to Dan Packer, to Andrew Palmer, and to all firefighters across this country.

Mr. President, I know many of my colleagues are here to talk about important issues of the day we are voting on here on the Senate floor. But I rise with a point of pride and personal privilege to talk about a great moment for the Pacific Northwest; that is tomorrow's induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame of Dave Niehaus, our broadcaster.

For 32 years, Dave has been the voice of the Seattle Mariners and he has been broadcasting in that broadcast booth from the team's first game in 1977. Next year will be his 5,000th Mariners game, which in and of itself is an incredible milestone.

I know everybody who is a baseball fan, not only in the Northwest but all throughout the country, knows that when someone has that unique position of calling a baseball game he does breathe life into each inning regardless of the score.

Many people new to the Northwest may not realize that in the late 1990s, up until that period, most of the Mariner games were only on the radio. For a good part of the team's history, let's say our team was struggling.

It took the Mariners 15 seasons to break .500 baseball. But yet the radio ratings were always strong and people kept tuning in, and that is because the voice of Dave Niehaus and his approach to the game kept the fans listening.

Like so many of the 33 broadcasters who are enshrined before him in Cooperstown, he found a way to make each game a treat for the fans to listen to. In 2007, the Seattle Times called him

``the voice of summer in Seattle.'' I could not agree more.

Dave also made a brief bit of history by doing the first play by play of a baseball game live on the Internet in September of 1995 when the Mariners and the Yankees played. So baseball came into cyberspace and everybody around the world got to hear some of Dave Niehaus's great phrases such as ``swung and belted'' and ``get the mustard and rye bread, grandma, because it's grand salami time.''

And for the fans, we do consider Dave part of the team. In fact, in 1999 the Mariners chose to honor Dave Niehaus by having him throw out the ceremonial first pitch at the opening of our new stadium, something that is the pride of the Northwest, Safeco Field which was opened in 1999.

Dave was there behind the microphone in the 1995 season, the ``refuse to lose season.'' It was an exciting time in the Northwest. He called the exciting one-game playoff with the Angels. After the game, many of the fans cheered him as much as they cheered the players.

Dave was also behind the microphone for what is called the ``famous double,'' the most memorable moment in Seattle Mariners sports history. It was the deciding game of the 1995 playoffs against the Yankees, and in the bottom of the 11th inning, Edgar Martinez hit a double that became Dave's favorite call of his entire career, as Ken Griffey, Jr. scored from first base, winning the series.

Once again, I congratulate Dave Niehaus in winning the 2008 Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in baseball broadcasting and his introduction into Cooperstown. Dave's signature call of ``my, oh, my,'' now will join the ranks of Harry Caray's ``holy cow,'' Mel Allen's ``going, going, gone'' and Vin Scully's ``I can't believe it.''

Finally I wish to say, because this is a point of personal privilege for me, that I hope somewhere in 2010, I might be standing in this very same spot with the opportunity to congratulate Edgar Martinez in being enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

Edgar's achievements are many: He is a two-time American League batting champion, a seven-time All-Star, a career .312 hitter, including seven consecutive seasons of hitting above .300 from 1995 to 2001. And of the 164 hitters in the Hall of Fame, Edgar's on-base percentage of .418 would rank him 13th.

I say this because in the Northwest, sometimes we do not get all the attention. Being in a different time zone, people do not see all of the accomplishments. But we are here to congratulate Dave Niehaus and hope for the best, that another Seattle Mariner will be added to the ranks of Cooperstown sometime soon.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I came to the floor yesterday to talk about how our Nation must move forward on a new energy future and explain how even if we drilled off all our coastlines it would still meet only 1 percent of our future oil needs. Instead we should be moving toward a renewable energy future and new energy technologies that could actually reduce our dependence on foreign oil by over half.

But today I come to the floor to talk about the proper policing of oil markets because we are in a crisis that is literally bankrupting families and businesses and even threatening entire industries.

Now, I don't often agree with President George Bush, but I have to say in his latest economic analysis, I actually agree with him, because I think it explains part of the reason why we are in a crisis today.

That is right, the President said that ``Wall Street got drunk.'' That is right, the President acknowledged that something was wrong with Wall Street and that ``Wall Street got drunk.''

Now, I don't know if the President meant to say that publically, but it got captured on the Internet. I don't know if he plans to keep saying that or all the intentions he has about trying to sober up Wall Street. But I know elaborating on the President's point, White House press secretary Dana Perino explained:

Well, you know, I actually haven't spoken to him about

this, but I imagine what he meant, as I have heard him

describe it before in both public and private, was that Wall

Street let themselves get carried away and that they did not

understand the risks that the newfangled financial

instruments would pose to markets.

That is what she said.

I don't know why the Bush administration and the regulatory team that they put in place wasn't doing something about this situation. We do know the administration supported deregulation of the financial markets.

And to me, the issue is that while Wall Street was getting drunk, it's really America and the American middle class that is feeling the hangover.

Today the Federal Reserve is struggling to contain what is almost one of the most severe credit crises since the Great Depression, and American families and businesses are paying dearly for the poor decisions and inactions of this administration.

