we lifted without objection mr president as the parliamentary procedure that we're on the mortgage foreclosure protection act at the present time we are still in mourning business ok mr president  if i may be recognized as if in morning business senators recognized mr president i do want to say a word about the mortgage protection act the protection against  foreclosure on mortgages last thursday i him offered an amendment that will be considered perhaps tomorrow and it will be voted on and it is a commonsense amendment that in order to save somebody is home and not have their mortgage foreclosed on if they have a pile of cash sitting over in their retirement account a full one k that they would be able to go in and get twenty five thousand dollars out of their four hundred one k retirement plan to use that in order for them to  forestall a foreclosure upon their home and therefore stay in their home now that's just plain common sense and to be able to do that pull it out without paying the ten percent penalty under current law that you would have to pay in order to take money out of that retirement fund and set it aside why is it common sense because the  of the current law is that you can take money out of the retirement fund without paying the penalty in order to buy a home if you can do that to purchase a home why would you not want to give a homeowner the opportunity to keep their home from foreclosure by allowing them to go into the the retirement  this amendment it's offered by me and a host of other senators that are our co sponsors now mr president the reason i ask you to speak as if in morgan morning business is because i want to talk on another subject that is not the subject of the mortgage foreclosure protection act and that is the continuing saga that we have about seating the democratic delegates to the national conventions from the states of florida and michigan up mr president over the way can we in my state of florida the state party met having already elected the delegates under their rules from the various congressional districts then the only thing to complete the election of the total florida delegation was the remaining delegates that are selected at large of the whole state and proportionate to the  boat that both senators obama and clinton got in the january twenty ninth primary a primary by the way that we had a record turnout of one point seven five million almost two million florida democrats turned out in vote and as a result of that in that proportion to which senator clinton got fifty percent of the boat and senator obama got thirty three percent of the vote the rest of the delegation of the total of two hundred and eleven delegates was selected so florida's delegates selection process has gone through under the normal procedures set out by the the rules and bylaws of the florida democratic party so the question now is now that we have our delegates duly elected are they going to be seated well of course you know the position of this senator from florida who has been trying for nine months now the work of compromise by which we can get the delegates seated the democratic national committee has completely rejected all of the attempts and just say now if we had a dozen this last august and september when we were trying this and have this issue behind us in florida how much easier it would be on a going forward basis not to face that nail biting scenario and drama that we see playing out in front of our eyes since both of the candidates by iraq and hillary are so close not only in delegates but in national vote and so forth well at the end of the day mr president i believe as the good book says c and let us reason together that that will prevail and that the delegation from my state of florida as well as michigan will be seated because at some point the party chieftains are going to understand that if you want to win the election in november that you can't do this the delegations from florida and michigan now why conventional wisdom says that there are four big states that for the democratic nominee to win the democratic nominee has to get three of those for what are they are michigan ohio to the east further to the east pennsylvania and what's the fourth floor and lo and behold of those critical states in winning a presidential election in the electoral college as a result of election lowball two of the four are florida and michigan so if the party chieftains would start focusing on november and the treatment of florida and michigan and and i can only speak to florida i know the senators levin and stab and all can certainly speak for their state and they've been trying as well it is time to get a formula by which we can see the delegations now we've tried everything once the democratic national committee last september said no the rules say we're going to take away half your delegates but now we're going to take the full pound of flesh we're going to take away all your delegates florida and then they left me no choice but i had to sue the chairman and that my party the democratic national committee had to sue in federal court the federal district judge in florida did not agree with my constitutional arguments and dismissed the lawsuit i disagree with his reasoning because i think the constitutional protections of of due process and equal protection of the laws do apply but nevertheless i didn't have time to file an appeal  because january twenty ninth was fast upon us and so it is what it is so since then i've been trying several different things along with members of the democratic congressional congressional delegation of florida and this is one of the most recent that i have suggested and other members of the delegation have as well since the democratic national committee let's try that as a means in the spirit of compromise of getting the florida delegation seated and of course since all two hundred eleven are now elected duly in the process sees of florida you can see the whole delegation if such and a compromise were struck by giving each of them half a vote in the spirit of compromise let's get that done now four weeks ago on this floor when we had that all night session the presidential candidates were all here and of course i took the opportunity to speak to senator obama and senator clinton a bow such a compromise and in terms of raw politics if the whole delegation were seated senator clinton would have an advantage of thirty eight votes but if you see the delegation with half of its vote in the spirit of compromise you cut that in half and her where we are every time anybody gets all on the news programs talking about the presidential contest which is vigorous and close everybody asked the question about what to do about michigan in florida and everybody is starting to understand that it's time to get this decision done a compromise to get the delegation seated and to move on the problem is that when you come to these kinds of decisions one candidate sees that it did then ijaz them and the other