Floor Statements

Mr. President, we are awaiting the conference report on the stimulus package. The papers and the airwaves are full of the fact that this will be the largest expenditure we have made in peacetime perhaps in our history.

I think it well, as we wait for the details of the package, for us to pause for a moment and take a longer look, beyond the recession, beyond the financial circumstances we are facing at the moment, and look down the road at what we are facing as a nation as a whole.

So I am going to make a historic pattern today and then introduce, at the end, a bill I believe is necessary for us to deal with our financial problems. Let's go back a moment in history to the year 1966. Why do I pick 1966? Because that was the year we significantly expanded the entitlement spending in the United States. That was the year we adopted Medicare as a Federal program.

As you see from the chart, at that time the mandatory spending constituted 26 percent of the budget. By ``mandatory,'' I mean spending that we have to do. People are entitled to receive that money whether we have the money or not; it is mandatory under the law.

The largest portion of the mandatory spending in 1966 was Social Security.

We were paying roughly 7 percent of our budget for interest. We had nondefense discretionary spending which was 23 percent. The big item, the big ticket item that dominated the budget in 1966 was defense. It constituted 44 percent of Federal spending in 1966.

Let's see what has happened since that time. Let's see where we are today. In fiscal 2008, this is where we are. The mandatory spending has grown from 26 percent to 54 percent. Interest costs are roughly the same. They were 7 percent; now they are 8. Nondiscretionary spending has shrunk to 17 percent. Defense discretionary, even though we are in a wartime, is 21 percent. It is clear the mandatory spending is taking over control of the Federal budget. And interest costs, of course, are mandatory. We owe those interest costs.

If you add the two together, 54 and 8, you get 62 percent of the Federal budget beyond the control of Congress. That is, when we pass the appropriations bills, when we make our decisions what to spend money for, we are spending money in the minority; whereas, 62 percent majority is out of our control. When you take away the defense spending and assume that has a semimandatory aspect to it and put defense spending in the mix, that means the Congress only has control of 17 percent of the budget, an amazing change in the roughly 40 years from 1966 until today.

What does the future look like? I must make the point that every projection we make around here is wrong. Every projection is an educated guess. But the educated guess of what will happen 10 years from now is that mandatory spending will have grown to 61 percent and interest costs to 10 percent. That is 71. The Congressional Budget Office won't make a guess as to the divide between defense and nondefense discretionary spending. So all discretionary spending will be 29 percent, if we divide it in half, as it has historically been. That means the Congress, just 10 years from now, will only control 10 percent of the Federal budget. All the rest of it will be on automatic pilot. That is a startling thing to look forward to.

So as we talk about the stimulus package, we need to pause and pay a little attention to the entitlement spending that will go on and the kind of spending that will be built up, and we are adding to that with this stimulus.

Here it is in the projections of what it will be. It constitutes a wave. Indeed, it has been referred to almost as a tsunami of spending. It is broken down into the three primary sources of mandatory spending, the three biggest entitlements. At the bottom is the one that is the biggest now, and that is Social Security. But Social Security does not grow as fast as the next one, which is Medicare. And then on top of that is Medicaid. One can see this tsunami of spending will take our mandatory spending, which at the moment is less than 10 percent of GDP, up to more than 20 percent of GDP.

Let me show another chart that illustrates the same point in a slightly different way. You have the same entitlements. We have added in this chart discretionary spending. The solid line across is the average revenue of the Federal Government. It is recorded in percentage of GDP. We have historically had a revenue average of 18.4 percent of GDP. As we can see in 2007, the expenditures were slightly above that line. The largest portion of the expenditure was the combination of defense and nondefense discretionary spending. But the projection, as you go out, you see that at some point the entitlements will take over every dime we take in. The largest portion of it will be Medicare. Social Security will still be there. Medicaid will still be there. Discretionary spending will shrink even further as a percentage of what we are dealing with.

Why is this happening? Is this some kind of a plot that somebody is involved in? No. This is a result of the demographic changes that are occurring in our country. This chart summarizes it with the headline: ``Americans Are Getting Older.''

If you go back to 1950, the percentage of Americans who were age 65 or older was about 7 percent. It grew, the percentage, at a relatively slow level and then actually began to shrink. Why did it begin to shrink, the percentage of Americans 65 and over? This is a reflection of the Great Depression. People had fewer children in the Great Depression. So it follows that 65 years later, there were fewer people who were of retirement age. But following the Great Depression, you had the Second World War and then, when people came home from war, you had what historians refer to as the baby boom. All of those who came as a consequence of that are called the boomers.

Starting in 2008, which is now history, the line started upward in a dramatic fashion. In the next 20 years, we are going to see something happen that has never happened in American history. In the next 20 years, the percentage of Americans who are over 65 is going to double. That is what is driving all the numbers I put up before, all the changes in entitlement spending. These people are already born. This is not a projection that depends on guesses. This is something we can be sure of because the demographics of these folks are already there.

Now the projection is that 20 years from now, when the baby boomers finish retiring, the rate of increase will slow down again and go back to the somewhat gentle rate it was before we got into this situation. But that is the reality we are dealing with. In the next 20 years, the percentage of Americans who are 65 or over is going to double.

Let's look at some of the detail behind these demographics. Seniors are living longer. Not only are we going to get more of them, but they are living longer. That is why that trend is not going to turn down once the baby boomers have been absorbed. If you go back to 1940, after you reached 65 in 1940, if you were a male, your life expectancy was another 12 years, female 13. The chart shows how it has changed. Now if you are male and you reach 65, your life expectancy is another 16 years. If you are female, it is another 19 years. And roughly a short decade away, a male will go to 18 and female to 21. That means all the entitlement programs geared toward our senior citizens are going to be tapped into for many more years than was the case when they were put in place.

If we go back to the history of Social Security, we realize Social Security was something of a lottery. When Social Security started in the 1930s, roughly half of American workers did not survive until they were 65. So it was a lottery with 100 percent of the people paying in and only 50 percent taking anything out. Those who paid in got nothing for having done so. Those who survived to 65 got the benefit of their survival. Now you see they are living longer today, something like 75 or 80 percent of workers who join the workforce at age 20 are still alive at 65, so the lottery doesn't work anymore. Instead of half the people paying into the lottery, not getting anything out, you have more than three-quarters of the people who pay into the lottery getting something out. Then, once they get it, they get it for longer. The life expectancy of Americans is going up, as was shown in the last chart. This

shows the trend lines for male and female.

Again, in 1940, the life expectancy of Americans who had reached 65 was, for males, about 75. When we get out into the future, it will be 86. Put those two facts together. More people survive to 65 and, then, more people who get into the pool over 65 stay there for more years.

All this means that the financial structure of Social Security is simply unsustainable. Social Security cannot deal with these demographic changes. This is not a Republican plot or a Democratic plot. This is the demographics of the reality of the fact that Americans are healthier, living longer, and surviving to older age. So you get this reaction to the Social Security situation.

We go to the next chart that shows how Social Security works, in terms of the lottery I was discussing. In 1945, the program was still in its infancy. So this is a bit of a distortion. There were 42 people working and paying into the program for every one retiree drawing out. As the program matured and more and more of the workers retired, this number very appropriately came down. By 1950, there were still 17 workers paying into the program for every one retiree drawing out. Today there are three workers paying into the program for every one drawing out. With the demographic realities I described in the previous charts, we are looking at a time when there will be two workers for every retiree. That means, if the retiree is going to take out $1,000 a month, each worker has to be putting in $500 a month in order to make that happen and for a long period of time. This is how we have dealt with this demographic change throughout our history. We have dealt with it by raising taxes. Every step along the way, as the number of workers to retirees has gone down, the amount of taxes every worker pays has gone up.

Here is the history of the payroll tax increases: In 1937, you paid taxes on $3,000. That was it. Now it is $106,000. It has gone up and up all the way through.

This is unsustainable. You cannot continue to deal with the demographic changes in Social Security by simply ratcheting up the taxes. You have to do something to stabilize Social Security in a way that it will be there for our children and our grandchildren.

There is a reported survey--I have seen it many places, but I have never seen the source--that says a poll shows that among the young people in America, more believe in the existence of UFOs than believe Social Security will be available for them when they retire. I have grandmothers come up to me spontaneously on the streets in Utah and tell me how concerned they are their children and grandchildren will not have Social Security. I have people entering the workforce who come to me and say: Senator, my biggest question is, Will Social Security be there for me? And, increasingly, people are sure it is not.