During the past decade, the financial economy seems to have repeated some of the excesses our country has gone through before. So I wonder when we are going to learn the lessons of history and make sure that we in Congress do our job and that regulatory agencies do theirs.

In many ways, today's situation is a repeat of the 1920s when too much borrowing to underwrite too many speculative bets using too much of other people's money set up an the entire economy up for a crash.

Well, in 1999, Congress repealed key parts of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. It allowed banks to operate any kind of financial businesses they desired. And it set up a situation where they had multiple conflicts of interest. And several economists and analysts have cited the repeal of this Act as contributing to the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis. In fact, Robert Kuttner, cofounder and co-editor of the American Prospect magazine wrote in September 2007:

Hedge funds, private equity companies, and the subprime

mortgage industries have two big things in common. First,

each represents financial middlemen unproductively extracting

wealth from the real economy. Second, each exploits loopholes

in what remains a financial regulation.

Then, in 2000 we also deregulated a new and volatile financial derivative that is at the heart of today's housing credit crisis-- credit default swaps. As White House press secretary Dana Perino would describe it, these newfangled financial instruments that posed a risk to the market actually grew into a $62 trillion industry.

And Warren Buffett has called these credit-swaps financial weapons of mass destruction. So the proliferation of these newfangled financial instruments has resulted in huge profits and losses without any physical goods changing hands.

So now, I come to the floor asking my colleagues when are we going to learn the lessons of the past? When are we going to realize that the the 1929 stock market crash has the same root cause as the recent housing bubble? Both were financed by dangerously, highly leveraged borrowing, and after the crash many banks failed causing a ripple effect that devastated our Nation's economy. Well, after the 1929 crash, Congress stepped up and changed the banking laws to eliminate some of the abuses that had led to the crash.

That is right, only after the crisis did Congress act. What I want to know is whether we are going to learn that vital lesson and legislate consumer protections in advance, or only after a bubble bursts.

The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s when 747 savings and loan associations went under provides a similar lesson. Like before, much of the mess can be traced back to deregulation of the savings and loans which gave them many of the capabilities of banks, but failed to bring them under the same regulations as banks. Congress eliminated regulations designed to prevent lending excesses and minimize failures.

Deregulation allowed lending in a distant loan markets on the promise of higher returns, and it also allowed associations to participate in speculative construction activities with builders and developers who had little or no financial stake in the projects.

The ultimate cost of this crisis is estimated to have totaled around $160 billion, with U.S. taxpayers bailing out the institutions to the tune of $125 billion. This, of course, added to our deficit of the early 1990s.

So I ask my colleagues: When are we going to learn this lesson?

As George Soros wrote in his book documenting the credit crisis:

At the end of World War II, the financial industry--banks,

brokers, other financial institutions--played a very

different role in the economy than they do today. Banks and

markets were strictly regulated . . .

Unfortunately, today's banking and credit crisis teaches us we have failed again to learn the hard lessons. We have failed to see that oversight and transparency are always critical, and when Congress makes reforms, they cannot disregard these important fundamentals.

The only encouraging news I have seen lately is that Treasury Secretary Paulson is now working to increase regulation over investment banks, hedge funds, and other financial institutions.

I could go on and on for my colleagues on my own personal experience with the western energy crisis that happened in electricity in 2000 and 2001. We saw that during the electricity deregulation experience which started in the mid 1990s, people argued that electricity was just another commodity. But it is really a very vital element to our economy. Many experts cautioned that electricity was too vital a part of our economy and way of life to let these markets go without the transparency and oversight that is essential.

We all know the rest of the story. We saw that deregulation set the table for some of Enron's spectacular manipulation schemes of 2000 and 2001 among other bad actors, which all told caused more than $35 billion in economic loss and over 589,000 jobs were lost because of this crisis.

Again, only after the crisis was over, Congress stepped in and gave the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and now the FTC more regulatory authority on energy markets. But again, Congress is doing its job after the fact.

So I ask my colleagues: When are we going to learn? When are we going to quit deregulating these critical markets without much thought to the transparency and oversight that is critical for markets to operate and function correctly? When are we going to learn that when we give Wall Street an inch, as the President says, Wall Street gets drunk?

We are here today. We are here today to talk about the oil futures market and hopefully enact some meaningful legislation. But the real reason we are here is that we deregulated the energy futures market in 2000, which helped spark today's price bubble that is driving our markets to no longer be based on supply-and-demand fundamentals. In one fell swoop, this deregulation did a number of things that enabled today's perfect storm to brew.

We let newfangled financial instruments--called credit default swaps--go

unregulated and made it too easy to use bad debt to finance home mortgages. We also let newfangled crude oil trading--called energy swaps--go unregulated and essentially allow Wall Street to trade without any transparency. And we allowed electronic trading of energy commodities to emerge as a new form of trading. In a nutshell, we let Wall Street rewrite the rule book for all the traditional exchanges, like as NYMEX and the Chicago Merc, which were previously subject to considerable CFTC oversight.