candidate sees that it disadvantages them and it's very difficult to get an agreement well the question has got to be injected at the end of the day what's most important and i would submit that at the end of the day it is clearly in the interest of the democratic nominee to be able to win the votes on november the fourth from the state of florida and from the state of michigan where you say does that mean that those states wouldn't vote for the democratic nominee i can only tell you what the data says surveys in florida twenty two percent of independents in florida would be less likely to vote for the democratic nominee because of all this break us now in truth once we get a nominee the electorate is going to be focused on the november election and choosing the leader of the free world and a leader that can straighten out the mess that we find ourselves in and the huge challenges that are facing this country let me give you an example i would start over the weekend to find a question in a major national survey to the question is this country going in the right direction or is it going in the wrong direction i was stunned to see the results that eighty one percent of the american people were saying that the country was going in the wrong direction that is a phenomenal response that begs for leadership in whom we select as the next president of the united states and i do believe that we will see down the road once we have our nominee that people will get focused on that instead of the fracas that we now have enveloping florida and michigan now my final comment mr president since we have been joined by the esteem senior senator from california the chairman of the rules if ever there is an opportunity for reform it is now if ever there is a reminder to us that this chaos bags full order to a merge out of the chaos if ever there is an example of americans being dissatisfied with a nominating process it is now and if you leave it alone and let it take its natural course what's going to happen is states in the next election four years down the road are going to be jumping each other and suddenly your first caucus or primary is going to be at halloween and as a result you will have an even more  chaotic situation and so it begs for a rational plan senator levin and i have offered such a raz rational plan and it's one idea there are many ours would have six primaries in a regional they would start in march and go through june and the order of the states collected together in originally around the country big states and small states together would be done by a lot i drawing out of a hat on number one to six whether they go in march or whether they go last number six in june and then four years later they'd rotate and the tubes would go to once in the ones would go to the end for the june primary well that bill has been referred to the rules committee now it's an idea and obviously in the in the t hurly burly of a presidential campaign we're not going to move on legislation such as this but down the road in the next congress after this election th suggestions as well make elections easier why do we have to vote just on one day a tuesday when people often find it very difficult to get off of work or to go to work late or to get home early in order to vote why don't we make elections easier for people why don't we give them a two week period prior to the election they could go to designated places in their county to vote early or why don't we make it a lot easier for people to vote if they want to vote by mail which is we traditionally call an absentee ballot let's enable them to call up the supervisor of elections office and get an absentee ballot without them having to swear that they're not going to be in their community on the day of the election or without them having to sway or that they're sick and can't get to the pole why don't we make it easy why don't we give grants for people back in their communities in counties  states to do pilot projects to study whether or not we could in fact do what oregon does which is a vote by mail where they get ninety percent participation why don't we give grants to do a pilot study as to whether or not the integrity of the voting process could could be done by voting by the internet in certain circumstances such as military overseas ballots why don't we do all of this in election reform indeed this senator would propose the ultimate rage why don't we  in the united states constitution and abolish the electoral college where in fact the popular vote for president will determine who is going to be president instead of this arcane archaic institution called the electoral college that has caused several times in our history a presidential candidate to get the most votes but the other candidate is the one that wins because of the electoral college votes so what i'm saying mispresent is we ought to put all these ideas on the table we ought to make voting easier we certainly ought to r form the presidential nominating process and we ought to consider about letting the majority rule in this country we've had a reminder in move toward a solution with respect to the florida situation he has told me on several occasions that never before i think have as many people voted in an election as did in florida i think senator you have mentioned some two million people voting in this primary election and it is inconceivable to you and therefore to us i believe to really have a convention  florida is not represented and of course the same thing comments would go for the great state of michigan and i just want you to know that i'm very appreciative of the efforts that you have made to try to settle the situation i only wish they could have been successful i do not believe that the doors closed and i think the more that the people of this country understand how important florida and michigan are to the democratic process that you will have strong support to reach some accommodation so i just want to say thank you for all you have done mr president i ask on behalf of senator casey of pennsylvania unanimous consent that mr james hedrick of his staff be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the senate's consideration of h r three two  thank you very much i come to the floor this afternoon to speak on morning business if i may resolution to the desk but perhaps rather than do that i should just speak about it and then introduce it separately this resolution is sent on behalf of senator gordon smith of oregon and myself it is also co sponsored by the chairman of the foreign relations committee senator biden as well as senators club which are brown cantwell dole obama voinovich schumer collins and birds and it deals with tibet and it deals with what is happening in tibet and to this is a very difficult week because the day after tomorrow the olympic torch is coming for the first time to my city the only city in the united states that the torch will come to and it has created  quite a stir this resolution condemns the