Floor Statements

Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes to reflect upon the memory of Tom J. Morris, a true hero to the men and women of Louisiana. Tom died while traveling on vacation with his wife Denise in Boston last Friday morning. As an individual who shares his commitment to civil service and the State of Louisiana, I wanted to honor his truly inspiring career. For the last 19 years, Tom was the CEO for the United Way of Southwest Louisiana, Inc., in Lake Charles. In sum, he had a combined 30 years of service with the United Way and was considered a leader in the community of Lake Charles, particularly in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. As you know, United Way is a nonprofit organization dedicated to nurturing the future generations and youth of the United States. Tom Morris was a man who represented the convictions of this Nation's youth, by bringing together communities and organizations in order to solve today's dilemmas. Louisiana is still in the wake of the hurricanes, and his dedicated assistance to victims, as well as the general community, will be sorely missed. His efforts to inspire young volunteers and assist in hurricane recovery are still considered vital to the reconstruction of local communities in Louisiana. To his family and his wife Denise, I extend my condolences and my prayers. Tom Morris's efforts are truly inspirational and will always be remembered, not only by the men and women of southwest Louisiana but by also by the Nation as a whole.

Mr. President, I introduce this bill today to prevent misuse of the Antiquities. Act of 1906 to create very large marine monuments. The Antiquities Act was intended to protect landmarks, not create the largest protected areas in the United States unilaterally without congressional assent.

The Bush administration acted covertly to convey protected status to 139,000 square miles of the northwestern Hawaiian Islands. In so doing, the administration short-circuited the extensive Marine Sanctuaries process that was already underway and notified the delegation only after the press conference. Now they have turned their attention to the Gulf of Mexico.

We learned that the President, with mixed support from his top advisors, is considering using his authorities under the Antiquities Act to unilaterally and permanently declare ``marine monuments'' in various locations of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. Some of these areas are in my backyard--in the Gulf of Mexico--but other areas of the Atlantic and Pacific are also under consideration.

I certainly understand the need to conserve and appropriately manage our most sensitive and vulnerable marine areas, which can serve as nurseries for fish stocks and provide critical habitat for other important species. That is why I support the processes Congress established in the National Marine Sanctuaries Act. But any declarations of new or additional protected status to marine areas should continue to follow the scientific and public processes outlined in the Sanctuaries Act. This is a good process that allows all affected parties--from the environmental community to recreational fishermen to the oil and gas industries--to have a say.

Mr. President, I introduce this bill today to restore historic Jackson Barracks in New Orleans to its pre-Hurricane Katrina status as a national historic treasure. Jackson Barracks represents the rich military history of New Orleans, and indeed our great State. However, the rebuilding of the structures on this significant garrison has been hindered by bureaucratic roadblocks and gaps in funding. This bill directly addresses those challenges.

As you know, Hurricane Katrina brought torrential floods and driving

winds to New Orleans and the surrounding region. The devastation from the storm touched every structure at Jackson Barracks. The original Jackson Barracks consists of 14 Antebellum Garrison Structures built between 1834 and 1835. These historic buildings were not spared and suffered tremendous damage.

There is a pressing need to complete the restoration and renovation of the barracks. Jackson Barracks requires additional renovations and restorations that are not within the scope of the Federal Emergency Management Agency hurricane restoration funding. With the agreement of the Chief, National Guard Bureau and the Secretary of the Interior, this bill would reprogram the savings from several military construction projects elsewhere on Jackson Barracks to assist in the completion of historic preservation at the post.

I ask the support of my colleagues in enabling the National Park Service to aid in the restoration of Jackson Barracks through the Historic Preservation Fund. I am not asking for additional dollars, but rather that the money that was saved on previous projects be recommitted and used for this vital need.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to reauthorize the Cane River National Heritage Area Commission and modify the boundaries of the heritage area. In 1994, Congress recognized this area as one of the nation's cultural and historic treasures. In the 1700s, Creole culture flowered across the stunning landscapes of the Cane River, and the Creole culture continues to enliven the region to this day. In terms of beauty, it is not only the landscape but the Creole architecture from that time period that charms visitors. Today, the 35 mile region includes the Cane River Creole National Historical Park, seven national historic landmarks, three state historic sites, and 24 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Anchored by the city of Natchitoches, which traces its history to a French colonial settlement established in 1714 near the Natchitoches Indian village on the Red River, the region's colonial forts, Creole plantations, churches, cemeteries, archeological sites, historic transportation routes, and commercial centers provide a unique view into Louisiana's past.

I am proud to represent the people of Louisiana by asking the 110th Congress to reauthorize this National Heritage Area and reaffirm the importance of the Cane River Creole culture as a nationally significant element of American heritage.

This should not be a difficult task. Congress has once before agreed to establish a Cane River Creole National Historical Park to serve as the focus of interpretive and educational programs on the history of the Cane River area and to assist in the preservation of certain historic sites along the river. Now, I ask this Congress to do it again by reauthorizing the Cane River National Heritage Area.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation entitled the Lower Mississippi River National Historic Site Study Act. This bill will direct the Secretary of the Interior to study the suitability and feasibility of designating sites in Plaquemines Parish along the Lower Mississippi River Area as a unit of the National Park System. To be eligible for favorable consideration as a unit of the National Park System, an area must possess nationally significant natural, cultural or recreational resources. The Lower Mississippi River area in Plaquemines Parish meets and exceeds these criteria.

I am proud to come to the floor today to introduce this bill. Anyone who has visited Plaquemines Parish knows that it is one of the Nation's unique treasures. The natural beauty there at the mouth of the Mississippi is impossible to describe, but impossible not to love. The area is rich in history, and it is a preserve for one of the nation's most unique cultural melanges.

That mix began after the Native Americans in the region began to intermingle with the Spanish explorers who traveled along the banks of the river in the 1500s. In 1682, Rene-Robert Cavelier de LaSalle claimed all the land drained by the Mississippi for France area. In 1699, the area became the site of the first fortification on the Lower Mississippi River, known as Fort Mississippi. Since then, it has been the home to 10 different fortifications, including Fort St. Philip and Fort Jackson.

Fort St. Philip, originally built in 1749, proved to be instrumental during the Battle of New Orleans by blocking the British Navy from going up river. Fort Jackson was built at the request of General Andrew Jackson and partially constructed by famous local Civil War General P.G.T. Beauregard. This fort was the site of the famous Civil War battle know as the ``Battle of Forts'' which is also referred to as the ``night the war was lost.''

As this glimpse of the region's military history shows, the Lower Plaquemines region is of national cultural and historical significance.

There are also many other important and unique attributes to this area. This area is home to the longest continuous river road and levee system in the U.S. It is also home to the ancient Head of Passes site, Plaquemines Bend, geological features and two national wildlife refuges.

Finally, the area has a rich cultural heritage. Over the years, many different cultures have made this area home including Creoles, Europeans, Indians, Yugoslavs, African-Americans and Vietnamese. These cultures have worked together to create the infrastructure for transportation of our Nation's energy which is being produced by these same people out in the Gulf of Mexico off our shores. They have also created a fishing industry that contributes to Louisiana's economy.

I think it is easy to see why this area would make an excellent addition to the National Park Service. I hope that my colleagues will join me in supporting this bill which simply allows the National Park Service to study the suitability and feasibility of bringing this area into the system. I look forward to working with my colleagues to quickly enact this bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I introduce this bill today to prevent misuse of the Antiquities. Act of 1906 to create very large marine monuments. The Antiquities Act was intended to protect landmarks, not create the largest protected areas in the United States unilaterally without congressional assent.

The Bush administration acted covertly to convey protected status to 139,000 square miles of the northwestern Hawaiian Islands. In so doing, the administration short-circuited the extensive Marine Sanctuaries process that was already underway and notified the delegation only after the press conference. Now they have turned their attention to the Gulf of Mexico.

We learned that the President, with mixed support from his top advisors, is considering using his authorities under the Antiquities Act to unilaterally and permanently declare ``marine monuments'' in various locations of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. Some of these areas are in my backyard--in the Gulf of Mexico--but other areas of the Atlantic and Pacific are also under consideration.

I certainly understand the need to conserve and appropriately manage our most sensitive and vulnerable marine areas, which can serve as nurseries for fish stocks and provide critical habitat for other important species. That is why I support the processes Congress established in the National Marine Sanctuaries Act. But any declarations of new or additional protected status to marine areas should continue to follow the scientific and public processes outlined in the Sanctuaries Act. This is a good process that allows all affected parties--from the environmental community to recreational fishermen to the oil and gas industries--to have a say.

Mr. President, I introduce this bill today to restore historic Jackson Barracks in New Orleans to its pre-Hurricane Katrina status as a national historic treasure. Jackson Barracks represents the rich military history of New Orleans, and indeed our great State. However, the rebuilding of the structures on this significant garrison has been hindered by bureaucratic roadblocks and gaps in funding. This bill directly addresses those challenges.

