Floor Statements

Mr. President, I have no objection whatsoever to standing on the Senate floor listening to the Senator from Utah speak. He is an enormously distinguished attorney and has been a great leader of his State and the Senate for a long time.

I understand very well the unfortunate circumstance this morning was not expected by him, was not participated in by him. I think it has put him in an embarrassing position. I regret that, but I know he had nothing to do with it. I have highest regard for him.

I think it also put the very distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, in an even more difficult and embarrassing situation because the individual witnesses who were before us when our hearing was interrupted and cut off were Pennsylvanians, people from the ranking member's home State. I am sure if Ranking Member Specter had any idea this was going to happen, he would have taken energetic measures to make sure individual witnesses who suffered grievous injury and had come a long way to Washington to testify would not have had their hearing cut off by parliamentary maneuvers by his leadership.

I have the highest regard for both those Senators.

Of course.

Mr. President, the goodwill of the Senator from Utah is appreciated.

Medicare

Mr. President, I wish to speak about the Medicare bill before us. One of the strongest obligations we have in this body is to uphold America's promise to care for those who have worked hard throughout their lives, who have raised their families, and who have helped make this Nation great: our seniors.

President Johnson created Medicare as part of that promise to give seniors all across this country the peace of mind they would have the health care they need as they grow older. Today, we take up legislation that would make this critically important program stronger by ensuring doctors in Rhode Island and across this country are compensated, as they should be, for the care they provide.

The approaching June 30 deadline for resolving this issue certainly makes this legislation particularly urgent. But we all know that there is a far more ominous deadline looming over us in health care, and that is when the Medicare trust fund will become insolvent in 2019. As Chairman Conrad of the Budget Committee so often says, there is a tsunami of costs bearing down on us. We are now facing a 75-year shortfall in Medicare of $33.9 trillion. It is my belief that we as Senators have a fundamental obligation to begin to take steps now that will lower these looming overwhelming costs. If we fail to act now, we will be left with only the cold, harmful, and, frankly, cruel fiscal options of raising taxes, reducing benefits and eligibility, or cutting further provider payments. What a sad day that would be, especially since it is completely avoidable.

This afternoon, I commend Senators Baucus, Rockefeller, Snowe, and Smith for offering a bill that not only addresses the looming cut in Medicare reimbursements to physicians, but takes a broader look at the problems in our Medicare system and in the health care system generally.

This bill includes a number of reforms that begin to address the flaws in our broken health care system and lead us down a path of more efficient, effective care for seniors today and into the future.

As my colleagues know, I am an enthusiastic supporter of the limitless

potential of health information technology to support a transformation of our health care system. For many providers, e-prescribing, electronic prescribing of pharmaceuticals, is the gateway technology to larger health information technology adoption because the startup investment is relatively low and the benefits are quite high. E- prescribing is expected to eliminate over 2 million adverse drug events on Americans per year, to avoid 190,000 hospital admissions, and 1.3 million outpatient visits annually, and to produce an estimated yearly savings of $44 billion.

To quote Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Leavitt:

The benefits [of electronic prescribing] are

unchallengeable. E-prescribing is not only more efficient and

convenient for consumers, but widespread use would eliminate

thousands of medication errors every year. . . . E-

prescribing needs faster implementation. We have been through

all the public processes necessary to develop standards. The

technology is readily available and widely distributed.

Electronic prescribing will enhance the safety and

convenience for patients.

This bill provides important incentives for practitioners who choose to e-prescribe, and it eventually requires all doctors to e-prescribe. This is a vital step forward for health care in this country and a farsighted component of this legislation. I thank Senator Kerry for crafting this important language, but also all the Senators on the other side of the aisle who have supported e-prescribing in Medicare, including Senators Alexander, Coleman, Corker, Cornyn, Ensign, Grassley, Martinez, Snowe, and Sununu. The need to promote health information technology is a truly bipartisan issue, and I am delighted to see it included in this important bill.

The measure before us also makes important reforms for private fee- for-service Medicare. In light of this fiscal health care tsunami coming down on us, I am deeply concerned that private fee-for-service Medicare Advantage plans cost roughly 119 percent of the cost of covering the same individual in traditional fee-for-service Medicare. This is a program that was sold to Congress as more efficient, a cost- cutting alternative to traditional Medicare.

History has proven those assertions to have been false, and now we should learn from that mistake. It has added about $1,000 in costs for each beneficiary in a private plan. Medicare Advantage will cost the Federal Government $54 billion over the next 5 years and $149 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. These excess costs have caused a rise in Part B premiums for those seniors enrolled in traditional Medicare of $2 per month. These excess costs will cause the Medicare hospital insurance trust fund to become insolvent 2 years earlier than otherwise expected.

I understand some Medicare Advantage plans offer benefits that are not covered in fee-for-service Medicare. Unlike traditional Medicare, Medicare Advantage plans can strategically attract healthier seniors by offering better coverage for low-cost care and worse coverage for intensive services. Groups, including the Medicare Rights Center, the Commonwealth Fund, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and MedPAC, have determined that private plan beneficiaries either pay more or receive fewer services for hospital and home care than do seniors in traditional Medicare.

Medicare Advantage, and particularly fee-for-service Medicare Advantage, costs this system money it simply does not have. Seniors deserve better, and this bill does better for them.

Seniors also deserve better when it comes to their Medicare Part D plans. Some of the very saddest stories that Rhode Islanders share with me as I host community dinners around my State concern their experiences with the Part D prescription drug program.

An example is a young man named Travis who came to one of my community dinners in Woonsocket, RI. Travis told me of his 90-year-old great-grandmother who is living independently in a walkup apartment building in Woonsocket. She signed up for her Part D plan and was taking a number of prescription medications. One day she arrived at her pharmacy, went to the pharmacy window, only to be told that she had no coverage. She had fallen in what we preposterously call the doughnut hole, a massive gap in the coverage, a trap for seniors. She was turned away from the window because she had not brought the money to pay for her prescriptions. She didn't have it. She went home and called her great-grandson Travis in tears. She would no longer be able to afford her apartment or the independence she had maintained for 90 years.

No American should be forced to choose between their dignity and their health, and it is a tragedy when this is an unnecessary choice.

The Congressional Budget Office concludes that privatizing that drug benefit instead of simply adding the drug program to the established Medicare benefit costs almost $5 billion a year. The Center for Economic and Policy Research reveals that the combined cost of privatization and failure to negotiate prices is more than $30 million a year.

Mr. President, I cannot look Travis in the eye and tell him the reason his great-grandmother cannot afford her independence any longer is because the Government needed to take the side of the pharmaceutical industry in this contest. In 2004, the pharmaceutical industry was three times more profitable than the median for all Fortune 500 companies, and from 1995 to 2002, it was the most profitable industry in the entire country.

Since the passage of the Medicare Modernization Act, companies have engaged in outrageous, egregious marketing practices. This legislation prohibits door-to-door sales, cold calling, and free meals. It puts limits on cobranding, gifts and commissions and other hard-sell practices of both Part D and Medicare Advantage plans.

