Floor Statements

Mr. President, today, young women from Louisiana, California, and the Washington area are my special guests for Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. We were joined by over 100 young women and men here at the Capitol today with their parents, grandparents, and guardians to participate in work in the Senate.

I want to acknowledge the Ms. Foundation that started the national Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day program over 20 years ago. I would like to particularly thank Leader Reid and Leader McConnell for opening the Senate floor today for these children.

I ask unanimous consent that the young women's names, as well as the names of those family members or guardians joining them, be printed in the Record.

Please join me in welcoming my exceptional guests and their family members or guardians who have accompanied them to the U.S. Senate.

So, again, I thank my Senate colleagues for giving me this opportunity.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2072.

I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

I thank the Chair.

I rise in support of this amendment, offered on behalf of myself and my colleagues, Senators Snowe, Stabenow, and Shaheen.

We are very concerned that the Postal Service has not looked carefully enough at the impact some of its decisions might have on small businesses that rely on their operations. So all this amendment says--and I understand there is no opposition, so we might be able to take it by voice vote--is that included in the studies the Postal Service is going to do to analyze their way forward, they must consider the impact on small businesses they serve. As you know, in some areas, particularly rural areas, this is an arm of the small business, and we can't have that arm chopped off.

So that is the amendment. I don't believe there is any opposition, and if the managers would accept this by voice vote, we could save some time.

Mr. President, I add my strong voice to support the position of Senators Lieberman, Collins, Carper, and Brown, who has also been a great leader in this bipartisan effort to save the Postal Service and put it on a more sound financial footing, not at the expense of taxpayers generally but the users of the Postal Service.

This is about rural towns in America. This is about small businesses everywhere that rely on the Postal Service to get basic business done. Don't vote wrong today. Give the Postal Service a chance to save itself. That is what we are doing. We are giving rural communities a chance to fight and to be part of a growing economy. We are giving small businesses the opportunity to stay in business. Don't cut them off today. Let this debate go forward because we are trying to do the right thing and go in the fiscally responsible direction.

I see my colleague from Massachusetts who has been a very able leader in our effort.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to mark and celebrate the career of a Louisiana native who is a very dear friend of mine and someone who is admired by literally thousands if not millions of people in Texas and around the world. That gentleman is Dr. Kenneth Hall.

Next week Dr. Hall will retire after almost two decades of leadership at Buckner International, which is one of the world's outstanding nonprofit organizations formed many years ago in Texas. Dr. Hall served as only the fifth president in over 120 years. After his retirement as president in 2010, he has continued to serve as CEO of this fine organization.

Buckner, as it is known, is a global Christian ministry that does extraordinary work with vulnerable children and families throughout Texas and other places in the United States and recently expanded internationally. They helped run self-sufficiency programs, community transformation programs, education, job readiness training, and afterschool programs for vulnerable children. Remarkably, I have seen their work both in downtown Dallas, TX, as well as out in remote villages in Ethiopia, and the quality and expertise is identical and it is heartwarming.

The causes of vulnerable children both here and overseas is something, of course, that is extremely close to my heart. I spent a good bit of time in the Senate working with my colleagues on issues that advance their welfare, and it has been my privilege and honor to know Dr. Hall over the past several years.

He was born in Louisiana, earned his BA from the University of Texas at Tyler. He earned a master of divinity and doctor of ministry degrees from Southwest Baptist Theological Cemetery in Fort Worth.

Before his career started at Buckner, he served as pastor of four churches in Texas. He has been married for many years and has a beautiful family--his wife Linda and their two married children and their grandchildren.

I want to say a brief word about Buckner itself. It was founded over 135 years ago when a Baptist minister, R.C. Buckner, started an orphanage with an initial donation of $27. As the story goes, he literally took off his hat, put a dollar in it, and passed it around to the ministers present, and with $27 started the first orphanage west of the Mississippi to help the children who were coming on those orphan trains across our Nation. They took them off of those trains and gave them homes and families.

The organization has grown since then, but under Dr. Hall's leadership Buckner expanded to include more than $200 million in capital improvements and an endowment of more than $200 million. As I said, he worked to expand Buckner's reach overseas.

I had the pleasure of traveling with him to Ethiopia recently, and I witnessed firsthand the incredible work and his personal passion for helping families become more self-sufficient, maintaining children in their birth family groups, and helping to literally transform communities with this special Buckner touch.

So it has been said before: To be who you are and become what you are capable of is the only goal worth living. It is my hope that Dr. Hall will continue to achieve his goal in this life. We will miss him, his selfless service, and his dedication. We honor him today in the Senate for over two decades of service to one of the Nation's best nonprofit faith-based organizations.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Did the Senator have an opportunity today--because I had a group from Louisiana in my office on the same subject, and I appreciate the Senator's leadership. The group was the American Engineering Society that was in Washington today. I don't know if the Senator had an opportunity to meet with such a group, but have other groups come by the Senator's office to express, as this group did, their utter frustration with Congress's inability to get such a basic piece of legislation through? Did they tell the Senator the same thing they told me, which is: Senator, when engineers are not working in America, no one is working. We are the ones who are designing the projects to be built. If we are not designing them, they are not going to be built. If we don't get this Transportation bill passed for a longer period of time, we will not be going back to work.

Is that the Senator's understanding when he meets with groups in his office?

As the Senator from Rhode Island said, he had 9,000 jobs at risk in Rhode Island. We have 26,700 jobs at risk in Louisiana. This is a very significant deal and challenge for all our States.