The legislation I introduce today is geared to make sure Social Security will be there for our children and our grandchildren and that it will be there at roughly the same level it is for us; that is, they will not have to accept significantly less than we accept in order to make this program work.

How do we do that in the face of this demographic challenge? How is that possible? Well, one of our colleagues in the Senate for many years, Senator Pat Moynihan of New York, had the answer. Senator Moynihan looked back on how Social Security benefits were calculated, and he said: We calculate the increase in Social Security benefits on the wrong base. I do not want to get too technical, but the term that applies is ``wage-based'' increases for cost of living. Senator Moynihan pointed out the cost of living is not going up as rapidly as wages are. So if we would just adjust the base from wage base to cost- of-living base, a true cost-of-living base--that means we would slow down the rate of growth in benefits, and in slowing down the rate of growth in benefits in that fashion, we would solve the problem. It would become solvent.

That is fine. But what if you are someone who depends upon Social Security as your sole source of retirement? It was never intended that would be the case when it was put in place, but it has become that way for too many Americans. If they were to give up the benefit that comes from an overpayment--that is the form of wage-based adjustments--to go to the true payment of cost of increasing, which is the cost of the Consumer Price Index, it would hurt them. They would give up significant benefits. On the other hand, if you look at people such as Warren Buffett and Oprah Winfrey, they do not really need to have Social Security go beyond the true increase in cost of living.

So the solution is to say, for those who are at the bottom of the economic ladder, we keep Social Security benefits exactly as they are. For Warren Buffett and Oprah Winfrey and those who are at the exact top end of the economic ladder, we take Senator Moynihan's idea and we put it in place and say: You will have to struggle by with a Social Security plan based on the actual increase in cost of living rather than an inflated increase in cost of living.

What about those of us who are in between, the people at the bottom and the people at the very top? For those of us who fall in between those two areas, we get a mix, a blend, if you will, of wage base or cost-of-living base. It is called progressive indexing. All of the details are available in hearings that have been held on this subject which I chaired when I was chairman of the Joint Economic Committee and in other publications that have addressed this question.

What will this do to the actual benefits of the people in Social Security? We have asked the Social Security Administration to tell us. Now, again, these are projections, and as projections, they are subject to some kind of challenge. But they are the best analysis that people can make.

We start out with people who are currently 55; that is, only 10 years away from the 65 retirement date, although Social Security, by the time they get there, will be at 67. But what is going to happen to them under the bill I am introducing?

As shown on this chart, the dark bar is what a 2009 retiree will get. The red bar is what a 2019 retiree will get. These are in constant dollars; that is, an adjustment has been made for inflation. You see in every instance, the 2019 retiree will get more than the 2009 retiree.

Now, this is for the low earner. These are the people who are at the bottom third of our economic structure. Then the medium earner, and the high earner. So you see, in every case, people are made whole and protected.

This last chart is for the max earner, the maximum earner, who, quite frankly, probably does not exist. That would assume that somebody entered the workforce at age 20, earned $106,000 a year the first year, and continued to earn that level going on up through his entire career. The maximum he could possibly draw from Social Security: that would be that one.

But 82 percent of Americans fall in these two categories. So for someone age 55, under this bill, they come out just fine. They have nothing they should worry about.

Well, what about somebody who is 45, a little bit younger? What happens to them? Again, these are the estimates made by the Social Security Administration. Once again, the low earners, they do better under the Bennett plan. The medium earners, they do better under the Bennett plan. The high earners, virtually the same under the Bennett plan.

We can make the statement that we are going to hold everybody harmless. We will adjust Social Security in a way that makes it solvent, while at the same time preserving the same level of benefits we have for those of us who are currently drawing Social Security benefits, and we can see the same level of benefits would be available to those who come after us.

We will reach out all the way to 2075 and see what the estimates are from the Social Security Administration. These are people who will be born in 2010. It is a little hard to make a projection as to how much money they will have when they are not alive yet, but the projections are made.

Once again, under the bill I am introducing today, in 2075, the people at the bottom will do substantially better comparing today's benefit of $800 to the potential benefit of nearly $1,300 because they are the ones who are held harmless in the way Social Security benefits are currently calculated. So

they will get a significant position of significantly greater benefit than they do under current law. The medium earner--well, they also will do better. The high earner also will do better. Even the max earner will come out essentially the same.

Now, I cannot guarantee these numbers. You cannot guarantee with any certainty what the numbers are going to be in 2075. But the fact is that the Social Security Administration, looking over a past version of this bill I have introduced, has said everyone can look forward with some certainty--this is my description of it, not their words--everyone can look forward with some certainty to seeing that his or her Social Security benefits will be roughly the same as the benefits that are being paid to retirees today, and the system will be solvent, not requiring any increase in taxes throughout the life of the system.

We have had a lot of debates about Social Security, and we have had a lot of proposals about Social Security. To my knowledge, this is the only one that can say the two things I have just said; that is, that everybody's benefit, wherever they fall on the economic continuum, will be held at roughly the same level as today's benefit--in the case of the low earners, substantially better--and it can be done without raising any taxes. That is why we call this the Social Security Solvency Act.

Let me go back to the charts I put up in the beginning to stress once again the importance of bringing entitlements under control.

As shown on this chart, this is where we were in 1966 before entitlements started to get out of control. We in the Congress controlled 23 percent of the budget in nondefense discretionary spending and 44 percent of the budget in defense spending. So we controlled the majority. Today, we have shrunk that to the point where we control only 17 percent of the Federal budget, with 21 percent for defense spending, and the mandatory and interest costs have grown to a majority--a significant majority. Looking ahead just 10 years, if we do not do something about the entitlements, the mandatory spending will be 61 percent, 71 percent when you add interest costs. If you divide defense and nondefense in this historic pattern, we will only have 15 percent of the entire Federal budget under our control for nondefense discretionary spending.

We are talking about the largest single expenditure in our peacetime history. As we adopt it, we should do so against the backdrop of what we are looking at in mandatory spending down the road and realize if we are going to be able to afford this stimulus package, we have to have the courage to tackle mandatory spending at the same time.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from Oregon for his kind words. He was not here when I put up one chart which has now been taken away that showed the tsunami of entitlement spending, consisting of a band of three programs. The largest portion of that tsunami band was made up of health care spending. I will confess to having taken the easy route. Social Security is the easiest one to fix because we can make the kinds of changes I described here that go back to the effort started by Senator Moynihan.

Here is the chart. We can see Social Security is the easy one and eventually the small one. Medicare and Medicaid are the ones that are going to overwhelm us. They are the most difficult ones to fix.

So I am honored to have the Senator from Oregon say what he has to say because he has been the leader in recognizing that this challenge; that is, the challenge of dealing with the health care costs, is the tougher challenge, but, as with most tough challenges, it is also the one that will produce the biggest reward. It is where the biggest opportunity lies.

As I have said many times and repeated here on the floor of the Senate, one of the things I realized while working with the Senator from Oregon is that the best way to get all of these costs under control and turn these lines downward is to get quality going in our health care program. The bill I have had the honor to cosponsor, along with the Senator from Oregon, is focused on getting proper quality into our health care system.

If the Senator from Oregon is successful, with whatever help I can give him along with those others who have joined us, he will have made a significant contribution to our country, not only in terms of the benefits that come from having done health care right but from the economic impact of having done health care right. He will have made it possible for us to even consider such expenditures as a target in the stimulus package because this is the backdrop against which we are going to have to pay for those. So I thank the Senator from Oregon for his kind words, but I thank him even more for his valiant effort and his leadership on the whole issue of trying to deal with the health care challenge.

Mr. President, I again stress how grateful I am to the Senator for his leadership and how happy I am to be one of his cadre of loyal followers on this issue.

Mr. President, I, along with the senior senator from Utah, am introducing today legislation to authorize the Secretary of Transportation to release restrictions on the use of certain property conveyed to the city of St. George, Utah for airport purposes.

On October 17, 2008, the City of St. George, UT, and the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, broke ground on the construction of a new replacement airport, which will provide enhanced air service to the over 300,000 residents of southern Utah. The total project will cost $168 million and the start of operations at the replacement airport is scheduled for January 1, 2011.

The project is being funded largely through Federal grants covered by a letter of intent from the FAA in the amount of $119 million.

The City of St. George is financing its $44 million local share of the replacement airport through the sale of the existing airport property totaling 274 acres to Anderson Development Services Inc.