Our Nation's elderly have given much to this country as parents, as grandparents, as teachers, as soldiers, as mentors, and as patriotic American citizens. They deserve respect, they deserve protection, and this bill affords them both.

I close by saying the bill also recognizes that mental health coverage should be on par with any other illness seniors face, reducing the copayment from the current staggering rate of 50 percent to a 20- percent copay by 2014. Senior citizens commit suicide at a higher rate than any other age group. Mental health services are critically important for our elderly population. I am proud to support changes to mental health coverage in Medicare. I particularly wish to acknowledge the leadership of my colleague in the Rhode Island delegation, Representative Patrick Kennedy, who has been such a leader on mental health parity. He is the chief sponsor of that legislation in the House, and I look forward to larger reforms in the area of mental health parity with Congressman Kennedy at the helm.

In closing, I thank Senator Baucus and particularly his staff for their tireless work in putting this measure together. I look forward to working with him and this entire body to pass this bill and then to work to enact future health care reforms to bring our system under control.

I appreciate the courtesy of Senator Roberts. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer for coming to the chair a little early in order to allow me a chance to make a statement. It was a considerable courtesy and one that is much appreciated.

I will open my remarks by saying: Well, here we go again. I have come to the floor several times already to warn of what appears to be a loss of integrity and legal scholarship at the once proud Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice.

First, back in December, I pointed out the, shall we say, ``eccentric'' theories that arose out of the OLC's analysis that greenlighted President Bush's program for warrantless wiretapping of Americans. Those opinions had been secret. These theories came to light after I plowed through a fat stack of classified opinions held in secret over at the White House and pressed to have the particular statements declassified.

My colleagues may recall that these theories included the following:

An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no

constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new

executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms

of a previous executive order. Rather

than violate an executive order, the President has instead

modified or waived it.

As the Presiding Officer well knows, Executive orders have the force of law. A theory like this allows the Federal Register, where the executive orders are assembled, to become a screen of falsehood behind which illegal programs can operate in violation of the very executive order that purports to control the executive branch. So that was a fine one.

Here is another:

The President, exercising his constitutional authority

under Article II--

That is the section of the Constitution that provides for the Presidency and the executive branch of Government. Article I establishes the Congress; article II establishes the executive branch--

can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the

President's authority under Article II.

I think the expression for that is ``pulling yourself up in the air by your own bootstraps,'' and it runs contrary to widely established constitutional principle. The seminal case of Marbury v. Madison, which every law student knows, says it is emphatically the province and the duty of the judiciary to say what the law is. And none other than the great Justice Jackson once observed:

Some arbiter is almost indispensable when power . . . is .

. . balanced between different branches, as the legislature

and the executive. . . . Each unit cannot be left to judge

the limits of its own power.

Yet this was the opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel.

Here is the one I found perhaps most personally nauseating:

The Department of Justice is bound by the President's legal

[opinions.].

A particularly handy little doctrine for the White House, when it is the legality of White House conduct that is at issue. Wouldn't it be nice if you could come into the courts of America or face the laws of America with a principle that the law-determining body has to follow your instruction? If criminals had that, no one would ever go to jail. It is inappropriate in our system of justice.

So I found these theories pretty appalling. I found them to be, frankly, fringe theories from the outer limits of legal ideology. They started me worrying about what is going on at the Office of Legal Counsel.

Then we came to the OLC opinions the Bush administration used to authorize waterboarding of detainees. Then, again, I came to the floor because I was flabbergasted, horrified to discover that to reach its conclusions, the Office of Legal Counsel totally overlooked two highly relevant legal determinations and then went and drew language out of health care reimbursement law--health care reimbursement law--in order to justify allowing the administration to torture and waterboard prisoners.

What were the highly relevant legal determinations the Office of Legal Counsel overlooked? Well, one was that it was American prosecutors and American judges who in military tribunals after World War II prosecuted Japanese soldiers for war crimes, for torture, on evidence of their waterboarding American prisoners of war. Missed it.

The other major thing the OLC overlooked was that the Department of Justice itself prosecuted a Texas sheriff as a criminal for waterboarding prisoners in 1984. The sheriff's conviction went up on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, one row under the U.S. Supreme Court, and the appeals court, in a public opinion, described the technique as ``water torture.'' The opinion used the term ``torture'' over and over again. All a legal researcher has to do is type the words ``water torture'' into the legal search engines, Lexus or Westlaw, and this case comes up: United States v. Lee, 744 F2d 1124.

How did the wide-ranging legal analysis that ranged as far afield as health care reimbursement law for guidance miss a case that is bang on point, that was prosecuted by the Department of Justice itself, that is reported in a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals, that describes this exact technique as ``water torture''? How, indeed.

After this, I began to refer to whatever it is that the Office of Legal Counsel has now become as George Bush's ``Little Shop of Legal Horrors.''

Now we have this. The FISA statute contains what is called an exclusivity provision. The FISA statute of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is the law that governs our surveillance authority on foreign intelligence matters. It is an active issue before this body right now, and the exclusivity provision is actively being discussed. Here is how it reads:

[FISA] shall be the exclusive means by which electronic

surveillance . . . and the interception of domestic wire,

oral, and electronic communications may be conducted.

``Exclusive means.'' It seems pretty clear. And exclusivity provisions such as this in statutes are not uncommon. More on that later.

But let's look at what the Office of Legal Counsel said about that language. This is language Senator Feinstein and I have had declassified. Similar to the others, it was buried in a classified opinion:

Unless Congress made a clear statement in the Foreign

Intelligence Surveillance Act that it sought to restrict

presidential authority to conduct wireless searches in the

national security area--which it has not--

``Which it has not''--

then the statute must be construed to avoid such a reading.

Well, this is particularly devilish because we have had a long argument through the FISA debate with the administration over the exclusivity provision. Senator Feinstein has led the charge on this, with strong bipartisan support from Senators Hagel and Snowe, and never once, in all these discussions, have I heard the administration say: Oh, there is a problem with the exclusivity language in the FISA bill. There is a loophole in it. It is not as strong as it could be. There is something Congress did in the exclusivity clause that would open a way for the President to wiretap Americans without a warrant.

Never once been said. But behind the scenes, in secret opinions, they proclaimed that some loophole exists. I do not see the loophole: FISA ``shall be the exclusive means . . . .'' Where are you going to challenge it? Are you going to say: Well, maybe the hole is that they referenced the national security area? But the national security area is where our foreign intelligence surveillance exists. Well, maybe it has to do with wireless searches? No, wireless searches are precisely what the FISA act is all about. Maybe it has to do with Presidential authority? Well, who else wiretaps? We do not in Congress. The judges do not. Of course, it is the executive branch.

