let us pray eternal father reawaken our conscience then the ear of our spirit to your voice that we may proceed your will and these challenging times remove from our lawmakers the false worldly wisdom that engender division and keep them vigilant in doing your work on earth as they strive to make wise choices regarding nuanced issues they hear your gentle voice whispering that they belong to you remind them that you will be with them may all that they do and are today be an expression of your truth right just ness and justice we pray in the please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to our fl commonwealth of virginia to perform the duties of the chair son robert c byrd president pro tempore as president the majority leader we're going to be in a period of mourning business until four thirty today centers be allowed to speak for up to ten minutes each time will be really dividing control between the two leaders or the designees senator dorgan is controlling thirty minutes of the majority's time following morning business and will resume the motion to proceed h r two eight understand there are two bills at the desk two for second reading local report h r fifty six thirteen and act to extend certain moratoria and impose additional moratoria uncertain medicaid regulations through april first two thousand and nine and for other purposes f twenty nine twenty a bill to reauthorize and improve the financing development programs of the small business administration and for other purposes as president i would object any further proceedings with or the leadership time is reserved under the previous order the senate will proceed to a period of morning business until four thirty p m with senators permitted to speak for up the ten minutes each with the time equally divided and controlled between the two in minority with faces the united states and countries around the world the short term challenges that we face as a result of this food security crisis their economic strategic political and humanitarian and all of  these challenges we face are already being faced by the most vulnerable in our society here in the united states this crisis comes on the heels of so many other trying circumstances confronting poor and working families across america our nation is facing an economic recession an ever rising unemployment rates many of those who remain employed find themselves working more hours and yet earning less because their wages have not kept up with inflation bother incomes have declined the unprecedented cost of food and home energy has continued to soar many of these same families are also facing mortgage a mortgage and housing crisis which may force them to forego ownership of the house they want to considered their slice of the american dream in short many families who just years or even months ago are living comfortably are and are now struggling just to get by as a result the increase in food prices over the last several months has just added one more pressure to already overburdened american families increasingly these families are stretched to the breaking point and are turning to federal food assistance programs and food banks for some measure of relief i've seen this trend repeated firsthand of food banks and in headlines across pennsylvania just a couple of examples  morning call quote is the headline heavy demand of food banks kitchens in a grim is a grim economic indicator for the valley mean the lehigh valley the scranton times tribune quote more seeking food stamps recipients in pennsylvania rise nine point five percent told of inquirer working poor struggle to get by the pittsburgh tribune review quote demand for food for food stamps very close to record all across the state and across the country the same headlines the same story the same economic trauma because of a food security challenge that we face the data show evidence of this disturbing trend the demand for food stamps in pennsylvania is skyrocketing back in december of two thousand before this current president took office approximately seven hundred fifty seven thousand pennsylvanians one out of every were enrolled in the food stamp program but this past december just seven years later that number has risen dramatically to one point four four million pennsylvanians accounting for one out of every ten state residen seven hundred fifty thousand seven hundred fifty seven thousand to one point one four million pennsylvanians this trend shows no sign of stopping from december of zero seven to march of zero zero eight pennsylvania unrolled an average of ten thousand new individuals and food stamps every month bringing total neuroma to one point one eight million but the situation in our state is far from unique all across the country the number of individuals and rolling in the food stamp program continues to rise to historic rates from december zero six to december of zero seven more than forty states are recep in numbers rise in seven of those states the one year rate of growth top ten percent the congressional budget office predicts that starting in fiscal year zero nine twenty eight million americans will be enrolled in the food stamp program twenty eight million americans the most ever and rode in this program since its inception forty years ago for the millions of americans struggling from the effects of economic recession and rising food stamps food prices i should say but making too much to qualify for food stamps food banks can some measure of respite by providing food to those who could not otherwise afford it unfortunately as food banks are are struggling as well from a combination of increasing food prices decreasing donations and increased demand wholesale prices for such foods as eggs flour rice fruit and vegetables and dairy products as have dramatically spiked in the last eight years for food banks this price spike resulted in diminished purchasing power translating into the availability of fewer supplies to meet an ever increasing demand others no accurate in wider even statewide data to show the effect increased prices and increased demand are having on food banks supplies we know from news articles television stories and firsthand reports from those working at food banks that this food security crisis as has adversely affected emergency food assistance programs in every state across the country the senate passed version of the two thousand and seven food and energy security act otherwise known by the shorthand the farm bill includes several measures intended to shore up federal anti hunger assistance programs in fact sixty seven percent of the funding of this bill the food and energy security act is dedicated to protecting americans from from hunger sixty seven percent of the bill provisions incorporate in the bill combat hunger and they include measures to increase the value of food stamp benefits and language to increase the annual level of federal commodity purchases for food banks from one hundred forty million to two hundred and fifty million dollars in the bill unfortunately while the house and the senate are making strides in bringing their differences together between the two versions of the food and energy security act the longer it takes to complete this bill the longer struggling americans must wait for some measure of relief but rising food prices and their affect on poor and working families are only part of the food security equation while part of the increase in food prices can be attributed to the rising fuel and energy costs needed to produce and distribute these products the far bigger driver behind those increased costs is lack of supply internationally as well as domestically food prices have been affected by severe shortages and record inflation of major food commodities such as corn rice soybeans and we the head of the world food program is called the global food crisis a quote silent tsunami affecting the world's most vulnerable without regard to geography or traditional borders world bank president robert zoellick has said that surging food costs could translate into quote seven lost years unquote seven lost years in the fight against worldwide poverty weather disasters and crop losses have caused devastating shortages across africa and the asia pacific leading to historically low levels of world stocks of key commodities australia one of the leading worldwide we produce is an export years has endured several consecutive years of drought and last year lost sixty percent of its total we harvest floods in asia have destroyed global production centers of wheat and rice as well the rapid economic growth of china and india have lifted millions out of poverty but it's also succeeded in creating a new middle class complete with western appetites for a diet of meat and protein while foods like rice and w remain a staple of the traditional diet increased demand from china and india for me prior meat produce from the grain fed animals is producing a strain on global supply and will go only grow over time many of the commodity supplies that these countries once exploited are now being used for domestic production threatened by shortages at home many countries a banned exports of critical foodstuffs disrupting supplies from for neighbors and trading partners and sending shock waves through the global markets import dependent countries like the philippines are left with no choice but to print to pay top dollar to forestall future crises others others have added artificial incentives to attract food imports these counterproductive actions only exacerbate food shortages and foster a beggar thy neighbor approach the u s must use must work i should say with the un and other international actors to produce to press countries against adopting such counterproductive measures we must start looking at mid and long term strategies for helping countries deal with this crisis higher food prices not only increase the potential for humanitarian disasters they can also spark political instability and impact us foreign policy we have seen the devastating effect that the food shortage has had on developing nations around the world sparking violence and riots and putting added pressure on the already fragile and under resourced government last week we saw protesters in haiti chanting quote we're hungry unquote and forcing out the prime minister of haiti food riots  in egypt and ethiopia and troops are use in pakistan in thailand to protect crops and storage centers according to the united nations food and agricultural organizations thirty seven countries thirty seven countries are now facing a food security crisis and are risk of food related upheaval in those countries and areas of vital concern to u s national security like i guess anniston the food cri threatens hard fought progress we have achieved in peace stability and reconciliation and are for where the refugees and internationally internally i should say displays have already suffered under war famine and genocide the international community may be forced to cut food supplies the united states conserve its national security and humanitarian objectives by fully funding overseas emergency food assistance programs in march i sent a letter to the appropriations committee along with senator durbin a number of other members of the senate calling for a two hundred million dollar increase in the fiscal year two thousand and eight supplemental budget request to address the predicted shortfall in u food assistance programs although president bush directed the agriculture secretary to take out take out the two hundred million from the bill emerson humanitarian trust to help with the crisis this is only a short term fix the u s must do more by increasing our bilateral and multilateral contributions and funding to replenish the trust supplemental funding in p l four eighty title two programs is essential to maintain current food aid programs at current levels and means meet the increased cost of food freight and fuel production america can do more and we must while i don't claim to have all the answers to this mounting domestic international crisis i do believe this is an issue deserving of the full attention of the united states senate we need to begin this effort with passage final passage of the two thousand and seven and energy security act and continue by including funding for domestic and international food aid in the supplemental appropriations but these measures in and of themselves will not be enough we must act we must legislate marl gravity of this food security crisis cannot be overstated it's a matter of economic justice it's also about preserving human life and alleviating suffering it's also a matter of national or or i might consume without objections or thank you mr president i just got back from wyoming in wyoming almost every weekend i travel a different part of the state so that i can see all of the people as a result i don't do any polls if you talk to more people in a weekend than pollsters cover when they do something you can get a pretty good feel for what's happening i did run across a national poll and the national poll said the number one concern on the minds of people in america were jobs in the economy they said the number two concern was health care there's an interesting little anomaly in one and two and that's that when you talk to people about number one jobs in the economy one of the reasons are concerned about jobs in the economy is because they don't want to lose their health insurance and they know if their job disappears they're out there in the market and they don't have the coverage so i'm going to talk today about health care i've been talking to a lot of folks about health care which isn't difficult because health care is on everybody's minds these days during the last work period we call recess sometimes i prefer to call the work area because i usually travel thousand two thousand five thousand miles during that time talking to people in wyoming and i went on a ten steps ten stop tour of wyoming and in just over three days we drove over twelve hundred miles we visited ten towns and i met with a lot of wyoming i just i even spoke with people at several stops who live outside those ten communities but drove miles and miles to come to our meeting  wyoming does have miles and miles of miles and miles about four hundred miles on a side and it's a long way between towns their dedication and their passion both people live in the towns in the people who drove those miles strengthens my commitment to getting something more done about health care we need to do something a lot of people feel more economically secure when they have health insurance they know that if they have health insurance and something happens and they get sick they'll be able to get the care they need without mortgaging their home or going bankrupt is another one of those concerns on their mind no one should have to worry about that everyone should be able to carry a health insurance card in their wallets the news isn't all bad however there have been plenty of wonderful things that have come from our health care system in recent years each year new technologies are being invented new drugs are being created that allow people to live longer and healthier lives researchers are finding cures for diseases new ways of getting care popping up all across the country and parents are able to take care of sick children to take them to clinics in shopping centers and pharmacies to get throat cultures and flu shots plenty of good things are happening but we can do better now and most weekends in my only work period my wife diane i travel around wildly as i mentioned and talk with folks about health care i listen to what they tell me about the problems they're having and then i take that information back here i compare it with what my colleagues are saying one of the things i do is to teach the east about the west so when i'm in d c i usually have to explain to wyoming at the folks from the use they have to explain to folks how wyoming is different how a plan designed around new york or massachusetts won't work for wyoming i have to tell him that it can be hard to get doctors and nurses to come to wyoming the smaller the town the harder it is to attract good people i remind the people in the east that we have a lot of people who work at the mines and in the oil patch in the natural gas fields they work hard for their hourly wages doing difficult and dangerous tasks and the type of healthcare they need is different than the type of healthcare someone working at a computer needs how do we help the construction worker and a computer technician both get better health care that fits their unique needs at a more reasonable price my position in the senate health committee has enabled me to do a lot of research on this subject i've talked with a lot people i've talked to patients have talked to health care providers i've talked to scientists that talk to financial advisors you name it and we came up with a plan that i think is flexible enough to work for everybody the bill i put together is called ten steps to transform health care in america the bill would get everyone an insurance card to carry in their wallets and purses if you already have an insurance card the bill will make sure you get to keep the card by wrang in health care costs until there are affordable vegas danger that people in america have that have the insurance card is that the costs are going to become so astronomical it won't be offered any more we've got to see that that doesn't happen so why ten steps well i've discovered over the course of the years that i've been in the senate that if you put together one massive comprehensive bill that solves everything you'll get a lot of discussion but you won't get many results because one piece will have five people that don't like it and be still have eight people who don't like it another piece will have eleven people that don't like it another will have three people who don't like it pretty quick you're to fifty one votes against jim you can't get the bill done when you try to do something comprehensively it often looks revolutionary and we don't do things revolutionary early in the senate we doom evolutionarily so i put together ten pieces if we don't get all ten or even if we only get one it's not a problem because any one step gets us closer to having every american insured all ten together would get every american insured and i'll briefly walk you through all ten steps in order to understand how the bill works it's important to review a few of the facts of history of health care insurance in our country right now about sixty percent of the people under age sixty five are getting their health insurance through their job question is why why are sixty percent of americans getting their health insurance through their job well the short answer to that question is because of the way employer sponsored health care insurance is treated for tax purposes our current health care health insurance system is biased toward employer coverage due to historical