We don't have the trouble of the winter and the summer but, unfortunately, Louisiana does have one of the largest percentages of bridges that are deficient in the Nation. We also, because we have to build on such soft and unsettling lands, need to have repair money readily available so people can evacuate in times of hurricanes and natural disasters. We have been working--and the Senator may be familiar with the area because he has friends and relatives in our State--on the I 49 south and I 49 north but particularly I 49 south that connects New Orleans to Lafayette in a loop around south Louisiana, which is America's energy coast that is so important for not only saving those wetlands and that great industry of fisheries but also supporting oil and gas production. That highway is yet to be built in a nation that depends on the resources we send to the Senator's State and to other parts of the Nation.

So I feel the same as the Senator from Rhode Island. I can't, for the life of me, figure out why the House will not move with more quick action to pass a longer term bill. Maybe if they can get just anything out of the House, we could get to conference and start negotiating some things that might be better than a 3-month short-term authorization which I hear nothing but

complaints about from everyone. I hear complaints from the left, the environmental movement, to the right, the business community. They say: Senator, we can't live with these short-term authorizations. We need 2 years. We need 3 years. We need 5 years. We need something we can build on, count on, budget for, and depend on; otherwise, it is too expensive. It starts and stops projects. We have to lay off a crew and hire them the next day or we can't place our orders in an efficient fashion. The Senator from Rhode Island knows we just raise the cost of all the projects. So why would the House claim to want to be so fiscally conservative but act in such a way that is the opposite, that is making all these projects more expensive?

I think the Senator from Rhode Island is absolutely correct. I will join him on the floor, and I hope our colleagues will come to this floor every night and say it is time to pass this Transportation bill. It is time to help Colorado, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Rhode Island to get people back to work and to fix this crumbling infrastructure.

Nine is enough. The cat has nine lives. This cat has run out of opportunities. This is the ninth short-term authorization. We have to move to a more long-term, sustainable infrastructure plan for America. This is truly an embarrassment, I have to say to my friend.

I wish to thank the Senator from Rhode Island for his leadership, and I will join him in subsequent evenings on the floor to raise this issue and explain to the American public not the inside baseball or the inside politics but to explain what is the most important thing about this, which is we need the jobs and we need them now.

Mr. President, I am going to speak for about 10 minutes. If someone else comes to the floor, I will be happy to shorten that, but I had to come to the floor to support the leadership of Senator Barbara Boxer and Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma, who have worked for over a year to bring a very balanced and fundamentally important and essential infrastructure bill to the floor of the House.

We have many arguments on this floor. We have been arguing about judges. I heard Senator Grassley give a pretty tough speech voicing his opinion of some of our Supreme Court Justices. I do not agree with much of what he said, but he is entitled to his opinion. We have those debates. There are good people on both sides. We are debating oil taxes and whether the oil industry is paying too much or too little. You could have arguments about that.

But even our children in kindergarten and even our citizens who do not pay attention to some more difficult arguments understand roads, bridges, and mass transit. They understand hardhat jobs. They see people every day laying bricks, pouring concrete, going to work at steel mills and factories that produce the materials that build our infrastructure. They drive over potholes all day long. They ride down the interstates with 18-wheelers whizzing by them in smaller cars because they are trying to be more fuel efficient, with their heart in their chest, with their children in the backseat, and they look up to Congress, to the House of Representatives, and say: Where is our Transportation bill?

This Transportation bill was not written by one Senator and voted on by a slim majority. This Transportation bill that the House refuses to even consider was built by one of the more progressive and one of the most conservative Members of this body. It was voted on almost unanimously out of committee, brought to the floor of the Senate just a couple of weeks ago, and received over 75 votes in a body that cannot decide about our judges, really, we can't decide about the post office, we can't decide about oil and gas taxes. But 75 of us said that we are tired of running our highways and our transit on 90-day, 30-day, 60-day extensions. I think this is the 26th short-term extension since 2009. What way is this to run a government?

For the other side of this building that talks about putting business practices to work, let's be more efficient in the way we operate, and let's operate more like a business, do you know, Mr. President, any business in America, large or small, that operates with a 30-day vision? Do you know one? I don't know one. I understand businesses have 6-month plans, a year, but they always have that 5-year long range. They might have 6-month goals. I don't know one business in America that operates on a 30-day plan.

Here we are at the ninth hour again. We have a bill. We produced a bill. If the House had a bill--I am a centrist--if the House had a bill, I would be working with the middle of the road over there, trying to say: This is what your bill does. This is what our bill does. We can't have our way completely here in the Senate, although I would like to have our way more of the time, but I understand.

They do not have a bill. They do not have a bill to negotiate because they cannot even get a bill together among the three committees of jurisdiction over there.

Again, if they had a bill, I know Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe would be happy to negotiate. Maybe they want a 4-year bill, we want a 2, maybe we negotiate a 3. They don't like the mass-transit portion; we like the mass-transit portion; we could come to some terms. They don't like the way the formula works; we like the general way the formula works; we could come to terms. I understand that.

But what I do not understand, what no one in the country understands--what the mayors are having a hard time understanding, what the Governors are having a hard time understanding and the businesses that operate in my State, represented by the chamber of commerce, the NFIB, and the Main Street Alliance of small businesses from the left to the center to the right--what they do not understand is how you do not have a bill at all and you have not been able to put one together. We have now been in this Congress for a year and a half. You have had 1\1/ 2\ years to put a bill together, and you have not come up with one.

We put one together that looks pretty good. No one that I know of from any group has said anything really bad about our bill. It is pretty plain in one sense. It is not changing the course of Western civilization; it is just trying to fund roads, bridges, and transit, which is fundamental to the operations not only of our government but our economy and, frankly, the economy of the world because without highways it is hard to import or export products. This bill has impacts way beyond America.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how the House of Representatives is going to leave and go on vacation and think they have done their job by giving us another 90-day extension.