As you know, Hurricane Katrina brought torrential floods and driving

winds to New Orleans and the surrounding region. The devastation from the storm touched every structure at Jackson Barracks. The original Jackson Barracks consists of 14 Antebellum Garrison Structures built between 1834 and 1835. These historic buildings were not spared and suffered tremendous damage.

There is a pressing need to complete the restoration and renovation of the barracks. Jackson Barracks requires additional renovations and restorations that are not within the scope of the Federal Emergency Management Agency hurricane restoration funding. With the agreement of the Chief, National Guard Bureau and the Secretary of the Interior, this bill would reprogram the savings from several military construction projects elsewhere on Jackson Barracks to assist in the completion of historic preservation at the post.

I ask the support of my colleagues in enabling the National Park Service to aid in the restoration of Jackson Barracks through the Historic Preservation Fund. I am not asking for additional dollars, but rather that the money that was saved on previous projects be recommitted and used for this vital need.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to reauthorize the Cane River National Heritage Area Commission and modify the boundaries of the heritage area. In 1994, Congress recognized this area as one of the nation's cultural and historic treasures. In the 1700s, Creole culture flowered across the stunning landscapes of the Cane River, and the Creole culture continues to enliven the region to this day. In terms of beauty, it is not only the landscape but the Creole architecture from that time period that charms visitors. Today, the 35 mile region includes the Cane River Creole National Historical Park, seven national historic landmarks, three state historic sites, and 24 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Anchored by the city of Natchitoches, which traces its history to a French colonial settlement established in 1714 near the Natchitoches Indian village on the Red River, the region's colonial forts, Creole plantations, churches, cemeteries, archeological sites, historic transportation routes, and commercial centers provide a unique view into Louisiana's past.

I am proud to represent the people of Louisiana by asking the 110th Congress to reauthorize this National Heritage Area and reaffirm the importance of the Cane River Creole culture as a nationally significant element of American heritage.

This should not be a difficult task. Congress has once before agreed to establish a Cane River Creole National Historical Park to serve as the focus of interpretive and educational programs on the history of the Cane River area and to assist in the preservation of certain historic sites along the river. Now, I ask this Congress to do it again by reauthorizing the Cane River National Heritage Area.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation entitled the Lower Mississippi River National Historic Site Study Act. This bill will direct the Secretary of the Interior to study the suitability and feasibility of designating sites in Plaquemines Parish along the Lower Mississippi River Area as a unit of the National Park System. To be eligible for favorable consideration as a unit of the National Park System, an area must possess nationally significant natural, cultural or recreational resources. The Lower Mississippi River area in Plaquemines Parish meets and exceeds these criteria.

I am proud to come to the floor today to introduce this bill. Anyone who has visited Plaquemines Parish knows that it is one of the Nation's unique treasures. The natural beauty there at the mouth of the Mississippi is impossible to describe, but impossible not to love. The area is rich in history, and it is a preserve for one of the nation's most unique cultural melanges.

That mix began after the Native Americans in the region began to intermingle with the Spanish explorers who traveled along the banks of the river in the 1500s. In 1682, Rene-Robert Cavelier de LaSalle claimed all the land drained by the Mississippi for France area. In 1699, the area became the site of the first fortification on the Lower Mississippi River, known as Fort Mississippi. Since then, it has been the home to 10 different fortifications, including Fort St. Philip and Fort Jackson.

Fort St. Philip, originally built in 1749, proved to be instrumental during the Battle of New Orleans by blocking the British Navy from going up river. Fort Jackson was built at the request of General Andrew Jackson and partially constructed by famous local Civil War General P.G.T. Beauregard. This fort was the site of the famous Civil War battle know as the ``Battle of Forts'' which is also referred to as the ``night the war was lost.''

As this glimpse of the region's military history shows, the Lower Plaquemines region is of national cultural and historical significance.

There are also many other important and unique attributes to this area. This area is home to the longest continuous river road and levee system in the U.S. It is also home to the ancient Head of Passes site, Plaquemines Bend, geological features and two national wildlife refuges.

Finally, the area has a rich cultural heritage. Over the years, many different cultures have made this area home including Creoles, Europeans, Indians, Yugoslavs, African-Americans and Vietnamese. These cultures have worked together to create the infrastructure for transportation of our Nation's energy which is being produced by these same people out in the Gulf of Mexico off our shores. They have also created a fishing industry that contributes to Louisiana's economy.

I think it is easy to see why this area would make an excellent addition to the National Park Service. I hope that my colleagues will join me in supporting this bill which simply allows the National Park Service to study the suitability and feasibility of bringing this area into the system. I look forward to working with my colleagues to quickly enact this bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak on behalf of small businesses in the rural areas of my State, as well as rural small businesses nationwide. This is because small businesses are crucial to rural communities as they account for 90 percent of all rural establishments. In 1998, small firms employed 60 percent of rural workers and over 1.2 million small firms were located in rural areas. While Louisiana has major metropolitan areas such as New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, and Lafayette, my State has countless rural communities which are vital to our State's economy. In fact, Louisiana has 13.8 million acres of hardwood and softwood forests, in addition to the fact that the State is one of the 10 largest producers of agricultural products. These include cotton, sugar cane, rice, pecans, soybeans, strawberries, and cattle. We are proud of our natural and agricultural resources, just as Louisianans are proud of our culture and cuisine.

As I mentioned, rural small businesses are key to the economy in my State, just as they are in other States. While the Department of Agriculture has various programs to help rural communities, the Small Business Administration, SBA, remains the primary Federal agency focused on promoting small businesses. From my positions on the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship as well as the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, I have focused on improving SBA's ability to serve small businesses in Louisiana. One area that I believe this Congress can truly make a difference in addressing the main challenges facing rural small businesses. In talking to various stakeholders, I have repeatedly heard that two of the traditional obstacles to small business expansion in rural areas are lack of access to technology and capital.

For my part, I would like to offer some commonsense solutions to help address these and other challenges facing our rural small businesses. These businesses are the backbone of our economy so we should give them every opportunity to succeed. In particular, I am proud to introduce today the, ``Rural Small Business Enhancement Act of 2008.'' This bill provides necessary improvements to SBA programs to help the agency better assist rural small businesses.

First, as you may know, in 1982 Congress established a 5-year government-wide Small Business Innovation Research, SBIR, program. This program has been extended three times, most recently by Public Law 106- 554, which continues the SBIR program through September 30, 2008. The SBIR program was created to help meet the Federal Government's research and development needs. Among other things, the SBIR program was established to stimulate technological innovation related to each participating agency's goals and missions, to encourage agencies to use small businesses to meet Federal research and development needs, and to increase private sector commercialization of innovation derived from Federal research and development. The SBIR program had awarded over $17 billion to more than 82,000 projects from its inception to 2004.

In addition to the SBIR program, Congress also created the Small Business Technology Transfer, STTR, program. STTR is another important small business program that expands funding opportunities for small business in the area of Federal research and development. This program expands the public/private sector partnership to include joint venture opportunities for small businesses and nonprofit research institutions. For example, our university labs are important to the country in that they provide the engine for high-technology innovation. However, if innovation cannot be translated from the classroom or the lab to the marketplace, it cannot benefit the lives of everyday people. STTR combines the strengths of small businesses and universities to transfer technology/products from the lab to the marketplace. The small businesses in particular benefit from commercialization, which supports jobs and the U.S. economy.

As part of the 2000 Reauthorization of the SBIR program, Congress also created the Federal and State Technology Partnership Program, or FAST. FAST was created to strengthen the technological competitiveness of small business concerns by providing competitive grants to States to help support the SBIR program. These grants are traditionally used to assist technology transfers by universities to small businesses, provide technical assistance to firms participating in the SBIR program, and encourage commercialization of technology developed through SBIR funding. The FAST program has proven vital to States like Louisiana, which have traditionally been in the lower tier of States in terms of SBIR/STTR awards and total dollars. For example, in fiscal year 2003, Louisiana ranked 44 in terms of total SBIR award dollars out of the other 50 States, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. That year Louisiana had 14 Phase I and II awards for a total of $2,373,062. Compare that to the 3 ranked State of Maryland which had 325 awards for $96,533,591. For this reason, technical assistance provided under FAST grants is extremely important to businesses in my State. In general, the more SBIR

applications that are submitted by small businesses in a State, the more SBIR awards are made in that State.

