Floor Statements

Mr. President, during the previous session I introduced legislation to address the funding of Indian water rights claims that are of utmost importance in the west, and in particular, within the State of New Mexico. Since that time many parties have met for countless hours in New Mexico and here in Washington to address how these claims could be resolved and finally settled. Rather than spend countless hours in litigation, these groups have sat down and worked through these issues in a very productive manner.

As a result, today I am pleased to come before you to introduce, on behalf of myself and Senator Bingaman, the Aamodt and Taos Pueblo Indian Water Rights Settlement Act of 2008. This legislation will resolve these long-standing Indian water rights claims within New Mexico and authorize a source of Federal funding to resolve them.

The Aamodt litigation in New Mexico was filed in 1966 and is the longest-standing litigation in the Federal judiciary system. The hard work that each party put into the settlement process demonstrates that negotiated settlements, with multiple parties working together, can best determine how to allocate scarce water supplies among diverse parties in a way that does not curtail existing uses. This bill will result in additional economic development and improved health benefits within these communities.

The resolution of these claims will not only improve the lives of many within these communities by providing a safe and reliable water supply, but will also improve the ability of New Mexico to effectively undertake water rights planning in the near and long-term future.

As I have stated before, the costs of not settling these claims in New Mexico are dire. The legislation before us will ensure that our obligations to these communities are met and that they will have safe and reliable water systems.

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 introduce a resolution to recognize the achievement of a major scientific milestone by two great American institutions--Los Alamos National Laboratory and IBM--to build the first supercomputer to break the ``petaflop'' barrier in supercomputing. A petaflop is a million, billion calculations per second. Think of that--a million, billion calculations in a second. If every human being on the planet were given a calculator it would take 50 years to do what this supercomputer can do in a single day.

This supercomputer is called the ``Roadrunner'' and was developed cooperatively by the Los Alamos National Laboratory and IBM--two American institutions which have a long and prestigious history in delivering major technological breakthroughs for the Nation.

The Roadrunner is the fastest computer in the world. It more than doubles the previous record. We can be very proud this achievement for American science and technology. It highlights the essential role our national laboratories play in advancing the state of the art for high performance computing--a vital component of our national security and scientific leadership.

Every year, computing power increases at a pace set by America's national laboratories. From developing advanced computing architectures and algorithms, to creating effective means for storing and viewing the enormous amounts of data generated by these machines, the laboratories have made high performance computing a reality.

These applications go well beyond security and basic science. The laboratories have worked hard to transition these capabilities to academia and industry, simulating complex industrial processes and their environmental impact, including global climate change.

Collaborations with the private sector have also driven down the cost, so that now high performance does not mean high expense. This has had an enormous impact, placing advanced computing within reach of an ever wider circle of users.

These achievements did not happen by accident. They required planning, commitment and follow through. Indeed, the Roadrunner began as an earmark in the fiscal year 2006 appropriations bill. Congress must ensure that the world class simulation capabilities within the complex are maintained and investments are made to drive future innovation.

We must continue to raise the bar, giving our best and brightest new goals to work toward, ensuring that America will retain its technical leadership in advanced computing.

I hope my colleagues will join me in recognizing Los Alamos National Laboratory and IBM for reaching yet another milestone in supercomputing.

In particular, I want to commend the members of the Roadrunner team.

From Los Alamos: Sriram Swaninarayan, Paul Henning, Adolfy Hoisie, Guy Dimonte, Darren Kerbyson, Brian Albright, Tim Germann, Ben Bergen, Ken Koch, Manuel Vigil, Randal Rheinheimer, Parks Fields, John Cerutti.

From IBM: Nicholas Donofrio, Cornell Wright, William Zeitler, David Turek, Don Grice, and Catherine Crawford.

Participants from academia included Steven Zuker of Yale University and James DiCarlo from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Congratulations on a job well done.

Top 10 Fastest Supercomputers in the World (June 2008).

Name, Location, Speed (TFlop/s).

1. Roadrunner (IBM), Los Alamos, NM (NNSA), 1026.0.

2. Blue Gene/L (IBM), Livermore, CA (NNSA), 478.2.

3. Blue Gene/P (IBM), Argonne, IL (DOE), 450.3.

4. Ranger (Sun), Univ. of Texas, TX, 326.0.

5. Jaguar (Cray), Oak Ridge, TN (DOE), 205.0.

6. JUGENE (IBM), Juelich, Germany, 180.0.

7. Encanto (SGI), NMCAC, NM, 133.2.

8. EKA (HP), TATA SONS, India, 132.8.

9. Blue Gene/P (IBM), IDRIS, France, 112.5.

10. SGI Altix ICE (SGI), Total Exploration, France, 106.1.

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

Parliamentary inquiry: Am I correct in assuming that I have 20 minutes?

Mr. President, I understand that time is allotted to the two Senators, the senior Senator from Tennessee and Senator Pete Domenici, the old man who is leaving the Senate soon.

I wish to tell the Senator from Tennessee, our new chairman of our Republican conference, what a great job

he has done as we have considered whether we should produce more oil for Americans from American-owned resources. That has been an exciting 8\1/2\ days. What disturbs the Senator from New Mexico is, even with the explanations the Senator from Tennessee and others have made, people the Senator has read about, the things he told us about in terms of what we ought to be finding and saving, we ought to be producing and conserving, and we ought to use our own resources, we have not been able to get meaningful amendments offered in the Senate to have a vote.

I have come to the conclusion that there are some--perhaps more than I ever imagined--Democrats on the other side of the aisle who don't want to produce more American oil. I really didn't think that was possible, but I have come to that conclusion. I am not saying everybody. There are some who are working very hard on new ideas on how we can produce. But I believe the majority leader has been bugged, bothered, and pursued by those who don't want to let a vote because they don't want to produce any oil on the offshores of America even though there is a lot of it there and it belongs to us.

Having said that, I wonder if the Senator will have a comment about statements that have been made by a couple of Democrats on the other side of the aisle who have said that there are Republicans who just want to drill, that is all they want to do, is drill for more oil. Do you know of any Republicans--you know the Republicans pretty well; that is why you have your job as chairman--do you know of any Republicans whose concern is nothing other than we drill for more oil?

I thank the Chair.

Yes.

Yes.

I thank the Senator for the answer, and I want to repeat that supply and demand clearly is what affects the price. The truth is, anyone who thinks we don't have to use oil for a significant amount of time--I mean import it--is just not taking into consideration the reality that what we use most of this oil for is cars and trucks and airplanes and the like, and we just can't make a change overnight.

The Senator just mentioned one great way to lessen that, and Austin has a well-planned idea that would take 15 to 20 years to do half, to get rid of half of the automobiles and substitute electric cars. But what are you going to do during the 15 years or 20? You are going to use cars, today at least, using crude oil. You are going to use gasoline.

You bet. Just so we make it clear, if there are Members of the Senate who don't want to let a vote occur on producing more oil because they don't think we need to produce more oil--and I can't imagine why, but some people just say no more carbon; some people say no more oil--they have to understand that we are going to be buying more oil whether we like it or not, unless we just stop driving or shut down America. It is going to continue to bleed us dry.

So we didn't come down here after our majority leader offered an amendment, an amendment that he has been saying had an impact on the price of oil, if you can imagine that. It was an oil speculation bill. As we continue

this debate, the majority leader's solution to an enormous energy crisis facing our Nation--and earlier today the majority leader gave a speech. I don't know if the Senator heard it. In that speech he said many things, but one of the things he said is that oil prices are going down because the Senate is debating--debating--oil speculation.

Now, the Senator from Tennessee and I really work hard at legislating because we think legislation can have an impact. But on such a big world problem, to think that on oil supply and demand that you could come to the floor of the Senate and say in a credible manner that the price of oil has come down because a bill was introduced--and the bill was the speculation bill--you know, people haven't gone to sleep. The speculation bill has been written about, and the best thinkers have said: First, you don't need one; and, second, this one would not do anything.

I want to also say, Mr. President, I think some of us who work hard in the energy field know why the price of oil has dropped a little.

First, those of us who have worked at it are concerned about the supply and demand problem because we entered an era for a short time when, obviously, there was no more new supply on hand and the demand was growing. And guess what happened. The United States, the American people, not because we passed a lot of laws but because they felt the price of oil in their pocketbooks, changed the way they behaved, and as a result they saved enormous amounts of crude oil. We estimate right now that U.S. demand has been decreased by 4.3 percent, and that is about 1 million barrels a day.

When the Senator just spoke a minute ago, he was right. He gave the numbers, and 5 percent of that number would have been 1, and that is what we are at--1 million barrels. That came down. That lessened the demand, the world economy had some problems, less money was spent, and the demand came down. That was supply and demand working at its best.

You bet.

Well, if you say just coming up with the idea would do it, then I would say no, the Senator is not right. But if we were to have done that, and it was a matter of law in America that we were going to find more because it was there--you know, Americans are pretty good at drilling. Americans don't mind using the word ``drill.'' They have told us now in the polls, in answer to the question, that they are, by 75 percent, for more drilling if it is on property we own. In fact, offshore has been the answer. So they want us to find more, and they also want to use less.

It is obvious that if we would have passed that--and anybody who says we could not have because we didn't have time is just trying to pull the wool over the eyes of Americans. How many days would it take to do that if we had the will and we were given 7 days and we made a deal? We can't make a deal on anything else, but if we made one and we were going to have 7 days to debate this bill, amendments come as they may-- take down the thing that the majority leader put up there because he didn't want us to vote--7 full days of debate--we could have produced a bill that would have opened the offshore permanently, except for the 15 percent that is already open, and we would have adopted the use less, find more provisions you have so eloquently brought to us from some of your experts, the experts you talked to, some of them at your National Laboratories.

Just think, after we passed that and had a signing ceremony at the White House to say: Here is what we have done, Americans. You are saving on your own, so you are using less, and we really think that is great, but we think there is still danger the price will go up, so we want to find more to keep it down--we are having the ceremony where we are celebrating both.

You bet.

You were here, and we got three energy bills through. People think we did nothing, but we did. We had a 6-year span here where we did a lot for energy. We changed the CAFE standards for cars. What is that going to do? Use less.

And we did it with just one other item. It certainly didn't take as long as we have been down here talking instead of offering amendments--because we could not. We passed it, and there it is. Everyone knows it is great.

People are telling us: Don't worry about the offshore, it takes 10 or 15 years. Do you know what they told us about the ``use less'' provision that is so important, called new CAFE standards for American automobile fleets, all our cars? They told us that will not be totally effective for 20 years. The curve goes like this: you start--you don't save any, you don't save any, and then in the 15th and 20th years, you start to finally save.

Should we not have done it because it takes a long time to take effect? Of course not. We were told to get started on it because, as you said, it is the single biggest way to save gasoline and diesel fuel that anybody knows of.

Sure.