accident the wage controls of world war two increased competition among employers for recruiting the best employees and incentivized employees to offer health benefits instead of increased wages they weren't allowed to offer increased wages in one thousand fifty four congress codified a provision declaring that such a contribution would not count as taxable income this tax policy made it very favorable for individuals to get their health benefits through their employers and consequently has penalize individuals that get their coverage through the individual market the joint committee on taxation estimated that removing this tax bias and a few related health care tax policies will save the federal government three and sixpence a trillion three and sixpence trillion dollars over the next ten years now that's real money even in washington that's a lot of money that can and should be used to expand choices and access and give individuals more control over their health care ten steps ensures every american can benefit from the savings whether they get their health care from their employer from the individual insurance market or they decide they want to get off medicaid and switch to private insurance and that's one of the options so how does this bill do it the plan gives all americans that have at least a certain amount of health insurance a standard tax deduction the national above the line standard tax deduction for health insurance will equal fifteen thousand dollars a year for a family seventy five hundred dollars for an individual the bill also gives low income folks a tax credit equal to five thousand dollars for a family and twenty five hundred dollars for an individual the subsidy amount phases out as incomes get higher so some folks won't be eligible for the subsidy but everyone's eligible for the standard deduction i mentioned first this bill takes this hybrid approach to coupling the standard deduction proposal with the tax credit proposal because i think it's the best way to ensure no particular people is adversely affected i know some folks are advocating for just the standard deduction and other folks are advocating for a tax credit my plan does both but i'm supportive of all approaches and i'm pleased that so many of my colleagues agree that we need to fix the flawed tax code the bottom line is that we need to get something done correcting the flawed tax code and make it easier for working americans to buy health insurance jobs don't need insurance people do now one of the things that this tax policy would do is encourage more companies in the insurance business and those that are in the insurance business to provide more options to the people and the options vary in price bringing price down through more competition while back we talked about medicare part d and got that institute in the united states so the cost of pharmaceuticals for seniors could go down now i was kind of concerned about how that would work wyoming has a low population or hoping to have half a million in the next census so i wasn't sure that we'd be able to attract competition to our state so there's a little provision in medicare that says that if there isn't any plan interested in bidding that the federal government will provide a plan you know what happened in wyoming we had forty nine companies bidding for each person's pharmaceutical work it gave a lot of options and more importantly it brought the price down about twenty percent before we ever got started that's what competition does that will happen insurance too we also need to make sure that the insurance is portable and when one person changes jobs they can be sure they still have their insurance some people are locked into jobs because they or a family member have a  preexisting condition that will preclude them from getting insurance if they change so the fourth step give small businesses greater purchasing power to reduce the cost of insurance plans right now a lot of rules are in place that prohibit groups of businesses from getting together and pooling their purchasing power across state lines in fact across the whole united states so they can negotiate negotiate better deals on insurance art that doesn't make sense if a group of shoe store owners in wyoming wants to get together with shoe store owners in montana and colorado and the rest of the united states and ban together so they can get greater discounts on health insurance they should be allowed to do so  this this isn't a brand new concept stem some states have enough population that they're able to do this anyway within their state borders ohio is a great example they've been intensely interested in this this piece of legislation they have put together the small business health plans within their state and it has saved a tremendous amount of money but they were inventive enough to do it in the first place they're inventive enough to know that if they can span expand across state borders expand across the united states that they can reduce those prices a lot more and we shouldn't be keeping them from doing that now rudy mentioned earlier that jobs don't need health insurance people do right to small business wants to get health insurance for its employees they contact a health insurance agent they tell the agent how many employees it gives them information about the employees and then the agent quotes a price for offering health insurance to those employees well right now there are some federal rules in place that govern that process for small groups of employees and make sure the groups are fairly treated by the insurance companies the protections provided   is to consumers that insurers will deal within preexisting conditions fairly and provide coverage even to small groups and this has helped keep costs down for small businesses but more needs to be done especially given that none of rules apply to individuals of purchase health insurance on their own at a minimum we need to make sure individuals get treated the same way groups of people get treated the fist step plans the individual and group mark to expand important  portability protections to the individual market so the insurance security can better move with you from job to job the six step is possibly the most critical step and one we must take to reduce medical costs across the board this step moves our system from one that provides secure to one that provides health care is an important distinction as ben franklin said and ounce of prevention is worth a pound to cure we need an innovative system that will do more to help americans present and manage chronic illness so that they can live healthy lives with fewer medical costs ten steps plan would do just that now the seventh step gives individuals choice to convert the value of their medicaid and s chip program benefits into private health insurance putting them in control of their health care and not the federal government the rationale for this step is simple if the market can provide better coverage at a lower price why not allow americans to access that care this gives low individual and low income individuals more options about where they can receive care and what care is available it's time for people to start making decisions about their care let's get the government out of the doctor's offices now the eight step is one that congress has come close to passing in years past a bipartisan plan to encourage the adoption of cutting edge information technologies in health care the health care industry is the last industry to go digital think about what technology has done to revolutionize every other industry and how it's led to a more efficient use of time and resources the health care industry should not leg behind the times come for health information to go digital so we can save thousands of lives and billions of dollars did you know that you own your own health care record i'd like to know how many of my colleagues have theirs with i'm willing to bet none not even me try and get your own health care record sometime but you ought to have your health care record on a card that you carry with you that has everything about you so that if you come from wyoming out to washington d c and you get no wreck the doctor that's taking care of you can have all of the information that he needs to make sure that while he's taking care of you he isn't hurting another way right now some of that technology is available while knowing some of the technologies available out here the difficulty is the card in wyoming can't be read out here the card out here can't be read in wyoming and of course we help people come out there for vacation we hope you don't get an accident but if you're in yellowstone park the grand teton national park or any of the other beautiful places that we have in wyoming and you get hurt or you get sick we want the doctor there to have all of the information that he needs to be sure that you can be taken care of and that's possible right now we just need to have a standard for getting that information from one part of the country to the other in take your a t m card anywhere in the world get cash which can take your medical records anywhere there's another big problem with medical records you go to one provider and you have a test done and he sends you to a specialist and the specialist says well it's going to take too long to get that test over here and this is important and emergency so they do the test again you know much of tests cost sometimes a three thousand five thousand ten thousand dollars and they're duplicated the rand corporation said the duplications of tests may be costing us as much as one hundred forty billion dollars a year that's real money that's real money that could be spent on health care and health t would do that now some are concerned about the impact of health i t and electronic health records on the security of personal data data security let me assure you that protecting patient information  to mine and nearly every section of this bill demonstrates that the health i t bill does a lot to build on protections that we already have in place the bill establishes the american health information community which is made of experts representing a complete cross section the health care consumer and technology communities the american health information community is charged with providing the secretary of health and human services recommendations concerning national policies for adoption by the federal government to ensure that patient data remain secure but there's another important part of this the companies out there that are putting together these programs that we soon will have the standardization so they can be used in all parts of the country have a real desire and a real need if their product is going to be lasting to be sure there is data security and they work on that every day just like the banks work on your a t m card every day to make sure that somebody is not getting your money shouldn't be a worry can be handled the one step of the bill is one of the most important steps for frontier areas like wyoming an insurance card in your wallet that won't do any good if there isn't a doctor or hospital around for you to go to and you need care if there aren't enough nurses working in that hospital or no one is working at the desk to admit you the health insurance card won't help you very much the ten step plan addresses this problem by helping future providers and nurses pay for their education and encouraging them to serve in areas of great need the plan provides competitive matching grants for states to courage nurses to return to the profession after having left the workforce for three years or more people are living longer people can be active longer we need to encourage more people to stay in the workforce longer this will do it for nurses and help solve the tremendous problem that seniors are going to have the plan also boost the current programs we have that are working well the community health centers pent the community health centers program and the loan repayment program for the national health service corps those community centers are taking a lot of providing a lot of health care to a lot of people who would not be able to get health care otherwise and we have the reauthorization ready to go on that and almost complete another piece that's critical to wyoming the ten step plan builds upon the successes of current rural health programs by ensuring appropriate development of rural health systems and access to care for rural  patients one of the things that continues to be very important to me as i work on ten steps is listening to real folks about what they want from their health care one thing i heard over and over is that seniors want to stay in their homes longer they don't want to go to nursing homes if they don't have to said they because of the way our laws are written and the way our reimbursement policies are structured folks are sometimes left with no option but to go to a nursing home if the policies were different and there were more options and there were more flexibility seniors could stay in their homes longer my plan works to do just that by putting the emphasis on community and home based care which is often much preferred less costly and proven to increase quality of life one way to do this is by supporting programs like the green house project which creates a community setting rather than an institutional setting now the final step of ten step plan decreases the skyrocketing cost of health care by restoring reliability in our medical justice system through state based solutions no one not patients or health care providers are appropriately served by our current medical litigation procedures right now many patients who were hurt by negligent actions received no compensation for their losses those who do receive a mere forty cents of every premium dollar given the high cost of legal fees and administrative costs that simply a waste of medical resources additionally the likelihood and outcome of lawsuits and settlements bears little relation to whether or not a health care provider was at fault consequently we are not learning from our mistakes rather we're simply diverting our doctors and they're spending more time in the courtroom when someone has a medical emergency they want to see a doctor in an operating room not in a courtroom well those are the ten steps and as i mentioned before i worked on ten steps so that we can break the steps into separate bills and move them one of the time in a movable reasonable piece despite the intentions of congress we have to work in incremental rather than monumental doses in order to get anything done and some of the steps i've mentioned today are newer ideas that still need some time to be worked out and we'll still need some tinkering around the edges but some of the steps i went over today are ready to go health i t could be done any day this week or those bills are drafted and they're standalone bills and they're ready to move through congress at any time and we need to do it now some people say well this presidential election year what are the president think about it but what do they think about it they're covering that a little bit  i think that under mccain made a speech earlier today about health care and and some of the things that he intends to do with it i've heard other speeches from other candidates but we don't need to wait for a presidential election to do something in health care to do anything in health care you know when a person gets elected president they give us pretty good suggestions but they no longer get to vote on any of the issues we have to do the votes we have to draft the legislation we have to do the debate there's no reason to wait until we have a president no need there is a need a critical need an understood need by the people of america that we need to do something on health care and we need to do it right now it's such an issue of great concern to the american people that it transcends politics as usual i never ask when i'm in wyoming whether persons are republican or democrat when they bring me an idea or a problem i just want to know what the idea is or what the problem is and i do like it when they provide a solution with it as well and if it's doable would do it that's what we need to do on health care if we make sure that we transcend politics if we get away from polarization of the political year we'll have an opening to get something done that will really help patients and doctors and i want to suggest that we use my eighty percent rule i went to washington as a firm believer in the eighty percent rule and that's it we can reach agreement on eighty percent of the issues and we're probably never going to reach agreement on the other twenty percent by focusing on the eighty percent of the issue that we can agree on we can get something done if we continue to let the twenty percent that we disagree on serve as a roadblock we'll let some great opportunities pass and that's something we can't afford to have happen again and again i truly hope that this is the year we stop talking about health care and start doing something about it because americans can't wait another year they don't want to wait for an election to see some changes they certainly don't want to wait another year to stop their health care costs from going up and up and up they want to see change and they want to see change now are small business owners are working families are millions of uninsured can't afford to wait and we can do it we can do it now and we can do it together last week we passed a genetic nondiscrimination bill that has the potential to provide health care as opposed to sick care that has the potential to let people have their blood tested find out what possibilities there are for what could happen to them based on their genetic information so that they can keep that from happening and what the bill does is make sure that the information that you get from that can't be used against you by your insurance company or your employer at should give encouragement to find out more about yourself so that if there is something that could be a preexisting condition you can keep it from being becoming a preexisting condition and your insurance company can't make it a preexisting condition until it actually so we have a chance to do a lot of things in health care we've done something and health care i hope will get health eighty done in health care in the this week or next week there's no reason that we can't the small business health plans  let the companies group together over state lines no reason it can get done there are several ideas out there that have been put together well that can be combined to get something done i hope it goes through the regular process which means through committee i've also noticed things that don't go through committee around here don't get done and that's because it hasn't had that chance to work on it in very individual way when you're in committee and you're doing the markup and there's a problem that three or four people have