The FAST program has allowed the Louisiana Business and Technology Center, LBTC, located at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, to establish the Louisiana SBIR/STTR Phase Zero Program. This program allows LBTC to grant up to $3,000 to companies needed help in writing SBIR Phase One grant applications and up to $5,000 for Phase Two proposals. One of the companies that benefitted from FAST and the Phase Zero Program was Mezzo Systems. Mezzo Systems is a provider of design analysis and prototyping services for micro fluidic, optic, magneto, and electronic devices. The company was an incubator tenant of the LBTC at LSU and I was able to visit with them at the center in 2003. With the support of my office and the LBTC, Mezzo won five SBIR awards totalling $1.3 million. One of these awards was an SBIR grant from the Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency totalling $750,000.

Through the FAST program, several spinoff companies at Louisiana Technical University in Ruston, Louisiana have also received SBIR funding to support research and development related to commercial application of their innovations. This is because Louisiana Tech recognizes the value of expanding the local service network for technology-based, small and rural businesses through programs like

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak on behalf of small businesses in the rural areas of my State, as well as rural small businesses nationwide. This is because small businesses are crucial to rural communities as they account for 90 percent of all rural establishments. In 1998, small firms employed 60 percent of rural workers and over 1.2 million small firms were located in rural areas. While Louisiana has major metropolitan areas such as New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, and Lafayette, my State has countless rural communities which are vital to our State's economy. In fact, Louisiana has 13.8 million acres of hardwood and softwood forests, in addition to the fact that the State is one of the 10 largest producers of agricultural products. These include cotton, sugar cane, rice, pecans, soybeans, strawberries, and cattle. We are proud of our natural and agricultural resources, just as Louisianans are proud of our culture and cuisine.

As I mentioned, rural small businesses are key to the economy in my State, just as they are in other States. While the Department of Agriculture has various programs to help rural communities, the Small Business Administration, SBA, remains the primary Federal agency focused on promoting small businesses. From my positions on the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship as well as the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, I have focused on improving SBA's ability to serve small businesses in Louisiana. One area that I believe this Congress can truly make a difference in addressing the main challenges facing rural small businesses. In talking to various stakeholders, I have repeatedly heard that two of the traditional obstacles to small business expansion in rural areas are lack of access to technology and capital.

For my part, I would like to offer some commonsense solutions to help address these and other challenges facing our rural small businesses. These businesses are the backbone of our economy so we should give them every opportunity to succeed. In particular, I am proud to introduce today the, ``Rural Small Business Enhancement Act of 2008.'' This bill provides necessary improvements to SBA programs to help the agency better assist rural small businesses.

First, as you may know, in 1982 Congress established a 5-year government-wide Small Business Innovation Research, SBIR, program. This program has been extended three times, most recently by Public Law 106- 554, which continues the SBIR program through September 30, 2008. The SBIR program was created to help meet the Federal Government's research and development needs. Among other things, the SBIR program was established to stimulate technological innovation related to each participating agency's goals and missions, to encourage agencies to use small businesses to meet Federal research and development needs, and to increase private sector commercialization of innovation derived from Federal research and development. The SBIR program had awarded over $17 billion to more than 82,000 projects from its inception to 2004.

In addition to the SBIR program, Congress also created the Small Business Technology Transfer, STTR, program. STTR is another important small business program that expands funding opportunities for small business in the area of Federal research and development. This program expands the public/private sector partnership to include joint venture opportunities for small businesses and nonprofit research institutions. For example, our university labs are important to the country in that they provide the engine for high-technology innovation. However, if innovation cannot be translated from the classroom or the lab to the marketplace, it cannot benefit the lives of everyday people. STTR combines the strengths of small businesses and universities to transfer technology/products from the lab to the marketplace. The small businesses in particular benefit from commercialization, which supports jobs and the U.S. economy.

As part of the 2000 Reauthorization of the SBIR program, Congress also created the Federal and State Technology Partnership Program, or FAST. FAST was created to strengthen the technological competitiveness of small business concerns by providing competitive grants to States to help support the SBIR program. These grants are traditionally used to assist technology transfers by universities to small businesses, provide technical assistance to firms participating in the SBIR program, and encourage commercialization of technology developed through SBIR funding. The FAST program has proven vital to States like Louisiana, which have traditionally been in the lower tier of States in terms of SBIR/STTR awards and total dollars. For example, in fiscal year 2003, Louisiana ranked 44 in terms of total SBIR award dollars out of the other 50 States, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. That year Louisiana had 14 Phase I and II awards for a total of $2,373,062. Compare that to the 3 ranked State of Maryland which had 325 awards for $96,533,591. For this reason, technical assistance provided under FAST grants is extremely important to businesses in my State. In general, the more SBIR

applications that are submitted by small businesses in a State, the more SBIR awards are made in that State.

The FAST program has allowed the Louisiana Business and Technology Center, LBTC, located at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, to establish the Louisiana SBIR/STTR Phase Zero Program. This program allows LBTC to grant up to $3,000 to companies needed help in writing SBIR Phase One grant applications and up to $5,000 for Phase Two proposals. One of the companies that benefitted from FAST and the Phase Zero Program was Mezzo Systems. Mezzo Systems is a provider of design analysis and prototyping services for micro fluidic, optic, magneto, and electronic devices. The company was an incubator tenant of the LBTC at LSU and I was able to visit with them at the center in 2003. With the support of my office and the LBTC, Mezzo won five SBIR awards totalling $1.3 million. One of these awards was an SBIR grant from the Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency totalling $750,000.

Through the FAST program, several spinoff companies at Louisiana Technical University in Ruston, Louisiana have also received SBIR funding to support research and development related to commercial application of their innovations. This is because Louisiana Tech recognizes the value of expanding the local service network for technology-based, small and rural businesses through programs like

Mr. President, I come to speak basically about the need for more energy production as well as more conservation. Before I do, I would like to follow up on the comments of my colleague from Pennsylvania. This housing bill we have all worked on for quite some time now is hopefully going to be passed by the House. The President has withdrawn his threatened veto. It looks like this major piece of reform will finally come to pass. I thank Chairman Baucus, Chairman Grassley, and Chairman Dodd for including in that bill, before it left the Senate, an extremely important provision for the State of Louisiana and Mississippi, the whole gulf coast, that will provide some significant tax relief to people who had received Road Home benefits based on the extent of their damage, whether they received a $20,000 grant or a $50,000 grant or a cap at 150, to try to make them somewhat whole.

This is not making people whole along the gulf coast. But if their insurance failed them or they were in a place that was not a flood plain and didn't have insurance because they weren't in a flood plain but lost everything anyway because of the magnitude of the storms, we allow them an opportunity for a grant to rebuild. It is working. It has been very slow. It has been painful. The programs were not established correctly initially, but both Mississippi and Louisiana are making great progress. The problem was, these grants would have been taxable, putting people in a tax bracket where they would have to write a check to the Federal Government for $5,000 or $15,000 or $20,000. It would be impossible for them to do that under these circumstances. So this bill has corrected that. They will still have to pay regular taxes but not on these Road Home grants. It is basically a billion-dollar direct relief to homeowners in the gulf coast. We could not be more grateful to the Members, to the Presiding Officer and others who voted to include that and particularly to the chairman. If any homeowners in America need help, not just the ones who were foreclosed on through no fault of their own but most certainly the 300,000 homeowners who lost their homes because these storms took everything they had, we are very grateful for that help in housing.

I wish to speak about energy. There have been a lot of charts and graphs put up because this is a dynamic and tense debate. There are legitimate issues on both sides. I wished to bring a new chart that can explain the situation at least much more clearly. The facts are that in the United States, along the Outer Continental Shelf which is off our shore, there is currently now a moratorium along the west coast, along the east coast from Maine to the top of Florida, and on the eastern side of the gulf. This goes out 200 miles from State waters, and it is now off-limits to exploration.

Meanwhile, Canada, our friendly neighbor, is drilling right here off their entire coast.

I do not know how much they are producing off this coast, but it is substantial resources. Right here in the gulf, off the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, as you all know, we have a long tradition of believing that natural resources actually belong to the public, and we should be exploring these resources for the benefit not just of our region but for the Nation.

Most of the oil and gas--basically a third of the oil and gas--of the Nation is coming off the shores of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and, to some degree, Alabama, despite the no-drill zone or no-exploration zone off Florida.

Now, interestingly enough--which is what is partly driving a change in this debate--is this area right here, as shown on the map, which is off the coast of Cuba but very close to Florida. It is currently being leased for drilling by the Chinese, by European powers. So the fact is, while we sit and lock up our resources off our coasts, China and Europe are coming in and drilling closer to the land of the United States than we are allowing ourselves to drill, which does not make sense.

What we need to do to get prices down is to increase the supply of oil and gas domestically and--and--significantly reduce our usage of it by moving away from gasoline-only vehicles. It does not mean we all have to move from big cars to tiny cars. It does not mean our farmers have to give up their pickup trucks. It does not mean our truck drivers have to park their big vehicles and sit on the side of the road.