The consequences of allowing these energy speculators to move into this market, as my colleagues on the floor have said, in spades, shows it is similar to a casino game, instead of playing in the legitimate trading market. And the consequences are the American people paying hand over fist for our lack of regulatory oversight.

Why are we talking about the futures market? Because it should be a key price discovery method to establish the true price based on supply and demand. As the Government Accountability Office has said:

The prices for energy commodities in the futures and in the

spot or physical markets are closely linked because they are

influenced by the same market fundamentals in the long run.

That is right, the prices for the energy commodities in the futures and in the spot or physical markets are closely linked because they are influenced by the same market fundamentals in the long run. So why is that so important? Well, it is important because the facts are clear: Speculation, and excessive speculation, have driven up oil prices over 100 percent in a year, and energy market experts are telling us the price should be more like $60 a barrel.

So people are questioning why the futures market is so high, driving the price people pay at the pump today. Well, as Ed Wallace, with the Dallas Star Telegram, said:

Record high prices without record low oil inventories,

analysts saying that so much money flows into the oil

commodities that it gives the impression of shortages, when

in fact no shortage exists.

So that is to say that when you have record-high prices without the record-low inventories, and I note we haven't had a supply disruption, so much money flows into the oil commodities it gives the impression of a shortage when, in fact, a shortage doesn't actually exist.

Now, I learned this phenomenon the hard way because that's how Enron manipulated the electricity markets coming up with various names for these various schemes--Darth Vader, Get Shorty--where Enron created the perception in the futures market that there was somehow not enough supply and then went in the physical market and signed people up for contracts at exorbitant rates. Thank God, through the hard work of people in my office, a little utility in Washington state actually recovered a tape of a trader talking to one of the individuals from Enron doing a contract and actually saying on the phone: No, this isn't true about the future price, but go ahead and tell your buyer it is so they will sign this contract.

So now we are seeing the same thing happening again. To quote again from the Dallas Star Telegram, in an article called ``ICE ICE BABY'':

Investors know that if they invest huge amounts in the

commodities futures, they can create a shortage on paper,

driving prices up just like an actual shortage.

That is right, investors know they can invest huge amounts in commodities futures and they can create a shortage on paper and drive up the price just like an actual shortage. So, yes, we are concerned.

In fact, that article goes on further, speaking about the Intercontinental Exchange, better known as ICE--that this ICE platform has been a big problem because we have allowed it to operate in the dark without the same regulator oversight as other exchanges. Ed Wallace is also quoted in that article as saying:

What kept traders from cornering the market in the past

where the government's anti-manipulation rules.

He is talking about what kept bad actors in check in the past, but once we deregulated in 2000, they didn't have the same tools in place to keep the manipulation from happening. So we are here today, on the floor now, talking about whether we are going to move ahead on a speculation bill to deal with this problem.

Compounding this problem is that we have a CFTC and an administration that is watching out more for Wall Street than for Main Street. It is up to us to make sure we are going to pass legislation that puts transparency and tough rules in place to make sure the markets work for consumers and that both the future price and physical price of oil today are truly based on supply and demand.

Americans may be surprised to learn that our oil futures markets were further deregulated--besides this 2000 Act. I am talking about a CFTC decision made by staff behind closed doors who decided to take no action against a London-based trading exchange that actually trades U.S. oil products. As my colleague from Maryland likes to call it, the London loophole. It is like driving on a U.S. highway but only applying the same speed limits as the German Autobahn.

It is abundantly clear to me that the CFTC is doing everything it can to continue to operate this way without thinking about its job, which is to protect the American consumers from oil price manipulation. So that's why I am making no secret of the fact that I am holding up the renomination of CFTC commissioners. And I am holding up new appointments to the CFTC until Congress gets to the bottom of this and we can get Commissioners who are going to enforce the law on the books.

Hardworking Americans are counting on us and are suffering in this crisis. Congress is their last resort as an oversight agency to make sure there are functioning markets and not the manipulation of supply based on the fact that we have created dark markets without proper oversight. But don't just listen to me on this subject about the CFTC. Listen to what other people have said about our CFTC, our Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Others have been critical as well. In fact, William Engdahl, who is an expert and an author on oil markets, wrote in May of this year:

The CFTC seems to have deliberately walked away from their

mandated oversight responsibilities in the world's most

important traded commodity--oil.

So there is one expert who doesn't think the CFTC is doing its job. Another expert, Steven Briese, who is a futures market analyst and author of the ``Commitments of Traders Bible,'' which is a futures market trade publication, wrote in May of this year as well:

Congress has provided the CFTC the power to control this

unlimited speculation--the law is very specific about

establishing position limits. The problem is they have

abdicated this role.

He is talking about the ``behind the closed door'' situation where the CFTC said: We are not going to enforce the laws we have on the books.

We have heard from other people, Mark Cooper, of the Consumer Federation of America, recently testifying before Congress, because the Consumer Federation of America focuses on protecting consumers. He had something to say about the CFTC's poor performance. In fact, he said the CFTC's poor performance is ``the regulatory equivalent to FEMA's response to Hurricane Katrina.''

What he is basically saying is they dropped the ball, at least at the beginning of this crisis, and have not responded.