they can go off and work on that problem and come up with a solution sometimes it's a compromise sometimes it's leaving something out sometimes it's brand new way that's where the innovation happens in committee whenever we avoid committee what we're doing is saying we've got this thing that we want to show down your throat and it'll help making each side take some bad bad votes and this is an election year a bad vote i don't think that's necessary i think there are solutions out there solutions that we can reach agreement on solutions that we can finish and what's more i think the american people expect it and more importantly demand we can do it let's do it  because my understanding there is thirty nine minutes remaining on the democratic side the senator gregg i'd like to ask consent speak for nine minutes and be notified of the chair when the time's expired direction toward mr president so much of the debate here in the senate is consumed by the seemingly endless war in iraq i just a hearing of the democratic policy conference it was the thirteenth hearing relative to the waste and abuse that took place during the course of this war to think that we have spent almost seven hundred billion dollars in the course of this war and how much of it's been wasted we asked those who are testifying who were actually on the ground a few years ago in charge of allocating equipment and watching conduct and the estimates range from thirty percent to eighty percent of the money spent being wasted taxpayers dollars dedicated to make a safer place for our troops actually wasted and stolen and unfortunately little or nothing has been done about it the hearings from the democratic policy conference began with senator dorgan back when the republicans were in control of congress and refused to hold the same hearings in the official committee structure and now there are more hearings and more investigation both in the house and senate side but we can only hope mr president that when a new president is elected that president will decide it's time for thorough investigation of the billions of dollars taxpayers dollars that have been wasted in this war in iraq money not spent to make our troops safer not spent to achieve our objectives but rather to line the pockets of greek people this isn't the first war that has happened but it's certainly the only time i can recall when i and ministration has been so cavalier when it comes to this occurrence we talk a lot about the war in iraq we should not forget what's happening in afghanistan this is a war that was declared shortly after september eleventh synonymously in the united states senate given how much blood and treasure has been lost in iraq it's easy to forget the stakes in afghanistan afghanistan was the original home for all caught up it's where osama bin laden and planned his attack on the united states he may very well still be alive in the border area in afghanistan or nearby in pakistan if taliban hosts freely allowed al qaeda terrorists to train in camps there we understand the threat that that could pose the telephone and also ruthlessly suppressed its own people particularly its women let's remember what the nine eleven commission said about a fianna stand bin laden appeared to have in afghanistan a freedom of movement that he had lacked in sudan al qaida members could travel freely within the country in or an exit without visas or any immigration procedures purchase and import vehicles and weapons the taliban seemed to open the doors to all who wanted to come to afghanistan to train in the camps the alliance of taliban provided al qaida a sanctuary in which to train and indoctrinate fighters and terrorists import weapons forged ties with other jihad groups and plot staff terrorist schemes why revisit this history well because the taliban and al qaida have been regrouping along the afghan and pakistani borders in fact no more than six years into the war in iraq we are at risk of losing some of the hard fought gains gains paid for with the blood of american soldiers recently admiral mullen chairman of the joint chiefs stated the obvious the us military has too many troops tied down in iraq to send the reinforcements that are needed in afghanistan mr president is clear again this president decided before he won the war in afghanistan to start a new war in iraq at the expense of our original mission according to admiral mullen there are force requirements in afghanistan we can't currently meet he said having forces in iraq at the level there they are doesn't allow us to fill the need we have in afghanistan the g a o just released an assessment five u s efforts to counter terrorist activity in the border area of pakistan the report concluded that the united states has not met its national security goals in pakistan's tribal areas and that al qaida has established a safe haven near pakistan's border western countries have failed to deliver ten billion dollars of nonmilitary assistance pledged to afghanistan's since two thousand and one the united states is responsible for one half of that shortfall despite the billions that have been spent in iraq we have failed to keep our promise when it came to humanitarian assistance nonmilitary assistance in afghanistan this is an isolated the world bank has spent approximately half of its commitments to afghanistan european commission and germany less than two thirds of the asian development bank in india a third take another example the support for the national solidarity program widely regarded as one of the most successful development efforts in afghanistan the five year old program is funded by international donors administered by the governor of a government of a afghanistan it's one of the few to reach into rural areas in this program village residents work collaboratively with local governments to identify develop and needs there's a feeling of ownership of participation women are actively involved and because of the sense of ownership the taliban are less likely to destroy these local projects take for example the recent example in the washington monthly  the village of dudie cal residents came together to decide on developing a small hydroelectric turban for the nearby river when finished it will aid enable them to provide electricity to three hundred people if you take a look at these programs you understand that this kind of investment can lead to peace in this country and yet as oxfam has reported international development aid in afghanistan remains willfully inadequate imagine how much more progress we could be making afghanistan without the pressure and the cost of iraq as president we need to ensure that efforts in afghanistan and in pakistan receive the resources they deserve ten to fifteen billion dollars a month that we are sinking into the war in iraq is money not spent to make america stronger and not spend to win the first war we declared in afghanistan we have to work with our allies to make sure the taliban never resumes control i hope that all members of the senate will understand that is this administration comes to an end just another eight or nine months there will be a temptation on the other side of the aisle to blame this woeful state of affairs somehow on the democratic party but this war in iraq was initiated by this president with the overwhelming support of his party this president has refused to change the policy in iraq and we continue to see an endless war costing us dramatic sums of money creating sacrifice in the united states still a danger in our troops with no end in sight that is the legacy of the bush administration in iraq and that is why the war in afghanistan today continues to be a challenge to the united states r from texas mr president as the summer travel season rapidly approaches the cost of gasoline continues to skyrocket and the american people are left to wonder whether congress has any plans to do anything about it unfortunately every commonsense solution that's been offered seems to be far from common sense or a solution and in fact  i should have used that in quotations quote commonsense solutions because most of those that have been offered in the last year would only serve to raise not lower gasoline prices so far congress has offered the american people little more than news clips and sound bites from hours of endless hearings lambaste ing usually the oil companies the result of course has not been any reduction in gasoline prices but a proposal after proposal to raise taxes on america's energy companies which guess what what ultimately be passed on to the consumer thus raising prices and not lowering prices this policy posture reminds me of a quip from the former president ronald reagan who said congress is approach is that if it moves tax it if it keeps moving regulate if it stops moving subsidize it will history has shown that a tax increase ultimately has the effect of not only passing along production reducing domestic oil by as much as eight percent that's right reducing america's supply of its own natural resources and increasing our dependence on foreign sources of oil the result of course was not a limit was not eliminating a perceived windfall but rather causing a particular us precipitous fall in production of american oil and thus i said an increase dependence on foreign oil the problem then is the same as the problem today not the cabal of oil executives conspiring to swindle the american people but a shortage of oil around the world with burgeoning economies like those of china and india demand for oil is skyrocketed while the supply has lagged behind raising a due to a tax on domestic energy companies only takes away from the capital that c used to reinvest in domestic energy discovery and production it does nothing to address the world's stagnant supply of oil mr president we can pass a lot of laws here in congress and we can actually even repeal a law every now and them but we can't repeal the law of supply and demand and this is the law that for some reason congress just refuses to learn in fact one of the lead leading contributing contributors to show all shortages and in america is actually congress itself who refused to allow our domestic oil companies to tap into american natural resources revisiting failed policies of past decades and trying to beat the same old dead horse will not address our current energy challenges instead some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have suggested a new solution one of their new quote common sense solutions close quote they'll simply sue opec for more oil alcide from the almost comical image of suing opec and somehow finding some court somewhere in the world that will accept jurisdiction of that lawsuit and somehow then direct opec to produce more oil so that american consumers can to joy lower prices for that oil i would go because cern first of all how opec might respond to such a threat would they simply laugh it off or would they turn off the spigot or let's say that the proponents of suing opec were successful would that make us more dependent or less dependent on imported oil from foreign sources well i think it's obvious of would it continue to make us more dependent on foreign sources of oil we simply have to get out of this mindset that we can tax regulate and litigate our way to greater energy independence at the same time one of the things we can all agree on is the need for america to be less dependent on foreign sources of oil we need to remember just how much of an impact our energy policies have on the lives of our constituents of three hundred million american citizens high gas prices are driving up the cost of living that are rising up the cost of driving to work driving your children to school they're driving up the price of fuel for the airline industry that are hearing hitting american travelers even harder while it's important that we increase our supply of energy from all sources we need to need to recognize too that the heavy hand of the federal government can sometimes have unintended consequences are subsidized ethanol as a fuel source is driving up food prices as limited supplies of corn are being split between fuel food and livestock feed at the same time rising prices at the pump are hitting families at the dinner table as well as transportation costs continue to drive up food prices now there's no quick question that in the law in the long term renewable fuels are an important answer to the energy crisis that we face today but it's also irrefutable that all oil whether from american sources or foreign sources will continue to be a large part of our energy supply in the near to mid term our solution increasing the supply of oil must begin here at home using america's vast natural resources we can develop environmentally responsible oil production here at home if congress would simply get out of the way and allow allow american companies to do so in short mr president the majority's response to high gasoline prices appears to be summed up in three words posturing suing and raising taxes none of which are designed to provide effective solutions to the problems that confront working families in america today the end result is an energy policy that shuts off the valve of american energy while desperately awaiting the last drops from the trickling pipeline of foreign oil mr president this gets a frantic approach to gas prices is perhaps best summed up with a cartoon that i saw recently that i'd like to share with my colleagues this is from investor's business daily earlier this month w democrats demand energy companies solve their problem they simultaneously have rejected every responsible solution as this cartoon points out the first the first segment says we demand to energy companies do something about these high energy prices to which they respond we can drill in anwar that's in alaska the answer forget it how about offshore the answer are you crazy about clean coal out of the question nuclear power you're joking right don't just don't just sit there do something is what congress keeps telling the energy producers in this country time and time again but every proposed solution whether it's drilling in alaska whether it's developing offshore resources in the outer continental shelf whether it's investing america's ingenuity and know how in using clean coal technology or whether it's using nuclear power congress seems to answer no no a thousand times no and the price of oil and the price of energy for american consumers just keep going up up and up with this kind of response from of congress no wonder energy prices are sets are so high at every turn we handcuff american producers while at the same time demanding they fix the problems that congress is creating the only real commonsense solution is to finally take advantage of the resources that we have here here in this country with which we have been richly blessed it's estimated that if congress stop penalize ing and handcuffing our domestic energy supply we could produce as much as two point seven to three million barrels of oil a day in addition to what's being produced now doesn't that make more sense than continuing to to rely on countries like venezuela and hugo chavez and enriching our enemies and those who use that oil wealth to invest in military weapons and the like allowing american companies to bend begin producing this oil would send a strong message to the american people enter the market which has run up the price of oil to about one hundred twenty dollars a barrel because of speculation that congress intends to do nothing about it and this static supply and increasing demand continues to drive up the price of oil and refined petroleum products but the message we were to pass some of this commonsense legislation would to be tell the marketplace and the speculators that we are serious about addressing this by producing as much as three million barrels of additional oil here in america each day and it would bring down the price i believe precipitous lee and i believe nearly immediately demonstrating our commitment in this way would have an immediate impact but unfortunately we find ourselves locked into the same will he said she said sort of arguments and nothing seems to happen to the detriment of the american consumer we find that sound energy policies continue to be blocked that would provide access to our vast natural resources here at home if we're tired of relying upon other nations for our energy needs along with the national security and economic risks that it entails we're tired of paying high prices for their low production isn't it time we did something about it here at home it would not be nice to see the made in america sticker on the side of a gas pump for once aside from demonstrating our independence and lowering gas prices it would provide a boom through our khana me what better stimulus to our economy could there be than creating new jobs here in america as a result of increased activity exploring and developing our natural resources right here at home we have a potentially enormous domestic energy waiting to be given permission by congress to start going to work once we give them that opportunity will mean the creation of thousands of new jobs as well as more affordable gasoline and less dependence on imported oil and gas from dangerous parts of the world and while opening up american resources would be beneficial it won't have the full intended effect unless we also encourage companies to build new refinery capacity here in america of course seventy percent of the cost of gasoline is due to the cost of oil but a lack of adequate refinery capacity to take that oil and to make it into gasoline is another reason why the supply has been limited and prices continue to go up we haven't built any new refineries in america since the one nine hundred seventy s primarily because of burden some regulation by the federal government and since we have that limited capacity we want to once again run into that pesky old law of supply and demand the only law that try as some of my colleagues might we can't repeal and we can't ignore if we don't increase refinery capacity prices will only continue to go higher and while we increase american oil production to lower our gas prices we should also pursue the technological developments and good old american know how that will allow us to take advantage of the energy we resources that we do have here and are available we shouldn't forget conservation efforts and this  been one area of work congress has gotten it right by passing common sense fuel efficiency requirements for automobiles and conserving this scarce resource we need to also be good stewards of the environment and ensure that we're doing all we can to use our resources what wisely and not wastefully finally we need to pursue alternative energy solutions that will ensure that our future energy production is secure we need to start now to utilize and develop in a g production methods that will work alongside of oil and gasoline to power america's economy into the future sources like