I do not know what the leadership is going to do, but I want my vote recorded as no. I am not going to hold up everybody here over the holidays, but I want to say that I want my vote recorded as no. I am not going to continue to support 30-day, 60-day, 90-day extensions to a transportation bill that really, in the scheme of things, should not be that complicated to pass. There are other much more controversial things about which we could be having very serious debates. Building highways and roads and transit should not be one of them.

We are hurting jobs. We heard the Republicans--I cannot blame the Republicans in the Senate. I think they have been for the most part really terrific, actually, working with Senator Boxer. They have even given a majority of the votes. So I guess my focus is really on the Republicans in the House. I don't think they have taken the time to really look at the Senate bill to see how balanced it is, and one part I wish they would read, which is the part I want to talk about for the next 5 minutes--and I know other Senators are here to speak--I hope the gulf coast Members from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida--and together that is a pretty big coalition; I don't know the total number, but I think there have to be over 75 Members from Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida--I hope they read the section of the Transportation bill that talks about the RESTORE Act.

I have spent a great deal of time over here with my good friend and wonderful leader, Senator Shelby, with Senator Boxer, with over 300 organizations, for over a year, to build a bill that is now part of the Transportation bill that, in addition to building highways in Florida and transit and roads in Alabama and Mississippi, will also for the first time in the history of our country--the first time--direct a significant portion of penalty money paid by a polluter, BP, that polluted the gulf coast--a good company in some ways but really messed up that well, though, and they just spilled gallons and gallons and millions of barrels of oil. We have shrimp that are coming in our nets with no eyes. We have turtles that are washing up on our shores dead. We have research needs in the gulf coast that--there has been no time in our history where we have needed that money more.

My question is to the gulf coast Republican Members and Democratic Members. What is it about this bill that is driving you so crazy that you can't accept $10 billion that the Federal Government is trying to give you? Because that is what the RESTORE Act could potentially send to the gulf coast, a portion of the fine. We don't know whether that fine is going to be $5 billion or $10 billion or $20 billion, but we do know it is going to be substantial because under current law they have to pay $1,000 for every barrel spilled or $4,200 if it was gross negligence.

In the Senate Transportation bill, this body showed rare bipartisan support and concern for the gulf coast, America's energy coast. We showed an understanding of the great erosion that is taking place in the delta of Louisiana, which drains 40 percent of the continent. We showed understanding that so much of our shipping and seafood industry relies on this coast--not that the other coasts are not vitally important--and we showed we understand the underinvestment that has been made. So 75 percent of the Senate basically stood and said: OK. Let's redirect this penalty money to where the injury is. That is the RESTORE Act, and that is in the Senate bill we sent over to the House, which they have absolutely just rejected.

I don't know what magic there is about the next 90 days, but I know what I am going to do. I am going to register my vote as no, and I am going to go home and work harder in Louisiana and along the gulf coast to explain to the people of our region how much is at stake by getting a longer term Transportation bill. Maybe 2 years is not as long as we would like to have, but it is better than 30 days, it is better than 60 days, and it is better than 90 days.

I will ask and explain that not only is the Transportation bill vital for Louisiana's projects but for approving the RESTORE Act, which I know the House has indicated their support for. They have indicated a support for the concept of the RESTORE Act, but the act itself is in the Transportation bill.

So I am going to wrap-up. There are other Members on the floor who will speak. I thank the leader, Barbara Boxer, who is here.

But for 90 days let's get back to work and go for a long-term Transportation bill that is a real jobs bill that will help the whole country but particularly the gulf coast with the RESTORE Act.

Reserving the right to object.

And I might object, because I think this is a very serious matter. I am reserving the right to object because, as the majority leader well knows, if we would follow Senator Boxer's leadership, sending the Senate bill back to the House, we would not only not lose any jobs, we would create 1.9 million jobs, and for the Restore Act, which is very important to the gulf coast, it would create another 300,000 jobs.

The only action that is going to cause job loss is the action we are basically being forced to accept right now, sent over by a partisan House of Representatives, to go to another short-term extension. This country doesn't need short-term extensions, it needs long-term answers, and it needs jobs they can count on.

Every business in America relies on this Transportation bill. We have now been going to short-term extensions for 3 years. It is time to stop.

I want my leader, who is on the Senate floor, to know I may object in the next few minutes, but I absolutely will object to any other short- term resolution on this bill for as long as this Congress is in session. This is enough.

Now, had this bill gotten out of here with just Democrats on it, I would say we don't have a leg to stand on because we don't have a balanced bill, and we can't jam this through on the other side. But this bill got out of here with 75 or 76 votes. Now, 2 years is not 5 years, but it is better than 3 months. It is a bill we could pass and build on. It is a bill that assures people can go to sleep tonight knowing they have a job tomorrow.

So I object to the minority leader's comments about this bill, that our action is going to lose jobs. No, we have been here working hard to save jobs. I hope when the Republicans go home they will hear from the business community, from the right, the middle, and the left; I hope they will hear from environmental groups: What are you guys doing?

The final comment I want to make as I am objecting is, if the House had a bill, then this would be a negotiation between two bills. The problem is they don't even have a bill. How do we negotiate with a group that doesn't have a bill? They have ideas, they have philosophies, they have platforms, and they have speeches, but they don't have a bill. We couldn't negotiate with them if we wanted to. There is no bill.

This is why we are telling the country: Look, we don't know what their problem is--they have many--but we have a bill. So if they can't get their bill together, take the one we put together. But, no, that is too simple for them.

So I am reserving the right to object. I am going to listen to what my leader has to say, and I might object. I know everybody wants to go home. I know we want to have this unanimous consent agreement. But my State not only has its transportation money wrapped up in this, it has its hope for the future wrapped up because the Restore Act is in that bill.

For the first time, this Senate stood up since I have been here and said: You are right, gulf coast. You do a lot. You have been injured a lot, and we are going to help you. So that bill is in there too, which is why I am hard-pressed to say I will vote for a 90-day extension.