So there are other people who have said things, like the trucking industry. They have a big stake in making sure the markets function properly. They say: ``There's oversight that's lacking or not taking place--so the private market is taking advantage of that.''

So, Madam President, I am not the only person. I know The Washington Post has also talked about this. They said, in an article: ``The CFTC has exempted these firms from rules that limit speculative buying, a prerogative traditionally reserved for airlines and trucking companies that needed to lock in future fuel costs.''

So it is clear the CFTC has abdicated its authority and responsibility. It has abdicated its authority and responsibility, and we have been trying to clean this up and to push forward on important efforts in this regard.

Madam President, I would like at this time to reference for the record a document prepared by Professor Michael Greenberger that responds to information from the Senate Permanent

Subcommittee on Investigations. I know the SPI staff analysis of Professor Greenberger's recent testimony before Congress on this topic has been discussed on the floor, and I would like to make my colleagues aware of his rebuttal to that PSI staff report.

Now, I am sure many of my colleagues probably didn't realize I was going to come and talk so much about the history of Congress deregulating markets, the crises that have ensued--billions of dollars paid by taxpayers--and Congress finally coming in and doing its job and making sure oversight agencies are performing their proper role and responsibility. But I thought it was important context so that we do not repeat the same mistakes.

Some of my colleagues today talked about the CFTC's recent investigation that uncovered oil market manipulation, which underscores the point. The CFTC could only take action against traders that are using exchanges regulated under their purview. What we need to ask is: what are we going to do about the dark markets, the markets that operate within the United States with U.S.-traded products that have been given an exemption and loophole in oil futures that we are not regulating and are probably also causing the problem? We want to know what they are doing about that.

So what is the American consumer saying about this? I know my colleagues have been saying a lot about Americans and what their preferences are. But it is clear to me that the American public wants us to act. In fact, 80 percent of the American public believes that oil commodities speculation and manipulation of the oil markets are taking place. That is right. They want Congress to act. Eighty percent of Americans polled said they believe oil commodities speculators are manipulating the price of oil. So Americans are very concerned.

Two-thirds of Americans believe we should pass legislation that creates new regulations governing all oil speculators. They want us to put back in place the rules we had before we threw them out in 2000. So two-thirds of Americans polled believe we should pass legislation that creates the necessary regulations, and that is what we need to be doing today.

I wish to make sure I am clear to my colleagues. We have done a great service by having an open debate on these issues. And just this week, experts said the Senate action is one of the reasons prices have fallen $20 below where they were, because we have had this discussion what a more regulated marketplace should look like. But I want to make sure my colleagues are clear that we need to pass legislation that really will crack down on excessive speculation. We cannot have a study bill, we cannot punt this to the future. We have to pass a bill that really addresses all areas of potential for excessive speculation. We need a bill that has aggregate speculation limits across all exchanges. It has to be transparent, and it has to be enforced on all markets.

We cannot have a bill on the Senate floor that has all the right words in it but none of the important words in the proper places. That is what I am going to continue to fight for. I am going to continue to fight to make sure we put real teeth back into the law, to make sure the American consumer is protected from the manipulation of oil markets in the future.

We can give the CFTC the tools it needs, and we must insist that it use them, but we will have to do our job here and pass this important legislation. Wall Street may be drunk, but it is America that is suffering the hangover, and we must help them recover. We need a new, tough law on the books, and it is imperative that we learn from the past mistakes of Congress in their attempt to lighten the load on some of these financial institutions with tools, only to find it wreaking havoc with housing oil speculation bubbles that is causing our country great distress. I hope we get this right in the next couple of days, and I am going to continue to fight until we do.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, unless we change course, our Nation will soon be sending $1 trillion a year abroad to purchase foreign oil, and no amount of drilling is going to change that. That is why I am frustrated that we are wasting valuable time here on the Senate floor debating last century's policies instead of talking about tomorrow's solutions.

We know that today we are facing an oil crisis, but we also know that with less than 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, there is no way the United States is going to drill its way out of this quagmire. American families and businesses are depending on us to put aggressive new policies in place, not continue to dwell on the old policies that are not going to provide any relief at the pump.

Unfortunately, it seems as though there are some who only want to focus on big oil's top priority; that is, lifting the moratorium on Outer Continental Shelf drilling.

Pro-drilling advocates, and certainly the President of the United States, seem perfectly comfortable perpetuating what I think is a cruel hoax on the American people saying that drilling will lower oil prices. They are willing to imply, to insinuate, and to pretend that drilling off of our coastlines will somehow provide relief at the pump or somehow lessen our dangerous dependence on foreign oil.

The reality is even the biggest drilling advocates admit that opening our Nation's pristine coastlines will have no impact on pricing at the pump. That is right, no impact.

In fact, the President of the United States, on June 15, said:

I readily concede that, you know, it is not going to

produce a barrel of oil tomorrow, but it is going to change

the psychology.

My colleague who is running for President seemed to say a similar thing:

I do not see any immediate relief, but even though it will

take some years, the fact that we are exploiting these

reserves would have a psychological impact that I think is

beneficial.