Recently it was discovered that 40 acres of the existing airport site was acquired by the City of St. George under Section 16 of the Federal Airport Act of 1946 (60 Stat. 173; 49 U.S.C. 1115) and can only be used for airport purposes.

The United States Secretary of the Interior issued a patent to the city of St. George in 1951 for the 40 acres and the city signed a deed to the land dated August 28, 1973, which contains a reverter deed restriction that if the land ceased to be used for airport purposes, the title would revert back to the United States Secretary of Transportation.

Federal legislation is required to authorize the Secretary of Transportation to release this reverter deed restriction on the use of this 40 acre parcel so the sale of the entire 274 acre airport can go through. A similar legislation (Public Law 94-244) releasing identical deed restrictions was enacted for the City of Grand Junction, CO; in 1976.

The legislation requires that upon release from these restrictions, the City of St. George, UT, must sell the 40 acre parcel for fair market value, which is estimated at $5 million, and the proceeds must be given to the FAA for the development, improvement, operation, or maintenance of the replacement airport as part of St. George's local contribution.

I urge my colleagues to support this straight-forward legislation. All funds will still be directed to the FAA. However, this minor correction will go a long way in assisting one of the fastest growing counties in the United States.

Mr. President, I, along with the senior senator from Utah, am introducing today legislation to authorize the Secretary of Transportation to release restrictions on the use of certain property conveyed to the city of St. George, Utah for airport purposes.

On October 17, 2008, the City of St. George, UT, and the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, broke ground on the construction of a new replacement airport, which will provide enhanced air service to the over 300,000 residents of southern Utah. The total project will cost $168 million and the start of operations at the replacement airport is scheduled for January 1, 2011.

The project is being funded largely through Federal grants covered by a letter of intent from the FAA in the amount of $119 million.

The City of St. George is financing its $44 million local share of the replacement airport through the sale of the existing airport property totaling 274 acres to Anderson Development Services Inc.

Recently it was discovered that 40 acres of the existing airport site was acquired by the City of St. George under Section 16 of the Federal Airport Act of 1946 (60 Stat. 173; 49 U.S.C. 1115) and can only be used for airport purposes.

The United States Secretary of the Interior issued a patent to the city of St. George in 1951 for the 40 acres and the city signed a deed to the land dated August 28, 1973, which contains a reverter deed restriction that if the land ceased to be used for airport purposes, the title would revert back to the United States Secretary of Transportation.

Federal legislation is required to authorize the Secretary of Transportation to release this reverter deed restriction on the use of this 40 acre parcel so the sale of the entire 274 acre airport can go through. A similar legislation (Public Law 94-244) releasing identical deed restrictions was enacted for the City of Grand Junction, CO; in 1976.

The legislation requires that upon release from these restrictions, the City of St. George, UT, must sell the 40 acre parcel for fair market value, which is estimated at $5 million, and the proceeds must be given to the FAA for the development, improvement, operation, or maintenance of the replacement airport as part of St. George's local contribution.

I urge my colleagues to support this straight-forward legislation. All funds will still be directed to the FAA. However, this minor correction will go a long way in assisting one of the fastest growing counties in the United States.

Mr. President, I am proud to join the Senator from Vermont today to introduce the Artist-Museum Partnership Act. He and I have introduced this legislation in the past, and we hope that our colleagues will see this bill for what it is: a reasonable solution to an unintentional inequity in our Tax Code.

This legislation would allow living artists to deduct the fair-market value of their art work when they contribute their work to museums or other public institutions. As the Tax Code is currently written, art collectors are able to deduct the fair market value of any piece of art they donate to a museum, but the artist who created the work is only able to deduct the material cost, which may be nothing more than a canvas, a tube of paint, and a wooden frame, if he or she donated their art to a museum. Thus, there exists a disincentive for artists to donate their work to museums. The solution is simple: treat collectors and artists the same way. This bill would do just that.

Certainly, this bill would benefit artists, but more importantly, the beneficiaries would be the museums that would receive the artwork and the general public who would be able to view it in a timely manner. This change in the Tax Code would increase the number of original pieces donated to public institutions, giving scholars greater access to an artist's work during the lifetime of that artist, as well as provide for an increase in the public display of such work.

I would like to thank Senator Leahy for his work on this bill. I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense legislation. The benefit of the Artist-Museum Partnership Act to our Nation's cultural and artistic heritage cannot be overstated. This minor correction to the Tax Code is long overdue, and the Senate should act on this legislation to remedy the problem.

Mr. President, I am proud to join the Senator from Vermont today to introduce the Artist-Museum Partnership Act. He and I have introduced this legislation in the past, and we hope that our colleagues will see this bill for what it is: a reasonable solution to an unintentional inequity in our Tax Code.

This legislation would allow living artists to deduct the fair-market value of their art work when they contribute their work to museums or other public institutions. As the Tax Code is currently written, art collectors are able to deduct the fair market value of any piece of art they donate to a museum, but the artist who created the work is only able to deduct the material cost, which may be nothing more than a canvas, a tube of paint, and a wooden frame, if he or she donated their art to a museum. Thus, there exists a disincentive for artists to donate their work to museums. The solution is simple: treat collectors and artists the same way. This bill would do just that.

Certainly, this bill would benefit artists, but more importantly, the beneficiaries would be the museums that would receive the artwork and the general public who would be able to view it in a timely manner. This change in the Tax Code would increase the number of original pieces donated to public institutions, giving scholars greater access to an artist's work during the lifetime of that artist, as well as provide for an increase in the public display of such work.

I would like to thank Senator Leahy for his work on this bill. I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense legislation. The benefit of the Artist-Museum Partnership Act to our Nation's cultural and artistic heritage cannot be overstated. This minor correction to the Tax Code is long overdue, and the Senate should act on this legislation to remedy the problem.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce important legislation today.

Last year, this body passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. Overall, I think this was a good bill, and will contribute to improving our children's safety.

However, as is the case sometimes, we are now learning about some of the unintended consequences arising from that legislation. I've heard from Utahns who are very concerned that parts of the act are going to put them out of business and harm those that benefit from their products and services.

Next week, as part of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, a new lead standard for products goes into effect. The act makes it illegal to sell products that contain more lead than the new standard allows--it classifies those products as banned hazardous substances. The new standard should help protect our children from the harmful effects of lead poisoning.

The act also requires manufacturers to use accredited third-party laboratories to certify the safety of their products made for children ages 12 and under. If you don't test the product, you can't sell it. This makes perfect sense.

But here's the problem: while resellers of those products are exempt from the testing requirements of the legislation, they are not exempt from the penalties associated with violating the act. Violations can result in criminal punishment of up to $250,000 and 5 years in prison, and civil liability up to $15 million. All of this is scheduled to go into effect on February 10th of this year--less than one week from today.

However, the Consumer Product Safety Commission understands there are problems associated with the act. I met with Acting Commissioner Nancy Nord last Friday about these issues. We discussed both the act's potential problems and the importance of maintaining public safety. That same day, her organization postponed the testing and certification requirements of the act for one year. They needed additional time to finalize the rules, and issue clearer guidance on how businesses should comply with the law. Congress gave them the discretion to do this.

However, and this is the problem, the Consumer Product Safety Commission doesn't have the discretion to postpone the actual standard--how much lead is legally allowable in certain products. So you have a situation where the agency is not enforcing the standard by requiring testing and certification while at the same time, the companies that have products in their inventory that exceed the lead standard are subject to both criminal and civil penalties. As one who ran his own business, I can tell you that this makes no sense.

The legislation that I introduce here today will remedy this seeming contradiction. My legislation gives the commission the authority, if it determines it's necessary, to also delay implementing the new lead standards until they have finalized the rules and begin to enforce the law. If the commission were to exercise those authorities, it would give both Congress and the Consumer Product Safety Commission enough time to really evaluate the effects of this legislation, particularly on our small businesses and thrift enterprises, and implement something that actually makes sense.

You must understand that I am not opposed to the new lead standards or keeping our children safe. My bill is not mandating a year delay; it's simply giving the commission that authority. In the meantime, we must craft some sort of compromise before this well-intended law wreaks havoc upon many of our small businesses and those in the thrift industry that serve the lower income in our country.

Let me explain some of the problems associated with the CPSIA.