So reserving the right to object, I ask unanimous consent the request be modified so an amendment, which is at the desk, the text of S. 1813, the surface transportation bill, passed by the Senate on March 14, 2012, by a large bipartisan majority of 74 to 22 be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I know Senator Inhofe was on the floor, and if I could ask unanimous consent that after I speak, he would be next to speak, and then the good Senator, Mr. Lee, from Utah.

Thank you, Mr. President.

It is my distinct privilege to come to the floor this afternoon to voice my full support for Susie Morgan's confirmation as an article III judge on the U.S. Eastern District Court of Louisiana.

I have known Susie for many years. She is a good friend and, more importantly, she is an excellent and outstanding attorney.

Ms. Morgan comes to this position equipped with decades of litigation experience in Federal court as an advocate for both plaintiffs and defendants. She brings a thorough understanding of Federal law and an unquestionably fair and evenhanded temperament.

It is unfortunate that such a talented individual such as Susie Morgan has been waiting nearly a year since President Obama nominated her in July of 2011, and almost 5 months since she was voted out of committee unanimously.

Despite what the good Senator from Iowa--my good friend and wonderful partner in so many important issues here--has said, the fact is there are 17 judicial nominees on this calendar. There are 19 judicial nominees in committee. The facts are that the nominees for President Obama have taken nearly five times longer to receive a vote on this floor.

We know there are some vacancies that have not yet received nominations. But there is no reason to deny these 17 who are still on the calendar their day on this floor. Ms. Morgan has waited more than her turn, and I apologize for that. She understands this has been caught up in bigger politics. It has nothing to do with her nomination specifically or her outstanding qualifications. But I do think we have to be honest about these delays and see what we can do to move people who are qualified, such as this nominee, so much more quickly because the courts need their help.

Ms. Morgan earned an advanced degree from the University of Louisiana at Monroe. She graduated from there, earning both her undergraduate and master's degrees. Then she earned a law degree on top of that, graduating in the top 5 percent of her class at Louisiana State University's Paul Hebert Law Center.

Immediately after earning her JD, Susie served as a law clerk for one of Louisiana's most respected legal minds, Judge Henry Politz of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

At the conclusion of that Federal clerkship, she began practicing in Shreveport, LA, for one of our most respected firms, Wiener, Weiss & Madison.

For the next 25 years, she honed her skills. She was one of the most capable civil defense attorneys in both Federal and State court.

After years of successful practice in Shreveport, Susie was recruited by one of the most prestigious law firms in Louisiana, Phelps Dunbar, and has since served as a partner for the firm where she specializes in commercial litigation.

She served in a variety of posts, as many of our wonderful nominees have--serving without much fanfare but with great impact on many committees of the Louisiana bar, the Federal bar, et cetera. One of the most important that I want to mention here is that for 14 years she chaired a rules committee. It is not the sexiest kind of committee, not something known to the public, but it is so important to the practice of law for the thousands of attorneys who practice in Louisiana. She spent years behind the scenes improving Louisiana's State court proceedings. For almost 14 years, as I said, she chaired the rules committee and Louisiana Bar Association. Thanks to her leadership, the Louisiana Supreme Court agreed to replace an old and antiquated system where each judicial district in Louisiana adhered to its own set of idiosyncratic set rules, and now we have a uniform set of rules for the entire State. I think that is a special tribute to her tenacity, to her willingness to serve and do the hard work behind the scenes without a lot of public credit.

I am also impressed with the legal protection services she has offered to the homeless at St. Joseph's, the Harry Thompson Center in New Orleans, and the multiple community works she has done pre- and post-Katrina in our community. She has had a career that has demonstrated her willingness to work hard and to stay at the job, get the job

done, to be fair, curious, and respectful and, of course, she is most knowledgeable of the law, which she has so well served. I am so proud to support her nomination. I am proud that President Obama accepted my suggestion and nominated her. I am very pleased. She should receive a full and strong vote in the Senate. She has the support of myself and the other Senator, my partner from Louisiana, Senator Vitter. I am very pleased to speak on her behalf today.

I yield the floor.

It is a good thing. The Senator from Alaska is right on as usual on this subject and in the main stream of what most Americans, I believe, are thinking about.

I wanted to ask the Senator from Alaska, following his comments--I mean, why does my colleague think our friends on the Republican side want to spend this week beating up on the President as opposed to doing something that might help energy policy advance in the country? I do not know if they do not realize that people are very frightened and anxious and upset about these prices or what does the Senator think is driving this sort of theater on the Senate floor?

I am surprised myself. I hope when we do go home constituents in all of our States will say: Stop the bumper sticker politics on the floor of the Senate and get down to passing an energy bill. I think we most certainly, if we stop electioneering and start legislating, could actually do that.

Now the Senator from Alaska and I--and I have been here a few years longer than the Senator, but he has been a most welcome addition to this issue because he is knowledgeable. He comes from a State that is larger than almost half of the lower 48. His State is rich in resources. I have had the great pleasure to go to Alaska. I am looking forward to traveling there again this summer and actually going to the North Slope because in Louisiana we build many of the ships that actually operate in Alaska for their exploration activities.

That ship was just christened this weekend in Louisiana. So the relationship between Louisiana and Alaska goes back a long way. I am very happy to have the Senator here advocating for a smart and effective energy policy.

This debate some people are having--I do not believe I am included in that because we are having our own colloquy about serious issues. But this so-called debate that everybody else is having is going to result in nothing, just a lot of sound bites. There will be no energy policy that comes out of this because the fact is--and everyone knows this that follows this--both parties are guilty for not having the right kind of energy policy, Democrats and Republicans alike.