According to the Los Angeles Times, a senior adviser for Senator McCain also acknowledged in a news conference in a call to reporters that:

New offshore drilling would have no immediate impact on

supplies or gas prices.

In fact, the White House went on to say the same thing:

There's not a real good short-term answer to high oil

prices, and we've been very explicit about that from the

beginning.

So I think it is safe to say many people are confused about what is being discussed here on the floor.

Another White House spokesman said:

Anyone out there saying that something can be done

overnight or in a matter of months to deal with the high

prices of gasoline is trying to fool people.

Now, this is from the same White House and Republicans that are now advocating that maybe there is a psychological advantage here that somehow supply that we will not see until 2030 could have an impact on gas prices today.

Well let me tell you what some energy experts told the Energy Committee's roundtable on oil prices Roundtable this past week. And for those of you who did not attend--we had many of our colleagues attend-- we had two expert witnesses, Daniel Yergin, the chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an author of a very well-known book about oil, and Roger Diwan, an energy analyst at PFC Energy. They both firmly rejected the notion that the President's announcement he was breaking the Outer Continental withdrawal moratorium somehow caused a drop in oil prices. They were asked that question and basically laughed at the suggestion that lifting the moratorium could cause a drop in oil prices.

For those who want to pretend that opening up drilling could have any psychological effect, I think this chart illustrates what is going on. We see here on the left that prices are forcing Americans to basically consume less. Basically they are using 800,000 fewer barrels of oil than we did this time last year. But that certainly has not had a psychological impact on the price. We know that Saudi Arabia, here in the middle, announced that they were going to increase output by 500,000 more barrels a day. That announcement did not have any immediate impact. In fact, we saw oil prices surge to $140 a barrel.

So the lesson here is that even though these are significant reductions in demand and increases in supply happening it is not impacting world old price. So how can some of my colleagues argue that by producing 200,000 barrels a day, which is what the Outer Continental Shelf drilling would get you, that somehow that is going to have a psychological effect? How can they make that case when this amount of reduction of consumption cannot, and this amount of new supply did not; that somehow by producing 200,000 more barrels per day in 2030 is going to magically reduce prices today. I think what is clear is it does not matter how many oil fields we have, or how many holes we poke in the ground, it is not going to bring down the price. Only by ending our oil addiction and providing Americans with real energy solutions can we do that.

I am not the only one who believes that. The administration's own Energy Department has said similar things. In fact, in the Energy Information Administration's 2007 Annual Energy Outlook they have said:

Access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions

would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and

natural gas production or prices before 2030.

No impact before 2030. That is 22 years from now. In 22 years, we need to have a significant reduction in fossil fuels or our climate will be giving us a lot more things to worry about than the price of oil.

Scientists are now telling us there is a 75-percent chance within 5 years the entire North Polar icecap will completely disappear in the summer months.

According to Tufts University, doing nothing about global warming will cost the United States economy more than

3.6 percent of our gross domestic product or $3.8 trillion annually by 2100.

So why are we talking about taking on all of this risk of drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf? For what? We are talking about something that is a fraction of the demand of oil the United States is going to need in the future.

In fact, the Energy Information Administration says we will be using 22.6 million barrels a day in 2030. But the most we would get from the Outer Continental Shelf drilling would less than 1 percent of what the United States will need in the future. So some of my colleagues have staked America's energy future on a proposal that is going to give us less than 1 percent of what the United States needs today.

In fact, the Energy Information Administration continued on this discussion and said that drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf and lifting the moratorium, that these 200,000 barrels a day would have a minimal impact on what the United States needs.

This particular chart shows you how much additional supply we will need, 2 million barrels more a day than we are currently using today. And this is what the Outer Continental Shelf will give us, only 200,000 barrels per day. So it is not exactly as if this is going to help much if at all in the future.

In fact, the Energy Information Office continues to say:

Because oil prices are determined on the international

market, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to

be insignificant.

That is an analysis of drilling in all the offshore areas currently in moratorium. So the math is simple. Even if we drill in every last corner of our Nation, we would never be able to have an impact on world oil prices. The world price is always going to be set by others, leaving a critical aspect of our economy in the hands of OPEC.

As long as we use a quarter of the world's oil and have less than 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, facts that no amount of drilling can change, our country is vulnerable. It reminds me of the old adage: If you are in a hole, stop digging. But some want us to keep digging, digging toward a meager 200,000 barrels a day.

And that 200,000 barrels assumes that drilling off the coast of the Atlantic and Pacific is something people will want to do.

We have already heard from some States that think the risks are too great to their economies. For example we will not be able to drill the 10 billion barrels that are covered under the Federal ban off the coast of California, a State where bipartisan opposition exists to further drilling.

Here is what Governor Schwarzenegger said recently:

California's coastline is an international treasure. I do

not support lifting this moratorium on new drilling off of

our coast.

The Governor added:

We are in this situation because of our dependence on

traditional petroleum-based oil. The direction our country

needs to go in, and where California is already headed, is

towards greater innovation in new technologies and new fuel

choices for consumers. That is the way we will ultimately

reduce fuel costs and also protect our environment.