Some of my constituents who are concerned about this bill are running small businesses out of their homes to supplement their family income during these difficult economic times. One constituent, Katie Erwin, recently wrote to my office to tell me her personal experience. She designs and makes baby dresses that are sold on the Internet. Her dresses require the use of many fabrics, buttons, snaps, and elastic materials. She has done her research into what her business will have to do after the CPSIA becomes law. Even though she uses only materials that have been proven to have safe lead content, she has to have her end product tested. Not just each dress, but each element of each dress. At $75 per test, one dress could end up costing $750. She told us that, in order to be compliant, the dresses would be so expensive that she'd never make a profit. And that is if she could even sell the more expensive dresses. Other small and home-based businesses tell the same story. Many fear going out of business, and don't know how to cope with the new enforcement.

The Ogden Rescue Mission in northern Utah has two thrift stores that have been around for decades selling used goods. The owner has made it clear that he will stop selling any children's products on February 10 because he doesn't want to break the law or be held liable for inadvertently selling a now-illegal product. Companies risk losing their insurance if they accidentally sell an unsafe product. With the new standards required by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, the chance of that happening is almost certain. I have to believe that larger thrift stores like Deseret Industries, the Salvation Army, and Goodwill Industries will all have similar concerns once the Act is fully understood and implemented.

Remember, these companies are going to be subject to criminal penalties and civilly liable for products they sell that exceed the standard, including the resellers whom the law exempts from the testing and certification requirements. Again, five years in prison, $250,000 in criminal penalties and $15 million in civil penalties.

At a time when we are debating how to stimulate the economy and keep businesses afloat, we should not overlook this problem that has the potential to cost our economy millions of dollars in litigation costs and many, many jobs if it is not implemented in the right way. During an economic downturn like the one we are experiencing, thrift stores and others that sell used goods are going to be more important than ever. Let's make sure they are able to serve our communities by providing the commission with the tools necessary to work out the problems associated with implementing the CPSIA.

I hope the Senate expeditiously considers my legislation. I think this approach makes sense, and will ultimately help the commission to better implement this law. I understand others may have different approaches to resolving the same problem, and I would invite a discussion of this issue during the coming weeks with my colleagues so we can fix it quickly before we do irreparable damage to businesses across the country.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce important legislation today.

Last year, this body passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. Overall, I think this was a good bill, and will contribute to improving our children's safety.

However, as is the case sometimes, we are now learning about some of the unintended consequences arising from that legislation. I've heard from Utahns who are very concerned that parts of the act are going to put them out of business and harm those that benefit from their products and services.

Next week, as part of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, a new lead standard for products goes into effect. The act makes it illegal to sell products that contain more lead than the new standard allows--it classifies those products as banned hazardous substances. The new standard should help protect our children from the harmful effects of lead poisoning.

The act also requires manufacturers to use accredited third-party laboratories to certify the safety of their products made for children ages 12 and under. If you don't test the product, you can't sell it. This makes perfect sense.

But here's the problem: while resellers of those products are exempt from the testing requirements of the legislation, they are not exempt from the penalties associated with violating the act. Violations can result in criminal punishment of up to $250,000 and 5 years in prison, and civil liability up to $15 million. All of this is scheduled to go into effect on February 10th of this year--less than one week from today.

However, the Consumer Product Safety Commission understands there are problems associated with the act. I met with Acting Commissioner Nancy Nord last Friday about these issues. We discussed both the act's potential problems and the importance of maintaining public safety. That same day, her organization postponed the testing and certification requirements of the act for one year. They needed additional time to finalize the rules, and issue clearer guidance on how businesses should comply with the law. Congress gave them the discretion to do this.

However, and this is the problem, the Consumer Product Safety Commission doesn't have the discretion to postpone the actual standard--how much lead is legally allowable in certain products. So you have a situation where the agency is not enforcing the standard by requiring testing and certification while at the same time, the companies that have products in their inventory that exceed the lead standard are subject to both criminal and civil penalties. As one who ran his own business, I can tell you that this makes no sense.

The legislation that I introduce here today will remedy this seeming contradiction. My legislation gives the commission the authority, if it determines it's necessary, to also delay implementing the new lead standards until they have finalized the rules and begin to enforce the law. If the commission were to exercise those authorities, it would give both Congress and the Consumer Product Safety Commission enough time to really evaluate the effects of this legislation, particularly on our small businesses and thrift enterprises, and implement something that actually makes sense.

You must understand that I am not opposed to the new lead standards or keeping our children safe. My bill is not mandating a year delay; it's simply giving the commission that authority. In the meantime, we must craft some sort of compromise before this well-intended law wreaks havoc upon many of our small businesses and those in the thrift industry that serve the lower income in our country.

Let me explain some of the problems associated with the CPSIA.

Some of my constituents who are concerned about this bill are running small businesses out of their homes to supplement their family income during these difficult economic times. One constituent, Katie Erwin, recently wrote to my office to tell me her personal experience. She designs and makes baby dresses that are sold on the Internet. Her dresses require the use of many fabrics, buttons, snaps, and elastic materials. She has done her research into what her business will have to do after the CPSIA becomes law. Even though she uses only materials that have been proven to have safe lead content, she has to have her end product tested. Not just each dress, but each element of each dress. At $75 per test, one dress could end up costing $750. She told us that, in order to be compliant, the dresses would be so expensive that she'd never make a profit. And that is if she could even sell the more expensive dresses. Other small and home-based businesses tell the same story. Many fear going out of business, and don't know how to cope with the new enforcement.

The Ogden Rescue Mission in northern Utah has two thrift stores that have been around for decades selling used goods. The owner has made it clear that he will stop selling any children's products on February 10 because he doesn't want to break the law or be held liable for inadvertently selling a now-illegal product. Companies risk losing their insurance if they accidentally sell an unsafe product. With the new standards required by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, the chance of that happening is almost certain. I have to believe that larger thrift stores like Deseret Industries, the Salvation Army, and Goodwill Industries will all have similar concerns once the Act is fully understood and implemented.

Remember, these companies are going to be subject to criminal penalties and civilly liable for products they sell that exceed the standard, including the resellers whom the law exempts from the testing and certification requirements. Again, five years in prison, $250,000 in criminal penalties and $15 million in civil penalties.

At a time when we are debating how to stimulate the economy and keep businesses afloat, we should not overlook this problem that has the potential to cost our economy millions of dollars in litigation costs and many, many jobs if it is not implemented in the right way. During an economic downturn like the one we are experiencing, thrift stores and others that sell used goods are going to be more important than ever. Let's make sure they are able to serve our communities by providing the commission with the tools necessary to work out the problems associated with implementing the CPSIA.

I hope the Senate expeditiously considers my legislation. I think this approach makes sense, and will ultimately help the commission to better implement this law. I understand others may have different approaches to resolving the same problem, and I would invite a discussion of this issue during the coming weeks with my colleagues so we can fix it quickly before we do irreparable damage to businesses across the country.

Mr. President, I rise to comment with respect to the proposed Lilly Ledbetter legislation, and I bring the perspective of a small employer, for I have presided over firms with as few as half a dozen employees. I have been fortunate enough to see some of those firms grow to larger firms. Indeed, one firm I joined as the fourth employee in the history of that firm ended up listed on the New York Stock Exchange. So I have seen the travails employers go through as they deal with growth situations and creating jobs. The company with which I was involved grew from the original four employees to a staff of 4,000.

One of the challenges that comes with a company that is growing that rapidly and creating that number of jobs is you are always involved with change. You are always involved with uncertainty. It is not the same thing as presiding over a company that has been established for 60 or 70 years and has a degree of stability. Every month is a new adventure, a new challenge, and you are constantly changing your employee base. As new people are hired, the old people sometimes get resentful of the new people and say: We were here at the beginning; why aren't we getting these promotions? And you have to explain to them that the company has changed and we need new talents, we need to bring on board new skills, and, quite frankly, the small group that was with us in the beginning has to be augmented with new people.

There are resentments, there are concerns, and occasionally there are discrimination cases filed.

But if we were to take the position of the underlying legislation that says if there was genuine wage discrimination in a circumstance, everyone who was involved in writing a paycheck after that discrimination has committed the discrimination again and has effectively reset the clock for the statute of limitations.

As I consider the impact of this on a business, I realize this, in a way, is the asbestos fight all over again. We saw in the asbestos fight companies that were taken down for actions that occurred outside the company on the part of those who worked in other companies that were acquired decades later. Let's put it specifically.

Let's assume a business had a situation where there was, in fact, wage discrimination that took place. The individual against whom this discrimination was practiced did nothing with respect to it but continued to stay employed and continued to receive the paycheck.