I want to talk to the Senator for a minute about whether we are capable of doing big things that affect the energy field. We had a chance here in the last 7 to 10 days to do something rather big. But do you know what we did 4 years ago? I was fortunate. I left the Budget Committee, where I was chairing--it seemed as though I was, at the pleasure of the Republicans, running that thing for so long, they never wanted me to step down. I finally got tired of it, and I took the Energy Committee. The first bill we passed addressed an issue that is part of this ``find more.'' It addressed the issue of why we did not build a nuclear powerplant for 27 years. We answered it in that legislation, didn't we?

Do you know how many applications there were when we passed that legislation, for all America? Zero. That meant something was awry.

We had not built any. You have to apply, and so you go there and look and you see whether there are any applications. As of today--I just got a briefing--do you know how many full-blown applications there are to build, locate, and design? You can put all that in one now. It takes a long time--4 years after you have done it. Sixteen American companies or consortia of companies, even though it takes a long time and they are going to have to have their money at risk for a long time, put their applications in and said: I want to get in line because I want to build, I want to find more energy.

We are really grateful; for once, we have one where we don't have to argue about pollution, right?

So, you see, when there is a will, there is a way. The problem is, there was no will on the part of the Democratic leader--and perhaps some behind him. I am not going to say all of them, but surely they didn't express any dissatisfaction with what was going on until, at the end, we started feeling there was some rumbling going on. Maybe they had some friction. But nobody over on that side seemed to be saying to their leader: We want to get busy here and have some votes. There was not a will, so you can't do it. You couldn't change nuclear power without a will.

In that same bill we were referring to, we changed a lot of things. I wanted to tell you, one thing you have been interested in is the electric grid because you are concerned about how we are going to get the electrical power when we cannot build powerplants. Certainly, it takes a long time to use this nuclear one as the way. It takes a long time. You can build coal fastest, but there are a lot of problems with EPA and others on that, right? Then you can build natural gas. That is pretty much--you and I look upon that as Senators and say: Yes, you can do it, but it sure is risky because we need that natural gas so badly. But that is the only way they built them in the last few years. That bothers you, right? Doesn't it? Aren't you worried about that?

I would think, if we could start using these words--we need a bridge to the future--and then we got together and thought about that and then said, What is that? Remember a while ago I told you how long it would take in the city of Austin before you would get all those cars that are using oil off the streets?

Half of them. And then all the other things we talked about, CAFE, how long it would take going up and then start down--that applies to so many things in America that the truth is we are not going to be in a position to look to new, brand new generation of energy to move cars and trucks. We can't do that for a decade. So there is a bridge taking place, a bridge from now until we do not need oil any longer. But what does the bridge consist of? It is oil. Oil is the bridge between now and the time we do not use oil.

I regret to tell you, for anyone who thinks there is no bridge--it just comes to me now--then they can walk into a canyon and drown in the water underground that is running there because they didn't walk on a bridge and they drowned themselves. I do not want to drown our country. I want to find new oil so the bridge will be less somebody else's and more ours.

I understand the Chair tells us we are out of time. We will behave very well. Thank you very much.

I yield the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President. I rise to talk about the subject that has to do with the energy legislation that has been pending before the Senate for I think 9\1/2\ days. I wish we would have had votes before this time because it is one of the most important, if not the most important, issues confronting the American people. I am going to speak about one of the amendments the majority has to offer with reference to the Energy bill.

First, I wish to say I have no doubt that both sides of the aisle-- because we do know what the public is thinking, so I would think both sides do know the public has changed its mind dramatically about drilling for American oil. It wasn't too long ago that you were afraid to use the word ``drill.'' You had to use the word ``explore'' because drilling had a bad connotation. But when the American people got around to thinking about this idea that if we had more oil available and the world knew it and it was American and we could develop it, they knew that would require drilling. No matter how sophisticated the drilling has become with these giant offshore drilling pads which, if anybody had a chance to see one, such as I have, you would see what we can do hundreds of miles underwater, without any degradation of the environment, and how men can go to work with that equipment and build these giant facilities, where people can sleep while they maintain them.

Underground, they can drill 10, 12, even 14 wells, and they all get piped into 1 pipe, and there isn't any seepage. When we had the great hurricane, they showed pictures of the pipes underground moving with the current but not breaking. That is what is going to happen under the ground off the coast--producing billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. It belongs to us. Eighty-five percent of our coast is now closed.

We can speak about the fact we are already producing and already leasing, but 85 percent is not leased. Whatever is being talked about, saying that leases are there and not producing--I don't have enough time today, but I am going to explain why one of the amendments the majority has that talks about producing doesn't produce anything because it is supposedly one of these amendments that talks about drilling--drill it or lose it. That is already governed by a ``drill it or lose it'' condition in every lease. So nobody is out there operating with leases they are not using, because if they do, they lose them. They paid big money to get them so they can go down there and produce energy for us.

I rise to speak on the status of the debate on this bill and on an amendment the majority has put forth under the pretext of increasing our energy supply. That is what we have been talking about--increasing our energy supply. For the most part, all the amendments we have talked about wanting to offer are increasing our energy supply. The current energy crisis is derived from many factors, but the bill the majority leader has called up attempts to deal with only one of them: speculation. There is no question that speculation is not the whole problem. In fact, four of the most prominent leaders we have in matters economic and matters that pertain to securities and matters that pertain to such things as speculation have indicated the oil and gas prices are not driven by that but, rather, by supply and demand.

As I have said before, never in my 36 years in the Senate have I seen a problem so big met with a proposed solution by the majority leader that is so

small. Speculation is adding to the severity of our energy crisis, but without question, an imbalance between supply and demand is at the root of the problems we face.

The Republican caucus has proposed a number of solutions that measure up to the present challenge. Despite this, as we begin the eighth day of debate on this bill, we have not had a single substantive vote on it. The American people certainly deserve better, and we ought to be able to come up with something better. But that is the way the process is--7 or 8 days without voting on an amendment. For most of that time, the contention was that we could offer amendments. The truth is we could not because we would have had to withdraw some amendments the majority leader had offered, and certainly he would not have relished that.

For the past week, the other side of the aisle has told the American people to believe that Republicans are up to no good, and we are obstructing progress. The truth is we merely want to complete the work our constituents sent us here to do.

We know what Republican amendments seek to do. My legislation was introduced more than 12 weeks ago, and the Republican leader's bill was filed nearly 5 weeks ago. The Republican proposals clearly answer the question of how to produce more energy here at home while, at the same time, reducing the amount we consume. Our motto has been abundantly clear: find more and use less. We will, perhaps, be voting and giving everybody in this body an approach to do that. I hope when we make such agreement, we will have a clear opportunity to have votes on that kind of proposition.

What has been less clear, outside of the speculation-only bill now pending, is what exactly the Democrats are willing to do to reduce the energy prices. Despite stalling progress on a real energy bill, the other side has realized they must at least appear to support greater domestic production of energy. So late last week, 14 Democratic Senators introduced their own version of the Republican plan to find more and use less.

Now, finally, the text of that amendment is public. However, we know it falls short of its own goals. Gone from it are the windfall profits tax, price-gouging, and NOPEC provisions that were soundly discredited by energy experts and editorial pages of all ideological stripes. They were part of what was being tendered by the majority. They are gone from the proposal that 14 Senators from the other side of the aisle have offered.

In their place is a bill that would still bring no new energy to market. It does not open any new areas to exploration--or shall I say drilling? By increasing the fees applied to leases and preproduction requirements, it could actually drive up the cost of energy and lengthen the time it takes to get that energy to market. It would delay the development of one of America's most abundant energy reserves and increase our vulnerability to an interruption in oil supply.

In short, the majority party's new ``production'' proposal contains far more problems than it does solutions. It will not lower prices at the pump, it will not reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and it will not help resolve our energy crisis. That is the amendment that has been touted by Senator Bingaman and about 12 or 13 other Senators. Our dependence upon foreign oil will in no way be ameliorated, and it will not help resolve our energy crisis.

It is worth taking time on the floor to examine the substance of the proposal. The amendment is No. 5135, and it claims to address a number of so-called supply side issues, including lease duration, lease rentals, lease sales, resource estimates, the Roan Plateau, and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

I would like to take a few moments to address these issues.

On the duration of leases, the amendment shortens the amount of available time to complete all the activity leading up to and including drilling for oil and natural gas. This approach would fail to increase supply for several different reasons. It ignores the reason why it takes so much time to get a lease into production in the first place. Oil companies are not just wasting time, they are mandated to use up that time. It actually adds to the central cause of those delays by creating new bureaucratic requirements for writing ``diligent development plans.'' In other words, all they are doing and all they plan to do and all this wonderful work offshore that is out there, no thanks to the Congress and the President, because we kept most of it closed--85 percent is still closed--but within that 15 percent you see terrific development and tremendous facilities. They are following rules. If you had them in a witness room and asked them what rules they are following, they would explain to you it takes a long time to go from the bid day--the day you get that lease--until you can actually drill. They do everything possible to expedite, but some of the reasons for delay they can do nothing about; they follow the rules. There are environmental rules--sometimes duplicated, but they are there. This amendment I am speaking of, in an effort to say we are going to get more and squeeze more out of what is there, I imagine these people who own it at $1.35 are not interested in squeezing out the oil for America. They are interested in lollygagging. They paid money for the lease and they have money invested, but they are not in a hurry. So we have to pass a new diligent development plan requirement.

There are already as many as 39 permits, documents, and analyses that have to be done in the development of a lease. It is unclear how adding the 40th step will move the process any faster.

Next, the amendment seeks to increase rental fees that leaseholders pay to occupy Federal land. The increased fees that have been proposed would discourage companies from bidding on and subsequently exploring leases that contain marginally attractive lands. Increasing the cost of doing business is not the answer. Once you think about it, most Senators overwhelmingly will agree that we don't need to add to the fees. We don't need to add to the regulatory requirements. We need the opposite if we want more production.

The leader on the other side has an amendment that also attempts to alter the frequency of lease sales. This is appealing in principle, but as drafted the amendment merely pretends to speed up a process for areas where lease sales are already scheduled to take place or where lease sales have already been held without any interest from industry. In effect, this bill is attempting to take credit for something that was going to happen anyway or, worse, has already occurred without success.

What the amendment does not do is open any new areas to leasing, which is the fundamental change that is so desperately needed in our management of Federal lands. Energy companies should not be forced to drill when and where it is politically convenient; they should be allowed to drill where resources are most concentrated and when conditions most warrant their development.

Something of a pattern is becoming evidence here. And not surprisingly, it carries over to the so-called resource estimate--more new words and new bureaucracy--called for by this amendment. Predictably, the inventory contemplated by this amendment is only for areas that are already leased or are already open for lease sale.

Instead of conducting an estimate of the resources within already open areas and already existing leases, we should authorize a full inventory of the Nation's entire resource potential, including areas that have historically been kept off-limits. Only then can Congress make an informed decision. We must fully understand what our past energy policies have kept off-limits and how those resources could be used to meet our future needs. Again, the Democratic amendment avoids this very pressing task.

Another troublesome provision is the amendment's proposed swap of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The sponsors would have 70 million barrels of light sweet crude--that is a specific type of oil that is very expensive and very versatile--they would have that released within 180 days and not replace it with fuel until as many as 5 years have gone. So had the Energy Committee not cancelled a hearing on this very topic last week, we might know if this proposal makes any sense at all. I suspect it does not.