What it does mean is we can, through legislation, build new trucks, new cars, and new pickup trucks that get 50 miles a gallon or 60 miles a gallon and not just gallons of gasoline but gallons of ethanol produced from corn or from sugarcane or cellulosic matters or fiber or waste, municipal waste.

So we need to look and see where we can drill safely in these places. There is drilling allowed right now in Alaska but very limited. Although it is allowed, it is limited. We need to look at how we can accelerate this drilling. The great news is--even though I support drilling in ANWR; we do not have enough votes to do that--ANWR represents this tiny dot, a dot. We should not stop fighting about ANWR, but we should also think about other places in Alaska where we could drill safely and open exploration in limited places, providing a buffer zone for States and providing very strategic care.

One myth I wish to correct today--because it is a rampant myth--is that there is hardly any oil and gas off our coast. People will come to the floor and say: The Senator is correct. This is off-limits to exploration, but the reason it is is because there is no oil and gas there.

That is not true. I know people are not purposely misleading because they are citing statistics from old material. But I wish to give you some statistics that will prove my point.

The estimates come from Minerals Management through the Energy Department. In 1995, the Government was making estimates of what was in the Gulf of Mexico. They said, in 1995, there were only 5 billion barrels of oil in the gulf. But when they started drilling more and exploring more and using new technologies, we have now determined there are 20 billion barrels of oil.

So in 1995, the same group that is doing these estimates here, said in the gulf there was only 5 billion barrels. But after we did the right kind of exploration and testing, we actually found more than 20 billion. That was in 2000. So the idea is that today, if we would allow the inventory to take place right now, the estimates might be that there are only a few billion barrels. But based on the experience we have in the Gulf of Mexico, we know it is going to jump considerably.

We are the only country, to my knowledge, in the developed world that

has not even explored or taken an inventory of what the resources are. In those days, we did not have the kind of technology we have today. So we can use modern 3D seismic technology. I am going to suggest we do not have to wait until 2030. We do not have to wait until 2040. There is infrastructure in place now in this part of the Gulf of Mexico, and it could be established in some other places as well, to go after the oil and gas that is there that this country needs to increase our domestic supply.

Mr. President, I know I only have 1 more minute to close.

As you know, people from this Chamber send letters overseas.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute.

We keep sending letters overseas asking everybody else to increase production so they can send us oil and gas. Yet off our own shore, we have great resources of oil and gas for which we must make a breakthrough and open for exploration.

So I know my time is wrapping up now. I wish to come back to the floor and talk about the safety and the new technology.

I am going to show one picture in the Chamber. This is what an offshore oil rig looks like. There is a platform on top of the water, which a lot of people have not seen. But you can see these off the coast of Texas and Louisiana. We like the way they look. It talks about money and independence. That is what it means to us. It can be done quite safely. This is as blue as the water looks, with lots of fish around those rigs. The pipelines are down on the ocean floor.

So I will come back and talk more about the new technologies that allow us to drill safely. But I hope the facts I have shared help us to come to terms with opening more resources in the United States.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have also come to the floor to speak about the direction I believe our country needs to move to lower gas prices and decrease our dangerous dependency on oil from places in this world that do not share our values and are not friendly, safe places to operate.

I wish to associate myself with the remarks of my colleague, the good Senator from South Dakota. I have been very pleased to work with him in a group of five Democrats and five Republicans. We hope to expand our group as there is more interest in trying to find a centrist approach, a commonsense center core that can move us away from saying no to saying yes in a smart way, yes to more production--not everywhere but in certain places where we believe there are reserves of oil and gas that our country most certainly needs, in a safe environmental way that can protect our coasts.

I know that issue is very sensitive to you, Mr. President. You have spoken eloquently about that on the floor, and you have made some excellent points, as other Senators. I know the Senator from New Jersey was here earlier today, and there have been Senators from different coastal communities.

I am not insensitive to the needs of coastal communities. I represent one myself. We might not have the beaches that Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and New Jersey have, but we do have very special coastal areas that we also want to keep clean and pristine because of our fishing, because of our boating, and because of our other recreational sports that involve more than just sitting or playing on a beach. We do a lot of water activity, and we need that water to be clean and pristine. So we are not unaware of those challenges.

My colleague who just spoke is absolutely correct. Not only he but others have talked about the importance of saying yes, and this morning in a bipartisan energy summit conducted by the Democratic chairman, Chairman Bingaman, and the ranking member, Ranking Member Domenici, Daniel Yergin, who is the chairman of the Cambridge Energy Research Association, had a great deal of wisdom to share with us. I think, Mr. President, you were at that hearing. There were many good, insightful comments made. Statements were made this morning that could help guide us to a more secure approach.

One that stuck with me--I am going to paraphrase it because I don't have his quote. He said something along the lines of it has taken us 20 years to get into this tight oil market, and it is going to take us some time to get out, but there is a way out. He said it is imperative that we increase our supply of oil in the world, and particularly for the United States since we are consuming so much of it, and there are many places that production can be found and improved.

He went on to say: We have made some real progress in conservation, but, of course, we have to do more.

Again, we have been saying no for 20 years--no to this refinery, no to producing here, lawsuit after lawsuit, actions that shut down production. We must begin to say yes. Twenty years of saying no, and I am not leaving this, of course, at the doorstep of only Democrats, which is what some of our friends on the other side want, to blame just the Democrats. The Republicans have been in charge of this Congress for the majority of those years. Now they are claiming they were the ones saying yes all along. No, it was their Congresses that were saying no.

But this is not about blaming Democrats or Republicans. This is about

starting all of us to say, yes, we can; yes, we can get prices down; yes, we can make America more energy independent.

I would like to correct something I said the other day that is not true, and I am very sorry because I was not clear, but I am clear now.

I came to the Senate floor with this chart and said that all of these light blue places represented moratoria areas. While it is true for the lower 48, all of this entire west coast is off production, the eastern Gulf of Mexico under Alabama and next to Florida is off production, for the most part, with very few exceptions, with wells here. All of this area on the east coast is off limits to production.

I also said Alaska was off limits to production, and that is not true. This was changed very recently, and Alaska has now opened up, not ANWR, which is this little tiny point which is so hard to see on this map, but the rest of Alaska has opened up. I am going to show another chart that describes it a bit better.

This is a more accurate chart, and it is up to date. Again, I apologize, but that was an old chart. This is all off limits. Everything on the west coast is off limits and has been for decades. All of this area on the east coast, except for this blue diamond, is off limits by executive and congressional moratoria. The President has lifted his moratoria. He has lifted the executive moratoria, but the congressional moratoria still remain.

The place that has been the most open--and we are very proud of this in Louisiana and Texas--is the gulf. This is the western gulf, this is the central gulf, and this is the eastern gulf. The reason the eastern gulf is a different color than the rest of the chart is because this moratoria was extended actually under an agreement that was made on the Senate floor--and I was part of that action--to extend this moratoria longer than the moratoria on the east and west coasts.

The west and east coast moratoria are year-to-year moratoria. They are done in the Interior bill, and they have been routinely passed year to year. The eastern gulf moratoria is in law, and it extends until 2022.

Alaska is now basically opened, these blue sections. It is going to be very hard for people to realize this because it is really shocking to me, and I look at this all the time, but this dot approximately right here, this little dot right here is ANWR. This dot is what we fight over really, let me say--we fight over this little dot. Here is a whole State with lots of opportunities, and yet every discussion for the last 20 years has been about this little dot.

I know that little dot has a lot of oil and gas in it, and I voted to open it. But I am to the point now where we have to stop talking about ANWR and start thinking about other places in and around ANWR--with the help of our Senators from Alaska, who are very knowledgeable and very good on this issue, Senator Ted Stevens and Senator Lisa Murkowski--where we can get oil and gas in places that are not so remote where the infrastructure exists to move this gas from Alaska, which sits up north, to the lower 48, either by pipeline or by tanker to get oil safely to us.

There are benefits to drilling in Alaska. There are not many people there to aggravate. There are only 500,000, and people in Alaska, like people in Louisiana, want to have oil and gas drilling. They believe in using their natural resources, whether it is oil and gas or trees. We believe in actually cutting a lot of our trees because they grow back. We don't believe in cutting old, primitive forests and special places, but we actually believe that cutting trees and growing them back helps provide the good products we need, and we know how to manage our forests.

Alaska is a lot like Louisiana. We could find oil and gas here. And there is a lot of it. The problem is the transportation and the infrastructure, and there are some risks associated with moving oil through tankers. There is always a risk associated with long pipelines. We have that same infrastructure in the gulf where we have pipelines coming up from Louisiana.

I would like to show what some of this infrastructure actually looks like so people get an understanding when we talk about opening areas to drill. This is the kind of infrastructure that it takes to actually get it done.