violence in tibet and it calls for restraint by the government of the people's republic of china and the people of tibet it does other things as well and that is to urge that the government of china sit down with his holiness the dalai lama and try to work toward meaningful autonomy with respect to the culture and religion of the people of tibet there is an area called the tibet and autonomy this region it has six million tibet there also excuse me three million tibetans there are also three million tibetans in the three surrounding provinces of china starting on march tenth tibet  and others began protesting in tibet in the autonomy's the area of western china the protests begun peacefully by monks who marched in the roads were an expression of these religious people's desire to practice their religion freely and without government interference the protesters took this action a great personal risk many monks and marchers carried pictures of the the most revered figure in tibet and buddhists and possession of such a picture is punished in china sometimes severely unfortunately and tragically on march fourteenth protests in lhasa the capital of the tibetan autonomous region turned violent long suppressed animosity boiled over innocent people were killed in the violence homes and businesses were burned in what appears to have been a riot over the days and weeks that followed the protests spread they occurred in forty two separate chinese counties most were peaceful and in some cases they were met though with brute force by chinese police this resolution condemns force on both sides the chinese government responded to these protests with force and secrecy the crackdown included thousands of paramilitary police and possibly the people's liberation army who were sent to tibet international journalists and official representatives were kept out making accurate information difficult to obtain but we know that dozens of people or more have died and we know that more than a thousand people have been incarcerated now how did all this happen over the past decade china has flooded the tibetan autonomy this region with han chinese they have built a major railroad on chinese have participated in a major building boom in the capital city of losses and in fact there are many more hotels restaurants businesses there today the majority of tibetans who live in rural areas benefit very little from central government investment in this tibet and economy instead the money has flowed to government run enterprises in which han controls is dominance and the tibetans lack the skills to compete according to the chinese government's two thousand senses the illiteracy rate of ethnic tibetans in china is forty eight percent that's five times higher than the chinese national illiteracy rate instead of providing educational opportunities to the tibetans china is currently advancing patriotic education in tibet's monasteries what this means is that chinese re education teams go into the monasteries and try to reeducate the tibetan monks if they do not agree to reeducation they're often punished and often beaten the bottom line is few tibetans are prepared to compete for employment and business opportunities in the han dominated economic environment i first went to china and was the first american mayor to do so in june of nineteen seventy nine and i went with a delegation of san francisco businesspeople and civic act activists to develop the first friendship city agreement between an american city and a chinese city and from that flowed an agreement which at one time was the most active sister city relationship in the world and that was between the great cities of shanghai and san francisco the chinese have always had a love of san francisco and it goes back many decades into former centuries of chinese coming to this country and landing and san francisco first we develop that relationship and good things happen the american council it k excuse me the first chinese council it came to san francisco an american council it was opened in chong high the first cosco ship came into san francisco bay the first chartered air service landed at san francisco international air for an airport a special relationship was developed between guangdong province and san francisco the first man and i met over an ensuing eight year period every year he then went on to become secretary general of the party and president of the country in  ninety two ninety seven and ninety eight i personally carried letters from the dalai lama to the president of china in ninety seven and ninety eight i had long discussions with the president of china president jiang zemin i would like if i might to read part of these letters the first letter is dated june or the second letter is dated june twelfth one nine hundred ninety seven it is signed by his holiness  let me read this to you when i met chairman mao over forty years ago i felt very assured by him and the other leaders of the new china the promises made to me gave the people and governments of tibet considerable optimism and confidence in the mid one nine hundred fifty s when we were confronted with new crises it was premier cho in lie who was able to play a crucial role in reviving my confidence we met several times during my pilgrimage in india unfortunately the situation in tibet did not improve despite his best assurances and i ultimately had to go into exile despite lost time and opportunities and the turmoil of the recent past my hopes were renewed in one nine hundred seventy nine when mr dunne child paying took the initiative to contact me through my brother in hong kong assuring me that short of our demand for separation from the people's republic of china all problems could be discussed and resolved it was a long overdue  then party general secretary came to a stuttering halt owing to events in tibet and elsewhere in china that prevented its natural fruition many of the issues are yet to be resolved and tibet now draws the concerns of more than just the tibetan people the primary responsibility for resolving this matter lies with us and i believe that now is an opportune moment to tackle these problems without prejudice i have for my part openly and in confidence conveyed to you that i am not demanding independence for tibet which i believe to be fundamental to the chinese government i think the issue of tibet has remained unresolved for too long and any further delay will only complicate the matter i am also deeply concerned by the growing restlessness among the tibetans people in recent times i can fully understand their frustrations but if a mutually agreeable solution is found i am confident that i will be able to dispel the tibetan people's concerns and win their hundred seven on may sixteenth one thousand nine hundred eighty eight the next year i returned to china and i delivered another letter from his holiness to john to men and i'd like to quote from that is my fervent sincere hope that you will provide similar leadership in resolving