Democrats, from my perspective, do not appreciate the way they should the need for more domestic drilling. So they resist sometimes the need for more domestic drilling. I think Senator Begich and I have pointed out there are some places where there are people--Governors and Senators, Democratic Senators--who are open to drilling. We could go to those places and do a better job of developing onshore and offshore.

But Republicans are not good at all when it comes to conservation. They resist helping the auto industry, for instance, to retool itself, which we know

has had an absolute direct bottom line on less petroleum products being used for gasoline.

Many of the new automobiles coming out of domestic manufacturers, because of what Democrats and President Obama, who led this effort-- which he never gets enough credit for on the other side--have done to retool Detroit so that just this week in the newspaper, I believe it was the Washington Post--I wanted to ask the Senator from Alaska if he saw this article. The most amazing thing that has happened over the last 10 years is that our imports of foreign oil have decreased for 2 reasons: One, we are producing more oil and gas at home, although there have been some setbacks with this administration which we are not happy about, the two of us, but also because of the conservation we have done in this country.

Mass transit is a part of that, which many Republicans reject. Conservation initiatives are a major part of that, which Republicans reject. Helping the domestic auto industry, which they--even Mitt Romney, their leader on the Republican side, said that was a mistake to help Detroit, Ohio, et cetera, Michigan and places in Ohio.

So I am coming to the floor to say this blame game is not going to work because both parties are almost equally at fault. Senator Begich and I would like to believe that we represent a little bit of the Democratic side, a little bit of the Republican side, coming from States--both of us being Democrats but from States that know something about drilling.

I want to put up my map of Louisiana so people believe when I say that we know something about drilling.

This is what my State looks like. Some people might not like this picture. This is the oil and gas infrastructure in Louisiana. To someone who is a purist and does not like pipelines and does not like oil wells and does not like leases, they may recoil at this. But people in Louisiana like this because this is about money, and it is about domestic energy self-sufficiency and independence.

These are pipelines. There are 9,000 miles of pipelines under south Louisiana. We have been drilling onshore and offshore for the last 50 years. Until the Macondo Well blew up in spectacular fashion and killed 11 people, which is very unfortunate and the fault of BP and some of the contractors who were not doing their jobs correctly, it has been mostly successful. We have drilled 40,000 wells--40,000.

So when the Senator from Alaska says we know something about oil and gas drilling, trust me; it would be like asking the Senators from Michigan: Do you know something about building cars? We know about that. We have been fracking. We have been using horizontal drilling. We know there is a lot of oil and gas still to be found, and the Senator talked about some of his reserves.

I know the Senator is aware that Louisiana--just off the coast of Louisiana--produces just about as much oil as we import from Saudi Arabia every year. I do not know if the Senator knows that.

How are the reserves looking in Alaska?

It is a very good paying job. This is a very good point because I have tried to remind everyone here that this oil and gas industry that exists in Louisiana and Alaska does not just support the people of our States. Think about it. There are only 500,000 people in Alaska. If that is going to create 50,000 jobs, that would be 1 for every 10 people. But people fly in and fly out. They will work for 2 weeks or a month and fly back. We have people working on our rigs that are from Maine or from Colorado or from New Mexico or from New York.

Most of the people who work offshore are from the Gulf Coast States, I might say. You can tell this when you drive through the parking lots and see the license plates which are easy to spot. But I can tell you there are people from all over the country who work in this industry.

If I showed you a supplier line, you would see supplies coming from all over the United States to fund the operations like, for instance, the boat that is going to be operating in Alaska was built by people from Louisiana. Some of those boats are built in Mississippi, and some of that may even come from the east coast. I do not know if the Senator is familiar with that.

It is also producing great wealth. I do not think people understand because a lot of the land in the West is public land. So we hear this debate about public land, et cetera. But most of the land in my State is private land. In fact, the Federal Government owns less than 2.5 percent.

Now, we are at polar ends of this debate. We are at opposite ends because in Alaska the Federal Government owns 90 percent of that State. It only owns 2.5 percent of my State, and the farther east you go it is less and less and less.

So when there is more drilling, like in Louisiana, it is private land owners who are getting wealthy. In many of these instances, such as in the Haynesville shale, which is up along this area in Louisiana, northwest Louisiana, farmers whose land was virtually worthless or who were growing crops but not really making it very well, now the gas has been discovered on their land, so they are getting royalty checks for $10,000 a month, $20,000 a month. That is more money that people have made or ever dreamed about making. I have heard of royalty checks of $50,000 a month that people are getting. So they take that $50,000, they are not even drilling for oil and gas; they have just leased their property. They go out and start a business in their hometown or they go out and buy two new automobiles for their family or a new pickup truck for their operations.

I know the Senator understands the indirect impact. It is not just the direct jobs for the industry, but the wealth that is created personally, and the U.S. Government collects quite a bit of taxes from this industry as well.

We don't have to drill everywhere. The resources are so spectacularly promising. I have to get back to this blaming President Obama. I don't know if my friends on the other side remember who the President was when the Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, a Republican, opposed drilling off the eastern gulf. The President at the time, his brother, George Bush, honored that no drilling pledge. I remind my friends on the other side that their party is not blameless in this debate. They could do a lot better for the country if they would stop trying to throw President Obama under the bus every minute--although I don't agree with all his energy policies; I didn't agree with the moratorium in the gulf and other things. I think they made some strong points. But this should not be about hurting anybody; it should be about helping our country. We do that by using a balanced approach, such as the Senator from Alaska said. It is how we came together on the Transportation bill. It was balanced, a compromise, and it was a little of this and a little of that. We put a jobs bill together that will help our Nation.

We could put an energy bill together if we have both parties stop beating up on people. One beats up on the companies and the other beats up on the President and the poor people are the ones who suffer.