Under the Lilly Ledbetter legislation, the clock would be reset for the statute of limitations. The individual who performed the discrimination, let us say, was discharged. The individual who supervised the situation was unaware that discrimination had occurred. The company in which it happened is later acquired by another company. And then the trial lawyers discover this had been going on years ago. They now sue the eventual company that acquired the first company for a great amount of money, perhaps even a class action suit is filed. You cannot prove what happened because all the people involved have disappeared. They have gone away. They no longer work for the company. They have no memory of what happened. It is decades later.

It doesn't matter. Under this legislation, the statute of limitations that is crafted to deal with a situation where there are no available witnesses anymore somehow magically, by virtue of this bill, keeps getting set again and again going forward.

The Supreme Court got this one right. The attempt on the part of those who want to curry favor with the trial lawyers have got this wrong. What will happen? Will more people who have had wage discrimination receive benefits? There is no guarantee that will happen. Will trial lawyers who are looking for causes of action receive fees? There is a pretty good guarantee that will happen. Will small and medium-size businesses that cannot afford legal fees be faced with enormous settlement charges? I am pretty sure that will happen. Will jobs be destroyed as a result of this, as they were in the asbestos case? I guarantee that will happen.

Here we are, in the worst financial situation any of us can recall, talking about a circumstance that would destroy jobs among small businesses and that would discourage employers who are struggling to create new jobs in medium-size businesses. We are talking about putting out billions of dollars in the name of a stimulus while simultaneously discussing legislation that would destroy jobs and create chaos among those who are trying to survive in this financial circumstance.

This is bad legislation on its face and bad legislation on its merits. But the timing of this proposal is atrocious. To be making these kinds of proposals in this kind of financial circumstance is incomprehensible to me, unless I assume that there are those who say the trial lawyers played an important part in the election; the trial lawyers need to be rewarded for the important part they played in the election; let's have a bill that will line the pockets of the trial lawyers and look the other way in terms of the economic consequences.

I compared this to the asbestos litigation. I was in the Chamber when we dealt with what are called strike suits, where trial lawyers would file lawsuits on behalf of clients who were, in fact, not aggrieved but were simply posing in behalf of a class that the trial lawyer himself had put together.

We passed that legislation. It was vetoed by President Clinton. It was the only Clinton veto that was overridden in this Chamber, as everyone was outraged at the behavior of the trial lawyers who brought these strike suits.

There are those who said: Oh, you still don't get it, you who are picking on the trial lawyers. They do wonderful things. I agree that the ability to file a grievance and have a trial lawyer carry it forward, even in a class-action suit, is a protection the American people need. But these lawyers were going far beyond anything that was good for the American people.

The position was summarized by Bill Lerach, known as the ``king of the trial bar,'' when he said: I have the ideal law practice. I have no clients. He is now in jail because his practices finally caught up with him, as it was finally demonstrated that the people on whose behalf he was suing were, in fact, not real clients. They were paid by him to pose as people who were aggrieved.

We saw those kinds of abuses that came out of that situation. We finally saw his law firm destroyed, and this man, and others like him from the trial bar, went to jail for their activities.

Let's not create another circumstance where there is a temptation to once again take advantage of people who have been legitimately hurt, but by manipulating the law in such a way as to maximize the return to the plaintiff's bar, we see the economy hurt.

The Supreme Court, as I say, got this one right. We should stay with the Supreme Court decision and not try to give special advantage to a special group simply because of their activities in the last election.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to voice my support for this legislation even though there are bills in the package that I do not support.

I oppose the National Landscape Conservation System. I might have preferred that it be separated out so we could have that particular vote. But that is not the way the committee has decided to do it, and this committee, in leadership of both parties, has adopted the pattern of packaging bills together at the end of a Congress, and that is what we are faced with today.

Given that history, I rise to support the bill because most of it is acceptable to me, and one bill in particular is one on which I have been working for close to, if not more than, a decade. The issue of wilderness in southern Utah has been the most contentious issue I have had to deal with in the time I have been in the Senate. It was an issue in my campaign in 1992. It has aroused emotion, and, indeed, something stronger than emotion throughout the State for many years. Working

with Bill Meadows and members of the National Wilderness Society, working with the Washington County commissioners and those on the ground, I am honored to have been able to help craft a compromise with which no one is 100 percent satisfied but which both sides in good faith now say is the logical thing to do.

I would have preferred some other things in it. The chairman of the committee, Senator Bingaman, was rather firm in his opposition to those things. We will still debate those at a future time, but let's take what we have on the table before us. Let's consume it with gratitude and give thanks. It is time to see this issue put to bed and time to see resolution of it. People of good will acting in good faith on different sides of the argument have come together with an agreement that makes sense.

For that reason, I stand here urging my colleagues to support the motion to invoke cloture, and once cloture is invoked, to support all of the subsequent procedural motions that will be necessary for this bill to become law.

I hope it can become law while President Bush is still the President to demonstrate that this issue of dealing with difficult land use challenges in the West is not a partisan one, and a Democratic Congress working with a Republican President can bring closure to these challenges in a way that will benefit the entire country.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I appreciate the statement of the Republican leader with respect to our determination to get this done. I think all of us should recognize that these are extraordinary times, and I want to sound a warning to those who have the opinion that yesterday's drop in the stock market was simply a one-time correction; that the stock market is coming back today, and that the markets are going to absorb the shock of the lack of action on the part of the House of Representatives.

I would point out that markets are driven by future expectations, and when the stock market assumed, on the basis of the vote in the House, that we would not have any kind of Federal action on the financial rescue package, it dropped more dramatically than at any other time in its history in total number of points, and it dropped percentage-wise for the worst drop since 9/11.

Now, as there has been an expectation that the Congress will move, the stock market is back up today but nowhere near back up to the point it was before the drop occurred yesterday. If we break the expectation once again, this time the market will drop and there will be no coming back up. This time, your 401(k), your pension plan, your retirement account will be hurt in a way that will take years to recover.

Let's talk about numbers to demonstrate the importance of this. One of the things we have heard with respect to the financial rescue plan is that $700 billion is far too big an amount for the taxpayers to absorb. Yesterday, over 1 trillion dollars' worth of market value was wiped off the books by the stock market drop. We must understand that it is ordinary people looking at ordinary pensions with their ordinary Main Street kind of 401(k) plans who lost that trillion dollars, and they lost it in a matter of minutes. The market plunged over 700 points in a matter of minutes, and 1 trillion dollars' worth of ordinary American value was wiped out.

This is not a trivial event, and we should pay attention to it. As I say, the stock market now believes we are going to get serious about this and get

something passed, and so it is up today about 250 points. But that is only one-third of the 777 points that were lost yesterday. We should not congratulate ourselves on the 250-point rally that it has somehow removed the sting of the 777-point drop that occurred yesterday.

We keep hearing, well, the markets will adjust and everything will be all right and the stock market will be OK. But let's move away from the stock market to where the real problem lies, which is in the credit markets. We don't have a single barometer for the credit markets the way we do with Dow Jones following the stock market, but we have indications all along the way that the credit markets throughout the world have seized up; that is, banks are not loaning to banks, banks are not making credit available to those who have been their best customers as they wait to see how this works out. That is the place where those people who are saying this applies only to Wall Street are going to end up paying a huge price.

I have used this example before, but I am finding it is being duplicated in other States. Amidst the avalanche of phone calls into my office from angry Utahns demanding that we vote against this because they say this is a bailout of Wall Street, there are one or two other phone calls that get through. One of them came from an auto dealer. In the city or town where he operates, he is the city's largest employer.

He called and said: Senator, I know you are getting a lot of calls on the other side of this issue. Let me just point out one thing with respect to my business. I am the biggest employer in this town, and I may not be able to make payroll on Wednesday. The biggest employer in town, and none of my employees will get checks because the bank won't give me the line of credit that the bank has been making available to me for decades.

That is the implication of the seizing up of the credit markets. That has nothing to do with the stock value of this particular car dealer. That has to do with the paychecks that go into the pockets of the people who fix the cars, who wash the cars, and who try to sell the cars. They are the ones who will pay the price of the inaction in the Congress.

There are those who say, well, we should restructure the regulatory system so this doesn't happen again. We shouldn't act in such a precipitous fashion until we get all of these other issues on the table and discussed. Let's not act quickly.