Having watched the price of oil climb by $20 a barrel from around $127 to a

high of $147--and we are all grateful it has come down a little bit after deliveries of the SPR were suspended--it is highly unlikely that a short-term release of oil will reduce oil prices over any sort of time horizon.

I urge my colleagues to remember the purpose of SPR is to provide oil in the event of a supply disruption, not in the event of a price increase. In the event of an emergency, enactment of this provision would reduce our ability to cover import losses from 58 days to 52. Just imagine, the American people should know with all the troubles in the Middle East and the straits, with boats loaded with crude oil, many soon to be laden with natural gas, where they can pass--look at the danger that is there. Look at America's future in terms of what might happen there. Look at what might happen accidentally, much less intentionally.

We only have 58 days of Strategic Petroleum Reserve oil in the repository underground that we could use. The American people ought to be grateful--and I think they are--that we did this. We have 58 days to pump out that oil and use it if we are in one of these problems that could come about from an oil shortage on the world market because of accidents, war, conflagration, or the like.

The other side would take that and say: Let's take 6 days of that reserve and put that oil out for sale and that might lower the price of oil on the market and thus lower the price of gasoline. Anybody who sees that--we will show them the numbers later what that means--will know that is not producing a new source of oil, drilling for it or exploring it. It is nothing but a short-term use of our petroleum reserves for price reasons when it should never be used for that, and it won't work anyway.

The amendment has many other shortcomings. The most damaging provision to our energy security deals with the Roan Plateau in Colorado.

The way the language is drafted speaks for itself.

On page 26:

The Secretary shall include in any mineral lease . . . a

stipulation prohibiting surface occupancy or surface

disturbance for purposes of exploration for or development of

oil and natural gas.

On page 29:

The Secretary may not permit through a lease or other means

any exploration for or development of oil shale resources.

And then on page 30:

The Secretary may not at any time issue mineral leases on

public land within more than one of the phased development

areas.

These restrictions are somehow fit for inclusion, even after a finding on page 20 which asserts that ``the Roan Plateau Planning Area likely contains significant energy resources.''

Why were these provisions included in a title called ``Oil Supply and Management''? A plain reading of this language clearly demonstrates that it is the sponsors' desire to manage that plateau in such a way that its abundant energy resources will never be produced. In short, this is a production amendment which prohibits production.

What my colleagues across the aisle don't want you to know is that a lease sale including parcels on the Roan Plateau is scheduled for August 14, a little over 2 weeks from now. If this section were enacted into law, it would likely require the land use plan or the entire area to be redone, generally taking 2 to 3 years or more.

Let us not forget that the current plan for the Roan Plateau took 9 years to develop and that this provision could require that the process begin again from scratch and will eliminate any revenue from the coming August 14 lease sale which is already assumed in the budget at $100 million.

For all the shortcomings in this amendment, most revealing are the measures not included in it. There is no repeal of the restriction on regulations for commercial oil shale leasing. The other side has decided to stand by a ban that they imposed last year on that resource. There is no lifting of the congressional moratorium on the development of deep sea energy resources, despite the President already taking action to do so.

There is no mention of our Nation's vast domestic coal reserves which could be used to provide secure, affordable energy for decades to come.

And there is no repeal of section 526 which impairs the Defense Department's efforts to develop resources of alternative domestic fuel.

Taken altogether, this amendment and the underlying speculation-only bill that is before the Senate suggests that the majority is content to move on without having done anything to address the energy crisis. Nothing. We were faced with an effort to proceed to another matter this past weekend, and the Senate rightly voted to reject it.

Yesterday afternoon, we were again faced with another attempt by the majority to change the topic from what we were on to another topic. Again, the Senate rightly defeated that effort. I hope we continue to defeat efforts to move away from the No. 1 domestic issue facing the American people.

This issue deserves our undivided attention. There is nothing to be afraid of. We have ample time to write a good bill that makes real progress and provides real relief at the pump for the American people.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to just ask a question.

While my leader, the Republican leader, is here on the floor, I had thought that I was going to speak for 5 minutes following you, but I understand that our side will only have 15 minutes.

You want him to have? That is fine with me. I will speak afterward.

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: What is the order on the floor? Have we agreed on time? And I think there is some order for speeches.

Who is to speak next on the rotation?

Would the Senator from Maryland wish to speak now?

Then I will take our 7 minutes now.

Mr. President, I have some remarks I think are very pertinent to what is going on in the Senate regarding energy for the American people. I wish to have answered a couple of the statements the Democratic whip stated regarding these amendments. I don't have time now, but I will soon.

Suffice it to say we don't have a chance to offer amendments. Anybody who says the Republicans are free and open and have an opportunity to offer amendments is not reading the Record. The majority leader has fixed it so we can't. I rise to speak about a great amendment for the American people that will be pushed aside because the majority leader has short-circuited the so-called Energy bill. This amendment gets at the heart of what we have been saying we need to do: Find more, use less.

Republicans believe we have a supply-and-demand imbalance, and the amendment I speak about this morning attacks the core of the problem. Republicans want to act on the No. 1 issue facing the American people. We want to act now. We have a great quantity of American resources on the Atlantic and Pacific offshore coasts, and so the first part of the Coleman-Domenici amendment--which we would have sent to the desk, and it could have been pending and we could vote on it, but it is out of order because the majority leader has seen to it that it is out of order. This Coleman-Domenici amendment would have allowed coastal States in those areas to open the waters within their offshore boundaries for leasing 50 miles out. Fifty miles out could not do damage to the sea, the shores, or to the coastal areas the people want to use for their daily lives. You could not even see the activity 50 miles out.

The States would receive 37.5 percent of the revenues from this production, which could mean literally billions of dollars. When we passed the Gulf of Mexico Security Act of 2006, we opened deep sea areas containing more than 1.25 billion barrels of oil and nearly 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This will provide domestic energy for millions of Americans, and it is roughly estimated to provide up to $400 million for the Gulf Coast States over the next 10 years, and tens of billions of dollars over the coming decade. When the Atlantic and Pacific States see this money rolling into these coastal States, they will be clamoring for more energy, more revenues, and for the good- paying jobs this great energy enterprise will bring.

Our amendment is clearly a positive on several fronts. The American resources on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts contain 14 billion barrels, at a minimum. I say ``a minimum'' because we have not been prudent enough, I say to fellow Senators, to spend money to inventory it in an appropriate way--the coastal planes areas--to see how much is there. We know there is a lot. But the estimates are old estimates and, in every case, these old estimates have been very many times wrong. We have had much more in resources than the old estimate would indicate. Now, the 14 billion barrels is more than we have imported from the Persian Gulf over the last 15 years. If people wonder if there is any oil, it is 15 years of importation from the Persian Gulf will be found in these offshore waters. That is a minimum. That is the old estimate, which was done decades ago under old technology.

That is why I have also filed an amendment that provides $500 million in funding to pay for a real inventory of our national resources offshore. The American people could hardly believe that we are in 2008 with modern technology and we don't know how much oil and natural gas is ours, belongs to our people, which we could use. We don't even know; we haven't bothered to find out.

A few months ago, the people of Brazil set out to explore and develop their own coastal resources. Like us, they knew they had oil offshore. Like us, they didn't know exactly how much. Well, in April, one company started drilling from exploratory wells in a deep water area off of the coast of Rio de Janeiro. To their surprise, they found as much as 33 billion barrels of potentially recoverable oil. Just like that, overnight, Brazil took control of its energy dependence by finding 33 billion barrels of oil. In the words of one of the great energy experts, Daniel Yergin, who I am proud to say is a friend:

Five or six years ago, nobody really thought there was a

huge supply off of

Brazil. Now people are saying this could be as big as the

North Sea.

To put that quotation into perspective, the North Sea has provided as much as 6 million barrels per day at its peak. Perhaps our amendment could do the same for our people. But we may never know because the majority leader refuses to address the most important issue in America in a serious way. For some reason I can't understand, there remain a number of Democrats--

I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute to finish.

Surely.

Mr. President, the second part of the amendment addresses the issue of using less. We have all heard about electric cars, and we know if we can get these batteries up to where they will do 100 miles before they need to be recharged, we will have electric batteries sprouting up all over America. That will save crude oil. Without a doubt, we will have established an excellent approach to America's energy future.

All we need is for our majority leader--he belongs to the Senate--to be fair and let the Republicans have a vote on behalf of America. Why do they fear votes in this regard?

I yield the floor and thank the Senate.

Before the Senator sits down, might I ask a question.

I wanted to ask the Senator from South Dakota about his speech. You just got finished telling the American people what you would like to do on the bill, if that bill were present now and we were debating it, the bill they have been talking about, the speculation bill. You have been saying this is what you would do. A little while ago, the majority leader told the American people: You all could offer amendments on nuclear, on offshore. It seems to me he said that, and you are talking as if that is wrong, that we couldn't offer amendments.

Could you explain why you feel the way you do and why it would appear that what he said is not true when compared with the way you are reacting? You are a good Senator. The way you are reacting, it seems as if what the majority leader said is untrue.

Well, Mr. President, let me say to my good friend from Tennessee, first, what a pleasure it is to serve with him. I am sorry we have not served together the last 2 years on the Energy Committee because the Senator moved--after we got the big Energy bill through, and to his State's benefit--to the Appropriations Committee. I still get to work with the Senator there.

I say to the Senator, let's see if we can put it into focus. American people, I hope you have been watching for about 30 minutes or 40. Because if you go back about 40 minutes or 45 minutes, you will see somebody standing over there. His name is Harry Reid. He is from Nevada. He is the majority leader.

You would have heard him say: Well, I have offered to you that you could have offered an amendment for the offshore. You could have offered an amendment for nuclear. He went on through five or six. You could have offered them, but you didn't.

Isn't it strange that he stands there and tells the American people and the Senate that, and here, today, there are five Senators talking with you, all who, it seems to me, have good brains, who seem to be interested in their State and our country. What are they saying? They are saying: We wish we could offer an amendment. So that means they could not. Right?

I will tell you, here is how I approach it. I am going to look at the Parliamentarian and say to the Parliamentarian: You might know, Mr. Parliamentarian, because I asked. I will tell you, and I hope you will accept what I say is true. The Parliamentarian has told me the two amendments Majority Leader Reid put on the so-called speculation bill-- he added them to it to fill the tree--are called amendments Nos. 5098 and 5099.

So, Mr. Parliamentarian, let's assume we are talking about the so- called speculation bill. Let's further assume--because it is true-- there are two amendments that have been offered to it, amendments Nos. 5098 and 5099.

With that, I will ask: Is it in order for the Senators from Tennessee--either of them--or the Senator from New Mexico, with that situation, to offer an amendment that would permit the opening of the offshore resources of America? Would that amendment be in order?

Mr. President, I say to the Senator, you asked me, could I help you. I think I have helped you, right there. I think I have helped those who are listening.

Mr. President, I say to the Senator, that amendment would not be in order.