So maybe it is that they do not think it was a clear enough statement? Well, let's take a look at that and start with a case from the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was discussing a statute that gave the Court ``exclusive'' jurisdiction. Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote for the Supreme Court that this was ``uncompromising language.''

He continued:

[T]he description of our jurisdiction as ``exclusive''

necessarily denies jurisdiction of such cases to any other

federal court.

Chief Justice Rehnquist said:

This follows from the plain meaning of ``exclusive.''

The Chief Justice then cited to Webster's New International Dictionary for that plain meaning. My Webster's defines ``exclusive'' as ``single, sole,'' ``excluding others from participation.'' That sounds clear to me. The ``single'' means, the ``sole'' means, the means that excludes others from participation.

Lower courts have discussed the FISA statute's own exclusivity provision directly. Chief Justice Rehnquist was talking about a different exclusivity provision. The FISA exclusivity provision was the subject of a case called United States v. Andonian, cited 735 F. Supp. 1469. The court said this. Let me read three sentences talking about the exclusivity language in FISA.

[This language] reveals that Congress intended to sew up

the perceived loopholes through which the President had been

able to avoid the warrant requirement. The exclusivity clause

makes it impossible for the President to ``opt-out'' of the

legislative scheme by retreating to his ``inherent''

Executive sovereignty over foreign affairs . . . . The

exclusivity clause . . . assures that the President cannot

avoid Congress' limitations by resorting to ``inherent''

powers as had President Truman at the time of the ``Steel

Seizure Case.''

By using this exclusivity clause, the court concluded:

Congress denied the President his inherent powers outright.

Tethering Executive reign,

Congress deemed that the provisions for gathering

intelligence in FISA and Title III were ``exclusive.''

Now, there still may be a constitutional question about whether the President's Article II powers exist, no matter whether Congress has passed a particular statute. But there can be no real question about the intention or the effect of FISA's exclusivity provision.

I have sat and stared at FISA's exclusivity provision and the OLC language side by side, and I cannot make sense of how they came to that conclusion. Congress says, plain as day, FISA is the exclusive means, and OLC says Congress did not say that.

So I wonder, maybe there is some strange legal use of the term ``exclusive'' that I missed in my 25 years of lawyering. Then I find this Court decision that says this very language in the FISA statute means Congress ``intended to sew up the perceived loopholes,'' that this language ``makes it impossible for the President to `opt-out' '' of the FISA requirements; that it ``assures that the President cannot avoid Congress's limitations,'' and that by this language ``Congress denied the President his inherent powers outright.''

Then I thought, maybe that is just a district court decision. That is a lower court. But here is the Supreme Court of the United States looking at an exclusivity clause in another statute and calling it ``uncompromising language,'' taking that word ``exclusive'' at its plain dictionary meaning. There is literally no way I can see to reconcile OLC's statement with the clear, plain language of Congress.

I have, in the past, expressed the fear that the Office of Legal Counsel, under veils of secrecy, immune from either public scrutiny or peer review, became a hothouse of ideology, in which the professional standards expected of lawyers were thrown to the winds, all in order to produce the right answers for the bosses over at the White House.

Well, as I said at the beginning, here we go again. Oh, one more thing. When the Department of Justice sent me the letter acknowledging that there was nothing that needed to be classified about this phrase, they also said this phrase was now disclaimed--their opinion was now disclaimed; not just declassified but disclaimed--by the Department of Justice.

The letter reads:

[A]s you are aware from a review of the Department's

relevant legal opinions concerning the NSA's warrantless

surveillance activities, the 2001 statement addressing FISA

does not reflect the current analysis of the Department.

But that does not answer this: What went wrong at the OLC? What led to this disclaimed opinion in the first place, and other opinions I have had to come to the floor about? Has it been put right? This is an important question because this is an important institution of our Government, and we need to be assured it is working for the American people, that it is of integrity and that it is back to the standards of legal scholarship that long characterized the once-proud reputation of that office.

We do not have that assurance. There is a continuing drumbeat of what appears to be incompetence, and we need the reassurance. We are entitled to the reassurance. Something has to be done.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Department's letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer again for his courtesy and yield the floor.

First, let me join in the condolences for our colleague, Senator Thomas. Let me also recognize what for many of us is a sad anniversary of a day when one of America's brightest lights was extinguished and a distinguished Member of this body was lost.

You have heard him described as a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

Mr. President, 5 years ago President Bush and this administration misled this country into a war that should never have been waged, a war that has cost our Nation the lives of more than 4,000 courageous men and women, squandered many hundreds of billions of our tax dollars, and diminished the world's faith in our country.

This morning, the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by our distinguished chairman, Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, released a report confirming what many have long feared: that the Bush administration ignored or swept aside substantial reliable intelligence that portrayed something other than what the President and his political allies wanted America to see.

The decision to take the Nation to war, as Chairman Rockefeller indicated, is among the gravest and most momentous that a leader can make. In our democracy, we expect and deserve to be sure that when our troops are sent in harm's way, when their families are made to watch and wait through sleepless nights, when our security and national welfare is put on the line, that that decision has been taken for the right reasons. This is a sacred compact, an article of faith between our people and our Government.

This administration broke that compact, betrayed that trust. For years, the evidence has been mounting that this administration's reasons for the war were a sham. This week, the President's own former spokesman indicated that the White House ran a ``political propaganda campaign'' building the case for war.

This morning's report is a chilling reminder of the Bush administration's willingness to overlook or set aside intelligence that does not confirm to its preordained view of the world. Over and over, again the committee documented instances in which public statements by the President, the Vice President, and members of the administration's national security team were at odds with available intelligence information. By leading the American people to believe the situation in Iraq was significantly more drastic than it actually was, the Bush administration took this country into an unnecessary war, a war it still refuses to end.

In a speech in Cincinnati a little over a year after al-Qaida attacked America on September 11, President Bush said:

We know that Iraq and al-Qaida have had high-level contacts

that go back a decade. We have learned that Iraq has trained

al-Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly

gasses.

In his 2003 State of the Union Address, a few short weeks before giving the order that began this war, the President said:

Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications

and statements by people now in custody, reveal that Saddam

Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of

al-Qaida.

It was not true. The President of the United States told these things to our people and to the world, and they were false.

According to the report released this morning by our committee:

Statements and implications by the President and Secretary

of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qaida had a partnership

or that Iraq had provided al-Qaida with weapons training were

not substantiated by the intelligence.

The committee found that multiple CIA reports and a National Intelligence Estimate, released in November 2002, even as the administration was in the drumbeat to war, ``dismissed the claim that Iraq and al-Qaida were cooperating partners.'' It was not true, and yet this President used this claim to convince the American public that there was a link between the Iraqi Government and the terrorists that perpetrated the crimes of September 11, 2001.

Again, in an October 2002 speech in Cincinnati, the President said:

We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of

chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX

nerve gas. Saddam Hussein also has experience in using

chemical weapons. . . .Every chemical and biological weapon

that Iraq has or makes is a direct violation of the truce

that ended the Persian Gulf war in 1991. Yet, Saddam Hussein

has chosen to build and keep these weapons despite

international sanctions, U.N. demands, and isolation from the

civilized world.