as i mentioned a moment ago clean coal nuclear energy even  wind can be part of the answer to the overall fuel and energy mix that our country country needs but we need to give all of these potential power sources a free and open chance to develop that to reach their potential in the marketplace and we must encourage american innovation and technology to help us develop the ability to use these in a way that's combat evil with a good environment we must be careful not to play favorites says unfortunate we have and are now seeing the consequences come home to roost and turn these industries into political tools different energies will work better and different areas and all of them can work together to provide america with cost efficient energy and the strong energy we need in order to fuel our growing economy that our future energy production has to start today with removing the roadblocks this cartoon indicates that congress has thrown in front of every opportunity to increase energy supply and bring down the cost ultimately the can to the consumer we can't make up for lost time but we can start today by recognizing the mistakes of the past and what that  actually done to run up the cost of gasoline at the pump and made us even more dependent we need to act now to build a strong american energy policy to bring down the price of gasoline and free ourselves from foreign oil producing nations many of whom want to do us harm every day we delay brings a heavier burden on american families with the cost of gasoline we cannot ask the american people to foot the bill for our in action any longer it's time for congress to take responsibility for gas prices in america by allowing our industry to utilize the american resources that are available to us that will eventually help bring that republican whip this president like to compliment my colleague for his cogent analysis and remarks just now i think he is absolutely right about the way that we need to deal with our energy crisis today i'd like to have mr president to talk very briefly about another subject frankly to challenge a refrain that we've often heard from the other side and that is that the so called rich are an endless well that can be tapped to fund limitless spending priorities my colleagues across the aisle frequently argue that the tooth out on in two thousand and three tax cuts were giveaway to the so called rich and that they should be allowed to expire in effect raising tax rates to their pre two thousand and one level the marginal rate cuts and acted in two thousand and one and then i and accelerated in two thousand and three reduce tax burdens for all americans in fact the effective tax rate for the middle fifth quintile of taxpayers dropped more than two percentage points from sixteen point six to fourteen point two percent as a result of these cuts let's assume that the other side would not only let the tax cuts expire but actually repeal them this year how much would taxing the so called rich raise the two thousand and five internal revenue service statistics of income report notes that those earning over three hundred forty nine thousand seven hundred dollars putting them in the top marginal tax bracket of thirty five percent earn a total of one point one trillion dollars of that amount five hundred sixty five point four billion dollars was taxed at the top rate these nine hundred fifty thousand taxpayers at the top point nine percent paid a total of three hundred fifteen point four billion in taxes one hundred ninety eight billion at the top marginal rate so if the two thousand and one and two thousand and three tax cuts were repealed today taxes on those filers would increase twenty six billion dollars an increase of twenty seven thousand three hundred for top marginal tax payer not an insignificant sum for those individual taxpayers but clearly not enough to offset the cost of the democratic spending plans what about broadening the definition of the rich by including those tax payers in the upper middle class or those in the second highest tax bracket of thirty three percent would that bring in enough money well these one point five million taxpayers or one point four percent of filers paid ninety two point four billion dollars in taxes twenty six point one billion was paid at the marginal rate if you increased their tax rate from thirty three percent to the pre two thousand and one level of thirty six percent it would raise two point four billion in additional taxes reinstating the thirty nine point six percent and thirty six percent tax rates for the tax payers those two top brackets raises in other words twenty eight point four billion more than under current rates still just a fraction of what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to spend what if one reaches down a little deeper and includes the middle class by increasing taxes on people in the twenty five republicans time has expired mr a present i ask you have consent for one additional minute reserved action thank you without objections who are back of the envelope calculation using the same data same data show that raising the top for marginal rates would increase taxes for twenty eight million americans increasing revenues on a static basis thirty seven billion this year or a hundred eleven billion over the next five years not even enough to offset the cost of the additional discretionary spending assumed in the democratic budget resolution so mr president when someone claims to want to increase taxes only on the rich taxpayers should view such a proposal with a healthy dose of skepticism our experience with the a m t should convince us of that taxing the so called rich never raise this is much revenue as the other side claims and usually manages to hit a lot more taxpayers than just the rich invariably when one talks about raising taxes to pay for new spending a lot of people who would otherwise not consider themselves to be wealthy in the paying more in taxes mispresent i wanted to discuss two things today one is a hearing that i have just concluded of our policy committee democratic policy committee and then i want to talk about the price of gasoline in the price of oil let me talk first about the hearing that i just concluded at the democratic policy committee it's the thirteenth hearing i have done on the issue of contracting in iraq and afghanistan especially waste frau and abuse of contracting in iraq i've held good many hearings and i'm not easily surprised any longer about what i hear at these hearings of the unbelievable waste and fraud and abuse and in contracting government contracting where american taxpayers are being fleeced and where our soldiers are being disserved by waste and fraud and abuse but i do get surprised even though i say it's hard to surprise me today i hear about the stealing of artwork and rugs and crystal the stealing of gold in iraq and some of the palaces by contract employees the stealing of gold and melting down of gold to make spurs for cowboy boots something i hadn't heard before the charging of one hundred percent markup on a little thing like laptop computers this is testimony today of the purchase of three hundred laptops to be delivered to dine corp in iraq they were purchased for four hundred dollars a piece and then the government charged twenty eight hundred dollars that's a one hundred percent markup or a witness tells us that a colleague of his was killed in a car in iraq in a high risk area he was on an official assignment in an unarmored car and that car was hit with an ambush and he lost his life he said that colleagues should have been in the armored car but the armored car was being used to transport prostitutes from kuwait back over to baghdad for the enjoyment of this particular contractors employees so i say i try not to be surprised but the depth of  in confidence and waste and fraud and abuse in this contracting iraqis unbelievable i started the hearing today by describing again as i have on the floor a couple of times a piece of work done by the new york times that i wish perhaps that would have been done by the pentagon or by the congress in terms of oversight this is efraim differ only the c e o of a firm awarded three hundred million dollars in a contract by the pentagon to arm the afghan and fighters are pentagon wanted to provide weapons and ammunition to the afghan fighters a perfectly reasonable thing to do because they are taking on the taliban and al qaida in afghanistan to arm the afghan fighters they contracted with a company who had a twenty two year old c e o this company was largely a shell company established by this young twenty two year old's father had been an active and active shell company but now it's behind an unmark door in a building in miami beach florida so a twenty two year old c e o gets a contract with the pentagon and by the way his twenty five year old vice president this is the president and vice president twenty five year old vice president massage therapist i'm a server so you've got a twenty two year old and a twenty five year old massage therapist that are running a company and they get we are told a third of a billion dollars in contracts from the pentagon and by the way the contracts were to provide ammunition to the afghan fighters and here's a photograph again crediting the new york times and some first rate reporting by three reporters here's an example of what they ship the afghan fighters ammunition including forty year old chinese made cartridges and the pictures of what the afghan fighters received from this three hundred million dollar contract boxes taped up bulging at the seams and bursting at the side with bad ammunition it's unbelievable so the question is how is it the army sustainment command and illinois provides a three hundred million dollar contract to a company that has a twenty two year old president of a company that used to be a shell company for most of its existence and a twenty five year old massage therapist as a vice president they run off with a third of a billion dollars of the pentagon's money well actually the taxpayers money isn't it and so who's going to answer to that after the new york times did their story the pentagon then suspended this contract but my understanding from a discussion with a high ranking army official in the last week or so that high ranking army official was saying pr know that the contracting with that company was perfectly logical and the gentleman it's just that the goods that were provided the afghanis didn't meet standards well you tell me how a general in charge of this kind of contract decide to take what had been a shell company and give a twenty two year old and a twenty five year old mature a third of a billion dollars you justify that to the american taxpayer it's not going to happen that cannot be justified and it's long past the time for this congress to do something about it we now have a very large urgent supplemental appropriations request in front of congress how much of that money is for this purpose how many of those contracts would be as embarrassing as this contract how many of those contracts will go to allow the kinds of things i heard for two hours to sefton at a hearing i just held in the dirksen building when are we going to have some feeling that some of this stuff is going to be straightened out i've described before what we should do about it some of my colleagues have put in place a piece of legislation called the truman commission i fully support that but that is a commission of people outside of our government that will study and make reckon make recommendations on government contracting a good thing to do it's the right thing to do i fully support this president is not implementing that commission despite the fact it was passed into law but what we really should do as well because you cannot delegate in my judgment accountability for this we really need what is called a truman committee and that is a committee a select committee bipartisan committee here in the united states senate similar to the truman committee in the one nine hundred forty s various truman created a bipartisan select committee here in the senate it cost fifteen thousand dollars at the start of the second world war they held sixty hearings a year it was bipartisan t subpoena power and with fifteen thousand dollars cost as they started it it saved the american taxpayers fifteen billion dollars this congress needs a truman committee three times we have voted on it and three times the minority voted against it and because it takes sixty votes we do not now have a truman committee in nearly every other major war every other conflict we've had some kind of select committee to do the kind of oversight to provide the focus on the waste and the fraud and the abuse but that has not been the case now and we need to fix that and we need to make that happen and while we have voted on it three times i might say to my colleagues will be voting again because the american taxpayers deserve that kind of oversight that kind of accountability and so to two american soldiers who are being disserve by this waste and fraud and abuse mr president i'd like to  in another part of the record i'd like to make a comment about energy the price of gasoline and the price of oil it's not surprising to people what's happening in this country we see the price of oil in the price of gasoline especially the price of gasoline go up up enough because the price of oil has gone skyrocketing in recent months i have a chart that shows what has happened to the price of oil as you can see from april of seven to april of zero eight what's happened to the price of oil that one might say well th must be something in the supply and demand the need for oil relative to the supply of oil that causes this to happen after all it's the market system isn't isn't it now it's not the market system there's no free market here there's nothing about a free market here a substantial portion of the oil is on the other side of the world controlled by opec countries and that's not a free market they sit in a room with a closed door and the oil ministers of the opec countries then make decisions about supply and the effect on price that reflects their self interest so this is not some natural result of a market system i made the point a couple days ago that saudi arabia which as the largest known reserves of oil in the world is producing eight hundred thousand eight hundred thousand less barrels a day than they did two years ago think about that the largest producer of oil a thousand barrels a day up well that's one a large supply of oil what's another reason well another reason is this administration insists moller reason but nonetheless the reason this administration is taking o from the gulf of mexico as royalty and kind of oil and putting it underground here is what this administration is doing at a time when oil is hundred ten hundred twenty dollars a barrel bouncing around like a yo yo this administration is taking sixty two thousand barrels of oil every single day and sticking it underground in what's called the strategic petroleum reserve that's strategic petroleum reserve is ninety seven percent filled and yet when oil is at its record high this administration is sticking oil underground taking it out of supply and putting it underground unbelievably inept policy because it puts upward pressure on oil prices and upward pressure on gas prices and the fact is this isn't just any oil this is sweet light crude which is a subset of oil the most valuable subset of oil and we've had testimony before the energy committee saying this does affect the price of oil in the price of gasoline in a very negative way underground with they would have had a choice with that oil choice would have been to put it in the marketplace and perhaps reduce some of these prices instead they stick it underground it's a bad policy and i aim to change it in our appropriations process in the supplemental one way or another we're going to vote on this do you really think that one hundred fifty one hundred twenty dollars a barrel we'll be stuck in orlando ground taking out of supply thereby increasing price i don't know there's another thing that's happening with respect to the price of oil i just mentioned the saudis cutting back eight hundred thousand barrels a day over the last two years i just mentioned putting nearly seventy thousand barrels underground every single day by this administration that further cuts the amount in the supply pipeline but there's something else that's happening with the price of oil and that is an orgy of speculation is occurring in the futures market for oil and gas this didn't used to happen the futures market is necessary it's necessary to hedge it's necessary to provide liquidity i understand all that but the futures market has become something unbelievably speculative we've got hedge funds neck deep in the futures market do they want oil they don't want any oil they just want to bet on oil they want to gamble on oil these are people who want to buy something they'll never get from people who never had it and make money on both sides of the transaction in the futures marke oil in the futures market we have investment bankers making big bets on oil investment banks didn't used to be engaged in the futures market but they are now in addition to that in addition to the investment banks working in the futures markets we have investment banks that are actually buying oil storage for the purpose of taking oil off the market putting it in storage until our oil is more valuable later and that's what's happening we've not previously had that ocurred so we have this binge of speculation in the futures market that has nothing at all to do with supply and demand of oil now why is this happening we're least in part it's happening because in the stock market if you want to buy stock on margins you have to pay fifty percent of the margin you've got come up with half the money going to buy stock on margin come up with half the money you want to buy oil on margin in the futures market all you need to come up with is five to seven percent you want to control one hundred thousand dollars worth of oil contracts five seven thousand dollars will do it for you i mean it's almost unbelievable what has happened with respect to the speculation in the futures markets now my belief is that we should change the margin requirements on the futures markets when there is excess speculation it injures this country's economy it damages the american economy this excess speculation has been pushing up oil prices in a very significant way yes there's a combination of things that are happening one as i said the saudis cut back production by eight hundred thousand barrels a day our government the department of energy is staking nearly seventy thousand barrels a day underground of sweet light crude but it's also the case significant part of this in my judgment comes from a binge of speculation on the futures markets and i believe that we should increase the margin required at least