Because in the Senate, we run on parliamentary rules. There is a rule that if an amendment has been filled, the tree has been filled, you cannot offer any more.

Now, we have a majority leader who has used that rule more than any other leader in the history of America. That means he has offered two amendments to an amendment so you could not offer any other amendments. That is the way he runs the Senate. He does it not only to us, he does it to everybody because he does not want to have a vote on what you want, which you have so eloquently spoken to, or what the Senator from Alaska wants or what I would like. He does not want any of those. Why? Because maybe he will lose and maybe we will open this big parcel of land to the American people, open it so we can use it.

Somehow or other, Democrats do not want more energy. I do not know why. It is incredible to me that with the American people clamoring for it, they do not want it. But they have a leader who is acting so no amendments can be offered. He stands and tells the American people any amendment they want can be offered.

Frankly, I tell you, you can put those things up beside each other, and one is true and one is not true. I think I have established the reality that if I wanted to offer any amendments he was talking about, they would be out of order.

I have lived in the Senate for 36 years. I have never had a Senate such as this. This Senate is run by one person. It is worse than the House Rules Committee. The House Rules Committee establishes the rules by which you work. But we do not have that. We have one person. He decides because he is entitled to the floor, he offers two amendments, and that equals a denial of the rights for either Republicans or Democrats to offer an amendment. That is where we are.

Look at the good we could have done. Look at the issues we could have resolved. Look at what we could have told the American people: We have opened your property which contains billions of barrels of oil and God knows how many trillion cubic feet of natural gas. It is going to be open so we can use it. Well, we cannot tell them that. It is kind of strange, but I think it is true.

I am very glad you asked me to explain it. I am glad we have the number. Maybe next week we can ask the majority leader, when he is here, if he would withdraw those two amendments so we could have amendments. I think if he were here, I would ask him that. I would ask him: How about a unanimous consent agreement, Mr. Leader, that we will remove your two amendments. They stand in the way of all our amendments. How about removing them? I would get some mumbo jumbo, and he would say he wants to leave them there.

I thank the Senator.

I did. Surely, I did.

He said no. And he had the power to do it because, I told

you, if our leader would have taken any one of those seven--say, he would have given you one of them and said to the distinguished Senator from Alabama: Why don't you offer this one? If you would have offered it, somebody would have said that meant that amendment is out of order, and the Parliamentarian would have said that is out of order. You cannot offer amendments because those two amendments have been offered to fill the tree. That is a nice word. We have to understand it.

What he has done is put those up there, which equals no one has a right to offer an amendment: I have done it. I have had all the amendments that this institution is going to have. I have the right to, says the leader. I put them. That is the end of the amendments.

Mr. President, I believe it is absolutely what our distinguished chairman of our conference--who is on the floor, who was the leader of the colloquy that took place--has so eloquently said. It is right here in our hands that offshore contains more oil and gas than any other property of the United States, and it not only should be the subject matter of debate but there should be an amendment offered and we should vote on it and say yes or no to opening it for drilling.

Can you imagine how happy the American people, who have followed this issue, would be if one of these mornings they could read: Senate votes on offshore drilling and says yes. I do not know why the Democrats do not want to do that. I would think they would be in favor of it because most Americans are. So I do not know where they are getting the messages.

But you cannot stand here any longer, after what we have established today, and say you can vote on any of these. Somebody is going to be here with the name of these amendments, and anytime he says that, we are going to ask: Can we remove these two amendments that stand in the way of us doing that? I don't know what his excuse is going to be, but there will have to be one. Right?

Yes.

Oh, yes.

Well, actually, when we did our big Energy bill--that is when the good Senator from Tennessee was on our committee--one of the things we wrote in--it went by rather easily, nobody knew it; I knew it because I worked on it and I put it in there--we decided that the Bureau of Land Management property up there in those three States belongs to the Government--that property. So it belongs to the people. There was not any provision to let the leases out so they could use it for research on how to develop it. We permitted that in our bill.

Sure enough, it worked. Within 6 months after the bill was passed, there was interest. The interest was evidenced by one of the major companies taking out a lease. They wanted to spend $4 billion developing a technology. They were ready to move and see if it was going to work. Well, that is a lot of money, and it means that is going to take a lot of money.

Well, you know what happened. Similar to all these other things around here, in the dead of night, on the Interior appropriations bill, an amendment was put on, a rider, you call it. It said: You cannot proceed to write the final regulations for the research and development--not for the production--for the research and development so people will know what they are getting into and what they can spend money on.

They passed that at night, put it on there. We know where it came from. It came from those who want no development in the State of Colorado. And there we are, similar to all these other amendments that have been put on that take away property rights from our American people. That was done there. We are asking that be lifted. We have an amendment to do that. We cannot vote on it. Right?

Nowhere.

Yes. Whenever I talked about the regulations, I want to clarify that the first commercial rigs couldn't be developed because of what they did.

Senator, I just wish to say before I sit down--and I am ready to--how pleased I am that you are going to stay after I leave and apparently stay on the Energy Committee and apparently work on something very dear to my heart: nuclear energy. I worked for 8 to 10 years on that, with marvelous staff help. I think we had a lot to do with going from no nuclear power in America to a very live activity where many companies are standing in line to offer their licenses at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to produce nuclear power.

We need to finish with a recycling provision. I understand you are interested in that and you will probably work on that in the years to come, and I commend you. I will be gone.

I think my good friend from Tennessee who is here knows we have to do recycling, the second phase of this activity. Right in his State, we have taken the lead. TVA has taken the lead in nuclear power because they were ready, and before anybody else they were building one, building a half one, turning it into a whole, and that has been a tremendous experience for the nuclear industry. He is to be praised because that happened with people being heard and all and with no serious complaints, and it is on its way, just like the rest of them. They are going to build them right next door to existing ones, and that is going to be a pretty good approach. Remember that when you start working at it, they are not building them in new places, they are building right next door to ones that have been there for 30 years. People say: Of course, build another one. You might hear some anti's, but they are not anti's around the existing plants because it has been nothing but good, and you will find that when you start to take the lead in that.

I want to say I think the time is up for me, and if it isn't, whatever it is up here tells me I am about finished for the day. I am. I do want to say to both of you that it has been tremendous to talk here today. I think, somehow or another, we have made the point that there just cannot be one set of truths for the Democrats, one set of truths that apply to the majority leader, and another set of truths that apply to us. It is either true or its not true, and the issue of whether we have been able to offer amendments in the true way, to amend them and to debate them, to be amended themselves, whether we have been in that position is clear, clear, clear as the clearest water on Earth, it is that clear that we have not been able to because it has been denied to us.

Anybody standing up saying: You could have offered amendments--how could we? I don't know how we can. Maybe next week we can offer six or eight or more. Senator, maybe you can stand up and offer them and let the Parliamentarian say they are not in order; say, why not; and we will get the

answer. Maybe somebody who put those two amendments on there to close everything up, maybe they would consider taking them off. I mean, if he says you can have an amendment, well, can we have an amendment by taking down your two amendments and then we will have our amendment? I am sure the answer would be no. Why wouldn't it be? Because they don't want you to offer an amendment, right? That must be it.

I yield the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President. I thank the Senator for giving me time.

I understand I am entitled to speak now, for how long?

Before the Senator leaves the floor, I wanted to say--I wanted to talk about three things, briefly.

First, the Senator is talking about an amendment that I cosponsored with him. He adequately explained that if the tree were not filled by the majority leader, that amendment could very well be before the Senate. It is very important and very simple. We would have a chance at some point in time to vote, would we not, on that amendment? And it would say we are going to open the 85 percent of the offshore of the United States that is closed today, and we are going to let the Governors work with us and try to give them part of the royalties so we can have a seamless growth in the offshore production, which could indeed change the supply-demand pendulum that is currently causing this big spiral upwards that causes gasoline prices to go up--that is what that amendment is for?

I want to make one more point. I heard the Senator talk about his hope for a bipartisan bill. We could get plenty of people on because there ought to be Democrats who are for this. Wouldn't it help a lot if eight or ten Democrats on the other side were to tell their leader they do not like this, they do not like the way he has filled the tree, he ought to take down some of those amendments so we could go to work, bipartisan or otherwise, so we could try to have an amendment to vote on? That would help, wouldn't it?

I don't know where the voices are going. All the voices in America, up to 75 percent, are saying they want to open the offshore so we will have that asset for them to use. You cannot do that without having a vote on the Senate floor. That would not happen but by a miracle; you would have a vote.

That amendment the Senator has spoken of that he was going to offer, but it is out of order--he is going to have to ask the majority leader for permission. That is a real strange U.S. Senate. I never understood that we had anybody of whom you had to go ask permission, but that is the way they have it set up. You will have to go ask him. If he says no, you can't offer this wonderful amendment.

The second part of your amendment is the part that concerns energy, and it could be working within a couple of years, couldn't it? The part on batteries that would help us with new electric cars, it could come on by the numbers, by the hundreds?

I want to say, the Senator from Minnesota couldn't put it more clearly before the American people than he has done. He has tried to offer an amendment that goes right to the problem and confronts it head on. The Senator has heard from the Parliamentarian-- you have requested permission to offer the amendment, and you heard you cannot. Why you cannot is because the tree is filled; that is, the number of amendments allowed has been filled by amendments by the majority leader, and there is no more room. There is no more room for something really good--your amendment. There is no room for it.

You have shown everybody what that all means. This means we are going to be around here telling the American people: We cannot help you. We cannot help you with the amendment that you talked about because we cannot consider it.

Mr. President, I am going to proceed. How much time do I have?

I think the Senator from Oklahoma wanted to speak?

Mr. President, I have spoken on the Senate floor about how the majority leader has used this process and eliminated our ability to offer amendments. I refer my colleagues to a speech given on the floor last night by the senior Senator from Pennsylvania where he lays out a compelling case against the growth of this process known as filling the tree by the majority leader in the Senate. It is a good speech. My colleagues should read it and heed it, heed the warning, because the more it is used, the less this place is a Senate. The more it is used, the less we have the rights of Senators to offer amendments and debate and have votes because we are curtailed, cut off, eliminated by this process. You ought to read the speech and be fearful of the future of this institution but, more important--equally important--your rights as a Senator. You ought to be worried about that.

It will not be the Senate you thought it was if you sit around and let this happen. We are going to stay on it until the leader understands that there is a group of Senators who do not like it and are not going to sit here and take it.

I would like to speak for a minute for the American people. I would like to talk about a great amendment that is going to be pushed aside because of this short-circuiting in this bill. This amendment gets to the heart of what we have been saying. We need to find more and use less.

We have a great quantity of American resources on the Atlantic and Pacific offshore coast. So the first part of the Coleman-Domenici amendment which Senator Coleman has been speaking about would allow the coastal States--to say to those areas that we can open the waters within their offshore boundaries for leasing 50 miles out. Believe it or not, we know how to do that. Platforms can be built 50 miles out or 60 miles out, drill down 50,000 feet and have 12 or 14 wells under one platform. They do not have to drill a platform for each well.

I ask, who has time next? How much time does the Senator have?