The report concludes:

Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the

October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's

chemical weapons production capabilities and activities did

not reflect the intelligence community's uncertainties as to

whether such production was ongoing.

The intelligence community knew Saddam Hussein wanted to be able to produce chemical weapons. It could not, however, confirm President Bush's claim of certainty that Hussein's regime was actually producing chemical weapons. Yet the President made that argument, stirring up unfounded fears among the American people.

This administration not only asserted that Saddam Hussein possessed chemical weapons and intended to use them, the President also said in his speech on October 2002:

We could wait and hope that Saddam does not give weapons to

terrorists, or develop a nuclear weapon to blackmail the

world. But I'm convinced that is a hope against all evidence.

He said:

We cannot wait for the final proof--the smoking gun--that

could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

Mr. President, again, it was not true. The committee's report states:

Statements by the President and the Vice President

indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons

of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against

the United States were contradicted by available intelligence

information.

At the time of the President's speech, the intelligence community believed Saddam Hussein did not possess nuclear weapons. The President preyed on Americans' fears of a nuclear attack, perhaps the most terrible fear we could have, to bolster his case for an unwarranted war.

Finally, the President led the American people to believe if it came to war in Iraq, America's military would easily help liberate a grateful nation. In Cincinnati, in 2002, he said:

If military action is necessary, the United States and our

allies will help the Iraqi people to rebuild their economy,

and create the institutions of liberty and a unified Iraq at

peace with its neighbors.

This was the ``hope against all evidence.''

Analysis by the Defense Intelligence Agency assessed that:

The Iraqi populace will adopt an ambivalent attitude toward

liberation.

That is an understatement.

The CIA wrote, in August 2002, that ``traditional Iraqi political culture has been inhospitable to democracy.''

According to the committee's report:

Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney

regarding the postwar situation, in Iraq in terms of the

political, security, and economic [situation], did not

reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the

intelligence products.

The view of the President and Vice President that American troops would be ``greeted as liberators'' did not take into account the complex social, political, and sectarian dynamics at work about which the intelligence community was well aware. Yet this administration still led the American people to believe our troops would be welcomed, that the war would be short, that the burden in lives and dollars would be light, and that victory would be absolute. This delusion has cost our service men and women and our Nation every day since. Once again, it was not true. It just was not true.

If this administration had made the least effort to give an honest review of classified intelligence, it would have been known to be untrue. All too often in these 7 long years we have seen this administration cast aside facts and principles that did not conform with its political aims.

We have seen it attempt to take great institutions of our country-- our intelligence community, our Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Justice--and twist them to its own ends, without due regard for the welfare of the American people. I believe the irresponsibility and mismanagement of this administration will go down in our history as among the darkest moments our Government has witnessed. It rocks the very fiber of democracy when our Government is put to these uses. We do not yet know all the damage that has been done. Yet we hope, through the efforts of this committee and this body, to continue the long and difficult repair work we have begun.

We can look ahead to next January when we in our Nation can begin again with a new administration, an administration that will not break the essential compact of honesty with the American people.

Mr. President, let me briefly compliment the Senate staff for their patience and diligence yesterday when put to the task of reading the bill. I know it was Reading Is Fun Week in Rhode Island from May 12 to May 18. I guess the minority found an interesting way of making it ``Reading Is Fun Day'' in the Senate yesterday.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Connecticut for his kind words and, more importantly, for his leadership.

Madam President, for the first time the Senate is embarked on a full debate on one of the most pressing issues facing America and the world today; that is, reducing the carbon pollution that causes global warming.

This legislation, admirably and painstakingly pieced together by Senators Warner and Lieberman and by our chairman, Senator Boxer, takes a historic step to confront the crisis before us.

As we speak, unchecked greenhouse gas emissions are causing the most significant and rapid climate and ecosystem shifts living memory has ever witnessed, affecting our oceans, our rivers, our lakes, our plants, our crops, and our wildlife. They affect our economy. They affect our very national security.

The evidence of global warming can be found in every State in the country. My home State of Rhode Island, the Ocean State, is perhaps the smallest, but it is no exception. Over the past 20 years, the annual mean winter temperature in our beautiful Narragansett Bay has increased by about 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, the difference between, say, 63 and 67 degrees may not feel like much to someone plunging into the clear waters of Narragansett Bay, but for the populations of fish and shellfish that make Narragansett Bay their home, that feed Rhode Island families, and fuel Rhode Island's proud fishing tradition, it is an ecosystem shift. It displaces cold water species, and it threatens the fragile and rich diversity of marine life in our precious Narragansett Bay.

So far, the consequences of global warming have been relatively mild. But there are worse things to come--in the world and in the waters around us. We are forewarned by overwhelming and undeniable scientific evidence.

Let me speak briefly about the science underpinning the evidence of global warming. We are fortunate to have an enormous body of scientific data measuring the warming of the Earth, the rising of the seas, the shift in weather patterns, and the effects on all the Earth's creatures. This data comes from all corners of the world and from the full spectrum of scientific thinking, most recently, indeed, from a report by the Bush administration's own Department of Agriculture. The scientists essentially all draw the same ultimate conclusion: Global warming is happening, it is manmade, and it is getting worse.

Let me talk for a minute about some of the very foundations of the science we will be discussing.

As shown on this chart, this is a very simple scientific device: the bell curve, the standard normal distribution. It basically is the standard analytical device for almost all the observations in which science works. In this dimension, one measures the danger of what could happen. In this dimension, one measures the likelihood that will happen.

What you find in the bell curve is that there is a strong agreement, a strong, solid foundation of observed agreement around a level of danger that has a very high likelihood of taking place. It is this area, as shown on this chart--this key area--where the likelihood is the greatest that we face the dangers that have been described on this floor so eloquently by Chairman Boxer and Senator Kerry and others of the global warming that the Earth is undergoing.

Now, you will, during the course of this debate, hear about other points of view. I am confident of that. Most of them lurk down here, as shown on this chart, in the area where the likelihood is the least, but the danger is the least. That is the key. But this is really fringe science. The body of science on global warming, like the body of science on almost any other topic, follows a curve in which the vast majority of the observations, the vast majority of the scientific conclusions follow an allocation, a curve like this.

What the people who are fond of pointing out these low-danger but low-likelihood opinions usually forget to tell you is that there is this side of the curve. This side of the curve may also be unlikely, but it is very significant to us as a species because here the danger is even greater than what the vast bulk of the science we are relying on here in this discussion today would indicate. These are very significantly dangerous scenarios for our species.

What we have found as time has gone on and as the scientific observations have kept coming in is that we think it is here, as shown on this chart, but when the observations come in, they tend to be here, as shown over here on this chart. We are always running ahead of the science when the observations come in. Science is not telling us: Take it easy, don't worry. Science is telling us that the more information we get, the more dangerous it appears to be.