a twenty five percent i want to go through a couple of observations here this is april of this month so this year april first this is steven simon senior vice president of exxon mobil quote the price of oil should be about fifty or fifty five dollars a barrel o really well then why isn't it this from an oil expert saying i think the price of oil should be around fifty or fifty five dollars a barrel well this companies make making plenty of money off the current price of oil prices double this that company much greater all the way to the bank that company and the saudis the opec countries and the large oil companies they must be smiling all the way to the bank but mr simon says the price of oil should be about fifty or fifty five dollars a barrel between fifty five and sixty dollars a barrel again understand what he said he said one hundred dollars a barrel oil isn't justified by the physical demand of the market this is a c e o of one of the large oil companies this price isn't justified by supply and demand what we're told that the market system works right supply demand is what determines price i used to teach a little economics in college and and you know you teach suppl talk about a free market there's no free market here of course as i started to say earlier you have the opec countries that's a cartel you have the big oil companies all with two names now exxon mobil philips conoco they all have two names because they found they liked each other and wanted to marry up so they got merger didn't and so they have much more muscle in the marketplace and then you have the futures markets which have become a binge of speculation experts including the former head of exxon mobil say financial speculation in the energy market has grown so much over the last thirty years it now adds twenty percent or thirty percent or more to the price of a barrel of oil the jersey star ledger january this year for delegates is a man who came to testify before the senate energy committee a delegate is an energy analyst for oppenheimer and company he's been with them for i think twenty five or thirty years he knows this business and here's what he said there's absolutely no shortage of oil i'm absolutely convinced that oil prices shouldn't be a dime above fifty five dollars a barrel oil speculators include quote the largest financial institutions in the world unquote he said quote i call it the world's largest gambling hall it's open twenty four seven unfortunately it's totally unregulated this is like a highway with no cops and no speed limit and everybody's going one hundred twenty miles an hour this from mr gates the energy analyst oppenheimer and company now here is a picture of nymex the new york mercantile exchange where you can trade commodities such as oil and you'll see the trading pits and a lot of people have made a lot of money in those trading pits fact i have a a wall street journal story that describes something that is titled trader hits jackpot in oil as commodity boom doors on this describes mr andrew  earns a lot of money about two hundred fifty million dollars a quarter of a billion dollars he accompanies the scheme to the commodities markets historic surge generating huge paydays on wall street one of the biggest beneficiaries of bandra falling and then we had a british born trader who anticipated as an important shift away of the way the world valued oil and he bet big the point of this is so here's a man who made a lot of money i don't regret somebody making a lot of money but it's he made a lot of money by betting he bet big and then interesting as i said before the notion of buying something you'll never get from somebody  never had it that's that's the futures market it provides liquidity yes but when it goes way beyond liquidity and encompasses the binge of speculation that is damaging and harmful to this country then it seems to me it is not anything about the market system we've seen anybody that has studied history and knows economics knows that we've seen binges and speculation before i go back four or five centuries and you read about a tulip b bulb being sold for twenty five thousand dollars because there was a speculative binge which in the rearview mirror looks completely irrational with respect to the price of tulip bulbs well and we've seen many others over the centuries of these these binges of speculation we now see in the futures market in my judgment in part because the margin requirement is so unbelievably low five to seven seven percent we now see benches of speculation that are driving up the price of oil and causing the american consumers an enormous amount of lost income and great difficulty there's a group of to truckers who have come to washington d c today my understanding factor talk to somebody who was a little disadvantaged he said you know it got slowed down on some travels up constitution avenue and i said well you know that's an inconvenience but taking what truckers are going through right now a whole lot more than inconvenience i mean you can but it cost you a substantial amount of money one trucker talked of thousand dollars to fill his truck with that with fuel that's that's a lot more than inconvenience a talk week or two ago but i think there are three airlines perhaps now for that are announced bankruptcy as a result of fuel prices and the working folks that drive up to the gas pump tonight to try to fill that tank trying to figure out how do i get the money where does my money where is the money come from to pay for the gas at the same time we've got people who are engaged on the futures market that are going to the bank with the largest profits ever seen and i think we have a right to ask in this country when you have a market that is not a free market when you have a perverted market first by opec cartel second by excessive speculation on futures markets don't you have a responsibility to do something i think the answer to that is clearly yes and so my hope is that we will they decide to support an amendment that i will offer to the supplemental that shuts down immediately the placing nearly seventy thousand barrels of oil every single day underground at a time when we need that in the supply pipeline why should we allow the department of energy to be taking all at the highest possible price and sticking it underground we can fix this and we can fix it soon within a matter of weeks if we have the will to do it second while we have not previously legislated on the issue of a margin requirement for engaging in speculation on the command exchange's i think if the florida futures trading commission or other entries will not do it i think congress should after all congress created the mechanism by which these exchanges exist we created the referee for the exchanges and if it doesn't work then we have a responsibility to fix it i recall and this doesn't it doesn't relate to the oil companies but i recall i chaired the hearings on enron over in the commerce committee and i had the c e o of enron com front of me and take the fifth amendment ken lay came and said he did he couldn't speak took the fifth amendment but when he did speak later he said he didn't know anything about what was going on the fact the fact of the matter is there was unbelievable speculation going on on the west coast on wholesale electricity prices and manipulation of markets and it cost tens of billions of dollars to west coast consumers that were built out of that money when the system doesn't work when regulatory authorities are not willing to regulate when those that are supposed to be referees in this free market system to make sure a perverted system is changed and to make sure it works then we have a responsibility in congress to deal with it and to respond to it and so i believe very strongly that there are several things we can do first stop spro going underground second find ways to increase the margin requirements on the  futures markets and there are several other approaches that we can use as well but i'm i would conclude by saying this i'm just a little tired of people talking about the free market in a free market here i want oil companies to do well i want them to find more oil i was one of four people in this chamber that led the fight and successfully i might add to open up at least one eighty one of the gulf of mexico where there is substantial oil and gas reserves i believe we should produce more and i've witnessed that by being one of four members of the senate that helped get that open we should conserve more we should provide much greater efficiency with all the things that we use we should provide much greater effort to renewable energy if you do all of those things but even as we do them in my judgment we have a responsibility to address this issue of oil and oil pricing even the oil companies say there's no justification given current supply and demand for prices of oil above sixty sixty five dollars a barrel you've heard it in the statements  people that run our major oil companies the rest of it is going up to the hedge funds and the investment banks and others that are making massive amounts of money at the expense of truckers at the expense of airlines at the expense of the ordinary american drivers trying to figure out how on earth do i previous order to senate will resume the motion to proceed on h r twenty eight eighty one which the clerk will report rushing to proceed to consideration of h r twenty eight eighty one an act i'm entitled forty nine united robert watson was born in scotland in eighteen eighty two he was descended of the steam engine pioneer james watt robert was a student of science the fascination for radio waves and how they might be used to transport information only bad weather but also aircraft including bombers lots and lots of peers tested his theory and it worked they called his new gizmo radar and acronym for radio detection and range by the time that world war two broke out nine hundred thirty nine the british government had installed radar all along english channel and the north east coast that gave the british advance warning of hitler's bombers i claim to star in a j p taylor said that he doubted that britain could have survived the second world war without lots and lots invention ready for commercial applications all civil aviation needed were dramatic growth was a faster set of planes that happened with the advent of the jet engine the one nine hundred fifty s in the sixty's and one hundred fifty two what is now british airways introduced it to havilland commons those were thirty six seat british made jets that could fly as fast as five hundred miles an hour six years later the boeing seven zero seven entered commercial service and pan am flew it from new york to paris here's a new story resample a nine hundred sixty seven quote i think scott when a passenger hops a commercial plane to get from here to there quickly he soon discovered that man does not live by one means of transportation alone safety and reduce the effect of air travel on the environment generally speaking next gen involve the use of satellite based technology that radar but satellites based technology this includes items like automatic dependent surveillance this way firstly set the tax for a the general aviation jet fuel at thirty six cents a gallon that's the current twenty one point nine cents this proposal was agreed to by the gel efficient community it'll raise about two hundred forty million dollars a year in a to that of general aviation fractional owners expressed concern that without this change their ability to fly and land in europe would be hampered the european union has strict rules governing which airports commercial flights could use this change proposed rising that raise that rate currently at fifteen dollars and forty cents to one by one fifty five each way that's just over three dollars roundtrip we thought that if someone had the wherewithal to travel overseas and the cost of his starbucks airport as a result price to pay for contribute to modernize air traffic system but given the state of commercial airline industry today and his difficulties its financial problems senator rockefeller and i agreed to drop the division in the face of dramatically higher fuel prices and mounting financial losses we agreed that this is not the time to raise extra funds for the commercial industry told that package in the senate substitute amendment raises about eight hundred billion dollars over the next three years fund to run a deficit in two thousand and nine and less congress acts to repair it in a time when our surface transportation suffers as much as if not more than our air transport system is imperative that congress act to restore a needed monies to the highway trust fund we need to to it before that debate begins in earnest i want to thank my colleagues especially senate rockefeller in a way with their willingness to seek common ground and i think the senate subject memon is a good so let's help to bring air travel aviation and a tree and aviation industry discussion on the floor of the senate not to put too fine a point on it but the nation's economic well being depends on the federal aviation administration and the aviation industry moving millions and millions of people and tons of cargo every single day i just landed at washington national airport and it was absolutely jammed and i'm trying to think of what it would be like in ten years even on the very best day the federal aviation administration struggles to operate the most complex airspace system in the world the job made harder by extremely adequate air traffic control system which nobody seems which nobody else in the industrial world has but we have it's like using an x ray instead of an m r i it's adequate it is pathetic it wastes a lot of time and it creates a lot of waiting for passengers bad weather mechanical problems lax oversight by the federal administrators can end up in stand still stranding hundreds of thousands of passengers and it has increasing jet fuel costs are making it harder and harder for airports airlines to operate and i particularly refer to legacy that is to the commercial airlines which is the heart and soul of our system all this amounts to a perfect storm that can and very may well wreck our aviation system and aviation experts predict this situation is going to get much worse and very soon by the year two thousand and fifteen delays will become so bad that none of the one billion people predicted to fly that year will ever get to their destinations on time more planes will be needed and that will lead to greater congestion in the skies a meltdown of the air traffic control system and it will put passenger safety at extreme risk if the f a a can imagine that current situation act we expect them to deal with the challenges of the future clearly we need to take steps to start to turn this situation around we must be prepared to take bold action and chart a course towards modernizing our aviation system and improving passenger safety again i remind you we are far behind every other industrial country in the world in our capacity toward that end the aviation investment and modernization act truly lives up to its name it's called one three zero zero a road map for the implementation of the next generation air traffic control system that is a a g p s digitalized instead of an analog x ray type system that we have now it will adequately and fairly fund the system invest in our nation's airport infrastructure and continue to improve small community access to the nation's aviation system as thirteen is a product of compromises not all of them pleasing to me it's a good bill it's been made stronger and i have no doubt there will be further strength as it's considered by the full senate in crafting this legislation and then senator lott and i listen to the industry stakeholders each had their own opinion on how to best improve the aviation infrastructure which is basically basically based upon the premise that they didn't want to pay anything more for anything the one common theme from everyone was the urgent need to modernize our air traffic control system in order to meet the growing surge of passengers and to deal with the enormous increase in general particularly high and jet aircraft i would have a lot more to say about that in the next few days however in recent months that sense of urgency has been replaced with the debate over who should pay and how much as we work through how best to fund the modernization of our air traffic control system the far more critical point of just how severe the problem has become therefore mr president has been lost everybody's looking at how much they're going to have to do about this or do about that and the general situation of the crisis that we are facing all across this country is not being looked at all right traffic control system relies on radio and radar to direct the hundreds of thousands of planes in the skies it is a relic of the one nine hundred fifty s and the sad truth is the g p s device in our cars or cell phones is more sophisticated than the hard word used hardware used to guide passenger and cargo planes in the air that should not make americans happy in this judgment or at traffic control system is a national embarrassment unfortunately the administration does not share this view they seem to be prepared to accept the status quo more to the point they don't seem to care and haven't shown up before senator murray assumed control of the transportation appropriations subcommittee the administration in fact proposed a six hundred million dollars cut s and this is just a technical term but the city's an equipment account which funds the whole question of the new air traffic control system a digitalized g p s based want to reverse this course as one thirty one three zero zero provides over twelve billion dollars to modernize the nation's aging air traffic control system allowing the f a a to meet the projected increase in passengers over the next ten years overall will probably cost between forty and sixty billion dollars in the long run i believe that asked thirteen hundred lays the necessary foundations for developing the next year and generation air traffic control system we create a stable and guaranteed level of funding for f a s capital investment accounts that's what the current situation desperately needs as a result passenger safety should improve commerce will flow more efficiently and  see their fuel costs reduced i said that with my fingers crossed what should not get lost in all this talk about runways about runways about air traffic control systems and financing is the human element of air traffic united states aviation system is in fact the safest in the world but underneath those statistics lives lurking a lot of danger but we have to say v if we want that record to continue this act called the aim act includes a number of provisions to improve safety by providing the f a a with the resources to conduct thorough oversight of air carriers and foreign repair stations and upgrade the existing