All right. I yield the floor and hope later on to talk some more with the Senate about this issue.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, I understand the remaining time until 10:30 is already allocated, half of it to the Democrats and half to us. From our side, I intend to claim our half, and I will use it when the time arises.

Does the Senator from Illinois desire to speak now? Is that what he is saying? I am glad to let that happen.

He can't yield the floor to the Senator. He either uses it or it is there made available for the Republicans to use. He can't yield to someone.

Mrs. McCASKILL addressed the Chair.

Mr. President, I have no objection to her speaking. I understand that the time is allocated specifically. Who has time?

I understand there is 3 minutes left for the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. President, I don't know where to begin. So many things are being said by the other side. In particular, the Senator from Illinois spoke for 10 minutes, and it is impossible for me to answer all of the falsities he indicated to the American people in his remarks.

I want to say that yesterday afternoon I got word from the floor of the Senate that the American people are not going to be permitted to have a vote by the Senate on an amendment that would open the offshore lands owned by the American people, because the majority leader has seen fit to use a parliamentary process--and I know the people are confused and tired of us talking about parliamentary processes around here, but the truth is that Senators are also getting fed up with it. The majority leader comes along--and we all understand he has the right to be recognized--and, when he was recognized, he offered amendments, so that yesterday evening, as I sat preparing for today, I was told to change your thoughts and your approach because you cannot offer any amendments. That is an undeniable fact.

The majority leader has cloaked this bill in amendments and that is called ``filling up the tree.'' I don't know where such an interesting concept came from. If it were Christmas time, filling up the tree would seem like a nice event. When you are here trying to get the Senate to vote on whether a giant asset that belongs to the American people can be open for drilling, it is not a very good-sounding series of words.

``Filling up the tree'' means that those who want to offer amendments, who want to let the Senate determine the future of that 85 percent of the offshore lands of America, cannot do so. Those Senators, on behalf of their people--every Senator represents people and all of the people have an interest in the ownership of this land; it is a huge piece of land. It is very valuable in terms of crude oil and natural gas. Americans should probably have woken up this morning to go to breakfast and to read in the paper: United States Senate permits drilling in the offshores of continental America so the price of gasoline can come down. That is what they should have read in the newspapers across the land. There is no question that more than 50 Senators--Democrats and Republicans--favor opening all of those lands to exploration; that is, drilling, and to let the Governors of the States participate in that process so the States can share in the royalty. That is a very simple proposition. That is the bill and that is the issue.

Now we have been told, for their own reasons, the Democrats have said you cannot do that, we have filled the tree. You will come to us and prayerfully ask for permission to do anything on this bill. You will have to seek our permission. So the Senator from Nevada can stand here and say you can do this or that, but the truth is, what he is saying is: If I want to let you do it, you can, because the rules of the Senate do not permit it.

So we are unable to get a vote. That doesn't mean we are going to quit. We are going to stay here on this floor. If, in fact, the majority leader tries to close off debate, he will lose, because we believe the biggest issue confronting the American people, bar none, today is the price of oil. We think the biggest opportunity to lower the pressure and bring down gasoline prices at the pump and cause us to import less is to open the offshore of the United States to drilling, plain and simple.

The majority started this issue with a bill they put in, which is supposed to have something to do with the price of oil. It has to do with speculation.

I send to the desk to be printed the statement of several prominent Americans, all of whom say the problem is not speculation; the problem is supply and demand. To affect supply and demand, you ought to be opening the offshores, which affects supply in a big way. I ask unanimous consent that this be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I have been here for 36 years. I chose this year to leave. When an energy bill came forth on the floor and we were going to be able to amend it, I thought we were going to be able to talk about all of the issues, get together with the Democrats and see how many would join us in a major piece of legislation, and I was rather excited. I thought the American people might be pleased with us again, because we were going to do something good.

Do you know what. This 9-percent approval rating of the Senate is not there for no good cause. We are, today, adding to that negative image when the American people try to understand what is going on. We were told--and we applauded when we heard it--that this great big piece of property we own--everything 3 miles out from the shoreline of America is owned by the people. There is oil and gas there. For some reason, we closed it down 27 years ago, and every year we put that moratorium on again. It is time to open that and say to the world that we don't have a total solution, but we have a lot of oil and gas we ought to put into the mix and let our companies get to work on, trying to drill and see how it will affect the price of oil.

Some people are saying, well, there are already a lot of oil and gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf; why don't we force those oil companies to do better at using it? Let me make that proposition clear. Eighty-five percent of the offshore land is tied up in the moratorium and 15 percent is being used. That 15 percent that is being used is all subject to leases which say that if you don't produce on time, you lose the lease. We don't need any further management in that regard. It is already managed by a ``use it or lose it'' clause in every lease that anyone has on any of the lands that are currently on lease to American companies, or a consortia of American companies and others. So that is a joke when we talk about the fact that we will get more by rearranging that. We need to open the portions that are closed. We need a thorough debate on a number of amendments, and our leaders have said there are at least five or six of them. We don't need a long period of time, but we need an open and free amendment process that we could use. We could go to the other side and get some bipartisan things going. I believe there are many Democrats who want to join us.

It serves the wishes of the majority leader to close off debate, because even Democrats cannot join in amendments to do anything now, because the tree is filled--and it is not with Christmas presents. It is filled with amendments so we cannot offer any more amendments. In other words, we are dead in the water in trying to offer what Americans expected--amendments that will open the offshore to drilling.

Mr. President, as I understand it, I have how much time, 3 minutes?

I think Senators understand that this Senator from New Mexico, as part of the last 6 years while serving on the Energy Committee, has been party to producing three major energy bills that have all been good for the country. They all have ended up being bipartisan. They all required a lot of time on the floor. I could not come down here and put in an amendment and say it is done. It took some time. We wanted to use this time to thoroughly debate the appropriate options to opening the offshore for drilling.

We thought Americans, who are watching the price of crude oil come down since the President lifted the Executive closures that existed, would like to see the job finished. We thought they would like to see it opened totally, taking off all of the congressional hangups, the congressional moratorium.

I think Americans deserve that. They deserve something positive. They are very worried. The economy is suffering because of the $700 billion a year that goes to foreign countries. It is taken from us for the crude oil we buy. While that foreign country grows, America dwindles. We get poorer; the world gets richer. I don't know how much longer we can stand it. We didn't want to stand it too much longer. We wanted to put in our offsets offshore and let them join in this war we are in, instead of letting us die by attrition as we send our money overseas.

It doesn't seem anybody in America should get confused. Democrats can make laundry lists of things that happened and put up a sign in the Senate saying we are the ones blocking this. How could we be blocking this when we are not in control? The majority leader stood up and locked this bill up with his amendments, so we cannot offer amendments without his approval. We don't intend to do that. That is not the way to do business.

The American people expect us to have debates and up-or-down votes on this issue, with every Senator expressing his or her will on what happens to this big asset. That is what we want.

I thank the Chair.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator. I will not use her

time, I will use mine. It has been a pleasure since I first met the Senator. I don't always remember all of the new names, but the Senator has the same name as one of my daughters. We have become friends. I admire the Senator from Missouri too, and say I do believe she is learning to be a Senator very fast. I am proud to be her friend. I thank her for her kind words.

Audit Report

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that during the 30-minute block of time for our side 5 minutes be allocated to me, 12\1/2\ to Senator Vitter, and 12\1/2\ to Senator Enzi.

Madam President, let me first ask that I be permitted to use 1 minute upfront that is not allocated to my 5 minutes.

I say to my good friend before he leaves the floor how good it is to see you in action again. I think you probably feel you are back being a Senator. Remember the days when we, together, passed that one piece of legislation where we overrode the veto of President Clinton, when you were the chairman of the Democratic Party and we had a bill going here? It was the right bill; class action. Do you remember that one? It started us moving where that whole process was cleaned up. I regret to say, with the lawyers we were fighting with in our committees, one of them ended up in jail, I noticed recently. That was the fate he had. I saw that coming as he was conducting his law practice in the days we were investigating class action litigation.

I wanted to say what a pleasure it was then. I know from what you are saying that you have had a lot of opportunity to debate, share ideas, work with other Senators, and I think that is what makes the Senate great. I compliment you for it.

Madam President, it is obvious I just finished telling the good Senator how we work together to make good laws when we have important issues. I also want to say, in the year 2005 we passed an Energy Policy Act. The Senate took 19 rollcall votes on amendments and agreed to 57 of them. Last year on the Energy Independence and Security Act we took 16 rollcall votes on amendments and agreed to 49.

We can look back further, if you would like to, to the successful legislation on the Clean Air Act of 1990. I was here. I was working on it. The Senate acted upon 131 amendments and took well over 3 weeks here on the floor of the Senate.

Let me say to my fellow Senators, that is not what is happening today. Today an issue just as important, as I view it, as important as any of the legislation I talked about--any legislation that my good friend from Connecticut talked about here on the floor, any legislation that we have considered in the field of energy--is before us today during a critical time, a time more critical than at any other time we were considering energy legislation that I have alluded to, and a couple of other times that are similar.

What did we do then? We had time for important legislation and we must have time for this, for the one who is saying: What are you going to do to the offshore inventories of American oil and gas that are locked up that we cannot use and have not used for 20 to 27 years and now they are there, ready to help the American people? The price of gasoline must come down and that is one way to do it. We have to open the reserves that belong to the people.

It is interesting the distinguished Senator from Connecticut could talk about working together and how that has taken place in this important housing bill. It is important that we understand how we did the previous Energy bills. But here today, let it be known that bill which the American people have been wanting us to vote on, wanting us to do something about--that is to open up these reserves that belong to the people and see how much that might affect the price of gasoline--we cannot get a vote unless we do what the majority leader wants us to do. One person, the majority leader, decides whether we can have an amendment, what it will say, what it will be about.

It is completely different than the way we have discussed here for the last

5 minutes, the way legislation takes place here in the Senate. Remember what has happened in this bill. You can throw away all the words and look at where are we today.

There is a bill pending that the Democratic leader brought to the floor on the subject matter of whether there is speculation going on that affects the price of crude oil in a bad way, with bad conduct on the part of those who are participating. He brought a bill down to cure that. We have been told that is a small part of the problem. But the big part of the problem is supply and demand. We, the Republicans-- joined by some Democrats, I am sure, if we ever had a chance to do it-- are addressing the issue of supply and demand. That is the big issue. That is the issue that might indeed make some Americans smile instead of being so worried about their future because of the price of gasoline and what it is doing to them and to the American economy. We must have the right to freely amend that bill until we come to a consensus. That is how we get things done. But, remember, plain and simple, no matter what is said, we cannot do that.

That is because the majority leader has precluded us procedurally from doing anything other than what he wants, what he will let us do. We cannot act the way the Senate should act on important issues.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation?

I was a bit late arriving. I ask unanimous consent for 10 minutes.

Mr. President, fellow Senators, let me say to you that I rise to speak again on what may be one of the most important issues facing the American people.