I am perfectly willing to agree that the regulatory structure we have basically going back to the 1930s is inadequate for the kind of world in which we now live. And I am perfectly willing to agree the restructuring should be a serious one and a deep one. If you do a serious and deep restructuring of the way we handle credit markets in this country and confer with our counterparts in other countries around the world so the world structure is intelligently constructed, you are talking months, if not a year or so. And while we are putting forward our pet theories as to how that should be done, with experts on talk shows and from think tanks pontificating on cable television, payrolls may not be met in towns in my State.

This is a crisis that has to be dealt with now. We can deal with the restructuring of the financial regulatory system at our leisure, but we must not take our eye off the seriousness of the crisis, both in terms of its size and in terms of its pressure. This morning's financial journals make it clear that throughout many countries in the world they and their central banks have not yet addressed the seriousness of the crisis, and we will see problems overseas begin to wash up on our shores to make our problem that much worse if we don't act.

There are those who say, well, we shouldn't give this much power to the Secretary of the Treasury. I don't like the idea of one man having this much authority. The proposal that has been put together creates an oversight board with real power. It creates a board that could rein in a Secretary of the Treasury who abused his power or who got out too far in front. It is my understanding that we have built-in congressional review in the bill that the House defeated--congressional review, congressional oversight--that could have said to a Secretary of Treasury: You are too far extended, and we are going to hold back on the authority we have given you.

But we have a crisis that needs to be dealt with and needs to be dealt with now. We shouldn't be arguing over whether the city council should second-guess the police chief as he rushes to deal with a crisis, a police chief in whom the city council had confidence when they chose him in the first place. This Secretary of the Treasury is well known as one of the more expert money managers in the country. He has been completely open in all of his discussions with members of the leadership of both parties, and members of the leadership of both parties have expressed confidence in his ability to do this. They have created the oversight board that is in the bill that will pull him back if he does it improperly.

The entire $700 billion will not be committed immediately--cannot be committed immediately. It must be handled in an orderly fashion. We understand from the Secretary that the pattern of its disbursement will run at the level of about $50 billion a month. So we are not talking about giving $700 billion overnight in a single check to a single man for him to go out and waste. Those on the talk shows who make that comment simply demonstrate they do not understand what is in the bill.

But the fact that the Secretary of the Treasury can say to the credit markets that are frozen: I have potentially $700 billion available to solve this problem, is a very powerful message that will help solve the problem. A very important part of the problem is the sense of confidence that we are serious about getting it done.

If we say, well, we are going to give the Secretary of the Treasury $100 billion and see how it works, that sends a message we are not confident that this will do any good. If we are going to say, well, we want a board to examine every aspect of this proposal. We are not going to give the Secretary authority to move ahead decisively. That sends the message we are not confident this will work.

The bill the House voted down which said the Secretary can say to the market that potentially we have $700 billion that can be applied to this problem, and he has full authority to commit it, subject to review of the oversight board and the ultimate review of Congress, that is a statement of confidence that the markets can believe.

Now, let me talk just briefly about where the $700 billion number comes from. It is not pulled from out of the air. It is not a number that somebody thought up as sounding pretty big. The total amount of mortgages in the United States is approximately $14 trillion, and the percentage of those mortgages that are bad and probably cannot pay out is about 5 percent. Five percent of $14 trillion is $700 billion. But the assets that the $700 billion will acquire will not be all of the bad mortgages. The assets they will acquire will be a mixture of bad mortgages and good mortgages. Why? Because nobody knows which are the bad mortgages and which are the good mortgages. The only way we are going to find out is hold the mortgage to maturity and see which ones get paid and which ones don't. They are all packaged together.

So the Secretary, by putting 5 percent of the total amount of mortgages available to acquire those that are questionable is sending a message of great confidence to the market by acquiring those mortgages and creating a circumstance whereby once the good ones pay out, the taxpayers will receive money back.

Indeed, there are some who say the U.S. Government will make money. I don't happen to believe that it will, but I can't prove that it will not, and there is certainly an indication in past history that it will.

If we go through the past circumstances, where the Federal Government has intervened in circumstances of need, starting with the Chrysler loans, the Federal Government made money on the Chrysler loans.

Chrysler righted itself by virtue of having access to that money, paid interest on the loans, and the taxpayer received a financial benefit for the Government having entered into the Chrysler loan program.

If I had been in Congress at the time, I probably would have voted against it for other reasons, but for financial reasons, it was a good deal. If you look at

the deal that has been made recently with the Federal Reserve and Bear Stearns, the Federal Reserve stepped in with the Bear Stearns circumstances. What did they do?

They forced the sale of Bear Stearns and then they opened the Fed window so Bear Stearns could borrow money. What happens when you borrow money? You pay interest. By making sure Bear Stearns did not go down, the Federal Reserve guaranteed that Bear Stearns will be able to pay the interest on the money that is made available to them. Who gets that interest when it is paid? The American taxpayer.

It will be paid into the Federal Reserve account. When the Federal Reserve makes money, their surplus gets paid to the American taxpayer. The American taxpayer will receive a benefit, a financial benefit, from the deal that was made by the Federal Reserve and Bear Stearns. The same will be true with AIG, the insurance giant. They will be paying interest on the money that has been made available to them on a loan basis, and the taxpayer will receive that interest.

So for those who are out there adding up the face value of every deal we have made and then adding it to the $700 billion and then telling us all that it is gone and there will never be any of it coming back to the Treasury, they are wrong. They are misleading the American people with that kind of talk. Frankly, it is those commentators who are adding up those numbers irresponsibly, who are driving the angry phone calls that are coming into my office and the office of everyone else here.

Now, I understand their anger. I am sympathetic with their anger. I am as disappointed as anybody that we allowed this situation to get to where it is. But I say to those who are angry: Let's leave it up to the historians to sort out where the blame should go. Let's put out the fire right now. Let's not spend our time as the fire is burning running around trying to find out who the arsonist may have been, while the fire destroys the building. Let's free up the credit markets right now. Let's send a signal of confidence to the world markets right now. We should have done it on Monday in the House of Representatives. We did not.

Negotiations are now going on between the leaders of both Houses and the leaders of both parties to try to find some new program that might pass. Once we do, we will get another vote. The Republican leader has made that very clear. The majority leader has made that clear. We are not leaving town until we get another vote.

That is why the stock market is as encouraging as it is. But we must understand, if we do not act, the lack of confidence will produce a worldwide wave of credit seizing up, and it will be the small businesses, it will be the 401(k) plans, it will be the pension programs for teachers and nurses and others who are depending upon those plans for their retirement that will pay the price.

Some will feel very virtuous about having voted against Wall Street and then turn around and find that their constituents generally have paid a huge price for that vote. The stock market took over $1 trillion worth of value out of the American economy in a matter of minutes on Monday afternoon. We must do everything we can to make sure that does not turn into $2 trillion, $3 trillion or $4 trillion wiped away because the Congress was not willing to stand up to its responsibilities.

I have faith that ultimately we will. I have faith that the Members of the House and the Members of the Senate will ultimately recognize their responsibility and do the right thing.

I go back to a quote by Winston Churchill, who commented on Americans, generally. He said:

The Americans can always be depended upon to do the right

thing after they have exhausted every other possibility.

Monday we exhausted our every other possibility. It is time to do the right thing. We in this body, as well as those in the other body, need to rise to the occasion.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am sorry to see Pete Domenici leave the Senate for a variety of reasons but one highly personal: He is reducing by 25 percent the number of Senators now serving who served with my father. Senator Byrd, Senator Kennedy, Senator Inouye, Senator Stevens, and Senator Biden all served with my father, as did Senator Domenici. Now, he has told me that my father was never quite able to pronounce his name correctly, for which I apologize. I have learned how to do it so that the Bennett family is relieved of that particular problem.

This demonstrates a degree of continuity and a degree of dedication to the problems related to the West because New Mexico and Utah are neighboring States. We touch at one tiny point. It is the only point in the United States where four States come together. It is called the Four Corners, where four States, in a straight divide, come and touch each other. But New Mexico and Utah share many of the same problems, and as I have come to the Senate with the problems of the West and had to turn somewhere for a mentor to help guide me through those problems, I have turned to Senator Domenici. His advice has always been good, his help has always been available, and he has proven to be as good a friend to his western neighbors as he has been to his New Mexican constituents.

If the Senate seniority rule holds in place, I will succeed him as the ranking member of the Energy and Water Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations. These are very big shoes to fill. In true Domenici style, instead of just waving goodbye and walking out the door, he has tucked me under his arm and taken me around to all of the national labs to make sure that these beloved institutions, which he has tended and funded and guided so carefully, got introduced to me under his tutelage and so that he made sure that I understood fully how important they were. In very kind and subtle ways, he made it clear to me that if I didn't stand up to the responsibility of keeping those national treasures alive, he would haunt me in one way or another. Now, I hope he does. I hope he is available for years to come for advice and counsel.