safety infrastructure at our airports so arcane stuff mr president but at the heart of our camera of our commerce as one three zero zero authorizes proximately sixty five billion dollars for all of that phase operations and programs and provides approximately sixteen billion dollars for airport infrastructure grants to meet airport safety and capacity needs the bill also  outside world without an essential air service program so if you want to connect with the rest of the world you have to have that this building extends a small community air service development program for four more years well what is that i want to spend fully now but this program has provided dozens of communities with the resources necessary to attract and retain their service as a senator from west virginia i know how incredibly crucial both of these programs are in keeping our rural community connected with the nationally v a ssion system we have to be a part of that blood flow or else we shrink up without these important subsidies air carriers would have no incentive to operate in or out of the most rural parts of many states not just west virginia not just iowa but texas california all kinds of places new york rural is everywhere  airports are everywhere people could not be discriminated against because they come from rural areas opposed to an urban area these two subsidies have made their central air a service in the air development program airport development program to made incredible impact on the economic development of west virginia having flights that connect la troy has helped to attract international investors to our state for example toyota it's absolutely essential moving forward that we raise the authorization level for these two programs so that people everywhere can continue flying and get to where they need to go our bill strengthens passenger protections by incorporating elements of the passenger bill of rights to deal with the most egregious flight delays and for example the industry would be required to provide passengers with information regarding on time arrivals and chronically delayed flights aviation incorporates so many of the things that are so critical to us as connect people to distant family members links businesses to businesses adjoins the world which is already shrunk and allows people to easily interact on a global scale it is still amazing to me to be able to board a plane one morning in west virginia and to be halfway around the world that same day but rare roads and highways word of the one nine hundred twentieth century air transportation is to the twenty first century but i know that if we do not make investments in our now and our nation's aviation system now then we will for fall far behind the rest of the world now falling far behind the rest of the world is a relative term i just want to be good and say i want to be good and say we are not now our commercial airlines are just barely hanging on barely so i urge my colleagues to vote yes on the motion to proceed to i a fellow from the commerce committee on the sea grant fellowship be for privileges on this bill could i ask the distinguished senator how long his presentation is i like i told you i have to be up stairs in five minutes thank you madam president i ask unanimous consent that i be recognized immediately following the senator from iowa without objection transportation is an important part of the american economy it is vital to all rural and urban communities that people are able to travel in a timely safe and cost efficient manner whether it is the business woman traveling to meet or clients or visit or companies plants the tourists who wants to experience the beauty and uniqueness of our country or even grandparents visiting their grandchildren all of these it's very important to have a face an affordable and safe travel it's a it's in fact it's an imperative for several years we have been working on reauthorizing the aviation bail while this process has not always been easy i am pleased that we reached a bipartisan agreement and have a good bill before the senate all of us have a vested interest in ensuring a stable dependable and predictable revenue flow to the airport and airway trust fund aviation has in fact changed a great deal since the last time the congress considered aviation legislation this bill reshapes our system to better reflect to the age of reality it provides more funding to further modernize our air traffic control systems our airports and the facilities connected with those airports it also provides for a more efficient and safe travel to reduce delays and ease congestion in our skies all of the united states has one of the best records for aviation safety we need to continue to do better we are back to the level of air traffic that we saw before nine eleven and we will likely to see these numbers grow and grow tremendously in light of these capacity issues and then i deem fifty z quitman being used to manage our skies our nation needs to move as quickly and prudently towards the next generation and that's a term that we use for the new air traffic control systems next generation this bill provides more funding towards next generation now is the right time to replace the old radar technology that real time g p s technology with real real time g p s technology the average people deserve our investment in this new system this bil also takes an honest look at the diversity of our airports system is structures funding for the safety and fairness of every airport and i merit rural states like i have many communities that rely on our elaborate air transportation system people live near hub airports have the opportunity to take vanity of air travel somewhat impatiently and at reasonable price however those in rural areas have more difficulty this challenge has become even more difficult after nine eleven when most small communities were reduced to one air carrier with less frequent flights commercial carriers only fly into approximately five hundred airports although that is a business choice and there are other airports that they could serve it is more expensive to do business in rural america will continue the vital programs that our rural communities rely on to keep competitive in the worldwide marketplace over the past decade there's a new system that's been developed in aviation industry traditionally the focus has been on just two main categories commercial of a a b asian and private airplanes for individual or corporate use today we have a growing new class business aviation which includes a new dynamic of fractional jet ownership the new business classes in to some pated to grow at a faster rate than other segments this new aviation is good for and may be a saving grace for struggling world economies the growth of business aviation is creating more stress on our traffic system this bill provides more equity by having the business sector contribute more to the funding of our aviation system this bill not only addresses the important aviation policy it also provides the needed funding for congress to meet the funding commitments made in the two thousand and five highway bill and i'm going to go on and explain met him by enclosing the rest of my statement on the record because the most important thing about this debate is not highways but that we're keeping our commitment to highways made in the bill of four years ago but it's most important about modernizing our air transportation system  madam president center from texas madam president i come to the floor today as the ranking member of the senate aviation subcommittee i'm going to encourage my colleagues to support cloture on the motion to proceed to consideration of the federal aviation administration reauthorization bill i've been working with my colleagues on the commerce committee and the finance committee to develop a bill that we can all agree on that president on the main parts of the commerce committee bill and the main parts of the finance committee bill we have come to agreement there is one major part that was put  in really at the last minute that i think will bring everything down if we are not able to negotiate it and i'm going to discuss that in a minute but i believe that we have been able in the main commerce committee bill avoid senator rockefeller is the chairman i am the ranking member of the aviation committee that put together the package and in the main part of that deal we have struck a balance that would finance the modernization of the f a a airport development were all air service that is so important in our country and the labor related provisions if we want a final bill i would tell my colleagues that we must keep that balance we cannot load up this bill with controversy over provisions many of which are in the house bill that is the substitute that is the bill we are going to go to cloture on after which there will be disruptive to the on the comp with the commerce bill the house f a a bill already has a veto threat against it and the prospects of a multi year reauthorization for the f a a will diminish quickly if we don't resist the temptation to make this a political document we have the opportunity to pass critical funding increases for for the modernization projects timely improvement for the safety programs that f a a improvements to small community air service and consumer and passenger protection senator boxer and i have worked on passenger protection especially when  an airplane is sitting on a runway unable to take off in the bill we have the force which we will talk more about when the substitute is put forward there is a three hour limit on how long the airplane can stay on the ground without letting passengers off we think this is a major step in the right direction but madam president what i'm going to be looking at as we go through this week is that we cannot do further harm to the aviation industry in this country rising fuel prices tight credit markets and a slowing economy are wreaking havoc on our u s carriers there's not one that is saying they're doing well as we move forward i hope that we will keep that in mind rather than putting burdens that cannot be maintained if this bill is going to throw any one of our airlines into a bankruptcy physician we will have failed now i am very concerned about the pension provision that was put in at the last against in the last couple of days that would take away a careful  passed by this congress last year we worked very hard to make sure that the airlines that have kept their defined benefit plan meaning they give full pensions to their members are not held in a position that would be detrimental to them versus air carriers that have gone to a defined contribution or four hundred one k plan the new pension provision that was put in the finance section bill does create an inequity for carriers trying to maintain their defined benefit plan the language would create a disincentive for the airlines to fully fund their pension liabilities because the new proposal would allow or disallow the past excess contributions from being carried forward in future years as currently allow to put this in perspective for instance american airlines currently has about a ninety three percent funding level in their defined benefit plan however the required level of funding for their plant is eighty percent so they have a significantly higher level of funding that is required in difficult times which everyone should see all of the airlines are and they would be allowed under the present law to use the excess funding level to meet their ongoing obligations like a down payment unfortunately the language that was put in the finance committee bill strips that ability to use these excess contributions and instead forces them to fully fund their ongoing obligations and one hundred percent so rather than owing roughly eighty million dollars for their annual contribution they would instead of three hundred and fifty million dollars over three years that would be almost about a billion dollars even though they are ninety three percent funded on their obligations those penalizes companies for having done the right thing in providing a significant prior funding for their pensions and it changes the rules  carefully balanced congressional directive so madam president i hope that we can work this out before we come to the point at which we are trying to put the finance committee portion of this bill with the commerce committee  and i very much hope our members will become very educated on this issue because if we are going to do this kind of harm we should not be passing an authorization bill at all and instead just do a long term extension of the f a a authorization bill and try to work these out these issues out so that no airline will be harmed or in a significantly disadvantaged position relative to their competitors thank you madam president and i yield the floor plan president there from california my president i'd ask unanimous consent that i be permitted to speak for two minutes in favor of bringing this bill forward without objection thank you so very much i am very pleased that senator rockefeller senator baucus and the ranking members of the subcommittee and the full committee chairs of finance congress have worked together to bring us to this moment where we can reauthorize the f a a bill in this brief time i was very pleased that senator hutchison mentioned the passenger bill of rights that that i was so pleased to author along with senator olympia snowe and i was so pleased to have the support of so many on the committee i just wanted to remind everyone it's important that we move forward on this bill there are so many of things we have to consider now we see what's happening with our air service you know when it works right it's terrific myself today it all worked right i had to take two planes to get here all the way from california it was smooth but there are times when it isn't smooth we all know that but what we want to make sure is that passengers are treated fairly and without the heavy hand of the federal government in everything we just make sure that the system works that led me to author the passenger bill of rights kate had i from my state was one of the people who got trapped on a plane for i can't i was eight hours or ten hours with her two little boys and there was no food there for them there were overflowing restrooms it was a nightmare people couldn't access their medicines they weren't allowed to and certainly people didn't have an option to get off the plane and this happened over and over again i think we've all had experiences like this or we know someone who did man a president there's just no excuse for this people have to have adequate water adequate food and be able to use a clean restroom and get access to their medicine it seems to me that that ought to be a basic rule of the airline to it's not and that's why we wrote this passenger bill of rights and the committee supported it it's in the underlying bill and people will be granted those what i consider a very minimal right we think we're going to offer a perfecting amendment because at this point what happens is we put in there a three hour rule that's the maximum time on a runway with certain exceptions safety whether other things but we say if an airline doesn't agree to a three hour rule three hours of people trapped in the aircraft on a runway that they have to submit an alternative to the f a a but we don't require that the f a a sign off on it so we may want to strengthen that so i would just alert colleagues i hope you'll support us thank you very much i know my time has  i don't have any more time remaining but i hope we'll give this the strong i vote thank you about cloture cloture motion when they understand senators in accordance with the provisions of rule twenty two of the standing rules of the senate here by move to bring to a close that are based on the motion to proceed to counter number three eighty three h r twenty eight eighty bond mrs boxer cochran mr coleman ms collins mr conrad mr corker mr cornyn mr cragg mr no way mr isaacson mr johnson mr kennedy mr kerry mrs lincoln mr lugar mr martinez mr mccain mr rockefeller mr salazar mr sanders mr schumer mr sessions mr shelby mr smith mr stevens mr wicker mr wyden and shelby specter soon to tester and wyden no senator voted in the negative enzi mr lugar mr lugar i am mr cochran mr cochran mr roberts mr roberts mr casey mr casey  nebraska a mr sessions  mr durban  conversations off the floor so that the senator may be heard thank you madam president because workforce is facing immense challenges our country's lost two hundred thirty thousand jobs in just the first three months of two thousand and eight many of those jobs in the presiding officer state of michigan in my state of ohio the national unemployment rate has gone to five point one percent in ohio unemployment hoggers around six percent early this year congress passed an economic stimulus package a necessary step but only a small step in the first step wall street projects an unemployment rate of six and a half percent by the end of two thousand and nine likely higher in my state we've not acted on extending unemployment insurance the republican filibusters the republicans filibustered extending unemployment insurance when he passed the stimulus package earlier this year again the republicans again it stopped it refused stopped our efforts refused to extend unemployment benefits if the senator would suspend the senate is not in order but asked that members take their conversations from the floor so that the senator from ohio can be heard senator from ohio over two point six million americans thank you madam president two point six million americans thirty five percent of all unemployment workers have already exhausted their unemployment benefits over the past twelve months these are people that want to work that have tried to find other jobs that simply have been unsuccessful in finding decent jobs workers have paid into the unemployment system for years and deserve protections now again these are workers who paid into this fun this is an insurance fund it's not a welfare fund in these workers deserve the compensation to help during their difficult times as they search for job bob's i urge my colleagues to end their filibuster and to work on extending unemployment insurance the president continues to push for colombia trade deal we've not even acted on trade adjustment assistance which provides vital assistance to workers who lose their jobs because of trade the president has actually threatened to veto the house trade trade adjustment assistance package whether we have another trade deal or not one thing is certain trade assistance needs to be reformed in needs to be expanded to workers that can't in every case prove that they lost their jobs because of trade even though they probably did and it should be expanded to service workers who have lost their jobs last week senate republicans stage a filibuster to brant prevent even having a debate on giving a woman a