It is a simple, traditional, normal distribution curve. The discussion that supports the changes we are making here is taking place where the weight of the science is. If people try to take you off that and show you this end of it, beware because there is just as great a likelihood that this other end of the danger spectrum will occur.

Another aspect of the science here is the so-called trend line. Now, this is just an example. It is not any statistics at all; it is just dots we put together to show a variety of data over time and how a trend line flows through it. It is calculated through a very established scientific process.

There is a book that was written several years ago called ``How to Lie with Statistics.'' A trend line provides a lot of opportunity to mislead people with statistics. In this debate, unfortunately, that happens a fair amount.

I will give an example of that in a second. But basically, each of these, as data points come in over time--and in this case the temperature of various places on the Earth is measured--scientists are able to draw a trendline that essentially any reputable scientist, almost any reputable mathematician, can draw through those points, and then you base your conclusions on the trendline. That is standard, grade A, basic 101 science.

Now, let's look at how that works in terms of global warming. Here are temperature changes plotted over years 1978 through 2003. Here is a trendline that has been plotted through all of these orange data points. It clearly indicates the warming of the Earth. This is the type of information on which reasonable and prudent people across this country--in businesses, in homes--base their decisions all the time. It is the type of decisionmaking our military relies on, our intelligence communities rely on, our scientists rely on, our corporate leaders rely on. It is not anything special or magic. The trendline is very clear about what is happening.

Now, in the green box I have highlighted a section of the data because what I have seen is a number of reports that have focused on only this little piece of information. If you pull this little piece of information out--this was an El Nino year, so temperatures were unusually high. If you pull this little bit of data out, you can draw a very different trendline through this. It would probably look something like that. There have been people who have said: Well, that shows that in 1998 global warming stopped--because they took this tiny little segment of the overall data and tried to focus only on that.

So it is very important in this debate, when you see some of the information that has been brought out, to understand that books such as ``How To Lie With Statistics,'' their principles are still alive and well, and unfortunately, data such as this has even seeped into discussion in the Senate.

For many years, global warming denial thrived on an industry of sham science bought and paid for by special interests. Those days are diminishing. Even the most vocal global warming deniers have increasingly fallen silent because the science is speaking to us now with an unequivocal voice. We can reduce the carbon pollution that is causing global warming, and time is of the essence. The bill before us takes a badly needed step toward the new green economy that beckons America with the promise of new technologies, new products and, most importantly, new jobs that will drive our American economy for decades to come.

This country has never before shied away from the next great challenge or the next big idea. Classic American know-how has always led the world into new frontiers of scientific and technological discovery. The cold hand of the past always has reached out to impede progress, and we see it clawing on this floor today. But America is called by the future, not by the past.

We have heard discussion today on whether there are costs if we act to address the carbon pollution that is causing global warming. What are the costs if we do not act? If we do not act, we will continue to send our hard-earned dollars overseas to buy oil from nations that do not care for us. The economic implications of our crippling dependence on foreign oil are evident to every American every time they pull up to the gas pump. The challenge to our national security grows increasingly clear with every day our troops spend mired in the war in Iraq. If President Bush had tackled this problem 7 years ago after he was elected, we would not have the gas prices we see today. We would not have the weakened oil economy we live in today. We are paying at the pump because President Bush was AWOL when the future called.

If we do not act, we will not only keep paying at the pump for our continued addiction to foreign oil, but we will fall behind the rest of the world in developing and exploiting the green jobs and technologies of the future. If we do not act, we will witness increasing destruction of our natural landscape, disappearing coastlines back East, fire-swept prairies out West, a tornado-ravaged heartland, our hurricane-battered gulf coast. Hunters will see game species change their patterns and migrate away. Trout fish will find rivers too warm. If we do not act, we will allow the extinction of cherished creatures who share God's Earth with us, from the struggling polar bears of Greenland to Rhode Island's own little piping plover.

If we do not act, we will become the first and only generation of Americans--the first and only generation of Americans--to leave the world to our children in worse condition than the one that was handed to us. We should not make ourselves that first and only generation. We should not break the faith with our children and grandchildren.

I look forward as much as anybody in this room to a spirited debate that will give all Members of this body the opportunity to share their ideas and concerns. But when the debate is done, we must not shirk our duty. This has to be a legitimate debate. This can't be just about scoring political points. There is a true problem before us. We have it within our care, within our control, within our power to do something to get this right. I look forward very much to this debate. I hope my colleagues are all joining in it in good faith. I hope we will rely on real science and real arguments and not on talking points from industries that haven't gotten it yet.

But when you see indications such as this, that people are willing to take one little segment of the data out of context as much as that, I think people who are watching this can see if that is what people are doing, there is cause for concern about how serious they are about solving this problem.

Madam President, I thank you very much and I yield the floor.

Madam President, I wish to take a few minutes to respond to the questions that were asked of me. I think I have some time remaining of the 15 minutes I was allocated.

I ask unanimous consent that I may respond to the questions that were asked of me by name.

Madam President, since time is very short, to my good friend Senator Corker from Tennessee I say this: First, the basic principle of this legislation is that polluters should pay, and I would hope that every person in this room would agree with that. Polluting industries should not get away with causing global warming by releasing carbon pollution for free and having all the rest of us pay the costs of that. If you agree with the proposition that polluting industries should pay, then you have to, as you suggested, figure out the best way to get the funds back to the American people.

We try to do it in this bill in ways that step us into the green economy we need for the future and in ways that step us up toward energy independence. The Senator may disagree. That is what the bill is about. If the minority would allow us to go to amendments, we could discuss that. That is not the way it is right now. We have to step forward. Senators Biden and Lugar are going to come forward with foreign policy recommendations to make sure the rest of the countries move with us. I agree with the Senator from Tennessee that we have to make sure the rest of the world moves with us. But we cannot wait for the rest of the world to move.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss my vote against the previous amendment which both appropriated $165 billion to continue the tragic and misguided war in Iraq, and also included a number of provisions relating to our policies regarding Iraq. I favor many of the policy provisions contained in the amendment, such as requirements that the Iraqi government share in some of the costs of the war and a prohibition against the establishment of permanent military bases in Iraq. I commend my Democratic colleagues in the Appropriations Committee, including my good friend and distinguished colleague from Rhode Island, Jack Reed, for their work on these laudable provisions. I also strongly support the provision that requires our intelligence agencies to give access to detainees to the International Committee of the Red Cross. I have worked closely with my colleagues on the Intelligence Committee on this important provision, which is designed to end secret detentions.

While I fully supported some of the policy provisions in the amendment, I could not vote to fund this war in the absence of a firm and enforceable timeline for withdrawal. Unfortunately, it appears that the Republican minority remains intent on filibustering any attempts to mandate a rapid and responsible redeployment of our troops from Iraq. I, along with thousands of Rhode Islanders who have contacted me on this critical issue, oppose spending $4,000 per second on a war that has diminished our national security and damaged our standing in the world. I am hopeful that, under a new President, we can work together to bring an end to this war.