This is a picture of the Gulf of Mexico. This is the tip of Louisiana and the coast of Texas and Mississippi. This is Mobile Bay, and this is the Florida panhandle, and it goes down. This pipeline, as the Presiding Officer knows, is a pipeline that is laid under the gulf to move gas to Florida from Mobile Bay because the eastern gulf is closed right now to production. But yet Florida has great need for gas, and the good people of Alabama send it to the people of Florida. There was a lot of controversy about this pipeline. There were people in Alabama, even Members of Congress, who said: Why send the gas to Florida? Let them drill their own gas. That is not part of this debate today, but it is a good question. There are answers to it. It is an interesting discussion.

These are pipelines, every one end is a rig or at least a well. These platforms are large. They are very deep. They are almost like skyscrapers out in the gulf. You cannot see them from the shore. This is invisible to the naked eye. You don't really see this. If you are in a boat, plane, or swimming, it is all subsea.

This is a picture of the network of pipelines required to move millions of barrels of oil from the ocean to people. If you took a snapshot onshore of where there is production in Wyoming or Utah or Colorado or New Mexico, you would see much the same thing--a maze of pipelines and wells--because it takes more than waving a magic wand for the oil to jump out of the ground and into people's tanks. There are a lot of steps that have to go into it.

So part of opening the OCS and opening more onshore is you want to open it in places that it is likely for the industry to reach and to have people--because even though robots are doing a lot of this work, we need people to show up on the rigs to build the platforms. That is why I fought so hard for money to come from these activities. When people tell me and some of my colleagues say, But, Senator, this resource belongs to the United States of America; why should Louisiana share any of these resources, I say, because Louisiana is the platform for oil and gas production, just like Texas. And with all due respect to the United States of America, the United States could not access these resources if we did not allow these resources to be accessed and then brought through our shores for distribution.

There is the distribution pipeline. It doesn't just affect Louisiana, it affects the entire country. I am going to show you the gas distribution system. This is not an oil distribution system, this is gas. All of the manufacturers in the Midwest and on the east coast need natural gas. There are very few places they can get it. They get it basically from the Gulf of Mexico. This is the trunk, in real terms, of how much gas there is. It says 6.4 billion cubic feet from the Gulf of Mexico production. The other big trunk comes from Alaska, and there is potential gas in Canada. This comes from Alaska. Basically, that is it. This is where the gas comes from.

So when prices of natural gas are high, it is because there is only a limited source in America, and we are not opening gas reserves where there might be more here, there might be some more here, and obviously there are more in Alaska. So that is just an example. But as you can see, the production in the Gulf of Mexico doesn't just benefit the people in Louisiana and Mississippi. Without it, you couldn't keep lights on in this Chamber or in New York or Chicago and other places that are very important.

I wanted to clarify that most of the OCS is off limits. Most of the OCS is off limits, and while you see lots of posters and pictures, and everybody is trying to move the numbers to justify their position, the fact is that in the lower 48--not counting Alaska, Alaska is not on here--less than 19 percent of the OCS is open to development, less than 19 percent. All of this is off limits, this is off limits, and this is off limits. The only area we can drill is here.

I would like to read this number here: It is 33 billion barrels of oil here on this side of the gulf. When people say there is no more oil in America, it is because we are not looking for it. There is plenty of oil onshore and offshore, not counting the oil we could actually get from coal--coal-to-liquids technology, clean--and not counting

the oil we could potentially get from shale, which is boiling the rock into a liquid and producing the oil, which could be billions of barrels.

I agree with Senator Salazar that the technology is not quite there yet, and maybe it is going to be too much of a drain on the water supply in the West. Perhaps it might be a very serious environmental problem. But we don't know. I think we should find out. That is my point. We don't know, but we need to find out because one day we may need to boil that rock, and if we need to, we need to figure out how to do it.

There is plenty of oil here. But when people say ``the science,'' trust me, if there is a scientist in America who wants to come anywhere around Washington to say there is no oil because they have explored it, I will debate them until my last breath, because we have not looked. There has been some seismic--not a lot of seismic--and the technology is so improved now that we can be much more certain of where oil and gas is. Just to say there are 33 billion barrels of oil here and then to jump to the conclusion that there is no oil here, that there has to be no oil here and no oil here, is really defying common sense.

I will end with this, Mr. President. Do we need to do more than produce? Yes, we do. Just increasing production is not the answer, but it is a step that must be taken. We are too great a nation to, every time prices hit $5, send a little piddling letter over to countries such as Saudi Arabia begging and pleading, as if we are some second- rate power, asking them to increase their oil production when we won't increase it at home. It is not right. We must increase our production, and we can do it safely.

I know there are others who wish to speak, so I will wrap up in just a moment.

We need to also--and this is where my friends on the other side of the aisle have not been very good in their own right. They have not been for mandates pushing conservation, and we must start driving a different kind of automobile, and not just expanding mileage from 20 miles per gallon to 27 miles, but CAFE standards reflecting efficiencies from 25 miles per gallon to 27 or 35.

We need to move to a different kind of automobile because it is the fuel demand, it is the gap between the 20 million barrels we use every day and the 8 million we produce. There is a 12 million-barrel-a-day gap. If we could close 6 million of that by more production domestically and close the other 6 million by conservation, America would have no more problem, the price would come down, and we would be free and happy--a powerful, free people again. And we have to get that way.

We once dominated in this industry. That is how we won World War II. We would not have won without our domination in the energy industry. We have to dominate again, and we can do it through conservation and production.

I hope our leaders, both the Democratic leader and the Republican leader, understand that there is a group of us who don't want to go home until this is done and that we are going to do everything we can because I don't believe we should be drifting out of this Capitol anytime soon until we have given a clear and unmistakable signal to the American public that we hear them and that we understand the economic strain.

Our economic model was not built for $5 gasoline, and we cannot sustain it. That is what we were told, and not by the Republican policy people or the Democratic policy people but by two of the brightest minds on this subject. They said the U.S. model cannot sustain this high price for long. It will cause and has caused serious economic disruption. It must be corrected.

So I hope, Mr. President, that we most certainly do this. I am open to things that perhaps I wouldn't have considered in the past, and I hope my colleagues will have that same open mind. If so, we can perhaps get some extraordinary things done.

Either tomorrow or next week, I am going to come back and talk about the myth of oil spills because the signs I see on this floor about oil spilling in the gulf--I want to continue to remind people that less than 1 percent of the oil in the ocean is caused from drilling in the ocean. The majority of it is natural seepage, and I am going to have some information that will show that. The people of Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi are very proud of this industry that we have helped to birth not just for our country but for the world, and we are determined to help people understand that it can be done in a clean and environmentally sensitive manner.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this year we are celebrating Alpha Kappa Alpha, Inc. sorority's 100th birthday. This week, more than 20,000 members from all over the country have come to Washington, DC, to participate in a week-long program of forums and seminars with a focus on leadership, sisterhood and service, known as the Centennial Boule. The theme of this week's celebration is the ``Centennial Commitment to Leadership.''

The week's events will culminate in today's Unity March where members from the nine African-American Greek fraternities and sororities marched to the Capitol.

AKA's International President, Barbara McKinzie, who has lived in Shreveport, LA, says the qualities that have sustained AKA for a century are ``sisterhood and service.'' Her administration is committed to ESP: Economics, Service and Partnership.

AKA is the first Greek-letter sorority established by African- American women for African-American, college-educated women. It was founded by nine enterprising Howard University women, led by Ethel Hedgeman Lyle, on January 15, 1908.

Now the membership has grown to 975 chapters worldwide and is 200,000-strong. Among the famous AKAs are Maya Angelou, Gladys Knight and Alicia Keys; and Members of the House of Representatives include Eddie Bernice Johnson and Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, and Diane Watson of California. Powerful women across America both in the private sector and government represent the AKA sisterhood. Three members of my staff are proud to be a part of this sisterhood: my office manager Alicia Williams, acting State director Tari Bradford, and my New Orleans constituent services representative Sherae Hunter.

The AKA sorority, founded before women had the right to vote by women one generation away from slavery, has been an instrumental group in raising the profile of African-American women and has worked tirelessly to knock down barriers to advancement in our society. The sisterhood has consistently encouraged academic achievement, leadership and service.

Members remain active for their whole lives and are encouraged to contribute to their communities. Each chapter has its own community service focus. The Gamma Eta Omega Alumnae Chapter in Baton Rouge, for instance, raises money through an annual fashion show for scholarships for high school seniors and sorority undergraduates and also sponsors the Leadership Fellows Institute each year to promote leadership among high school students.

The Delta Lamda Omega Chapter in Shreveport gathers for ``A Day On and Not a Day Off,'' where sisters take off work to volunteer in the community. Chapters all over Louisiana are similarly committed to their communities. In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, AKAs from all over the country came to the aid of hurricane survivors along the gulf coast and helped with our recovery effort.