Let me repeat, today we have before us a bill that addresses speculation in the energy business in the United States. I regret to tell you that the high cost of gasoline is straining our Nation's family budgets. The American people are looking to us to do something. Instead of providing some needed relief, the majority has brought a speculation-only bill before the Senate with limited debate and minimal, if any, opportunity for amendments. I am forced to say that in my 36 years in the Senate, I have never seen a problem so big met by a proposal or a solution that is so small.

The other side suggests that at this particular time in our history, there is no need to move beyond this, the one bill which the majority leader, using extraordinary rules, has brought before us under our rule called rule XIV. It has not been before committee, it has not been reported out by a committee; just put together in his office. And it is the Energy bill supposedly for the end of this year; it is all we are going to do, with the American people clamoring for us to do more since they are so burdened with the high price of gasoline. The American people, by an overwhelming majority, want action. They are getting nothing except excuses and evasion.

Yesterday, the majority continued to trot out a baseless proposal that they are calling ``use it or lose it'' in an attempt to convince Americans that despite all the evidence to the contrary, they are actually in favor of some domestic production. Make no mistake, if the Democrats wanted more production, they would have included in the underlying bill, the one I just described that the majority leader got before the Senate, if they wanted to address some real energy issues, then there is no question that all they had to do was add those issues to that bill, and those issues would be before the Senate.

If we needed any more evidence that most of my colleagues on the other side opposed new domestic energy production, it came in the form of a canceled Appropriations Committee markup.

In the news this morning, we read that the majority's spin on this decision is:

On the Interior Appropriations bill, the Republicans had

threatened to strike the ban on offshore drilling that has

been in effect for nearly 20 years, even though they have

been offered a separate vote to strike this ban on the Senate

floor. Their rejection of this offer makes it clear that they

are more interested in playing political games to score cheap

political points than to complete action on the bills that

fund America's priorities.

Can you imagine? I beg to differ. Republicans are not trying to score cheap political points, we are trying to get something done--something done to deal with the supply and demand imbalance at the heart of this energy crisis. Our rejection of the so-called offer to bring up a single amendment tells you more about the majority's decision to avoid, at all costs, a solution that measures up to the scale of the energy problem than it does about the Republican's desire to get our work done here in the Senate.

This ban on production of our own energy resources can no longer stand in the face of a growing crisis. What we are talking about now, Senators, is that starting 20, 25 years ago, some 27 years ago, the Congress of the United States decided, 1 year at a time, in the appropriations bills, that they would put a ban on drilling off the shores of certain States, until we got to the point where 85 percent of all the coastal areas of America have a ban, a congressionally imposed ban. You cannot go into those areas using the lease proposals of the U.S. Government and give oil companies, large and small, leases to drill and find oil and gas for the American people.

Now, obviously this ban on production of our own energy can't stand with today's problems. Those bans started when we were worried about oil spills, and they started when we didn't worry about the price of oil. They started when oil was so cheap that we did not care about producing our own. We could, with reckless abandon, put bans and prohibitions on drilling anywhere we wanted and nobody would get hurt and the American people would not suffer.

Such is not the case now. That is why I beg to differ with Democrats who say we are here playing some kind of politics. If there is any politics being played, it is the politics that is trying to prevent Republicans from presenting here on the floor amendments that try to do the people's business, that try to use this oil and gas that is ours in such a way that it will reduce the price of gasoline at the pump.

They have called hearings on their own proposals; they have canceled them. They have called for markups on their own bills which would include these same issues; they have canceled those hearings. They can avoid hearing testimony on their own policy proposals. They can avoid production votes on their own appropriations measures. They can even avoid real production votes on the Senate floor. However, my colleagues will not be able to avoid their constituents during the August recess.

Thus far this week, instead of action, we have heard a great deal of talk from the other side. We have heard tales of how Republicans are ``blocking another bill.'' I mean, it is really hard for a Senator like this one, who has been here 36 years--this is my last year--I have been in charge of energy legislation, been in charge or ranking member only for the last 4 or 5 years. Prior to that, I did budget work and other work. But in terms of being chairman or ranking member, it is only a few years. We got a lot of things done in those few years.

We are here since the Democratic leader brought a bill to the floor. It was his choice to bring it here. He brought the bill here in an extraordinary manner. It is now here, it is pending, and it should be treated the same as any ordinary bill that is pending.

It is a bill which allows for any responsible provision to be added to it as an amendment and a responsible provision, as we see it, that will help with the crisis confronting America and we say any amendment that will produce more oil, more gas that will be added to what America can drill for and use. That is important. We are not blocking anything.

Can you imagine, they bring down a bill that does one little thing that has been said by most experts to not even be needed. If anything, it is a minor problem. And they want to vote on it and go home and tell the American people they have done something about the energy problem? We turn around and say: Yes, let's do something about it, and we are the ones ``blocking'' another bill.

The majority has said they want something done on energy. This would be believable if the leadership on the Democratic side had not clearly stated in December that they would pivot away from highlighting accomplishments in the coming year, abandoning any attempt at accomplishments, and a staged attempt to manufacture the appearance of obstruction is transparently political.

This strategy of campaigning from the Senate floor has weakened the institution and left the American people without much needed leadership during this energy crisis. Instead of impugning the name of the American President from the Senate floor, instead of reading poll numbers on the Senate floor, instead of providing daily opinions on the status of the Presidential campaigns--Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

Instead of providing daily opinions on the status of the Presidential campaign and special elections, the Senate could have been legislating.

We have been told that Republicans may be allowed to offer one amendment; I repeat that, just one amendment. And I repeat that in my 36 years, I have never seen a problem so big met by a proposal or a proposed solution that is so small. The offer of a single amendment was accompanied by a baseless assertion from the majority that they are willing to compromise and work together on energy legislation that both sides can live with.

We were told that one amendment from the majority and a competing proposal from the minority is how the legislative process is supposed to work. I disagree. The Senate passed bipartisan comprehensive energy legislation in 2005 and 2007. I was here every moment of it. The process for those bills, which passed both Chambers in the Congress and were signed by the President, was quite different.

Take the Energy Policy Act of 2005, for example. And now I will go through the history of that one and the two that followed it.

We devoted 10 days of the Senate's time to debating that measure. There were 19 rollcall votes held on amendments, 23 rollcall votes on the legislation itself, there were 235 amendments proposed, and 57 of them were agreed to. There is a similar story to be told of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Over 15 days, the Senate voted on 16 amendments, held 22 votes on the bill itself, saw 331 amendments filed and 49 of them agreed to.

We can look back further, of course, to a time when the Senate successfully moved legislation focused purely on environmental protection. During consideration of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the Senate devoted 5 weeks to a thorough and open debate. A total of 180 amendments were offered and 131 were ultimately acted upon by the full Senate.

And yet, we are told that one amendment from each side is how the legislative process is ``supposed to work.'' This approach is more accurately described as a lesson in how to steer the legislative process towards failure. The

American people want action, not excuses; they want real proposals, not political ploys; and they want genuine solutions, not small measures.

During the recent climate change debate, perhaps it was good that the majority undertook a process that was doomed to fail. The cap-and-trade bill would have increased gas prices by more than a dollar per gallon, and energy prices across the board would have increased as well. But now, as a growing majority of Americans from all political camps demand more energy production here at home, we have to get serious about doing the work that we have been elected to do. Advancing a bill that focuses on such a narrow part of the energy crisis we face, stifling the ability to offer amendments to that bill, cancelling markups, and abandoning hearings are not what the American people want from the Congress.

I am disappointed that we will not be offered the opportunity to act in a real way this week on the most important issue facing the American people. Despite the majority leader's assertions about the recent decline in the price of oil, talking will not solve what all experts say is a supply and demand imbalance. Solving this problem requires action and leadership. I hope we will see both before we depart for our home States in August.

It is pretty clear to me, and I think we are able to make it pretty clear to anybody who is interested, that now is the time to pass meaningful legislation that will help the American people through the crisis of the high prices of gasoline. While we are building a major plan and have come along with a minor plan, in a couple weeks we could knock out a very good bill. I am willing to sit down, bipartisan. If the majority side is willing and the chairman of the committee is willing to invite me, I will be there. Maybe we can do it. Thus far, it seems it was not possible. So we are trying the best we can to do the work for the American people. That means good amendments to a pending bill which we did not bring up, but it is there for us to use, pursuant to our rules.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to use the remaining time, including the remaining leader's time.

Mr. President, it is good to be with you today to talk about this. Before we begin a vote on a serious subject matter, it is good to talk to you about a few issues and thoughts I have about what is happening and what should be happening during the next 2 weeks in the Congress.

This morning millions of Americans woke up to another costly commute to their workplace. They paid over $4 per gallon to fill their tanks. You will recall that 18 months ago it cost them about $2.60 to purchase the same amount of gasoline.

Family budgets are hurting. On average, the American family will spend $2,200 more for gasoline this year compared to last year. A number of surveys suggest that Americans are driving less because the increased price at the pump is too much a strain on their lives. They are turning to us, their elected representatives, and they are looking for real leadership. Sometimes I wonder whether they have given up or whether they actually expect us to do something. I suggest we ought to do something, and any effort on the part of the majority to make this a couple a day event with a vote on each side or perhaps no votes or no amendments by Republicans, let me say that will not be accepted with very much enthusiasm by the minority, and the Republicans will insist that we stay here until we have had an opportunity to vote on significant amendments that we think the American people are entitled to have put before the Senate.

It seems to me the American people are turning to us, their elected representatives, and asking and looking for some leadership. In overwhelming majorities, the American people are clamoring for more energy production at home. If any oil production or natural gas production exists that we own, which we are not allowing to be produced, the American people are saying: Why not? In fact, they are saying why not open it; let's see what it yields, what it does for us.

The message is clear: Americans are saying we need to drill for more American oil. Now, anything short of allowing up-or-down votes on amendments that will determine whether we honor the request of the American people to drill for more American oil--whether we are going to be permitted to do that is obviously in the hands of the Democratic leader. But I believe we will do our share as the minority--49 of us-- to make sure the American people understand whether they are getting a fair shake by us getting a fair shake here on the floor on amendments that would inure to the benefit of the American people. The majority has offered a speculation bill, so far, and that is all we have seen. In the midst of this clarion call from the American people, it now appears my friends on the other side of the aisle might have to be dragged kicking and screaming to even debate whether we need to produce more energy.

After a litany of stale proposals that were rejected--including a windfall profits tax, price gouging, manufacturing taxes, cap-and-trade taxes, and lawsuits against OPEC--the majority seems content to hang its hat on the speculation bill, and a possible ``use it or lose it'' policy. As I speak, it appears that the majority drafts in secret a policy that claims to advocate lower prices while not actually increasing production, and the American people, I believe, will grow more and more impatient, and it will not be hard for them to understand what we are saying as we tell them their impatience is justified.

I wish to address the ``use it or lose it'' issue. You understand that the other side is saying, as far as offshore drilling, there are already leases that exist, where we have given oil companies, large and small, the right to drill for oil or gas under the conditions of the leases that went forth. They were obtained by the oil companies, large and small, by bids. Some bids were very high, some were not so high. All in all, there are a lot of oil companies that have the right to drill. So the other side is asking, how many acres do they have the right to drill upon? And now they are sitting around trying to draft legislation that says they are not using that land they leased from us; they are not using it as much as they should, and we want to pass a law that says: Use it as we prescribe in this new law or lose it.