Amendment No. 4818

Mr. President, as a member of the Judiciary Committee, let me indicate that we are not entirely unfamiliar on the Judiciary Committee with Judge White. She was actually an appointee of President Clinton. For many months, she languished before the committee when it was under Republican control. So she should be a judge with whom at least a considerable number of the members of the Judiciary Committee would have been familiar from her previous appointment. Any suggestion that she was a new arrival or a novelty of some kind to the committee would not be accurate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an April 30, 2008, letter to the Republican leader and the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee signed by the majority leader, indicating, among other things, the following:

In a floor statement on April 15 I pledged my best efforts

to have the Senate consider three circuit court nominations

prior to the Memorial Day recess. I stand by my pledge. I

cautioned explicitly that ``I cannot guarantee'' this outcome

because it depends upon factors beyond my control.

Nonetheless, I remain optimistic we can meet that goal.

Mr. President, thank you. I appreciate that.

Mr. President, one of the great privileges that I have as a Member of this body is to travel around my home State of Rhode Island and hear directly from the people I was elected to serve. We are a small State, and we all know one another pretty well. So it is a pleasure to get out and listen to people, to hear what is on their minds, their good news and their bad news, and the challenges and the opportunities they and their families face each and every day.

One of the things we do is to regularly hold community dinners around the State. My wife Sandra and I get together with folks over pasta and meatballs or hamburgers and hot dogs and we talk about the issues that are interesting to them.

Mr. President, having the opportunity to hear people of my State share their stories this way has made such a difference in my work here in Washington. I say to the Presiding Officer, I know that as you represent the people in Florida, you feel very much the same way and I've heard you both in committee and on this floor give speeches and remarks that have focused on individual constituents of yours who had troubles and problems that they needed to attend to and you needed to attend to. So I know that you feel very much the same way.

You know, we stand in this Chamber and we debate back and forth on the war in Iraq or the price of a gallon of gas or the crisis in the housing industry. But when we go back home, we see people who are living in the middle of these issues every day. In Rhode Island right now, there are parents worrying about their sons and daughters serving overseas in Iraq. There are families watching the numbers on the gas pump roll, roll, roll, flying higher and higher, and they are wondering how they are going to make ends meet. And there are working people who see their mortgage payments climb out of reach, and they face the gnawing, terrible fear that they might lose the home their children grew up in. So, as glorious as is this grand Chamber we have the opportunity to serve in, the reason we are really here is that it is all about them.

And last Sunday evening, we had one of those moments. We hosted a community dinner in Bristol, RI, which is a beautiful, historic town on Rhode Island's East Bay. Bristol is known for many wonderful things, but one is the oldest--and I think the best--Fourth of July parade in the United States of America. So it was great to be in Bristol, and it was a beautiful evening. The day had been rainy, and toward the end of the day, the clouds had begun to open up and the evening Sun was shining through on the clouds above. The earth and the trees were still wet around, but they were lit up by the lit sky, and we were in this handsome stone VFW hall that is just a little bit back from Bristol Harbor. It was beautiful not only outside but inside because we had a wonderful group of people. And as the questions and answers were winding down toward the end of the evening, a man stood up and he took the microphone, and he began to speak.

The man was COL Edward Cyr. Colonel Cyr is a 29-year veteran of the Army Reserves, 399th Combat Support Hospital. He has served two tours in Iraq, first in 2003 and then again from June 2006 to October 2007, and was also deployed to Kosovo in 2001. When he is not serving our country in the Army Reserves, Colonel Cyr is a nurse anesthetist at Saint Anne's Hospital in Massachusetts. He is a loving husband to his wife Patricia, and he is the father to five daughters.

Colonel Cyr wanted to tell me about a provision in the 2008 Defense authorization bill which grants early retirement eligibility to reservists and National Guard members who have served on Active Duty since September 11, to allow these individuals to gain 3 months of retirement eligibility for every 90 days of Active service.

He was concerned that the effective date of the legislation was set for the date of its passage, and that it did not reach back to September 11 to pick up all the veterans who had served since that date. I agreed to help him with that legislation, to make the date of the early retirement provision retroactive to September 11, 2001, so that it would reach every veteran in this conflict who served our country and carried the burden of a disastrous war policy with such great honor and dignity.

And often people come with a specific request like that, but that was not what was significant about this. What was significant about this was that Colonel Cyr took the chance to tell his story.

He spoke of the strains of his multiple deployments which have weighed so heavily upon him and his family. He spoke of the blood of the wounded soldiers he worked on, on his hands, on his clothes, in his very pores. He spoke of their service and their loss and his pride in the men and women who served beside him. When he was done, the big room was quiet.

I asked him--I was a little embarrassed to ask because I did not want to ask a personal question that might not be welcome, but I asked him anyway: I said, Colonel, if I may ask a personal question, what was your family situation through all of this? He paused a minute, and he said: Well, Senator, I am glad you asked that question because my wife is sitting right beside me. And he proudly pointed her out, and he said this: For all those months, over three tours, she had to go it alone, raising my five daughters, and I want to take this chance to thank her because if it weren't for her, I wouldn't have had a home to come home to.

Mr. President, you could have heard a pin drop. There was not a dry eye in the House, including my own. And the room then burst into applause.

Mr. President, this was just one of those moments--just one of those moments. I do not think I can explain it, and frankly, I do not even want to try because if I tried to explain it, I would just make it smaller. So all I want to say, as we all leave this glorious Chamber to go home to our States to celebrate this Memorial Day weekend, for all the Edward Cyrs and for all the Patricia Cyrs across this country, thank you and God bless you.

Mr. President, I believe there is no quorum present.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, as we conclude the discussion on the budget, in which the Presiding Officer participated so eloquently just a few moments ago, I wanted to come to the floor because there is a significant feature in America's fiscal picture that affects this budget considerably but has not really gotten the attention it deserves; that is, the debt of the United States of America that has been run up by President George W. Bush. It is a frightening legacy, really, because of the weight, the fiscal burden of it that will weigh on our children and our grandchildren.

If I may, we calculated the Bush Debt at $7.7 trillion, and we did it this way. We took the projections for the U.S. budget on the day George Bush took office, which, as the Presiding Officer may recall, projected that we actually would have no debt left at all in our country by as early as fiscal year 2009--and, indeed, there was economic debate among America's leading economists wondering if it is really good for our country for America to be completely debt free. What is the ideal level of debt? Should we maintain some level of debt? Are there potential problems if the United States were to be completely debt free? That was the discussion. That was what America was looking forward to.