I wish to show you something about oil and gas taxes. People say: There goes Landrieu again; she is defending the oil and gas industry. Frankly, some of them, and the industry itself, should be defended because it is an honorable, good industry. It has provided jobs. It provided the oil we needed to win World War II. How do you think the allied troops got across Europe? They didn't do it on a wish and a prayer. That oil came out of the Permian Basin in Texas. We have a long patriotic history in that industry. We get our dander up when people beat up on the industry.

People say the oil industry gets these subsidies. I wish to put two things into the Record. It says that according to the Energy Information Administration--which is our administration, not a third- party spinmeister group. It says in the study published in 2008 that oil and natural gas received only 13 percent of the subsidy but produced 60 percent of the energy needed to power our country. I will repeat that. The oil and gas industry receives only 13 percent of all the subsidies, but we produce 60 percent of the energy that keeps the lights on in this building and powers everything in the country. We spend about $16.6 billion on U.S. energy subsidies over the course of 1 year on everything, and renewables, refined coal, nuclear, and others accounted for more than 85 percent of the subsidies.

So the oil and gas industry got less than 13 percent of the subsidies, but they continue to be the bogeyman in all this. In addition to receiving only 13 percent of the subsidies--and my friend from Alaska will know this as well--look what tax rate they pay. ConocoPhillips paid 46 percent. This was the effective tax rate from 2006 to 2010. Chevron paid 43 percent. They made a lot of money. They are absolutely making a lot of money. These are public companies, and their executives are paid well. I think they are probably paid a little more than I would pay, but that is what they are paid. These are public companies, and the shareholders are making money as well. But they are paying this very high rate in taxes.

Look down here on the chart. Walmart only paid 33 percent. Philip Morris only paid 27 percent. PepsiCo--a very good company--only paid 24 percent. These are effective tax rates. My favorite--although I like them very much, but GE only paid a 9-percent effective tax rate.

When the Senator says we need tax reform, we most certainly do. If you came to me and said in a major bill we are going to have an energy bill and have some tax reforms to balance this out, I would be for that. But in good conscience, I cannot take away the subsidy from oil and gas when they only represent 13 percent of the overall subsidies but produce 60 percent of the energy. I certainly don't want to raise taxes on an industry now with prices at the pump being so high. If we do, we are just going to drive them up, which is the last thing we want to do, particularly when this is the truth about the tax rates. The Senator from Alaska is again absolutely correct. This debate we are not having but everyone else is having is not getting us very far.

The Senator is right. I am glad he mentioned this as well because I happen to also represent a State that has a tremendous petrochemical industry. Of course, that is because the Mississippi River is there, as well as the great finds in the 1950s and 1960s for gas. So when big companies--particularly petrochemicals but big manufacturers--look around in the world to where they go, one thing they look at is the tax rate. But that is not the most important thing. The other thing is to make sure they can find the skilled labor they need. They need cheap energy costs because they cannot produce steel competitively, for instance, if we don't have cheap energy.

So a lot of these companies came to Louisiana in the 1960s because we had cheap energy. That changed, and a lot of them left. Maybe we did other things to drive them offshore. You know what is happening today. Because of this $2 gas, they are all coming home. You should see the building we have going on. That is why the Texas unemployment rate is the lowest in the Nation. I know the Governor would like to take all the credit for this. My Governor likes to take all the credit for this too. They are two outstanding Republican Governors, and they may be pretty good, but it is the low price of energy that is driving this. That could happen in Colorado, it can happen in Illinois, if we just support the oil and gas industry in a balanced way, instead of choking it off.

Not only does that money go to them, it helps undergird this entire industry which employs millions more people, and it helps us to compete better with China, with India, and I know the Senator understands that. He doesn't have as much heavy construction or refining in Alaska because of a little bit of the isolation. But I think he can appreciate what happens in New Jersey and Louisiana and Illinois, as an example.

Yes. I wish to reemphasize too the importance of getting back to the basics on energy policy. I have been privileged to be here long enough where I have helped to pass comprehensive energy bills. I remain hopeful when I wake too. I am a person with the glass half full and not half empty, and I try to remain optimistic in the face of evidence to the contrary. I remain hopeful we can continue on the path of more energy independence for our country. That is why that article, written this week, which I will put in the Record, was very telling to me, because I have been saying, similar to the Senator from Alaska, are we making any progress? I believe if we cannot manage, we cannot measure. What is the measurement? One of the measurements is, are we importing more or less oil from dangerous places in the world. And when I saw that had dropped by 15 percent, I was very encouraged.

And the article pointed out two reasons, not one--not drill, baby, drill or conserve and conserve only but both, because America has been doing a better job. Despite the setback of the moratorium, despite the setback with the Deepwater Horizon, despite some of the President's slow policies on drilling, and despite the Republican resistance to conservation, we have been doing something right, because we have reduced our dependence on foreign oil, which is good.

We don't want to be dependent on Venezuela, and we don't want to be dependent on the Mideast, particularly Saudi Arabia. They have been somewhat of an ally, but they do not share all our values, let's be honest. Women just got the right to drive this year--no, actually, to vote this year. I don't think they have the right to drive yet officially. So do we share those values? No.

So why don't we kind of get back to the basics here of drilling more at home, promoting and expanding our nuclear industry safely. And I mean drilling where it is safe and not everywhere, as some Republicans suggest--let's drill everywhere. We don't have to drill everywhere; we just have to be smart and strategic about where we drill, compromise some about the places that are really opposed to it. We can drill more, have revenue sharing, which makes sense with the coastal States of Alaska, Louisiana, Virginia, Mississippi, and Alabama because that builds a strong partnership and stakeholders between the local, State, and Federal governments.