It is with great pride that we welcome all AKAs to the birthplace of the sisterhood, Washington, DC, as they embark on another groundbreaking century.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak on behalf of some of our most in need gulf coast residents. Everyone around the country is familiar with the impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on the New Orleans area and the southwest

part of our State. Images from the devastation following these storms, and the subsequent Federal levee breaks, were transmitted around the country and around the world. This is because Katrina was the deadliest natural disaster in United States history, with 1,800 people killed-- 1,500 alone in Louisiana. Katrina was also the costliest natural disaster in United States history with over $81.2 billion in damage.

Everyone is familiar with the images and the cost, but they may not be too familiar with the impact on individual businesses. In particular, I am speaking about the affects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on minority firms in the gulf coast. As a result of these storms, many minority firms in the gulf coast were disrupted and thus lost valuable time for participating in the 8(a) program. The 8(a) business development initiative, created under the Small Business Administration, helps minority entrepreneurs access Federal contracts and allows companies to be certified for increments of 3 years. These contracts are vital to the revival of these impacted areas. However, as currently structured the program allows businesses to participate for a limited length of time, 9 years, after which they can never reapply nor get back into the program. It is imperative that we provide contracting assistance to our local minority businesses.

Today I am proud to sponsor legislation that will help these businesses recover from the effects of these storms. This bill, the Disadvantaged Business Disaster Eligibility Act would tackle this problem in three important ways. First, the bill extends 8(a) eligibility for program participants in Katrina/Rita-impacted areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama by 24 months. Next, the bill would apply to any areas in the state of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama that have been designated by the Administrator of the Small Business Administration as a disaster area as a result of Hurricanes Katrina or Rita. Lastly, the bill would require the Administrator of the Small Business Administration to ensure that every small business participating in the 8(a) program before the date of enactment of the act is reviewed and brought into compliance with this Act. This requirement would ensure that any eligible previous 8(a) participants will be allowed back into the program. As such, these key provisions would ensure that these businesses continue to play a vital role in rebuilding their communities. I note that a similar bill has already passed the House of Representatives, with the strong support of the Louisiana House delegation. I would note though that my legislation differs from the House-passed bill in that my bill also covers businesses impacted by Hurricane Rita. While I support the House-passed bill, I feel that we must also cover businesses impacted by Hurricane Rita--particularly those in southwest Louisiana. For this and other reasons, I look forward to championing this bill here in the Senate.

Although recovery has been slow, it is my belief that great progress brings great change. The Small Business Administration has come a long way in correcting its failed practices. Congress recently stepped up and enacted wide-ranging SBA disaster reforms as part of the Farm Bill. I note that many of these reforms, such as the increases in loan limits and collateral requirements, were immediately helpful to disaster victims in the Midwest. It is my sincere hope that we can keep up this momentum by also passing the Disadvantaged Business Disaster Eligibility Act. To these ends, I will work with my colleagues on the Senate Small Business Committee, including Senators Kerry and Snowe, respectively chair and ranking member of the committee.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I am so happy to be able to speak for the next 10 or 15 minutes. It is important for me to do that. I said I would come to the floor every day we are in session until we leave--whether it is in the morning that I get that opportunity or in the afternoon or before going home at night--every day until we leave in August to speak about this issue, because I agree 100 percent with my colleague from Idaho and I want to associate myself with all of his remarks, from the first paragraph, through the middle, until the end, because he is absolutely correct in his assessment of a couple issues: one, the anger, frustration, and pain our constituents are feeling at this moment; the truth he spoke about the fact that this is Congress's fault; the fact that he said the American people get it and understand it. They don't just get it in Idaho, I say to the Senator, they get it in Louisiana. What a shame it will be for us to leave in August or September or October or ever until we get this done.

There is a moment of opportunity. There is a window. That window has been created, unfortunately, by extraordinarily high and historic prices that are forcing the attention on this issue. When we force attention, the pressure comes to bear to really make some headway. When prices are too low, there will occasionally be--or when they are low; they can never, maybe, be too low. But when they are lower, there is interest. But it is fleeting. Or maybe the prices are low, and we have a little bit of a rush for some environmental legislation. We deal with it, and we move on to other things.

But there is no moving on to anything else right now in America because this energy price--this energy price--is unsettling to this economy in ways that I don't have to explain tonight, and my time is limited. I will leave that up to others. But I agree with my colleague from Idaho and associate myself with his remarks.

Health Care

Mr. President, also, briefly, before I get back to energy, I wish to thank my colleague from Oregon who spoke so kindly about the two of us and our efforts on health care because it is another issue that has to be addressed but without the urgency, in my view, that the energy issue has to be addressed.

I am very proud to be working with him and 15 other of our colleagues in a bipartisan effort to bring down the cost of health care in a new and innovative approach. I am looking forward to working on that once we solve the energy dilemma here.

Cosponsorship of S. 911

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be added as a cosponsor of the Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer Act, S. 911, sponsored by my good friend, the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed. I would like to be added as a cosponsor and want to thank Senator Coburn for lifting the hold on that bill so we can actually get it passed.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, let me add a few thoughts in the next 10 or so minutes tonight about this energy debate.

The Senator from Idaho just said we must increase production domestically, and he is absolutely right. It is so hard for me to understand how this Congress can continue to ask OPEC to increase production, ask our enemies to increase production, and we continue to refuse to increase production in our own country year after year, time after time, whether onshore or offshore.

Now, I would know a little bit about this issue because I helped to lead, with the actual Presiding Officer tonight,

and many colleagues, one of the most successful efforts to open at least a portion of our area that was under moratoria. We opened, just 2 years ago, 8.3 million acres, which was a tremendous victory. I am very proud of the Senators for doing that, and the House Members. It was a 10-year effort. We passed that bill here by a substantial margin, but it passed by one--one--vote in the House of Representatives. It took 10 years, and we just barely won. All we opened in that bill was a sliver--if you all can see this map of North America--was literally a sliver of land. I am going to have this map blown up so we can see it better. I hope the camera can see this right here.

I wish to repeat this, because I know it is hard for people looking to believe it, but for 10 years, by 1 vote in the House of Representatives, we opened 8.3 million acres right out underneath Alabama and Mississippi, about 70 miles southeast of Venice, LA. That 8.3 million acres is being prepared now to drill. It literally took an act of Congress that took us 10 years. At that rate, the price of oil could go up, perhaps double or triple or quadruple. I don't know. This is a big country. We can see how big it is here. There is oil in many different places in this country, and it is time that we strategically open some other places to drill.

We should be careful. We should be deliberate. We do not have to open everything. So let me say to my Republican colleagues--not the Senator from Idaho, my friend, who did a beautiful job just now--but others on the Republican side who want to open everything right now: That is a foolish and unnecessary step, and it will do nothing but confuse the situation. It is like saying we are going to launch a space program right now. We have not created the rocket, and we don't have all the details, and we are going to go to every planet right now. It is that foolish. I wish to say directly to the President of the United States if that is your starting point, it is not a starting place for me, and I am as pro-drilling as you can get on the floor of the Senate, because it confuses the issue and it throws up red herrings and it leads the country into a false frenzy.

We don't have to lift the moratoria everywhere, and I am not going to vote for lifting the moratoria everywhere, but we can strategically lift congressional moratoria, or provide some kind of local option for States. I am kind of open on this. I have come at it many different ways, including considering some local options for some limited numbers of States where we actually think there might be oil and gas to drill.

Now, we do know there is a lot of oil and gas, because this purple spot right here represents the drilling that the States of Texas and Louisiana and parts of Mississippi and Alabama have been doing for generations, billions and billions of barrels of oil and gas that we were able to get out safely, securely, having less spills. And this is something that I want too, less spills than what is in the natural seepage of oil.

I know this is going to be impossible for some people listening to this to actually believe it is true, so I am going to give the reference. It is the National Academy of Sciences. This is not Mary Landrieu's propaganda poster or Republican propaganda poster or Democrat. This is from the National Academy of Sciences. Now, they have National Academies of Science in England. I think they have them in Germany. Maybe you could go ask them, but you can also ask our American National Academy of Sciences. This is what they say: Natural seeps of oil--just natural, coming out of the formations--represent 63 percent. Cars and boats and other sources--which we are trying to clean up, but we are not doing a real great job of it but we have made some progress--are 32 percent of all the spills in the oceans. Petroleum transportation, which means the big tankers, the Exxon Valdez, the tankers that sometimes run into the bridges in San Francisco Bay because they won't put in a pipeline, so they have tankers that come in. I keep explaining it would be better not to have the tankers, but they want the tankers there in that San Francisco Bay. They keep running into bridges. They keep spilling. So we have 4 percent of the spillage from the tankers.