I could not agree with the Governor more.

Governor Schwarzenegger is not alone in his straight talk because there are many citizens across the country from coastal States who also know the impact of what oil spills can have, that it can mean billions of dollars in economic loss. Ask the tens of thousands of people who lost their livelihood after the Exxon Valdez. I know some of my colleagues have made remarks that new technology somehow makes spills from offshore platforms impossible. I know the minority leader said recently there was not a single reported example of spillage in the gulf during the Katrina hurricane.

I respectfully--and I mean respectfully--ask the minority leader if he has seen the President's own report on lessons learned from the Federal response to Katrina. This is a copy of the cover of the report. It says:

Hurricane Katrina caused at least ten oil spills, releasing

the same quantity of oil as some of the worst oil spills in

U.S. history.

There it is. A report that basically says it caused ``ten oil spills, releasing the same quantity of oil as some of the worst oil spills in U.S. history.''

The report goes on to say:

All told, more than 7.4 million gallons of oil poured into

the Gulf Coast region's waterways, over two thirds of the

amount that spilled out during America's worst oil disaster,

the rupturing of the Exxon Valdez tanker off the Alaskan

coast in 1989.

This is a satellite image of the Gulf of Mexico on September 2, 2005, right after Hurricane Katrina hit. It shows the various areas of oil spills that did, in fact, happen.

Although there are oil risks, the fact is that most of our Nation's recoverable oil supplies and related infrastructure are, for better, or worse, in the Gulf of Mexico. That is not to say we can't have environmentally responsible oil and gas recovery. In fact, many of my Senate colleagues did support in 2006 opening more of the gulf waters after President Bush issued a Presidential directive stopping some of the drilling that was endorsed by the previous administration. But in hindsight, opening the gulf seemed to be another lesson in how we are not going to help impact the price. Back when we opened 6 million acres in lease 181, many oil companies promised it would have a dramatic effect on new production. It was going to be an incredible find. The price was at $57 a barrel.

But a year later the price was already $89 a barrel and we all know the price today. Obviously, access to more drilling didn't help us impact the price of oil then.

And with prices so high, why did the oil companies bid on only 200 million acres of the 500 million acres recently put out for bid in the Gulf of Mexico? Not utilizing existing leases seems to be a pattern with oil companies. In fact, many oil companies are not using 83 percent of the public offshore lands they have tied up in leases. That is an area larger than the States of New York or Alabama that is just sitting idle. This chart shows that 83 percent of the leases offshore are not producing energy, and the oil companies are choosing to only use this area in the green.

Why don't we hear more about why they aren't choosing to drill? It doesn't make sense, given what the price is. We know one of the reasons may be that every single available drill rig, drill ship is being used right now. You can't go and drill when you don't have the equipment. According to the House of Representatives, oil companies have access to over 100 billion barrels of conventional oil in areas not under moratorium. That is how much is already there in existence on land that can be leased. It is already there. It is already available. But clearly the oil companies can't, or it is in their financial interest not to, utilize this vast amount of public land they already have.

The fact is, depending on oil companies to get us out of this mess is exactly what has gotten us into this mess. It is not a viable solution. We need to break our addiction to oil.

The question is, What can we do today to help bring supply and demand into balance? Last week, Dr. Yergin told us at the gas prices forum:

If Americans took a few precautionary steps when driving,

including properly inflating their tires, demand for oil

would decrease by 600,000 to 700,000 barrels per day.

That is something we can do now, not in 10 years, not 20 years. We can do it now. In fact, there are many things we can do now to reduce our dependence on oil. More efficient tires is one of them at 300,000 barrels per day; keeping your car tuned, 400,000 barrels a day; commuting with an extra passenger once a week, 200,000; keeping tires properly inflated, 200,000; and other ideas. These are things that can have an impact today, not like drilling which will only have an insignificant impact and only in 2030.

These are the things we should be working on aggressively. These are the low-hanging fruit we should be grabbing. Drivers are desperately seeking any measure that they can use to lower prices at the pump. That is why the Bush administration should speed up its rulemaking on a provision in the 2007 energy bill that established fuel efficiency tire labeling. We need a national campaign of public awareness to show consumers how to properly inflate their tires. I am for giving away air pressure gauges at the stations and making sure there is a national education program in place. We can start helping consumers today.

According to tests by the Consumers Union, choosing the right tires and maintaining them with the proper pressure can save consumers about $100

based on today's gas prices. It is critically important we take actions such as this that will help consumers, that will give them some relief.

To me, the debate over drilling highlights a generational change that we actually need in Congress. Americans know it instinctively. They know many of our institutions and safety nets are not working when it comes to this issue.

Think of what a different situation we would be in if we had spent the last 8 years acting more aggressively to build a clean energy future that our country desperately needs. For example, we could have been investing more in plug-in electric hybrid vehicles, which would have had a tremendous impact on oil addiction. The Pacific Northwest National Lab found that our current electricity infrastructure could support an estimated 70 percent of America's passenger vehicle fleet. Seventy percent of our Nation's cars could be supported by today's electricity grid, if we would have gotten plug-in hybrids into the marketplace. Fully utilizing the grid would displace 6.5 million barrels of oil a day, an amount equivalent to 50 percent of what we import, and cut our greenhouse gases by 20 percent. That is the type of policy we should have been pursuing.