The nonpartisan, professional Congressional Budget Office had a projection on where that budget was going to go on the day George W. Bush took office, and that is the top line of our projection. We call it the Clinton budget landscape because it resulted from the economic policies of the Clinton administration which left this country in such good health for President George W. Bush. That was what could have been. The other line is what he did, what this country has done to itself fiscally under George W. Bush. When you compare the difference between the upper line, where the country was going, and where George Bush took us, the difference is the Bush Debt, and it amounts to $7.7 trillion. To me, that is an almost unimaginable number. So just to kind of give an idea of how many zeros that will be, this is what it looks like. That is $7.7 trillion. Even in the great State of Michigan, where the Presiding Officer hails from, that is a

big number. To somebody like me, from Rhode Island, it is almost unimaginable. So I asked my staff to give me some means of comparing, some way of thinking about how big that number is.

This is a penny. And I asked my staff: If a penny was $1 billion and you put a stack of pennies on my desk here, how high would that stack of $1 billion pennies go to make $7.7 trillion? Well, they found out that the stack of $1 billion pennies would have to go 39 feet high to amount to $7.7 trillion. I don't think the television camera can take this in, but from here to the very top of this room is about 39 feet of $1 billion pennies. That is the enormous burden on our country from the improvident, wasteful, feckless policies of the Bush administration.

I have a credit card. The distinguished Senator from Michigan has a credit card. If we borrow money on our credit cards, we have to pay interest. American families across the country work to pay interest on mortgages, on credit cards, and on loans of various kinds. Well, guess what. We have to pay a lot of interest on a debt such as we have. And in the recent budget, as the Presiding Officer will recall, that we just passed in the Budget Committee and that we are discussing on the floor, there is $260 billion in interest, much of it paid to foreign countries, on our national debt--$7.7 trillion of it run up by one administration, the administration of George W. Bush.

Now, that $260 billion is another pretty big number. So I asked: What could we do with $260 billion if we didn't have to give it to the Saudis and the Chinese and the Mexicans and everybody else we have borrowed money from to fund George Bush's $7.7 trillion debt? Well, here is what we could do: For starters, we could pay for health insurance for everyone. We would have universal health care in this country. And you know what, there would be money left over. With the money that was left over, you could also add a million children--a million children--to Head Start Programs. Universal health care for everyone, a million extra children getting Head Start, and still there would be money left over. You could double every Pell grant, which helps kids in America pay for college and reach out and seize their futures. Universal health care, a million extra kids in Head Start, and doubling every Pell Grant. And there would still be money left over. With that last bit of money left over, you could repair or replace 95 percent of the bridges that currently need repair and reconstruction in America--not 100 percent, only 95 percent. You would have to wait until next year to do that last 5 percent.

That is what the cost to us is of an administration and a Republican Congress that ran up $7.7 trillion in debt.

So I appreciate very much the ranking member who spoke eloquently last week about the problem of that last $9.6 billion in discretionary spending we authorized in the Senate-passed budget above the $1 trillion mark. We wouldn't need to worry about that $9.6 billion if his colleagues and President Bush hadn't run up $7.7 trillion in debt for Americans to have to pay in the future because this administration, frankly, was too cowardly to pay its own way and has borrowed from future generations to pay for the war in Iraq and to pay for tax cuts for the richest Americans. In a country where the difference between the wealthy and the poor, between the CEOs and the workers is growing dramatically, is straining the very fabric of our society, instead of bringing us together, what was the President's solution? Lots more tax cuts for the very richest people, who are doing the absolute best already, the ones who have nothing to worry about except whether they take the Lincoln or they take the Benz. They are the ones who need the tax cuts in this country? I don't think so. But the President did, and he didn't even have the guts to pay for it or find the cuts. He borrowed the money. That is why we are at $7.7 trillion.

So I think it is fascinating that we are having this budget discussion. I want to salute our chairman, Senator Conrad, who is absolutely brilliant with the budget. He works so well with people in this body and has such enormous credibility that he is able to work through issues in a very special way--in large part because of his personal character and his credibility. We all benefit from his being able to do that.

But he has had to work very hard to try to bring this budget into balance, 3 or 4 years out from now. It is not easy work, putting this budget together.

When people come to the floor and criticize his efforts and try to knock $9.6 billion off and worry that this might not be fiscally prudent, it is astonishing when those remarks come from the people who aided and abetted George Bush in running up $7.7 trillion in money that we owe now to the rest of the world, that we will have to pay off indefinitely, that will be a weight and a burden on the shoulders of this country for decades if not generations.

I actually think we need to do something about the $7.7 trillion Bush Debt. I recommended that we have a formal commission of some kind, an authority whose job it is to take the best and the brightest people who understand our economy and figure out how we pay down $7.7 trillion. It is really a disaster.

Some of us have served in State government before we came here. Some of us have served in municipal government. If there is a crisis at the State government level--an economic crisis--if a municipality has a terrible fire in a facility and has to rebuild, you take that problem and you set it aside and you create a revenue stream and you deal with it. You don't try to force it through the regular operating budget of the State or of the municipality.

We may be at the stage where the Bush Debt of $7.7 trillion is so serious for us fiscally that we should start thinking about getting together a group of the most learned economists, the people who care the most about America's future, who see the hazard to our welfare, to our national security that this kind of debt creates, and can think creatively about how we can set up special revenue streams to pay it down and begin to bring our country back in balance.

I appreciate the courtesy of the Chair in listening to these remarks. I did think as we closed out the budget debate it was important to remind everybody that, for all the big talk the Bush administration may make about fiscal prudence and about being responsible, it is the most fiscally imprudent and the most irresponsible administration in our history. Indeed, President Bush alone has borrowed more money from foreign countries than all 42 Presidents who preceded him--not any one of them, all of them. If we add up everything they borrowed through the entire history of the Republic, in just one Presidency he has them beat.

It takes a little brass to be able to come and argue for fiscal prudence and responsibility and not mention that President Bush and the Republican Congress ran up $7.7 trillion in debt. I thought we should think about it and reflect on that as this debate concludes.

I appreciate working with the very distinguished Senator from Michigan. Her work on the Budget Committee is very valuable. She is a wonderful colleague to me, and I appreciate the indulgence this evening.

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

Mr. President, first, let me say how pleased I am to follow the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, hearing him talk about his native son, to whom I think it is fair to say he bears some resemblance.

But I have another topic today, which is the cost of gasoline in Rhode Island. In Rhode Island today, a gallon of regular unleaded costs $3.84 on average, according to AAA's daily report. That price is nearly 40 cents higher than it was 1 month ago. It is almost 77 cents higher than it was a year ago. I had a Rhode Island visitor to my office last week who runs a little oil company in Bristol. He reported his oil supply costs have gone up 60 cents in 2 weeks. By the way, it is springtime.

When I was home over the weekend, I saw prices for regular gas at $3.89 and super at $4.12. High gas prices have been over all the news in the last several weeks in Rhode Island and across the country. But this problem did not emerge overnight. It has built up over the 7\1/2\ years of the Bush administration.

Since President Bush took office in 2001, gas prices in Rhode Island have more than doubled--a price hike of more than $2 for every gallon. Seven years of two oil men in the White House has left Rhode Islanders facing the highest gas prices they have seen since the fuel crisis days of 1981.