day in court when she faces discrimination in the workplace today women and victims of discrimination based on race or age or disability or religion are denied a remedy when they're denied equal pay for equal work it shouldn't be a partisan issue but the republicans have made it one today madam president as workers memorial day a day set aside every year to honor workers killed and hurt on their on the job trade unionists around the world mark a pro twenty eight as an international day of mourning the most recent data show that in the states there were fifty eight hundred forty fatal workplace injuries in two thousand and six fifty eight hundred americans were killed on the job in two thousand and six a hundred more than in two thousand and five this includes  hundred ninety six workers in my state of ohio under this administration workers inspections of decline the occupational safety health the administration safety and health administration is not vigorously of course current laws and regulations on the books it's not set any standards except by court order it continues to rely on voluntary compliance protect workers in many of the most dangerous occupations osha's drag its feet on the butter flavoring chemical in popcorn that has caused a fatal lung disease known as popcorn lung disease that's too late for keith campbell in caledonia ohio just fifty years old but has the lungs of an eighty year old because of exposure to the to the chemical plant to the popcorn plant in marion ohio the point is that in president it's taken decades of struggle by workers and unions to improve conditions in the mines in the meat packing plants in the metals stamping shand shops in all kinds of plants where workers get all kinds of occupational injuries and illnesses this progress has been slowly and sometimes not so slowly unravelled by the bush administration through budget cuts and a shift in emphasis to voluntary employer programs administration's essentially telling workers you're on your own it harkens back to an era when workers were treated like disposable goods in election year some candidates give drive by speeches in towns hit hard by on trade with unfair trade deals in tell them that the ownership society is working and in some sense it's true more and more workers own responsibility for their own safety their own retirement in their own health care you hear candidates sometimes talk about how if only taxes on the wealthiest americans were lower companies wouldn't outsource production to china or to mexico or to any other country i don't think that argument's passing the straight face test these days middle class families aren't buying it because they see perfectly well what is happening all around them the message of the ownership society coming from the white house is that every man and woman is responsible for himself or herself but the result of the policies pursued under that banner of the ownership society is the greatest concentration of ownership in the hands of a few that we've seen since the great depression it's ownership all right but only for those in high society we've seen over the past eight years administration that neither values nor rewards hard work we see an administration that simply doesn't value manufacturing manufacturing change the face of america in create a middle class that used its strength and its power to change the course of society the progress in labor rights and women's suffrage and antitrust laws in conservation in the social safety net wouldn't happen without manufacturing in wouldn't happen without rewarding hard work when the bush administration fails to value these manufacturing jobs in the first place why should it why should we not be surprised when it doesn't value safety in industries like construction and mining and transportation and manufacturing our nation is struggling we struggle because of the federal government's wrong headed tax policy we struggle because our trade policy all too often encourages investors to move jobs overseas in the last fourteen months i've traveled my state extensively held roundtables with community leaders and workers and activists and teachers and farmers and veterans in almost a hundred different places in sixty two of ohio's eighty eight counties it's clear to me ohio workers are fighting back to build a decent standard of living for themselves and for others to provide opportunities for their children to construct a more prosperous state one were smart and hard work is rewarded and listen to a woman d d s that negotiations representing twelve hundred janitors in cincinnati twelve hundred men and women who work hard to raise their children who contribute to their community and in this case are not or were not much more than the minimum wage joined by joined by several others at the bargaining table d d help reach an agreement with anatomies office building owners over the next three years twelve hundred janitors will get between a two and a three dollar an hour raise will get health benefits and will get a small pension in northwest ohio in the farmlands of henry county very productive farmer and increasingly competitive environment told me his story he probably is proud of his farm to be sure but he takes his role very seriously as an american citizen he's an advocate for family farmers and for fair trade understand the prosperity of ohio depends on a vibrant rural ohio where young people want to stay and work in their communities ohioans and workers across the country are fighting back they will not go away after this chamber  down the fair pay act again a victim of republican filibuster they not go away last year when republicans mounted yet another filibuster to prevent the senate from considering legislation to level the playing field for unions trying to represent new groups of workers they won't go away just because this administration has ignored worker safety and went more forcing more families to mourn loved ones on workers memorial day we need ownership society but it needs one mr president which workers own a greater share of the profits from their productivity and the government and employers own a greater share of responsibility for their safety and for their well being t mr president summer from minnesota mr president spring is finally arriving in minnesota even though we had snow last week it does get to our state a little longer than it does in washington but this is the time of  year when people start thinking about putting their boats in the water and they start thinking about making their trips to their cabins that we call it the lake season it's also the time of year when farmers are preparing to put their crops in the ground but this year is going to be different the average price of gas just hit three dollars and forty five cents a gallon in minnesota and three dollars and fifty six then per gallon nationally the price of diesel fuel is that four dollars and fourteen cents per gallon nationally and of course the price of crude oil is at an unbelievable one hundred and eighteen dollars per barrel people just can't afford to do the things that they used to i don't think people usually think of going up to a small lake cabin as a luxury but it becomes a luxury when gas is expensive as i've heard from constituents who are having to cancel their family road trips or their summer vacations up north because they can't afford the gas that they need to get there i've heard from farmers who are having a hard time making ends meet even in spite of the high commodity prices because the cost of their input diesel fuel for their farm equipment and fertilizer made from natural gas have spiraled out of control and of course it is per to close the hard on middle class and low income families because when they have less disposable income and gas goes up to these levels it is very difficult for them to get by the high price of energy has inflated the price of everything from groceries to transportation to home heating as you know the presiding officer in your home state of vermont it has impacted every sector of our economy from manufacturing to forestry to farms and small businesses in cold northern states like minnesota spring is when a lot of people especially senior citizens living on their own are trying to pay off their natural gas bill from the winter and they're too afraid to think about how they're going to pay their heating bills next winter if this trend continues middle class families are struggling with the high cost of health care and college education already and they can afford this increase in the price of gas i just heard an expert a few weeks ago talk about if you just look at the past eight ten years of regular average middle class family the their cost for everything from daycare to home heating to gas has gone up about eight to ten thousand dollars a year but their wages have not gone up they don't have a choice mr president about how they're going to get to work in my state many of them don't have a choice they have to drive they have to be have to work they have to get to school and they have to get to the doctor any wage increase that they have may gotten last year goes straight into their gas tanks and more often than that there haven't even been those wage increases not a day goes by when i don't hear about the struggle from my constituents in minnesota so it's hard for me to understand how recently the president seemed taken aback when someone asked him about four dollars gas the president said and i quote and remember this was feb twenty eighth not that long ago we said you're predicting four dollars a gallon gasoline that's interesting i hadn't heard that well the people in my state four dollars a gallon gas is an interesting it is in fact a budget buster for many middle class families in our state the fact of the matter is that this administration has failed to provide americans with a meaningful energy policy that would provide relief from high gas and energy prices this country needs a bold energy policy for the future a policy that will stabilize prices and give consumers more alternatives reduce our dependence on foreign oil and provide us with the next generation of homegrown biofuels brazil has already achieved this energy security they have leapfrogged in front of our country now they can do it with sugar cane we don't have that much sugar cane here and we know we have to go to the next generation of biofuels with saudi law stick which is switch grass per grass stover it is  any many many different things but we have to put the research and the incentives in place we can do this we just need the will we need to pursue a forward looking energy policy with the same sense of urgency that we used to put a man on the moon nearly forty years ago in the long term this is going to mean strategic investments in research on hybrid electric cars new solar technologies sally alaska governor and other forms of energy from b we should be investing not in the oil cartels of the mideast but in the farmers in the workers of the midwest we need better fuel efficiency standards in our cars no we already got a start on that with the energy bill with a ten mile per gallon increase in fuel efficiency standards but we need to do more we also need a renewable energy electricity standard a portfolio standard for the nation like we have a minute minnesota requirement is twenty five percent of our electricity comes renewables by the year twenty twenty five and it is spurred investment in when we're now third in the country and when because we've been willing to take that step there are also many things that we need to do in the short term mr president we can put a stop to all company giveaways by ending some of those giveaways the tax breaks to the oil companies and putting them into a futuristic energy policy focused on renewables we tried to do that in the energy bill and as you know we're just one vote short one vote short of blocking the filibuster i still believe we can do it we also have to look at the strategic petroleum reserve we can stop diverting fifty thousand barrels of oil every day into the strategic petroleum petroleum reserve of course we need to have a petroleum reserve to protect our country in times of emergency but the time to fill it is not when oil prices are at record high here's what the staff at the strategic petroleum reserve had to say on the subject six years ago in two thousand and two they said and this is a quote commercial inventories are low retail prices are high and economic growth is slow the government should avoid acquiring oil for the reserves under these circumstances if this was true in two thousand and two it's doubly true today or maybe i should say its aaa true today since gas prices today are more than triple what they were in two thousand and two that's why i was proud to join with my colleague senator dorgan of north dakota and others in sending a letter to the president asking him to halt imports into the strategic petroleum reserve to provide some relief for consumer next opec another area where we can take immediate action is in our dealings with opec nations opec is a cartel of oil producing countries that meet and to i'd how much oil to produce and thereby control prices they make no pretense of having a free market system they don't obey the laws of supply and demand they gathered together they said production which determine prices as a former prosecutor i call that kind of behavior collusion and it's illegal in our country but the members of opec are foreign governments and so far they have gotten away with it as oil export of nations the members of opec could provide us with some early they have the spare capacity to increase production of oil and ease the pain being felt by american consumers and businesses but opec recently met mr president as you know and decided not to increase production at least until the fall after the summer driving season not only that saudi arabia has actually decreased production since two thousand and five so i've joined with my colleagues with senator schumer and dorgan and you in calling on the president to demand that opec nations increase their oil production to revive american consumers and businesses with much needed relief think about it this country spends six hundred thousand dollars every minute on imported oil six hundred thousand dollars that's money leaving the pockets of american drivers going into the coffers of foreign countries by refusing to step up production opec nations are saying we don't think prices are too high yet we want to go even higher so i don't think that's right it is time this administration stepped up and did something about it if we're going to be doing business deals with saudi arabia and some of these countries we should have the leverage this administration should have the leverage to push for more oil from opec next another short term solution current prices are simply not justified by supply and demand the administration likes to tell us that nothing can be done that is just a case of supply and demand but that answer does not hold true any longer listen to what the oil company executives themselves have to say about this matter on october thirtieth two thousand and seven the c e o of marathon oriel said one hundred dollar oil isn't justified by the physical demand in the market that's exactly what he said hundred dollar oil isn't justified by the physical demand in the market ok let's look at what another c e o said here we have the senator has used ten minutes if i could ask for another five minutes without objection thank you and on april first a senior vice president of exxon mobil testified before the house senior vice president exxon mobil testified that the price of oil should be about fifty to fifty five dollars per barrel he said the price of oil should be about fifty to fifty five dollars that was on april first two thousand and eight i know that that's april fool's day but he did say the price should be about fifty to fifty dollars dollars per barrel so why the trading at one hundred eighteen if supply and demand don't explain the high price of gas what according to the experts there is a frenzy of unregulated market speculation in the oil futures market that is driving prices up to record highs i'd like to share a quote from an energy market analyst with oppenheimer who was recently named by bloomberg as the tap ranked energy analyst in the country he said i'm absolutely convinced that oil prices shouldn't be a dime above fifty dive fifty five dollars a barrel oil speculators include the largest anshul institutions in the world he said i call it the world's largest gambling hall it's open twenty four seventh's it's totally unregulated this is like a highway with no cop and no speed limit and everybody's going one hundred twenty mph makes you feel really good make some people who are filling up their gas tanks that are paying that nearly four bucks an hour a gallon that makes them feel really good like a gambling hall why are these trades in a commodity as vital as oil unregulated well back in two thousand a provision was inserted into the commodity futures modernization act that exempt an electronic energy trades from federal regulation in the absence of oversight what was once a small niche market became a booming industry attracting ra speculation from hedge funds and investment banks oil and natural process gas prices became volatile the provision has become known as the enron loophole because it made possible the many abuses that triggered the western energy crisis and cost the economy thirty five billion dollars and nearly six hundred thousand jobs the federal government has a critical role to play in conducting aggressive oversight of changing energy markets history has shown us that when it foresman to act consumers ultimately pay the price simply put we need to close the enron loophole and strengthen federal oversight of energy trading i'm pleased to say that my colleague senator feinstein and levin have succeeded including this provision in the farm bill it's another reason that we need to get the farm bill done i want to commend my colleague collin peterson over the house from minnesota and senators harkin and conrad for getting this done finally a short term solution after the collapse of enron the president formed a corporate fraud task force at the department of justice the tax corps has since produced more than one thousand convictions by aggressively pursuing corporate fraud under existing law what this shows us is that good laws in and of themselves are not enough we need enforcement we need a cop on the beat any prosecutor can tell you that and that's why i joined my colleague senator cantwell in calling on the president to establish a new division of the corporate fraud task force specifically to apply to energy markets this new oil and gas market fraud task or it would allow us to focus that come by and efforts of the department of justice the f t c f c c and the federal energy regulatory commission in conclusion mr president the cost