The other thing that has been referred to here, on which I have been delighted to join with him, is his crusade for insurance equality for the mentally disturbed. He and I both have some experience with that with members of our own families. We understand how

important that is, and it has been easy to be a foot soldier in the ranks, with Pete Domenici leading the charge.

There is a phrase that has been used and vastly overused around these halls in Washington for a long time, but it applies accurately to Pete Domenici. He truly has been a national treasure, and we shall miss him but wish him well.

Mr. President, we are about to adjourn for the August recess without having passed a single piece of legislation addressing the energy crisis or the most important issue, which is the concern over rising gasoline prices.

I attended the Fourth of July parade in my home State. In Utah, there is also a 24th of July parade celebrating the anniversary of the time when the first Pioneer settlers came into the valley. In both parades, I had things shouted at me. Politicians have that experience. Usually, we hope the things that are shouted at us are complimentary. In this case, the things I had shouted at me in the parades were: ``Why aren't you drilling? Why aren't you producing more American oil? Drill now.'' I said: We are discussing it. We are trying to do that. We are trying to get something done.

If there were a parade scheduled now, I would have to go back and say: The Senate would not let us vote on any of the proposals to increase the supply of American oil. There are proposals coming in the form of letters from Senators to the President of the United States saying: Will you please go to Saudi Arabia and beg them to produce some more oil? There are suggestions that somehow we should sue Saudi Arabia or members of OPEC to get them to produce more oil. But we are not even allowed the opportunity to vote on proposals to produce more oil in the United States.

A lot of my constituents are not aware that at one point, not too distant in the past, America produced more oil than any other country in the world and controlled the pricing power over oil. We could affect the world price by opening more wells in east Texas. But in the 1970s, that pricing power left our shores and was transferred from the Texas Railroad Commission to the Saudi royal family. Now we are in the posture of begging the Saudi royal family to produce more oil when we have the capacity to bring that pricing power back to the United States by producing more here.

I wish to talk specifically about oil shale because I understand there has been an exchange on the floor about oil shale earlier, with the junior Senator from Colorado saying we are not ready, the technology is not finished, and, therefore, we should maintain the congressionally ordered moratorium on the Department of the Interior from promulgating the rules under which leases could be granted on public land.

Now, let's look at that argument for a minute.

The Department of the Interior has released draft rules. We know what they want to do. They have been prepared to do this, and are prepared to do it today. They cannot turn those draft rules into firm rules as long as the Democrat moratorium is in place. So

when we wanted to lift that moratorium--we tried to in the Appropriations Committee--we were denied on a straight party-line vote. The Republican leader tried to lift that moratorium here. We were denied in a unanimous consent request.

So let's ask ourselves: What are those rules? The best analogy to help people understand what those rules are is to talk about a fishing license. If you want to catch fish, you have to get a fishing license. You go in and you pay for it and it is for a specified period of time. Now, there is no guarantee the fish will respond to your efforts to catch them. There is only an opportunity to go forward with it.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 2 additional minutes.

All we are talking about, with respect to the rules of the Department of the Interior, is let's give companies a fishing license. If the technology is not ready, the companies will know that. They will find that out very rapidly. If the technology doesn't work, the marketplace will prove that it doesn't work, and companies won't invest in it.

This is not a government subsidy for oil shale. This is not even a government support of oil shale. This is simply a fishing license to say: Go see if you can find some fish or, in this case, go see if you can find some oil. If you can, and you can produce it at an economically acceptable price and in an environmentally friendly manner, then go ahead.

But in this body we are saying: No, we won't even let you look for it. We won't even let you move forward to try to find out if it will work.

The Senator from Colorado said: We are not ready. I would say to him: We are in Utah. We have a program going forward in Utah on State land that shows every indication of producing oil by the end of this year. The reason they can't produce large amounts of oil is that we don't have enough State land to produce on a larger scale. If you are going to produce large quantities, you have to allow development on public lands, but there is a moratorium in place that says: We won't even let you look at these lands.

The easiest thing we could have done this week in Congress would have been to lift the moratorium. The least we could have done would have been to let the Department of the Interior implement the rules and give companies an opportunity to look at the Federal lands to see if they want to get a fishing license to catch some fish or, in this case, oil. That is all we are asking for, but it has been objected to repeatedly and repeatedly.

If I march in a parade again, I am going to have a hard time explaining to anybody why the Senate won't allow us to do that.

I appreciate the yielding of the floor to me, but I understand Senator Lincoln was going to speak on this same subject. If she is available, I would be happy to yield to her. I understand she will be coming later so I will proceed.

Energy

Mr. President, we have had a lot of debate, a lot of discussion that does not qualify as debate, over the last week or two with respect to energy. I simply want to make a few comments of my own with regard to that issue. The energy crisis we face is a worldwide crisis. It cannot be solved with a national solution. But it is a national crisis as well, and we need to do what we can as Americans toward finding the solution. We need to help build a bridge, a bridge that can be a worldwide bridge to the long-term vision we have.

As we talk about that bridge, let's ask ourselves what is at the other end of the bridge? The vision people have at the other end of the bridge is a world that does not depend as heavily on fossil fuels as we do today. It is a world that has nuclear power, it is a world that has wind power, and solar power, geothermal power, biomass, hydropower, and one that I am particularly enthusiastic about is tidal power--the rising and falling of the tides being harnessed in generating electricity.

All of those possibilities are there, and all of those possibilities should be embraced, because all of them can contribute to the world we want to be in 10, 15, 20 years from now.

We need to build a bridge to that world because that world is not available now. There are wind farms, but they are producing a tiny fraction of the amount of electricity we use. There are solar panels that are basically demonstrating the technology, but not producing anything like the kind of volume we would need. There are studies about tidal power. There are experiments going on with biomass. There are explorations with geothermal. But all of those are in the future, 10 years away, 15, 20, 30 years away. That is where we want to be, but we need to build a bridge to get there.

Now, who is going to build it? I want Americans to be in the driver's seat of building the bridge and solving the problem. I want Americans to take the lead in figuring out what we need to do as a world to get to the other side of the bridge I have described.

I want Americans to once again achieve their ability to influence world energy prices. There was a time when the Americans could determine the world price of oil simply by determining whether they would drill another well in East Texas.

When the price of oil seemed to be too high, we could open up additional areas of East Texas to exploration. East Texas was full of oil and at the time, we led the world in oil production. Now that leadership is gone. It left the shores in the 1970s. It lies now with the Saudi royal family.

If we are talking about building the bridge, I want the Americans to be the ones to build the bridge. I want Americans to bring back to this continent our ability to affect the world's price of fossil fuels.

And how do we do that? Well, we do it simply by increasing the number of American sources of fossil fuels. That is how we were in charge of the price of oil at one time, and that is how we can be in charge again. A lot of people do not realize that America, though, is the third largest oil-producing country in the world. Saudi Arabia is No. 1, Russia is No. 2, America is No. 3. We used to be No. 1; we are now No. 3.

If we can increase our ability to produce energy, we can control the building of the bridge to the long-term future when we are no longer as dependent on fossil fuels as we are now. If we want to get to renewables, we have to build a bridge to get there.

The material we will use to build that bridge will be American energy. We have almost limitless sources to which we can turn to find that American energy.

The Gas Price Reduction Act, which I have cosponsored along with a number of my colleagues, outlines two of the areas where we can increase American sources of energy and thus help build that bridge and control, influence, and impact world energy prices.

The first one has to do with taking oil out of the Outer Continental Shelf.

Since the early 1980s, we have prohibited drilling in 85 percent of our Outer Continental Shelf waters. It is interesting that this prohibition came about the time that pricing power left the United States and went into the hands of the Saudi royal family. It will not bring it back automatically, but it will certainly make a major impact if we can now make that 85 percent of our Outer Continental Shelf available for exploration and the delivery of oil.

We now know in a way we did not in the 1980s that it is safe because Hurricane Katrina brutally told us that oil rigs can withstand virtually any kind of pressure from the weather. It is not a lesson we wanted to learn in that way, but it is a lesson that we now know.