I think we could do more on building efficiency. We can do more on natural gas vehicles. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have the kinds of vehicles that run on electricity or on--and I don't know if this is possible yet, but we could experiment on electricity, on natural gas or on petroleum fuels or on diesel or bio so that if the price of natural gas was low, you would just sort of power yourself on natural gas. If your electric bill is low because you are on nuclear and the nuclear price is low and you are getting your electricity from your nuclear powerplant, you just plug in your automobile and you pay very little.

Why can't we break this dependency by producing more of everything at home and transforming our auto industry, which is the big pull on fuel. You know, our industries run on coal or natural gas or some oil, but the real pull on this oil is our automobiles.

So that is why Republicans are wrong. They do not want to fund this transformation, but we have to fund the transformation to help America move from an old-fashioned petrochemical, where we just fill up at the pump because we only have one thing to get--and that is petroleum--to where we can fill up with several other things. This isn't pie in the sky, this is happening right now. But with a little more government investment, it could happen more, and wouldn't that be a relief?

The Senator from Alaska will know this, and I don't want to misquote here because I could get in trouble, so I will be careful, but if we had a system like that and the price of gasoline was $10, no one would care. Do you know why? Because they wouldn't have to use it. Think about that. You wouldn't have to buy it. You wouldn't need it for your airplanes, you wouldn't need it for your trucks or your cars because we would have created a system of choice. And choice is power for the consumer--really good choice. They could fill up their car with natural gas or they could fill it up with another source. That is where we need to go. Then we will break it. We will break the dependency because it could be $10 or $100 a gallon and who would care, because no one would have to buy it.

So that is where we need to go. We can get there. We are sort of creeping there. That is what this article also said--inch by inch we are getting there, but we could accelerate it--no pun intended--if we get off this ridiculous ``blame the person in the White House so you can win the next election and then get back to doing nothing.''

So I will turn the conclusion over to the Senator from Alaska by saying that the debate with sound bites for elections coming up and bumper stickers to put on cars will not help, but I am ready for a real debate.

We have introduced several pieces of legislation. I have been a cosponsor of every piece of legislation since I have been here on any kind of major Energy bill, but it has to have a conservation component, it has to have an environmental safety component, it has to have more drilling, revenue sharing, and then I think an expansion of nuclear power would be very important and the right subsidy mix for the kinds of energy we would like to produce in this Nation. That would make our Nation much stronger when it comes to energy, but it would make us so economically powerful and it would make us militarily more powerful because we would negotiate treaties differently if we didn't have to get on our hands and knees and ask countries that don't even share our values to pump a little

more gas for us when we could pump it ourselves.

I yield to the Senator from Alaska.

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, while I am on the floor, I would like to speak for a few more minutes, if I might, on another subject but one that is equally important. The Senator from Alaska and I just spent some time talking about a balanced approach to energy production and the fact that if we could get there, we could create jobs. The Senator was saying that no matter what we do, it won't create jobs overnight, and he is right again. It will take a long time, it won't lower the price overnight, and it will create jobs.

But there is a bill that actually will create millions of jobs overnight that is pending, hanging around this Capitol, that if we could get passed would mean a great deal immediately--tomorrow, literally the day after the bill is signed by the President--and that, Mr. President, is the Federal highway transportation bill which last week was passed and compromised by one of the most liberal and progressive Members of this body and one of the most conservative Members of this body, Senator Boxer of California and Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma, who worked for over a year and a half to put a transportation bill together, a 2-year transportation bill. Many of us would have liked it to be 5 years or 6 years, but 2 years is what they could negotiate. And you know what, it is a lot better than the short-term 3- month, 6-month, 2-month, or 3-month temporary measures we have been under for the last several years. That gives no consistency--none--for our States and our counties and our cities.

If you talk about uncertainty, the business community, real estate developers, planners, community planners, transit planners--these entities do not know what it is going to look like 6 months from now or even next year. This bill would give at least 2 years of certainty, and then we could come back, hopefully, and pass a long-term extension of 5 years or 6 years. But 2 years is much better than 30 days or 60 days or 90 days, which is what the House is contemplating.

I am proud the Democrats and some Republicans are standing up in the House and saying no short-term extension. We have a bill. We have the Senate bill that got over 74 votes of Republicans and Democrats, compromised again between a more progressive and a more conservative Member for the benefit of our country.

There are 1.9 million jobs at stake. For the gulf coast Senators, there is an extra bonus. Besides funding our rail, our highways, and our transit, the gulf coast Senators and House Members from the States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida got a very significant amendment to fund coastal restoration and flood control protection and economic development in the gulf coast, directing the fine money that is going to be levied against BP sometime in the next few weeks or months. Instead of that

money coming to the Federal Treasury to be spent on a variety of different things, it will stay where the injury occurred, along the gulf coast, and 80 percent of that money will stay in those coastal areas and those coastal States, helping our economies to revive ourselves and to save our coastlines.

So gulf coast House Members, I am speaking and hoping some of them will hear this message. Gulf coast House Members of either party, Democrats or Republicans, should stand tall and say: Yes, let's pass the Senate Transportation bill for the benefits that will come to our State and our Nation, creating or securing literally almost overnight 1.9 million jobs for the country, helping our recovery. But tucked into the Transportation bill is a bill that could bring billions of dollars to the gulf coast to help with coastal restoration and beach erosion.

I have seen the clips every day since we passed RESTORE, from Tampa, FL, to Mobile, AL, to Jackson, MS, to Gulfport, MS, to the Times Picayune in New Orleans, to the Houston Chronicle, and as faraway newspapers as the New York Times which have editorialized on: Pass the RESTORE Act now; bring jobs and economic relief to the gulf coast, an area and environment that has been hard hit by the 5 million barrels of oil that were spilled in the gulf. Next month, it will be the 2-year anniversary.