Juxtaposed to drilling, the 6.5 million barrels of oil plug-ins could save is basically 32 times the savings of what the proposal for Outer Continental Shelf drilling would be. Obviously, that could have a significant impact.

The study also found that charging a plug-in electric vehicle at the current national electricity rate would cost the equivalent of just $1 a gallon. Instead of paying the fuel prices you are paying today at $4, you would be paying only $1 to plug in your car. A car that gets 100 plus miles per gallon. It would have such an unbelievable impact on the American consumer and the economy and opportunity.

There is a lot more we could have also done in the last 8 years. There is much more we could do now in making sure we extend expiring clean energy tax incentives that will save $20 billion in clean energy investments. I don't think it is too late to get the extender package and have 42,000 megawatts of planned renewable energy projects in 45 States go forward. That is the equivalent of 75 baseload electricity generation stations. I hope we can see progress on that bill.

Passing clean energy incentives will also provide renewable energy that will lessen demand for natural gas, lowering household electricity bills, to say nothing of what New England is facing with the high price of fuel for their homes.

Also under the Baucus extender bill, consumers can utilize $500 in tax incentives for measures that make their homes more efficient. This could lower their home heating bills by 20 percent or more. That is a huge opportunity for us moving forward, if we would only pass the legislation.

I don't know how much time I have remaining.

I will take a minute or two more.

These solutions I talked about are solutions we can do now. They are near term. If you look at this chart of what options we have for the future, this is what drilling and the moratorium can save us in barrels of oil by 2030, less than a million barrels a day. Here is what efficiency in automobiles and trucks and the measures I described in the last few minutes can do in saving us on energy and oil consumption, over 6 million barrels per day.

We have to get off this 27-year debate and get on to an energy future that will help make America more secure. We must move faster, further past these old energy policies, past convoluted logic and on to an opportunity where the United States can become an energy leader. We know there are countries that are already doing it. Let's make sure we have learned the lessons from our global neighbors about changes they have made. Let's commit to a real energy strategy on renewables. It is something America deserves and something we need to pass as soon as possible.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court carefully crafted the Roe v. Wade decision to serve as the balanced foundation on which the reproductive rights of women could rest. Now, in 2008, the Bush administration is making a late-stage power grab based on a foundation of flawed ideology.

A flawed ideology that has the potential to harm millions of American women.

Today, I join many of my colleagues in telling this administration that their ideology has no place in the health care system that American women depend upon.

Last week, it came to my attention that the Department of Health and Human Services is circulating a draft regulation that would jeopardize the reproductive health of women and their fundamental freedom of choice.

Studies show that the use of family planning reduces the probability of a woman having an abortion by 85 percent. But this rule could severely limit a woman's access to these family planning resources by adopting an alarmingly broad definition for the term ``abortion.''

This definition would allow health care professionals to classify contraceptives like birth control pills, intra-uterine devices, IUDs, and emergency contraceptives as ``abortions.'' Based on this classification, health care professions could refuse access for women who need these resources.

As such, this proposal would greatly increase the chances of women encountering hospital and clinic staff who would prevent them from receiving the information they need to make thoughtful, personal decisions about their health, and may even refuse to write prescriptions for basic birth control.

Fundamentally, this Bush administration proposal undermines everything we have worked to achieve in the last 35 years.

It could endanger access to birth control and upend the federal title X family planning program. In 2006 alone, title X provided family planning services to approximately 5 million women and men through a network of more than 4,400 community-based clinics.

It could endanger State laws and regulations like the one in my State that require equitable coverage for contraceptives under insurance plans that cover other prescriptions.

And it could even endanger a sexual assault or rape victim's access to emergency contraception in a hospital emergency room. An unimaginable thought for the millions of American women every year who turn to emergency contraceptives following a traumatic event in their lives.

Seventy-six percent of voters strongly support doing everything we can to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies through commonsense measures.

This is an assault on a common goal of preventing unintended pregnancies and reducing the number of abortions in this country.

And it is unacceptable.

For the millions of women across this Nation, I strongly urge this administration to reconsider their stance and put reproductive health above partisan politics and ideology.

Mr. President, I rise today in support of Senator Boxer's efforts to begin a real dialog on the need for an effective national oceans policy.

The protection of our oceans is a major priority for me. And we have a responsibility to start talking about policy solutions that will work to protect one of our most precious resources our oceans.

In addition to cultural, recreational, and aesthetic values, our oceans provide great economic value and a way of life for millions of people.

In Washington State alone, nearly 80 percent of our gross domestic product, GDP, is produced in our coastal areas. Nationwide, the oceans and coastal areas generate more than $800 billion of trade each year, tens of billions of dollars in recreational opportunities annually, and $30 billion from commercial fisheries. The histories and the economies of coastal communities have, and always will, ebb and flow with the tide.