They are going to try to tell the American people that is the way to get more oil out of parts of the coastal areas of America-- understanding they are already leased. Oil companies already have paid money and oil companies are probably already doing everything they can to maximize their return on those leases. Yet, since there are a lot of acres, some of which have not yet produced, they are saying let's look at them and that is where we can get this new oil for America.

We say that is not true. Those leases are time-certain leases, all of them. They are either 5-year or 8-year or 10-year leases. However many millions of acres it is, that is what they are. If you don't produce within the timeframe allowed in the leases--5, 8, or 10 years--then you lose the lease. That is already the law. You already lose it based upon the leases you have.

Let's talk about this idea a little more. This idea was dreamed up in an argument first originated by the Wilderness Society. They claimed that oil companies were sitting on leases, and that if those companies developed those areas, we would not need to open new ones. If only that were true, what a wonderful bonanza we would have for the American people. It is not true. The other side is now saying oil companies must use it or lose it when it comes to these leases. They have proposed adding a tax on companies to punish them for not producing fast enough. This Wilderness Society argument demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of how we explore for oil and gas in this country. And the fact that this argument originates with a group that has led at least four major lawsuits in the past 4 years to prevent development in these very same areas speaks to how disingenuous it is. Part of the reason it takes so long for companies to produce is because groups such as the Wilderness Society keep throwing up roadblocks.

Companies are paying lots of money for the right to explore on a lease and are given a short period of time to produce oil. That is the way it is today already. We don't need a new law for that. We don't need new legislation now, when we have a limited amount of time-- perhaps 2 or 3 weeks--to debate energy legislation. With the cost of oil at $135 per barrel now, why on Earth would a lessee intentionally sit on a lease and choose not to make money on it?

Why would a company pay money essentially to rent a tract of land and then not use it? I heard the claim that 41 million acres is leased on the Outer Continental Shelf and that acreage, 33 million acres, is not being produced. The use of this statistic shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the long, risky process that begins even before bidding on a lease and hopefully ends with production. The other side is saying that unless oil is literally coming out of the ground on an acre, it doesn't count. Even if the acre is being explored or is in the process of getting an environmental permit or is in any way part of a process that is going on, it doesn't count. Additionally, the use of this argument by groups that consistently go to court to prevent development on existing lease areas speaks volumes about the intent here. Congress currently restricts access to 574 million acres in the Outer Continental Shelf. It actually is clear by any measurable assessment that the majority in Congress is ``sitting on'' far more oil than the oil companies themselves.

There are many different steps toward producing oil, and that, at any given moment, may not be producing but is active and under development. In the 5, 8, and 10 years that a company holds a lease, environmental assessments could be underway. Lessees could be trying to secure permits. The leasing agency could be challenged in litigation and could be reviewing seismic data. All of this takes time. So you look out there and say: It is leased, but it isn't producing yet. Of course not. If somebody tried to produce too quickly, they would be challenged for not spending enough time under the environmental permit laws doing what is required before one can drill.

There are many upfront costs that leaseholders take, that they have to do if they are going to acquire an oil and gas lease. Bonus payments and production, rental payments often cost millions of dollars, and these capital investments are only being made for the ultimate development and production of oil to return a profit on their investment. Simply put, if oil is not produced from a lease, the companies lose money on it.

To claim that companies are ``sitting on'' $135 oil simply ignores the historical fact that because you lease lands does not necessarily mean you are able technically or economically to produce on them or even that there is oil under your lease. But you are entitled to keep it and try to make it productive for the length of time that the lease prescribes within the contents and terms of the document--5 years, 8 years, or 10 years.

Finally, we should point out that the majority already has a ``use it or lose it'' policy. If you are not producing when the term of the lease expires, you turn it back. So this argument really is a fallacy. I have said this before on the floor. It seems as if the more it is said, the more it is documented, the more the other side claims that there are many leases that we should force the lessees to give the land back or produce under some new slogan called ``use it or lose it.''

As the specter of a limited debate lingers with minimal or no opportunity for amendment on this bill, the American family budget continues to be squeezed. Mr. President, 83 days after introducing the American Energy Production Act of 2008, I continue offering a new direction.

In 2006, we opened 8 million acres in the Outer Continental Shelf for leasing. This area contained an estimated 1.2 billion barrels of oil and nearly 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. In March of this year, two lease sales on the eastern and central Gulf of Mexico attracted more than $3.2 billion in high bids, upfront bids--a very high payment. The first sale in the central gulf was the largest sale in the history of deepwater OCS leases.

This area is America's new frontier. Today, there are more than 7,000 leases in the Gulf of Mexico that provide 25 percent of the oil produced in the United States and 15 percent of the natural gas produced in the country. The Department of Interior estimates that 300,000 jobs are directly related to gulf energy exploration and the production that comes from that exploration.

As a result of the Gulf of Mexico Security Act, the coastal States stand to reap great benefits from the production of gas through revenue sharing of oil and gas. The following rough estimate provides a window into the opportunity available to other States. According to the Minerals Management Service, Gulf States could receive more than $425 million in oil and gas revenues by 2013, $2.6 billion over the coming decade, and over $30 billion over the next 30 years. Yes, those are accurate estimates. That is what other States--not all of them but some other States--that are on our coasts that might agree to let us look in exchange for giving them the same kind of return we gave Louisiana, Mississippi, and the surrounding States, that is what they could look for. These are huge sums that will be raised and returned to the States through the production of our own energy resources.

They seek to allow coastal States on the Atlantic and Pacific to share in the energy opportunity. I know there are various opinions as to how many we will find there, but we will never know so long as we keep it locked up, which we have done for 26 to 27 years, where nobody would know and tried to hide it from the American people as if it did not belong to them and it was not any good. The truth is, it is theirs in absolute honest-to-God ownership, and it can produce crude oil of the best type and oil in large quantities.

Let's hope that what we do in this area is equal to nearly all the oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico in the last 50 years and is greater than all the oil imported into the United States from the Persian Gulf in 15 years.

This is a big opportunity for the American people, but the majority seems content with small ideas. Within two Congresses, we have passed two major pieces of energy legislation. These two bills were monumental undertakings and required months of deliberation to bring to fruition.

Last Congress, we had EPACT05 on the floor of the Senate for 10 days. We had 23 rollcall votes on the bill, including 19 just for amendments. We had filed 235 amendments to that bill; 57 of them were accepted. That bill took 4 months from the introduction before we sent it to the President.

Last year's Energy bill took almost a year before we had something we could send to the White House. That bill was on the Senate floor for 15 days and had a total of 22 rollcall votes. We filed 331 amendments to that bill and accepted 49 of them.

The majority leader seeks to limit the amendment process in a significant way. I trust we will have the staying power to at least have an opportunity for multiple amendments in the area we are speaking of because the American people deserve it and the American people should have it.

I have completed my remarks. I yield the floor.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President.

Is the Senator from New Mexico recognized at this point?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when I have completed my remarks, the distinguished senior Senator from Illinois be recognized.

Mr. President, tomorrow morning, the Senate will begin the process of moving to debate energy legislation--at least that is what we are told, and we hope we do in fact have a good, honest debate about energy and that we on this side, which constitutes 49 Senators out of the 100, have an opportunity to offer 1 or 2 or 3, or some reasonable number, of amendments so as to make the case for the American people that in fact we want to produce more energy; that we want to both save energy and produce more; and we have every reason to believe that can be done.

With that in mind, we open the discussion, we begin the debate that should end up in a number of days of discussion on real energy legislation. And when I say real, I think the American people have awakened to the idea that Congress should and can pass legislation that will produce more oil for the consumption of the world and America, and thus have the strong potential for dropping the price of gasoline, lowering the price of gasoline at the pump. So we are here to begin the debate, a debate on how we might lower the price of gasoline at the pump by using less and producing more.

Now, before I talk about my prepared remarks, I am going to say it is common knowledge in the oil and gas industry of America and the world that offshore--off the shores of the United States--be it California or Georgia, there exist large quantities of natural gas and crude oil, and that there are ways today to discover precisely where that oil is and to build platforms that are impregnable, onto which the apparatus is moved for the drilling of oil, and that from one such platform 10 or 12 major wells can be drilled underground--way down, many feet, in fact miles below the surface--to produce oil and gas for the American people.

As we begin this debate, it is interesting to note that it has been 26, almost 27 years that these offshore oil and gas reserves owned by the American people have been locked up in a moratorium, either congressional or Executive. We note the other day the President lifted his moratoria, wherever they were around the United States. He lifted them. So what is left is the congressionally imposed, 1 year at a time--and we have imposed it for 26 years--moratorium on using this valuable resource because we were frightened and scared about the damage it might cause, the harm that might be caused by going out and drilling in the deep waters off the coasts of our country.

We have since found out, without question--during this 27 years of getting oil elsewhere and expecting oil to be cheap--we found out during that period of time that we can indeed locate and find and drill for and produce and deliver oil and gas from the bottom, way down deep from the bottom of the coastal waters of America. Huge quantities of oil and gas can be removed, can be piped out, with no damage and no danger to anyone. That was proven with Katrina. When Katrina happened, America had a number of platforms, deep-water platforms in existence, because some parts of the offshore were open and yielded large quantities of oil and gas. None of them was disrupted. None of them was broken. None of the pipes were broken, and no environmental damage occurred from one of the most severe problems that came with Katrina and the hurricane that followed, as we all know.

Experts now tell us the price Americans are paying at the pump is the result of global oil supply and demand imbalance. Having worked as a leader on energy legislation for 36 years in the Senate, I can honestly say I have never seen a problem so big being met with proposals and proposed solutions that are so small. Again, experts tell us it is a supply and demand problem and the legislation that will be before the Senate does nothing to address supply and demand.

Americans are clamoring for more energy production at home. They know

this is a serious problem that calls for serious solutions. It has been 81 days since I introduced a bill called the American Energy Production Act of 2008. Since that time, the Senate has failed to act on adding new supply measures. Since that time the price of oil has risen by nearly 15 percent, from $112 to $129 per barrel, even after last week's decline.

Over that same time period, we have seen the other side offer a windfall profits tax that has been uniformly rejected by nearly all energy and economic experts across the ideological spectrum. In fact, the architect of this very concept in the Carter administration has said that ``it's a terrible idea today.''

On price gouging, an issue once dismissed by top economic advisers to Senator Obama, the other side abandoned their flirtation with this issue after confirming it was grounded in fiction and unsupported by any evidence.

Then the majority sought the authority to sue OPEC, the OPEC nations, in the Federal courts of the United States for withholding energy supplies. Perhaps the other side decided to abandon this concept when they realized how much energy supply the Congress was responsible for locking up.