I don't know what the House of Representatives is thinking. They have a real jobs bill over there right now, voted on by Republicans and Democrats here, not just a few Republicans. I think more than half the Republicans in the Senate joined with us to pass this bill. In addition, it has the RESTORE Act in it. As the Presiding Officer knows, he had a great hand in supporting the part of that effort to fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund which will provide money to all the States for park restoration and maintenance and for land purchase with willing sellers.

So I am on the floor to support Barbara Boxer, to support Jim Inhofe, to say to the House: Take the Senate Transportation bill. Take it now. It is good for all your States and for the gulf coast House Members particularly. The RESTORE Act is very bipartisan and bicameral. Theirs is a RESTORE Act very similar to ours. Please, let's join together, stop procrastinating, and pass this bill.

We have had many supporters of this bill. The chamber of commerce has put out messages to everyone today:

The Chamber strongly supports this important legislation .

. . Passing surface transportation reauthorization

legislation is a specific action Congress and the

Administration can take right now to support job growth and

economic productivity without adding to the deficit.

I wish to say one word about this extension. Extensions are not benign. As Senator Boxer told us today, extensions in some States aren't worth the paper this extension will be written on because we know that most of these projects are funded by approximately 75 percent Federal money, 25 percent local. In the old days when States were flush with cash and people were running surpluses, when we messed up in Congress as we are messing up now and not giving them the Transportation bill on time, some of our States could just dip into their local money, keep their projects going, waiting for us to do our job.

Those days are over. Do you know any State in the Union running a massive surplus right now? Do you know any State anywhere? I don't. Because States have drawn down their reserves. They are running on very tight budgets because they are all coming out of this recession. Even our State that has a very low unemployment rate relative to everybody else, that never experienced the recession as everyone else did, is still running pretty sizeable deficits at the State level. I can tell you, my State doesn't have any extra cash to front the Federal Government.

When these projects run out and don't get reauthorized, a lot of these transportation projects will come to a halt. States will stop buying right-of-way. They will cancel or put on hold what is under contract until the money comes forward. So I am going to be in touch specifically with the State of Louisiana on how this is going to work in our State, but we were told today that there are a handful of States that have already started to put out notices to their contractors: There will be no more paychecks associated with this road project or this bridge project or this mass transit project.

Let me show everyone what I do know about our State. These are the grades we get from the Civil Engineering Association. I am not proud of these grades. But the reason I am not too embarrassed is because just about every State has these same grades because, overall, America's infrastructure generally is graded at a D. We are the most advanced country in the world but get a D rating when it comes to our infrastructure, surface transportation, water infrastructure, dams, levees, et cetera.

Our airports in Louisiana are C. Our levees, despite the huge investment the Federal Government has made recently, but because of the longstanding overall long-term disinvestment or lower investment over time, we still have a C. We have more bridge surface than almost any State in America--I think we are third--and we have a D-minus. We have more ports; in fact, Mississippi's southern port from Plaquemine to Baton Rouge is one of the largest in the world, definitely the largest in the country, a C-minus, and our roads are D.

Senator Boxer has been on the floor now all week, and I am joining her and helping her tell the House of Representatives they are playing with fire. They are playing with dynamite. We have to get this Transportation bill out. I am sure other States can benefit from this bill. If we don't, this will be the ninth short-term extension since 2009.

People at home must think we have lost our minds. The clearest thing to people at home--they may not understand, and sometimes it is hard for us to understand, all the intricacies of every issue. But everyone in America, even our children understand that to build roads we need a road crew, to build bridges we need a bridge crew, to build mass transit we have to have people actually constructing. We need jobs in America right now, yesterday, today, immediately.

Why is the House of Representatives sitting on a bill that is paid for--contrary to some comments from House Members, paid for--that will go for 2 years? It is as long as I would like. It is not 4 years, it is not 5 years, but it is 2 years. It is longer than the 60-day, 90-day extensions we have been living under since 2009. It is 2012. Let's get a transportation bill.

My final point: For the gulf coast this is critical. We have a major piece of legislation tucked inside this bill. With the Transportation bill that the Senate passes, the RESTORE Act passes with it. We create an oceans trust fund, land and water conservation with willing seller provisions, and we invest billions of dollars in the gulf coast. It is a real jobs bill, not a pretend jobs bill. It is a real jobs bill. It means everything to our States. Whether one has a Republican or a Democratic Governor, they are waiting on us to pass this bill so they can get their people to work. I know mayors I have spoken to, police in our State, county commissioners are waiting for this money as well so they can get plans and put people to work.

So I most certainly hope that in the next 24 hours, before we leave on Friday, the House of Representatives will pass the Senate Transportation bill, send it over to us, and let's put our people to work. It is only going to last 2 years. We can argue about the differences, about how the money should go directly to the States. We could argue about mass transit. We can debate that for the next 2 years. Let's pass the bill. Let's get it done.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that on Wednesday, March 28, at 5 p.m., the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc: Calendar Nos. 464 and 497; that there be 60 minutes for debate, equally divided in the usual form; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on Calendar Nos. 464 and 497 in that order; the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order; that any related statements be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to consideration of S. Res. 407, submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I understand there are three bills at the desk. I ask for their reading en bloc.

I now ask for a second reading, and I object to my own request, all en bloc.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate agree to the House request to return the papers on H.R. 5, the HEALTH Act, and authorize the Secretary of the Senate to return the papers on H.R. 5 to the House of Representatives.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until Wednesday, March 28, at 10 a.m.; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 2230, the Paying A Fair Share Act, with the first hour equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with Republicans controlling the first 30 minutes and the majority controlling the second 30 minutes; and that at 5 p.m., the Senate proceed to executive session under the previous order; further, that the filing deadline for the first-degree amendments to S. 2204, the Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act, be 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

There will be two votes around 6 p.m. tomorrow on judicial nominations. Additionally, cloture

was filed today on the Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act. If no agreement is reached, that vote will occur on Thursday.