Now, look here: drilling and extraction. Drilling and extraction, this little green sliver, is 1 percent. Why is this? This is because we have gotten so good and clean and strong, the technology has improved so substantially since the 1940s and 1950s, that it is not true that this jeopardizes the oceans or the beaches. I will say to be completely honest that when there is a spill, it can look pretty bad and it does and it happens, but this is life, and there are risks associated with everything we do, but the risk is so minimal to the benefit of this Nation.

I will tell you what the great benefit for me is: that we can stop funding both sides of the war on terror against ourselves, because that is what we are doing right now today. We are taking the people's hard- earned money and supporting a war at the tune of $348 million a day, and then we are paying our enemies to buy missiles and weapons to kill our own soldiers that we are sending over there. That is actually happening today because we are afraid. We are afraid that 1 little percent might seep into some water that we couldn't quickly go gather up and push to the side.

This is why America is angry, because America does not like to be wimpy. That is one thing about our country. We don't like it, because we are not a wimpy country. We are a smart country. We are a strong country. We are a bold country. This Congress has the American people feeling as if we are wimps.

We don't again have to lift the moratoria everywhere. I am going to tell the Republican leadership they are barking up the wrong tree here, because you don't have to go to every planet, but we have to pick one or two. We just have to pick one or two planets we are going to go to. We should let our scientists pick them. We should figure out what is the fastest, best way to get some additional oil.

China has already figured this out, because they are going to be drilling closer to our coast than we are. Let me repeat. There are leases right here off the coast of Cuba and they are leasing this land to China as I speak. So China will be drilling closer to the coast than we allow our own companies to drill, and that is why the American people are angry.

How we open a little bit more of Florida to protect what we need, I am going to leave that to my colleagues. I have some ideas, but there are others who probably have better ideas, but there is a possibility here. I think there is a lot of possibility in Alaska, and thank goodness that both Ted Stevens, the senior Senator from Alaska, and the junior Senator from Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, understand this and they know it. If we listen to them, they can help lead us to a way where we can get a great deal more oil out of Alaska. Now, it is going to take, because it is far away--Alaska is not part of the 48, as you can see here. There are distances that have to be crossed, pipelines that have to be laid, transportation infrastructure that can get this oil to where we need it.

Let me tell you where we need the oil. We need the oil in the Northeast. If we don't get them some before this winter, there are going to be people in the Northeast who cannot afford to heat their homes this winter. These prices have never been this high. It is a long way from here to here. The industry can do that, but it takes them a while. It would be a lot easier to get the oil right here, but politically, that seems to be a problem. So we could move it from the gulf to there; we could move it from Alaska to there, but it is going to take some time. We can also get more oil here.

The other part I should not forget to mention is you have different kinds of oil. There is sweet and it is light, and then there is heavy oil and harder to refine, and the refineries are having a hard time because Congress gives them no direction virtually whatsoever. They don't sometimes know what refineries to build, and I don't blame them, because we are so schizophrenic about it. So we now have refineries that only can refine a certain type of oil, and they take these big gambles, because Congress any day could wake up and say: Oh, we just decided we don't want that kind of oil. I have to learn a little bit more to talk more about it, but the general gist of it is that not only do you have to go get more oil from some places, we have to

make sure the refineries are there to be able to produce, but we can.

Now, that is enough on oil and gas, because for the next 5 minutes I wish to talk about not just producing more oil, which we obviously can, but we also have to conserve. I have to say that I have not been the best person on this issue, so I am going to apologize now, and then we are going to move--I am going to move on to say I will be happy to vote for even things that I wouldn't have considered in the past because I feel as though it is very important. We have to move our automobiles off of gasoline. We have to move them to fuels that we can produce, we can grow such as sugarcane, such as biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, and it can't just come from corn. We know we can do this because there are automobiles on the street today, there are just not enough of them because the mandate is not strong enough, and when you talk about demand, that is where the demand is. It is in fuels for our automobiles. There are electricity problems. There are power generation problems. However, the real stranglehold that our enemies have over us now, and OPEC has over us, is in the fuel sector.

So we have to do two things: We have to produce more fuel and we have to consume less. I hope our bipartisan energy bill will include some stronger mandates for our automobiles in some way that allows people to drive a big automobile if they want, but it can't consume a lot of gasoline. It can consume a lot of sugarcane, fuel made from sugarcane, or a lot of fuel made from something other than the corn itself, because that will drive up the price, but the technology is here and we can do it.

The bottom line is we don't have to be wimps anymore. We can be what America always has been in every generation: bold, strong, decisive. We can protect our people from losing their homes, their jobs, and their businesses, and their ranches, which the Presiding Officer would know something about since he comes from a family of ranchers, because that is what is happening right now. People are losing the American dream while we sit and twiddle our thumbs talking about everything else that doesn't have anything to do with the price of gasoline. Let me back up. That is an overstatement. Speculation does have something to do with it, but not the fundamentals. So let's get on with speculation; try to get speculation out of the market and then talk about some other things.

I am not going to put up any more posters tonight. I think that is enough for the night, but again, this is going to be a combination of expanding production, perhaps--I know there is an issue in the Presiding Officer's home State of oil shale. I am looking at him smiling because we will have this debate. I am learning a lot about that. There is a lot I don't know about the oil shale, which he does know about. I think there is some potential there. How we go about it, we will have to see. But I do know that there is a lot of oil and a lot of gas from traditional sources, but we have to let them find it, expedite the leases we already have, and make sure the infrastructure is there in this country to produce, and then move as rapidly as we can to new freedom fuels of the future, particularly in the areas of our automobiles.

I know the people of Louisiana are anxious for this debate. We are proud of the production we do. We are very happy that Congress gave us now a percentage of the oil and gas off of our shore, 37.5 percent that we are going to use wisely to secure our coasts and to build some additional infrastructure in our State. I know not every State has the same attitude that Texas and Louisiana and Mississippi have, and I don't expect that.

I don't expect that. That is too much to expect. We just have a tradition of it. We are happy to do it. But on the other hand, it is not fair for some States and some places to say they don't want to produce anything, and then expect the States of Wyoming and New Mexico on shore, and Louisiana and Texas to do all the production in this country. There are other places that can produce, and we most certainly need to do it. We owe it not just to our constituents today, but we owe it to future generations of this country to break the back of OPEC, put us on a path of independence, get these prices lower, and clean up our environment at the same time.

You can get to the place sometimes--well, the Presiding Officer has played baseball--when the bases are lined up and the lights in the stadium are on, it is a perfect time to hit it out of the ballpark. If we can get the right batter up, with the right pitch, we can hit this out of the ballpark.

We can do for the American people what they expect, which is to move beyond our comfort zone, from what we are used to, and do something that may actually make a difference in their lives.

Thank you so much.

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

Mr. President, I have a question. I have a question, if the Senator from New Hampshire would yield.

I understand I was put in order to speak after Senator Lugar. Could someone clarify the order we are speaking, please, because I most certainly do not mind waiting.

OK, Mr. President, then I will go ahead and take the floor, then. Thank you for recognizing me.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I would.

Mr. President, I would be more than happy to wait. I was given some other information, and I apologize to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Thank you, Mr. President.

High Gas Prices

Mr. President, I wanted to come to the floor to speak, actually, on a different subject, and I am very sorry that the wires got crossed about the debate that is on the floor because I know it is very important to try to pass this bill we are speaking about before we leave this week. But there is another issue that is very important to our constituents as well. That is the issue of high gas prices in America.

I know there are many people who are concerned on this Senate floor about our foreign policy and about contributions to foreign countries. I most certainly put myself in that category. But, in my view, there is nothing more important than energy policy right now in the United States--the prices people are paying at the pump--and the debate that is going on on this floor, in committees, and behind the scenes on energy. I most certainly had a great deal of conversation with my constituents when I was home over this past weekend.

In fact, in the time I have been back, I have spoken with Democrats and Republicans who have expressed very similar concerns, that the question most asked, the topic of most interest, is not about foreign aid, it is not even about the war in Iraq, although that is a very important point. The American people are interested and focused on energy prices: our consumers, our small businesses, our manufacturers, as well as our major industries, such as airlines and domestic manufacturing.

So I think it would be important for us to spend as much time as we can on the floor debating the issues that are

most important. I hope we can resolve the previous issue. Again, I apologize if I came to the floor too prematurely. But I do want to share a few thoughts about responding to some of the things that have been said by the Senator from New Jersey and the Senator from Washington State who spoke earlier this morning, and the Senator from New Mexico who was here an hour ago talking about the Republican proposals for energy.

I think while we fumble--and I do not think that is an inappropriate word at all because that is what is happening--as we fumble with not getting our energy price right in this country, the people are paying a premium at the pump. We have to stop fumbling this ball and try to make some strategic passes to move this ball down the field.