Finally, the majority sought to increase taxes on the domestic energy companies, believing that increasing their business costs would somehow make it easier to compete with much larger national oil companies in their quest for global commodities. Having failed repeatedly to achieve success in increasing taxes, the other side has now decided to do so under the auspices of additional production.

I have said before on the Senate floor in much greater detail that the ``use it or lose it'' concept is an uninformed and ill-conceived policy that will harm all our energy security and increase our energy costs. In the midst of all these failed ideas, the majority brought a climate change bill to the floor of the Senate that was estimated to increase gas prices by as much as $1 per gallon over the coming years and would have resulted in even greater price increases for overall energy costs.

The assertion that the majority knows how to deal with the problems of high energy costs is discredited by their continuous attempts to advance policies that will raise the prices even higher. That is how we have arrived here today. After a series of failed ideas and counterproductive policies and counterproductive policy proposals, the other side seeks to set up another smokescreen against the force of overwhelming public opinion, and Senate Republicans united to increase domestic energy production.

The other side seems content to create another politically motivated diversion from the serious problem which stares us in the face. And lo and behold, as we start this discussion, the American people have seen through it all and they have come to the conclusion that it is time, as they put it, to drill for more oil and gas if it is ours. We have called it exploration off the shores of America, where much oil and gas has been locked up for 27 years, where we have imposed moratoria based upon our concern and our fears that should not have existed. We tied up the oil and gas that belongs to Americans, and they are saying ``get on with it.'' No more smokescreens, no more politically motivated diversions. Let's stare this problem right in the face and get on producing more and saving more. I repeat, in all my years in the Senate I have never seen a problem so big met with a proposed solution that is so small.

But I do not come to the Senate floor simply to reject the ideas of the other side. I rise to speak today, to share with the Senate some ideas supported by facts about how we can address the serious supply and demand imbalance that confronts us. My proposed American Energy Production Act, as well as the Gas Price Reduction Act, introduced by our Republican leader, Senator McConnell, would help ensure an adequate and affordable supply of energy in both the near term and the long term.

The legislation introduced by Senator McConnell and by the Senator from New Mexico, myself, would allow Atlantic and Pacific States to initiate oil and gas production from the deep seas, regions that are believed to contain, at a minimum, 14 billion barrels of oil.

We know this is a minimum because we have not bothered to inventory these deep water assets for 20 or 30 years or more. We must understand that during this period of time, with new techniques, new technology, new ways of discovery and new ways of delivery, these underwater reservoirs are going to yield much more oil and gas than we ever imagined, as we looked at them with old-time techniques, 20 and 30 and 40 years old.

This legislation would reverse a congressional ban on regulations for oil shale leases--the ``rules of the road'' that industry must have before they will invest in significant resources. That is another asset we have which exists in three Western States. We need the rules of the road which have been locked up, again, by a moratorium imposed in the Interior appropriations bill in the dead of night, with no debate and no one to watch it. That must be removed so that giant potential for oil will be the source of investment by oil companies that seek new and innovative ways to turn that shale, which abounds in oil, into usable oil or usable diesel, which could certainly alleviate America's problems.

We also propose establishing a program of direct loans and grants to accelerate the production of advanced batteries in the United States. These are crucial to advanced vehicles such as plug-in hybrids, which promise to reduce our Nation's consumption of oil and our greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, we will be producing more and using less because, with this battery research reaching fruition, producing batteries that give many more miles for the wheels that carry the electric cars-- clearly, when we get that we will be saving oil because we will not use as much gas to service our automobile fleets.

These batteries are critical to advanced vehicles, the plug-in hybrids which we are talking about, and which hold so much promise.

I am also willing to look at ways to improve the transparency of the markets and the ability of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to enforce its authority. The legislation introduced last month by the Republican leader would strengthen our oversight of the markets by adding more enforcement and increasing transparency. Republicans are open to working with the majority on speculation. It is time now for the majority to work with us on production. Production is a far bigger part of the solution to the American concern for ever-escalating prices of gas for automobiles and natural gas for use in various parts of our daily lives.

I look forward to an open debate. Clearly, the issues we attempt to address on the production side and on the side of saving through electric automobiles are a much bigger part of the American problem than the problem that the majority leader attempts to solve in his antispeculation bill, which a number of us have had a chance to read now and to discuss with experts. We will have more to say about it. Suffice it to say that it would certainly not be a major part of solving the energy problem for the American people. There is no question about it. All you would have to do is submit the bill to anybody who knows about commodities and about futures markets, and they will tell you that bill we are going to talk about is not calculated to do a lot of good.

As we move toward a new policy, it is important that we do so with every good intention. We want the majority leader to know we respect his approach to bringing up, through rule XIV, his bill. But we believe we are entitled to offer amendments to it--certainly not just one but enough amendments to make our case.

The Democratic leader wants to talk about speculation. We say let's also talk about production. There is no question, if you are going to talk about the problem confronting the American people, and you put up a speculation bill--that you are not even sure will work, but it is there--that those who have some real interest in increasing production deserve an opportunity to offer their amendments and to be heard.

To address this imbalance it is logical that we seek policies to increase our supply and decrease demand. I urge my colleagues on the other side to join

us in this effort and do something big for the American people because the problem is big. It is not a little problem. It is a very big problem.

I believe the next 3 or 4 days will shed some light for the American people on the issue of whether they, the American people, own the substantial quantities of oil and gas that are off our shores that in the next few years can be the subject matter of new modern techniques for drilling and gathering the oil and gas for use by the American people, thus reducing the heavy pressure put upon the world's supply of oil and natural gas.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I was hoping our leader would be here because he wanted some of this 15 minutes and I was thinking I could get in on part of it and I would not be here all afternoon. I do not have a long speech.

I say to the Senator, I understand he might.

Right.

Mr. President, I say to the Senator, thank you so much. I am going to proceed on our time and see what happens with our leader. If he arrives, I will, obviously, yield to him. I will sit down and quickly get out of the way.

Mr. President, it is nice to be here with you in the chair, since we are discussing issues that are very important, of which you have been a part for a while around here.

First of all, I wish to talk for a minute about the good news. The good news is that crude oil prices have gone down $16 a barrel in 3 days. That is a bigger drop in the prices of crude oil in history in terms of actual dollars. One of those 3 days it was an $8 drop. I do not know what this bodes for the future, but today it looks good, it sounds good, and it ought to make us feel good.

What we ought to do is something positive that will have a chance of showing the world; that is, the world that is buying and selling oil and buying and trading oil futures on the market, that there is going to be more oil coming on because the United States has awakened; we have decided that after 27 years of being asleep. We have all this property called the continental offshore, which is owned by the people of our country, and for 27 years we kept all but small portions of it under lock and key. We had decided it was not worth opening that to drilling, even in modern days, when we have the cleanest and best way to go into deep waters and drill for oil. With oil spills being at a minimum, we kept it locked up.

The year before last, we passed a bill that started the process of opening parts of this great valuable offshore owned by our people. Yes, the President of the United States waited around for us to act and finally decided he would lift the Executive ban, the Presidential moratorium that was on 85 percent of the offshore that has been locked up.

Make no bones about it, now, when people say we have already let a lot of that land out to bid, 85 percent of the offshore--85 percent of the offshore--was under lock and key by moratorium until the President lifted the Executive ban. We now have imposed, on that same 85 percent, millions and millions of acres of offshore property.

Now we have the situation where, come the first day of October, the Congress will have to act to put on another 1-year moratorium; the moratorium of Congress is 1 year at a time. We will have to act to put it on or there will be no moratorium, and it will be open for leases pursuant to the law of the land.

This morning, I attended a workshop held by the Energy Committee to discuss the price of oil. We had two leading experts, and we were very fortunate, except that I would say we have heard about enough from experts, and we have talked enough about the problem. We ought to do something within the next couple weeks.

But at this workshop was Dan Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, publisher of a very popular book on oil. He was accompanied by Roger Diwan of PFC Energy. Their message to us this morning, with many Senators asking questions, coming in and out of the room, was the same as I have been hearing from leading economists for the last several weeks. What did they say? Supply and demand problems are the reason why gas prices are so high, why crude oil prices are so high.

The majority leader stopped by our workshop this morning to talk about the bill he has introduced today on speculation. He said that while he understood that speculation was not the only problem, he thought it was a big part of it and we should start there. Well, obviously, he controls how we start, so perhaps we will start with speculation. I, for one, think speculation is not nearly the problem of supply and demand, it is not nearly the problem of opening more property we own for drilling. I think that is the real problem: to put more of that out to the oil operators of the country and get started on some real new production.

I am puzzled by the decision our leader has made about going first with speculation, antispeculation statutes. I am not against looking at that, but if there is something we can do to increase transparency, that is fine. But why would we start by addressing problems when the experts tell us they are not the real problem?

What do the experts say? I will share with you a few comments of what they say.

David Yergin, a great expert, a very fluent man:

The rise in oil prices can be explained by basic economic

factors, such as limited growth in supplies in recent years,

a weakening dollar, a global surge in energy demand, and a

string of production disruptions in countries such as

Nigeria.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke:

There is speculation, but speculation, under most

circumstances, is a positive thing. It provides liquidity and

allows people to hedge their risks. And it provides price

discovery. It can help allocate oil availability over time,

depending on the pattern of future prices and so on.

Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway:

It's not speculation, it's supply and demand. We don't have

excess capacity in the world anymore, and that's what you're

seeing in oil prices.

So why would we start with speculation, instead of supply and demand? Eighty-five percent of the continental U.S. lands offshore are being locked up by Congress; that is, we have a prohibition. The most conservative estimates of how much oil is in the Atlantic and Pacific offshore is 14 billion barrels. Now, I actually think that is totally wrong. I think we have many times that, perhaps as much as three times

that. We have not done a current evaluation, so we are doing some enlightened guessing. Yet we are coming up with 14 billion barrels that is out there that we might be able to drill for and bring on board.

Let me assure everyone that is no pittance. That is a lot. For some perspective, that is more oil than the United States has imported from the Persian Gulf in 15 years and more oil than we have gotten from the Gulf of Mexico in 50 years.

We have a plan to allow States to tap into those resources. The American people support that plan overwhelmingly. Why shouldn't we start there?

From 1998 to 2002, global demand rose by 4 million barrels per day. Since 2002, it has risen by 8 million barrels per day.

In China, the number of cars on the road double every 5 years. The economy there is growing by 10 percent annually. Yet, through problems in places such as Nigeria, we have lost global supplies.

It should be no surprise that prices have gone up. It is clear what this Senate needs to do about it: increase American production now.

I close by saying, the time has come to act on supply and demand. That means, as the American people are saying it: Start drilling on our property to produce oil and gas for our people instead of getting more and more from others overseas and actually sending all our wealth overseas, putting us in a ruinous situation, where we are growing poorer and poorer by the day.

With that, I wonder if the distinguished Senator from Virginia would like to speak.

That is right.

That is right.

Thank you, sir.

Yes, sir, I do.

Yes, sir.

The time is here.

Yes.

Thank you. I am glad to be at our Republican leader's side on this issue and help wherever I can.

We are aware this is a real big, big-time American problem, as hard as any kind of problem as we have had.

You bet.