The other area in the Gas Price Reduction Act where we can find more oil hits closer to my home in Utah. It would allow us to extract oil from oil shale. In eastern Utah, western Colorado and southern Wyoming, there is more oil than there is in all of Saudi Arabia by a factor of three. People say: ``But we do not have it yet. It is unproven technology,'' although oil shale is being turned into oil in other countries of the world, just not this one. ``But new technology is being tried out. Well, it is 10 or 15 years away. It will be expensive.''

I take you back to the proposition of the bridge. The world where we drastically decrease our dependence on fossil fuels is far more than 10 years away or even 15 years away. We cannot wish it into existence immediately. It is hypocritical to say we are strongly for wind power and solar power and geothermal and biomass as the solution to our problems, but we are opposed to oil shale and Outer Continental Shelf drilling because they take years to develop.

If one is 20 years or 30 years away, and the other is only 10 years away, we should be working on the one that is only 10 years away at the same time we are working on the one that is 30 or 40 years away.

America has fossil fuels that are abundant, available, and affordable, and that can be used as the source of building the bridge to the world of less dependence on fossil fuels. Our economy runs on energy. The world economy runs on energy.

We cannot, while hoping that the land we dream of is available at some point, refuse to build the bridge with America's available building materials.

I hope as we wind down this debate and finally decide to do something about it, we will be focused on taking the assets we already have and using them as the material to build the bridge to get to the place where we want to go. If we do that, then our constituents will see the price of gas come down at the pump. They will see movement in the right direction as to where we want to be. They will say to us: You have finally started to do your job in the way we sent you to Washington to do it.

I yield the floor.

I say to the Senator from Tennessee, the one thing we should remember about markets is that markets hate uncertainty. Whenever markets are not certain as to what is going to happen, the price of commodities always goes up because people want those commodities. They want to hold them, and they are afraid, in an area of uncertainty, that they might not be able to get them, so they will bid the price up.

Our inability to bring certainty to the energy debate by virtue of the parliamentary maneuvers that have occurred contributes to the high price of gasoline. An airline, a truck line, an energy company dealing with gasoline at the pump has to have gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, or they will be unable to function. When they cannot see any end to the present uncertainty of world supply, that is when they bid for long- term contracts. As they bid for the long-term contracts, others who say, we are not sure what is going to happen in the housing market or what is going to happen in the stock market, the one place where we are sure the price is going to go up is oil. They will come in and bid for the futures as well.

We have had a bill on the floor that tries to deal with speculation as if it were a mystery. Speculation is not a mystery. The word ``speculator,'' as Bernard Baruch said, comes from the Latin phrase ``speculari,'' to observe. A speculator is one who observes what is going on and tries to make sense out of it.

If we could say to the world market, we are serious about looking at oil shale, we are serious about looking at the Outer Continental Shelf, we are serious about doing things with respect to American automobile usage of oil, that would bring a degree of certainty to the marketplace. People would say: I don't need to buy that long-term oil contract because now there is a path of certainty that will mean prices will be stable. As prices become stable, they begin to come down. That is what we are trying to do. The parliamentary maneuvers entered into prevent us from bringing that certainty to the market and contribute to the constantly rising price of oil.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that speakers on the Republican side be limited to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, the bill before us today has to do with speculation. Let's talk about speculation for a minute. What is it? It is investment on the basis of assumption or expectations.

There are those who are investing in oil futures because of the expectation that the price of oil will rise. If you want to get speculation under control, you have to change those expectations.

What are the expectations of investors right now with respect to oil? It is their expectation that the price of oil will go up. It is very rational. The only reason they are buying an oil futures contract is they expect the price to go up.

What can we do to change those expectations? Well, let us look at the oil market as a whole and look at it in a historical perspective. The first thing we must remember--and remember all the way through this debate--is this: The oil market is a world market. Oil prices are set by world supply and by world demand. It is not a market that is limited to the shores of the United States of America.

So what has been going on in the oil market? Over the last 10 years, available sources of supply--that is, reasonable sources that could be producing oil relatively quickly--have been growing but very slowly. I have tried to get absolutely authoritative figures.

I have been unable to come up with exact ones. But there is a consensus that available production capacity has been growing over the last 10 years at the rate of about 1 percent per year. What we do know is, over the last 10 years, worldwide demand has been growing at 2.5 percent per year. Oil demand now is roughly 25 percent greater than it was just 10 years ago.

It does not take a mathematical genius to put these two numbers together and recognize that if the available sources of supply are growing at only about 1 percent per year, and demand is growing at 2.5 percent per year, the time will come when the safety margin between available supply and worldwide demand will be very small.

We have reached that time now. We have reached the time where the safety margin between available supply and worldwide demand is so small that any one single incident anywhere in the world can immediately trigger expectations that the price of oil is going to go up. Whether it is domestic difficulty in Nigeria or political activity in Venezuela, the price of oil goes up when an event comes along that indicates there might be a hiccup in available oil supply. This is perfectly rational. It is not an act of manipulation on anybody's part. It is simply a logical expectation.

Now, at one time in our history America could determine what the world price of oil would be. The Texas Railroad Commission could determine what the available productive capacity would be simply by permitting a few additional wells in east Texas. Every time there was a concern that there would not be enough oil, the Texas Railroad Commission would permit more wells. People would look at the safety net between available production and demand and say that it is high enough for us to keep the price of oil close to the cost of producing. For years and years and years, the price of oil was around $7, $8, $9, $10 a barrel because that is what it cost to produce, and the safety margin between the available source of supply and demand was very large.

Sometime in the 1970s, that power left our shores. It went from America over to the Middle East, and the Saudi royal family replaced the Texas Railroad Commission as the agency that could determine the price of oil. They would either increase production or lower production, and they found they could control the world price of oil by what they did to the safety margin.

But as the safety margin has shrunk, now even the Saudi royal family cannot control the price of oil. There are Members of this body who have written President Bush asking him to go to the Saudis with a tin cup and beg them to increase that safety margin in the hope it will bring down gas prices. That is not the long-term solution to this problem.

What I want to do, what Republicans want to do, is get America back in the game and bring the pricing power back on American shores by finding more and using less oil. We can do this because we have, within our continental boundaries, the ability to increase that safety margin. The Gas Price Reduction Act talks about it in two obvious areas.

The first one is oil development in the Outer Continental Shelf. This could produce enough oil to increase the safety margin by a million barrels a day originally, and it could go up significantly from there. This would change the expectation, if you are focusing on speculators. Right now, 85 percent of our Outer Continental Shelf is off-limits by virtue of an executive branch moratorium that was placed on it over 25 years ago.

President Bush has lifted that moratorium and the markets reacted immediately and the price of oil fell dramatically--not because the oil was immediately available but because the expectation was changed. Now it is up to Congress to lift the congressional moratorium on the Outer Continental Shelf and make sure the expectation is fulfilled.

The second area where we can find more oil is in oil shale, an abundant resource located in my home State of Utah. There are people who say, ``Oh, the technology is expensive. The technology does not work.'' Oil shale is producing oil in other countries today. It is time we allowed oil shale to produce oil in the United States. And how much? There is three times as much oil in the oil shale in my State, Colorado, and Wyoming than there is in all of Saudi Arabia. We have not gotten to it because it is all on public lands, and we have been prevented from going on to that.

There is now a moratorium in the law that prevents the Department of the Interior from even writing the final

rules under which exploration for oil shale can take place and bids under which the oil shale for leases can go forward. The Department of the Interior has now issued a draft of what the rules will be if that moratorium is lifted. In the Gas Price Reduction Act, we call for that moratorium to be lifted.

As soon as the moratorium is lifted, what will happen to the speculators? Expectations will change, and they will understand that America is serious about getting back in the game and bringing the pricing power back onto American shores and away from the Saudi royal family.

Now, there has been discussion here about the other aspects of the Gas Price Reduction Act: hybrid cars, plug-in hybrids. I have been driving a hybrid car for 8 years. I know what it is like to drive a car that gets 55 miles to the gallon. I understand how important that is. That is why it is in the Gas Price Reduction Act.

I have already addressed the question of speculation. What we need to do--and it is in the Gas Price Reduction Act--is increase the number of accountants at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission so we can make sure, if there is real market manipulation going on, it can be discovered and dealt with. But only going after speculators is not the way to get the price of oil down. I agree with Warren Buffett, perhaps the Nation's richest Democrat, who says all this talk about speculation being the problem is nonsense. The problem is supply and demand.

The Gas Price Reduction Act is the logical way to deal with supply and demand, get America back in the game, change the expectations, and bring down the price of oil.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.