This is election-year politics at its worst. Our energy policy has fallen victim to a partisan stalemate. I hope we can, in the next couple of weeks, move forward together to a place that can immediately start reducing the price of gasoline. I think there are steps that can be taken to get quick results, and then most certainly steps that can be taken to reduce that price over time.

I believe also there are people of good will on both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, who realize we are in a place we have not been before in quite some time. That place is an economy that is in a very fragile circumstance right now based on extraordinarily historic high energy prices.

This economy was not built, this model was not built, to sustain these high prices. There is a European model--although the pain is significant in Europe--that can sustain it because they have some pressure point relief. They have mass transit. They have more sophisticated nuclear power. They have some other technologies that we have not. They can sustain something longer than we can. But we have to act.

I have been proud to be part, in the last few weeks, of a specific discussion that has five Democratic Members and five Republican Members--the Gang of 10. I have been part of these gangs before. I guess sometimes it is not good to be part of a gang, but in this case I think these are good gangs to belong to because these are gangs of 14 and gangs of 10 who are trying to help the Senate find its way.

I do not profess to have every answer. I do not even have every question. But I do know something about energy policy as a member of the Energy Committee for 10 years. And I do know a lot about our domestic production and what we are doing and what we are not doing and what we should be doing more of because I happen to represent a State that does a tremendous amount of production.

It is time for action, not for studies; for action, not for talk. On the floor of the Senate, as we continue to debate energy policy, I hope we can do more production and more conservation.

I want to put up a chart that I think is very illustrative of our situation. I want to say unequivocally as a Democrat that I think in many instances the Democratic Party has been wrong on the issue of production. I also want to say that I think the Republican Party has been in many instances wrong in their lack of aggressiveness on conservation.

Again, I am not saying I have been right on every one of these issues. There are votes I would like to take differently. No one is perfect in this policy. But fundamentally Democrats have not supported enough domestic production, and fundamentally Republicans have not supported enough conservation and new fuels. It has gotten us into more than a jam; it has gotten us into a lot of pain and a lot of unnecessary suffering.

There is much that can be done to move us forward, which is why our group has come together--five Democrats and five Republicans--to try to move both parties to the center for some sensible center solutions.

But I want for a few minutes to start with the facts about where we are drilling offshore and where we are not because there are so many charts that are brought to this floor and they are little pieces of the country or they are one little section to try to sway people one way or another. So I thought I would bring the whole enchilada--the whole enchilada.

As shown on this map, this is it. This is Canada--all of it--and the United States of America--all 50 States. There is no fudging here. I hope the camera can get a big look at this entire map of Canada and the United States--all 50 States.

If you notice, the area in blue is all of the area of the congressionally mandated and--up until 1 o'clock yesterday-- Presidentially mandated moratoria. The entire coast of the United States of America: off limits to drilling, off limits to exploration, of what might actually be there.

So if anyone comes to this floor and says they know what is underneath these blue sections, I am going to stand here until they have to admit they don't, because they do not. No one can know. I don't know; the Energy Department doesn't know because there has never been an inventory conducted on one inch of this blue space, except for the purple right here. Even though some of us have been trying literally for decades to get an inventory, which has been put in the energy bills--as my colleagues know, every 10 years or so we manage to get one; it takes a lot of pain and suffering on the Senate floor to get any kind of energy bill, but every 10 years we are lucky enough to get one--there is an inventory provision in the bill, but it gets taken out, by Democrats primarily and some Republicans, who don't want to have an inventory because they don't even want to think about domestic drilling off their shores.

Then in the last energy bill we kept the inventory provision. However, I wish to announce on this Senate floor right now--and I am sorry I don't have the language, that the inventory was conducted--the inventory was conducted, but we would not allow the use of seismic equipment.

I will be finished in a minute. I see the leader here. I am going to wrap up in 30 seconds because I know he has an important announcement to make. It would be like saying to a doctor: Go find the cancer, but you can't do a biopsy and you can't have a microscope. You cannot search for oil and gas without using seismic methods. So the fact is-- and I am going to conclude, because I know the leader is here and I am going to wait until he finishes what he has to say for me to finish-- but no one in America would know what is here because we have never looked. I have other chapters to this speech, but I see the leader is here so I am going to stop.

I thank the Chair.

Unanimous Consent Agreement--H.R. 6331

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes, and then I will be happy to yield the floor.

So, Mr. President, to continue, the case is and the facts are--and anybody here who wants to actually know the facts, let me repeat again: There is no one who can tell us--not an oil executive, not a bureaucrat--excuse me, not even a government official under a Republican or Democratic administration--who could say with certainty what might be here because there has simply not been enough exploration. There have been scattered seismics taken back in the 1960s and 1970s, but as a general rule.

Now, this is going to be hard for the American people to understand or believe is true, but I am saying it is true and I can give them the information.

You see these yellow and red sections right here off of our coast? This is Canada here, this is Cuba right here, and this is Canadian. This is where Canada is drilling offshore, which is actually closer to the Maine coast than we will allow drilling off of the Maine coast. This is offshore Canadian production and exploration. That is underway now off the shore, because Canada knows what the United States doesn't know, which is that offshore oil and gas drilling can be done in a responsible way that protects the pristine coastlines, that protects the environment, because our technology has so greatly improved since the 1940s. It is sort of like being stuck in the space program and saying we couldn't possibly go to space because we don't have the technology. We have developed the technology. We can go into deep areas and do it safely.

I know the Presiding Officer has not generally been a supporter of drilling off of his coast, and I am very respectful of that position, as well as many other Senators. The good news is we don't have to drill off of every coast. We have a big coastline here. We don't have to drill off of every part, but the secret or the smart approach is to try to identify maybe 10--not 100; maybe 10, maybe 5, but something more than zero--to begin looking for places to drill for oil and gas. Cuba is going to be leasing land closer to Florida for China to drill on very shortly; closer than America is going to be allowing us to drill off the coast of Florida. When Americans are paying $5 at the pump, that is going to be very hard to explain to them, how China is coming to waters closer to Florida to get oil for its people and our Congress will not allow us to get some of this oil to replenish the supply.

If anyone wants to come to the floor and debate with me that production doesn't matter, that supply and demand have no place here, then I am looking forward to that debate. I don't hold myself out to be an expert on markets, but trying to convince people that supply and demand is not operative here is like trying to explain to our voters that gravity doesn't exist. They don't buy it. They are not going to buy it. You could tell it to them 100 years long and they are not going to buy it because it is not true and they gut-check know it. It absolutely has an impact, supply and demand, and we don't have enough supply.

Now, can we absolutely drill our way out of this? The answer is no. We cannot drill our way out, but we can drill more, we can drill more safely, and we can in some places drill rather quickly--not in all places. I am going to show my colleagues where we can drill more quickly to have an impact. We must also, as we gear up to do that, put our foot on the accelerator on conservation, because we have been slow in that area. We have done a lot of studies. It is like going to the tip of the water and before you dive in, we have been dabbling our toe in the water. We have to jump in on conservation, and I think we can do it.

I see the Senator from Indiana. Let me wrap up in 1 minute.

I wish to show in Louisiana where a lot of our gas and oil is coming from. We know a lot about this because we have been drilling there for 40, 50 years. When my colleagues come to the floor--this is what I am showing, which is pretty dramatic. This is the infrastructure necessary to produce oil and gas. Each of these pink dots is an oil well; the blue represents pipelines. Quickly, in Louisiana and Texas we permit for the drilling of oil and gas. We permit for these pipelines and we do it very quickly. All day long we lay these pipelines and we drill for oil. In other States when you try to go do this, States that aren't used to this, it takes them so long because the infrastructure is not there. I understand that.

So as a result, this is the only place we are basically getting our gas--from Louisiana. Lucky for us, because a lot of it goes to the Northeast. We send a lot of our oil and gas to the Northeast. We know the prices are high there, but we are sending about as much as we can. We can send more, but it takes infrastructure. So when people say to me--and I will wrap up with this--it doesn't matter if you open drilling, you can't get the oil in 30 days or 60 days, that is true, because it takes wells, it takes pipelines, it takes trucks, it takes concrete. The oil does not jump out and into people's automobiles, but you can lay this infrastructure, you can lay these pipelines, and you can do it safely. We made a lot of mistakes doing this, and so did Texas, but the good news is we are learning from our mistakes and we know how to do it better and we know how to do it more safely, and we can.

I am not going to take up any more of my colleagues' time because everybody has other issues to discuss as well, but I am going to come back every day as this debate goes forward and talk about the truth about production and what is actually being produced in this country and how much more can be produced, as well as pushing the conservation side, which most certainly has to be done to get our supply up and our demand down. I think this is a crucial issue, not only in this reelection, but for the future of the country.

Mr. President, I thank you for your courtesy.