As such, the conservation of marine and coastal ecosystems, and the majestic life they contain, should be a top priority for our Nation.

By introducing the National Ocean Protection Act today, Senator Boxer is taking an important step towards furthering the discussion on the management and protection of our oceans, coastal areas, and Great Lakes ecosystems. I commend my colleague on her efforts.

As chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard, I am currently reviewing several ocean governance proposals, but I fully support bringing these important issues into the spotlight of consideration. It is the only way we will come closer to establishing a comprehensive solution that works.

This discussion is much needed and long overdue.

I look forward to continuing this dialog and encourage all of my colleagues to join in moving these matters forward and making a renewed commitment to the protection of our marine waters.

Mr. President, I rise today in support of Senator Boxer's efforts to begin a real dialog on the need for an effective national oceans policy.

The protection of our oceans is a major priority for me. And we have a responsibility to start talking about policy solutions that will work to protect one of our most precious resources our oceans.

In addition to cultural, recreational, and aesthetic values, our oceans provide great economic value and a way of life for millions of people.

In Washington State alone, nearly 80 percent of our gross domestic product, GDP, is produced in our coastal areas. Nationwide, the oceans and coastal areas generate more than $800 billion of trade each year, tens of billions of dollars in recreational opportunities annually, and $30 billion from commercial fisheries. The histories and the economies of coastal communities have, and always will, ebb and flow with the tide.

As such, the conservation of marine and coastal ecosystems, and the majestic life they contain, should be a top priority for our Nation.

By introducing the National Ocean Protection Act today, Senator Boxer is taking an important step towards furthering the discussion on the management and protection of our oceans, coastal areas, and Great Lakes ecosystems. I commend my colleague on her efforts.

As chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard, I am currently reviewing several ocean governance proposals, but I fully support bringing these important issues into the spotlight of consideration. It is the only way we will come closer to establishing a comprehensive solution that works.

This discussion is much needed and long overdue.

I look forward to continuing this dialog and encourage all of my colleagues to join in moving these matters forward and making a renewed commitment to the protection of our marine waters.

Mr. President, today, I rise to express my support for the Housing and Economic Recovery Act.

The housing crisis in America has reached critical proportions. In Auburn, WA, Michelle was a single mom with an income that made it very difficult to find an apartment she could afford. Like so many people, she searched desperately to find a roof to put over her children's heads. The search is not easy. The search is not fair. But for the hundreds of thousands

of Americans that need affordable housing today, the search is a reality.

The number of renter households jumped by nearly 1 million last year, according to a Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies Report. And monthly rents are reaching record highs. Last year, they climbed to an all time sky high of $775.

We are faced with a fundamental supply and demand problem: a ballooning renter population and a diminishing supply of affordable housing.

This is a problem that requires a real solution. And today, I am proud to say that we have taken action to put people like Michelle in the homes they so desperately need and deserve.

This action did not come without the hard work of many people. I especially want to commend Finance Committee Chairman Baucus, Senator Grassley, and their staffs. Because of their hard work, we have included in this comprehensive housing and economic recovery package a set of provisions that encourage the development of affordable rental housing by expanding and improving the low-income housing tax credit. I also want to recognize the tremendous leadership of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rangel, who has long been an advocate for affordable housing and a champion of the tax credit program.

Because of current conditions in the financial markets, the development of many affordable housing options has come to a screeching halt. And for the hundreds of thousands of homeowners that must now turn to rental housing, the homes they could afford are diminishing at an alarming pace.

I knew this was a critical problem that needed a solution. Many of my colleagues, including Senators Kerry and Smith, agreed. We worked together to ensure that the tax title of this bill contains the provision that will extend the reach of two of our most successful and broadly supported Federal housing programs: the Housing Bond and Low- Income Housing Tax Credit Programs.

We now have the best cumulative version of what the Senate and House independently approved.

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program was created as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and made permanent in 1993. Designed as a public-private funding partnership, largely administered by the States, this program built its way into the history books as the most successful production program in existence.

These tax credits have created 2 million homes for families in need-- homes with restricted rents for terms of at least 30 years that would have otherwise been impossible.

In fact, in April 2007, Michelle from Auburn, WA, moved into one of these homes created by tax credits. She is thriving and able to provide for her children. Without tax credits like these, I am unsure where Michelle and her family would be.

We are building opportunity out of this past success and passing this opportunity on to the Americans who need it.

This will work now to increase the number of affordable choices available to our neighbors in need. State agencies award housing tax credits to housing developers, who turn the credits into construction funds by selling them to investors. These funds allow developers to borrow less money and pass the savings on to renters in the forms of lower rental rates.

A classic ``win-win'' situation.

By extending the reach of this program in the tax title of this bill, we give States the flexibility they need to develop housing credit properties in hard-to-serve, often rural, areas; we give investors needed AMT relief for housing bonds, housing credits, and rehabilitation credits; and we give our vulnerable neighbors, like Michelle, the homes they need.

It is critically important that Congress's response to the housing crisis not leave out those in need of affordable rental housing. I am proud of this legislation and am anxious to see it enacted into law.