The steady and steep rise in the price of gasoline is forcing many working families in Rhode Island to make choices that would have seemed unimaginable only a few months ago, choices that are harsh and cold: A mother walks home from work through pouring rain because she can only afford to spend $10 a week on gasoline; a man cuts down on buying gas so he will have enough to pay for his prescriptions. Families in South County are hungry but have to think twice about the gas to drive to the food pantry to pick up food for their families.

One man told the Providence Journal:

The food is expensive, the clothes are expensive--I've got

medication. I don't know what will happen--every week,

everything is more expensive.

For too many families in our Ocean State, when everything is more expensive, some things get left out: Only half a tank of gas this week, less money for groceries, no new clothes for the kids.

Working Rhode Island families do not have an extra $2,000 in their annual family budget to spend on gas, and that is how much more they are paying now than they did in 2001 when Bush took office. Bush-McCain economics have left these families struggling to make ends meet, wondering how they will pay the bills if a child gets sick or the plumbing breaks. They do not have an extra $30 or $40 or $50 to pour into their gas tanks every week. But still gas prices go up, and families already stretched to the limit are stretched even further.

These Rhode Islanders and millions like them all across this country need help, and they need it now. They are looking to us in Congress for answers.

Last week, Congress passed legislation taking a key first step-- shutting off the gush of oil flowing into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This massive stockpile of crude oil owned by the Federal Government, maintained in the event of a disruption in fuel supplies or other such emergency, has a capacity of 727 million barrels of oil. Right now, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is about 97 percent full. Yet the Bush administration continues to pump between 70,000 and 80,000 barrels of oil every day into massive underground caverns. Unsurprisingly, the administration actually wants to double the size of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to 1.5 billion barrels, even as millions of Americans struggle with record fuel prices. Amazing. At a time when American families are cutting back on food and other necessities in order to fill their gas tank, President Bush wants to reduce the supply of oil into the open market, jack up the cost of fuel, and further line the pockets of the big oil companies. With the price of gas hitting nearly $4 a gallon, those 70,000 to 80,000 barrels should flow into the market, not into the ground. And let's not forget that at today's price of over $129 a barrel--a new record price for crude oil as of this morning--pouring oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve costs our Government millions of our precious tax dollars every day.

There are a number of things we can do right now to help provide some short-term relief at the pump. I have cosponsored our majority leader Senator Reid's Consumer First Energy Act, a plan that gets at some of the immediate root causes of these staggeringly high prices.

First, we must take steps to protect American consumers from market speculation and price gouging. The administration's failure to regulate the oil futures market has left it fertile ground for speculators who game that market to reap high payoffs for themselves, while consumers pay the price.

Commodities traders take advantage of lax margin requirements that allow them to buy oil futures for only 5 to 7 cents on the dollar rather than the 50-percent downpayment required for purchases of stock futures. Many experts have pointed to rampant speculation as one of the principal reasons for the inflated price of crude oil in the market.

The Consumer First Energy Act would prevent traders of U.S. crude oil from routing transactions overseas to evade our limits on speculation, and it would require the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to substantially increase the margin requirement for oil futures trading.

I particularly applaud my colleague from the State of Washington, Senator Cantwell, for her leadership in calling for an oil and gas market task force to investigate irregularities in the price of energy.

Our bill would also prevent price gouging by giving the President the authority to declare an energy emergency in cases of supply disruption, shortage, or significant price anomalies in the market. Once such an emergency has been declared, it would be unlawful to set an ``unconscionably excessive price'' for gasoline. The Federal Trade Commission would have the authority

to enforce this provision while State attorneys general would have new authority to bring civil actions against price gougers at home.

Outside our borders, we need to make it clear to oil-producing countries that colluding to fix the price of oil will not be tolerated. The Bush administration has failed to stand up to the nations that control the price of crude oil--nations such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela, and others that do not have America's best interests at heart. OPEC nations, which produce about a third of the world's oil supply, stubbornly refuse to produce more oil to curb the rising prices, and now OPEC has said the price of a barrel of oil could reach $200 this year.

With the American family now spending 10 percent of their income on gasoline, we cannot afford to let OPEC continue to manipulate world oil markets. Our plan makes it clear that colluding to fix the price of oil is illegal under U.S. law. The Consumer First Energy Act gives the Attorney General of the United States the power to bring an enforcement action against any company or country engaging in such conduct.

Finally, we need to turn the tables on the big oil companies, which now pocket not only recordbreaking profits but huge taxpayer-funded subsidies that they just do not need.

As this chart shows, the dollars we pay at the gas pump flow right into big oil's pockets. Last year alone, the five biggest oil companies--ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips--made $116 billion in profits. That is almost twice the entire budget of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Imagine if we were spending twice as much on our roads and bridges and public transit systems. ExxonMobil alone earned $40.6 billion last year--more than the entire Federal Highway Administration budget for 2007 and almost as much as the profits of the entire American credit card industry. Isn't it telling that as American families have struggled with the highest fuel costs in a generation, the biggest oil companies have celebrated recordbreaking profits? As our Nation slides deeper into recession, the oil companies' profits keep going up.

While the oil companies are gorged with profit, stuffed with profit, choking on profit, the Bush administration and their Republican friends in Congress insist on funneling to them huge tax breaks. With profits exceeding $116 billion last year alone, I cannot think of a single industry that needs extra money less than big oil, especially when that industry still resists making major investments in new technology or renewable fuels.

The Consumer First Energy Act will eliminate $17 billion in tax breaks for oil and gas companies and reallocate those tax dollars to renewable energy and new energy efficiency technology and would also create a 25-percent windfall profits tax on oil companies that do not invest in increased capacity and renewable energy sources. If they will not use their obscene profits to invest in America's energy future, well, we will have to, and we will.

We know this is short-term action. We know we need to liberate ourselves from our dependence on oil with new energy sources and technologies. We know we need something along the lines of a new Manhattan Project or a new Apollo project. It is a matter of national urgency. But the American people need action now. We cannot stand by as millions of families struggle under the weight of skyrocketing gas prices. For the woman walking home from work in the rain, for the man on the bus to his doctor, for the student hoping one day for a hybrid car, for the families going without food because they cannot buy gas, we must take action.

I urge my colleagues to support legislation to ease Americans' pain at the pump.

I yield the floor.

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

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

Madam President, on behalf of Senator Conrad, I ask unanimous consent that the following staff of the Budget Committee be granted full floor access privileges during consideration of the conference report to accompany the fiscal year 2009 concurrent resolution on the budget: John Righter, Joel Friedman, Steve Posner, Jim Hearn, Cheri Reidy, and Dave Fisher.

I further ask unanimous consent that Brock Ramos, a fellow on the Budget Committee staff, be granted floor privileges during consideration of the conference report to accompany the fiscal year 2009 concurrent resolution on the budget.