of energy is hurting americans from all walks of life and business and i don't think we need one silver bullet as we stand say in my state we need a silver buckshot we need a bold energy policy first of all in the short term that focus on temporarily suspending deliveries of oil into the strategic petroleum reserve that pressure the opec nations to increase oil production that close the enron loophole to limon eight that speculation and to establish the or oil and gas market fraud task force then we need the last term and you know this well we need to increase vehicle fuel efficiency make a national commitment to generate electricity from renewables and invest in research in cunning and technology for alternative fuel vehicles and renewable energy sources this is what we need to do the time is now for congress to take strong steps toward creating that bold energy policy americans are comment mr president i first want to thank my colleague for his kind words and then i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to a period of mourning business with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each without  technical corrections to section twelve forty four of the national defense authorization act for fiscal year two thousand and eight and so forth and for other purposes is their objection to proceeding to the measure if not the committee is destroyed and the senate will proceed mr president i ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate and any statements related to the bill b placed in the record at the appropriate place as if read without objection mr president i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number seven zero eight  senate resolution seventy four will report calendar number seven zero eight s congress seventy four honoring the prime minister of ireland and so forth is their objection to proceeding to the measure without objection mr president i further asked that the resolution big read to the preamble be agreed to the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate and that any statements relating to this measure be printed in the record at the appropriate place without objection i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number as so for senate resolution four ninety seven and it's calendar number seven hundred  senate resolution four ninety seven will report countermeasure seven o four s restore ninety seven expressing the sense of the senate a public servant should be commended for their dedication and continued service to the nation during public service recognition recognition week table with no intervening action or debate and any statements related to the resolution be placed in the record at the appropriate place as if read without objection so ordered mr president i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number seven ten senate resolution five twenty three kal number seven ten as read five twenty three expressing the strong support of the senate for the declaration of the north atlantic treaty of the owners of small business concerns united states your national small business week beginning able to twenty first two thousand and eight is there objection to proceeding to the measure if not the senate will proceed i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to the preamble be agreed to the motion to be risk of reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate and any statements relating to the resolution be placed  the record at the appropriate place as if read them i ask unanimous consent of the senate now proceed to the consent or consideration of senate resolution five thirty six which was submitted earlier today unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to the preamble be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table without objection i ask unanimous consent that the senate now proceed to the consideration of senate resolution five thirty eight which was the minute earlier today will report as rez five thirty eight designating april thirtieth two thousand and eight as dia de los ninos celebrating young americans and for other would ask for its first reading h r fifty seven fifteen an act to ensure continued availability of access to the federal student loan program for students and families i would ask for  second reading and object to my own request tomorrow tuesday april twenty ninth that following the prayer and the pledge the journal of proceedings be approved today the time for the two leaders be reserved for the use later in the day that they would then be a period of mourning business for up to one hour with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each which with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders are their designees with the majority controlling the first half and the republicans controlling the final hat that following morning business the center resume the motion to proceed to h r twenty eight eighty one f a a reauthorization that all the time during any period of morning business recess or adjournment count against cloture and the senate recess from twelve thirty b n p m and till two fifteen p m to allow for the weekly if there is no further business to come before the senate i ask that it's can adjourn under the previous order following the remarks of senator sessions and i wanted to again thank senator sessions i didn't realize at this closing a moment here would take so long so i appreciate his patience and consideration a question as to why we would continue to pour large amounts of petroleum into our reserve when we are clearly even to the prices seems to me not a good idea and what would help relieve some pressure on prices and on supplies if we were supposed to suspend that and also share her concern that on the world market we're not in a free market place  those experts that said they thought the price ought to be fifty fifty five dollars a barrel i don't know what the prices ought to be but i know opec meets and decides what the production level will be alibek does when they drive up prices by limiting production what they're doing is taxing the united states of america they just decide how much they're going to tax us for their the all that we use and one expert has said that the cost of producing a barrel of all in those fabulous all signs in saudi arabia is less than ten dollars a barrel so we see what the profit margin is when it hits one hundred twenty dollars a barrel on the world market and many factors are in it and so i know the plan in the dollar and other factors but i just want to say i do feel that we're moving into a new era  government controlled all more than we ever have most people think that all companies control it but recent studies show about eighty five percent of all is owned by nations states for example mexico owns all of their all and will not allow private industry to participate in its extraction and because the government is inefficient nonproductive their production has fallen whereas mexico has driving prices up allowing certain people who a clever and smart have investigated invested wisely our grass and laid to make millions billions of dollars so we've got a serious energy problem in the united states the high cost are impacting the lives of american citizens and farmers and there's an article in a local paper late immobile doesn't go up with the price of fuel drop i cannot make a profit there's no way i can go out and do this and he docked his boat and there was a similar article in the florence times talking about farmers in the increase in cost that farmers are seeing from their fuel they used in creech demand from india southeast asia or south america with the crease production around the globe has created the opportunity for prices to grow and profits to grow for certain people who was laid positioned during my last week in the last trip in alabama for a week i had town hall meetings and visit with people throughout the state energy prices was the number one thing people talked to me about is having a real impact on their family budgets the price of regular unleaded gasoline plan the three hundred three dollars and fifty cents a gallon a year ago it was two dollars and eighty four cents and two years ago it was two dollars and seventy four percent two dollars and seventy four cents at twenty eight percent increase in two years but that mains is and this outs explain the economic doldrums and and slowdown that we are in that means that the typical american family with two cars  is paying about seven hundred fifty dollars to at that one thousand dollars more per year for the same amount of fuel they were buying the previous year that represents what seventy eighty dollars a month of disposable income that previously they could use for other things for their family is not going to just bought the same amount of fuel they were to the year before or two years before this represents a huge economic hit to the american family now there's another adverse problem serious problem for america as a nation more than sixty percent of the fuel that we utilize in our vehicles in america comes from places like saudi arabia and venezuela and russia and mexico some of which are not friendly to us and that represents  four hundred billion dollar transfer of wealth or an annual basis from this country businessman t boone pickens in array's an interview an american spectator referred to this as the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind pretty smart guys and all manning south he said we've got to do something about this is not something we can just  ignore of course there is no silver bullet to solving the problems but there are some basic principles we should respect we must increase supply as an owl and country increase production in our own country which we certainly can do and which i regret to say we have attempted in this senate and in the house more than once to be blocked by various groups who seem to complain about how energy prices but don't want to do anything to allow us to produce more in the united states and we must conserve more energy and supported the increased gas mileage standards which represent a substantial improvement there and maybe we can even do more we certainly must try to use immobile fuels if we can although on the current technologies are reaching the limits but i think other technology will help us in the future to explain the amount of biofuels we can use and we must use the fuel we have more efficiently and i think the government does have a responsibility that to ensure that we have fairness in the world marketplace and in the american marketplace and make sure that these cartels openly fixing the price of all do not succeed in as i'll discuss a minute maybe and i think we should we should take a serious look and a stablish a policy with regard to diesel fuel mentioned that in a moment i want to know that the problem for gasoline is hurting and hitting the american families directly but at this moment i like to share some specific thoughts about diesel fuel and those costs recent spy and diesel fuel prices don't get a lot of attention in the media but it has a huge impact on consumers and business women and truckers and shrimpers and farmers today i had the pleasure to meet with six independent truckers who are here in washington to bring attention to the skyrocketing cost of diesel fuel they had press conferences and they talked to a number of people and invited a group to come to moffitt all over the road trucks eighteen wheelers heavy equipment and agricultural trucks almost exclusively diesel fuel this month they still fuel prices climb to four dollars and fourteen cents a gallon two years ago it was two dollars and seventy two cents that's a fifty two percent increase still feel substantially greater than the increase in gasoline and that is putting out here huge stress on trucking company independent truckers particularly small businesses farming and fishing operation now among automobiles and pickup trucks ninety eight percent of the people drive they go to use gasoline unleaded gas so you might say i'm not a trucker or a farmer those prices don't really affect me but that's just before mercedes for example direct dialogue is offering consumers a range of vehicles with its blue tech diesel engine that is built in my home state i would know  so we should spend a few minutes looking at our policies and how they affect diesel prices and i hope that the energy committee of which i am a member will have some hearings on this i think it will be worth our having some time set aside exclusively to this problem nearly all trucks and delivery vehicles are utilized diesel fuel the price of  diesel fuel effects our country and so many ways the trucking currently uses seventy five percent of the total diesel fuel used in the united states only three point five percent of the automobiles in america use diesel but in europe approximately fifty percent of the automobiles are diesel and in the united states  action we took that may have had some impact on not using so much diesel fuel but had a good impact perhaps for the environment was the demand very clean low sulfur diesel fuel diesel fuel as lower software than the europeans and that's because of environmental raised but did you know this they still automobiles r approximately thirty percent further on gasoline and then then similar gasoline powered automobiles they still engines get thirty percent better mileage then gasoline engines diesel powered automobiles also get more mpg even then a hybrid automobiles are about the in some insist that it's better but they are pretty much equal in addition to being fuel efficient diesel powered automobiles get this a minute fewer c o two emissions and of course that's last fifty percent of automobiles in europe is analyze this more carefully than we it appears are now days to live the european union has emphasized asal engines because it takes all it takes thirty now the average price of diesel fuel used in motor vehicles has historically been lower than the price of regular gasoline but according to the department of energy the average price of diesel has been higher than gasoline is back up so for some reason even though they still fuel traditionally has been less expensive requires less refining effort then gasoline diesel fuel has been averaging sixty four cents a gallon more than gasoline now i gotta sa abol even a free market and allows for the government to intervene but let me ask this question why is that by what a product should be cheaper they consistently since two thousand and four more expensive than the other product and i frankly don't know but it does appear that our country has made a determination to shift to a gasoline economy and i harbored a condom me i think it's fabulous that we are utilizing in large numbers now  large numbers we have we certainly have enough on the roads today to be able to find out how well they work to make their capabilities more sophisticated to improve their life and improve their fish n c to work out the bugs and a lot of people are finding that the saving in gas alone will help pay for the somewhat more expensive hybrid engine so i'm not against the hybrid engine and i'm delighted that we are leading the world in the effort to utilize as hybrid engines what i'm asking is how have we gotten ourselves into a situation in which the less expensive fuel diesel fuel they get thirty percent better gas mileage is not readily available and is costing sixty four cents more a gallon sump than is a rock as far as i can see  let's get busy let's do some things about it let's stand up to opec let's use every political influence that we have and pressure that we have to increase courage and to increase productivity to reduce the shortages let's stop at least temporarily the plows into the petroleum reserve less expand biofuels in particularly bio diesel which is a fabulous fuel ethanol is just as productive as diesel fuel and actually is even cleaner than diesel fuel and we need to figure out how to get more production domestically from our own reserves and i won't go into the arguments we've had about an war that the all sans all all shy all in the west offshore drilling we simply have not done enough of it and we still have large reserves available to us in this country so that when those reserves are produced that well doesn't go to foreign nations but is kept within the united states creating jobs in our country so we need more production and we need to look at this question of refineries i don't know what the problem is but are we need i asked some questions i've already asked congressional research service department of energy some but i and to look at this more as to why we don't have sufficient diesel fuel being produced in this country and continue to have shortages of it so wall that's what i think we need to do and i'm not aware and i understand completely that a surging cost of energy impacts working americans directly it hits their pocketbook those are the people who have the least disposable income and it's like a hidden tax yes all is more valuable today than it was a method t boone pickens in is article said he thought we were at a peak all situation in the world while demands are going up worldwide i don't know that we're yet at a total peak i doubt we are frankly and but we're getting close to that and so the hall is just a more valuable product on the stand that what we need to execute the policies we know will work to help contain the price increases that are hurting americans and i would just add there's one fall we need to be careful about cap trade and other pieces of legislation that focus solely on c o two emissions because we know that those actions and those pieces of legislation will only drive the cost of fuel up higher according to the environmental protection agency has just completed a study of the cap and trade bill that the energy at that the environment and public works committee just reported to the floor if you want the two ago that bill would raise the price of gasoline fifty cents a gallon could raise the price of electricity maybe as much as on hundred dollars a month for a family who's going to pay that but we've got to be very careful when we pass appen fry global warming type legislation that when we do we don't usually calls on working americans are low income americans that they don't deserve and they're not justified so i think that's a matter that will need to consider in the weeks to come i thank the opportunity to share these remarks appreciate very much the truckers who are in my office today i enjoyed talking with them they told me stories of people who have in the park their trucks and not be able to continue to work they told me stories of people who were going to go into bankruptcy who couldn't continue to make their payments is not an academic matter it's a very real thing we need to take action consistent with our great heritage of freedom in our country to see what we can do to confront this rising cost of energy thank the chair and you'll slow