the tibetan issue if we look at the issue positively i really do not see major contradictions between our respective positions if i understand correctly the main concern of the general leadership in china is the unity and stability of the nation my middle way approach for resolving the tibetan issue will in fact contribute toward achieving the same objectives i would like to reiterate here that i'm not seeking independence for tibet my main concern is for the six million tibetans people for whatever the actual figure is a people who consider themselves to batten to be able to enjoy the opportunity to fully preserve their civilization and the distinct tibet and culture religion and language i am convinced that this could be achieved through genuine autonomy or self rule within the framework of the people's republic of china such a situation will also make it possible for the tibetan people to take full advantage of and be an integra part of the socio economic development which is taking place in china it is needless to mention that a solution to the development problem will gain tremendous international respect for the people's republic of china as well as for your leadership mr president it has been for decades since i've had the opportunity to sit down personally with the leader of the chinese people to have a frank and direct dialogue with your leadership and initiative i am confident that we can begin the process of resolving the many issues concerning tibet i believe that you are privileged to be leading the people's republic of china at a unique time in history when its economy is growing vigorously and when you are gaining a new respectability in the world that goes on may i suggest that our at our meeting you and i discuss relations between the tibetans and the chinese government i am also concerned about the maintenance and enhancement of those cultural civic and religious institutions that are so important to the tibetan people and others throughout the world in addition we should discuss the fact that after growth in tibet has not matched that for the rest of china and we would be interested in talking about how we can work together towards poverty alleviation and educational and economic growth there are other parts to this these letters but i would ask that the full text be incorporated at this point in my remarks in the official congressional record mr president this was nineteen ninety eight it's now ten years later and no discussion and i have tried my level best but no discussion no ability for the leader of six million people part of china to be able to sit down and so the events over the last months have really been tragic but if i think of the frustration that has built up over forty years of a leader who has renounced violence who has proposed a middle way it is really shocking to me since two thousand and two six talks of six sets of talks have occurred between the doll i lot more misrepresentative namely his special envoy lodhi gary and the united front work department of the communist party of china but no progress has resulted now to bring this issue to a settlement leaders must be involved i deeply believe that it is in the interest of both the chinese government and the tibetan people for the leaders to sit down and negotiate how to bring about meaningful cultural and religious autonomy for the tibetan people and faith and this is essentially what this resolution attends to do in a constructive way i know that senator we  called senator smith i had hoped he would be able to be here but the floor opened up and i decided to take up to take the opportunity to come to the floor to speak briefly about our resolution we have worked with the chairman of the foreign relations committee with the other senators as well and i believe that this resolution sets forward in positive terms our concern about what is happening tibet and with china i certainly remain open to try to help in any way i possibly can to bring the two sides together but i know the frustration that i feel having try ten years ago eleven years ago twelve years ago with caring letters from the dalai lama and then in virtually every conversation that i have had with chinese leadership since and it's all come to not now what's happening is that there is a newer younger group of tibet who see the large tibet and community in exile and arm sala who say the dalai lama in pursuing this middle way hasn't achieved anything and therefore we have to take to the streets and we have to show that the communists in china must sit down with us and must talk with us and i believe that's a scenario that is playing out on many problems in many provinces and all over the world today and it can all be stopped by a different kind of scenario and that is one that recognizes that the dalai lama and a stork and well respected religious leader should be able to sit down with the leadership of china and discuss the problem and come up with a mechanism that can provide for the cultural and religious autonomy of the people both in the tibet and auton this area as well as in the three surrounding provinces i hope this resolution will be heard and i hope that we will be able to pass it shortly and if there is no objection i'd like to send the resolution to the desk at this time the the resolution will be received and referred appropriately well go off and change my chair mr president i  better president today president bush announced that he was sending the colombia free trade agreement to the congress and he expects and demands that we take it up and pass it i regret that he's taken that action because  proposes that we continue failed trade practices of the past and that makes precious little sense for this country's interest i'm in favor of trade and plenty of it i think trade advances our interest provided it is fair and it is mutually beneficial between our country and those with whom we have trade agreements but i want to cite the record of president bush in the last seven years because when i say our trade policy is a failure let me describe it this way when president bush took office in two thousand and one our trade deficit was four hundred twenty nine billion dollars that's high way too high but seven years later our trade deficit is eight hundred fifteen billion dollars let me say it again when the president coffs our trade deficit was four hundred twenty nine billion dollars now it's almost double eight hundred fifteen billion dollars in seven years this president's trade policies have doubled the trade deficit we're not only collecting a massive amount of debt around the necks of the american people with these trade deficits they are encouraging the shipping of u s jobs overseas and now the president says oh by the way i've got a new policy that's doing more of the same seems to me if you've got trade policies that double the trade debt in this country and you say that's doing more of the same there's something wrong with that and by the way last month we lost eighty thousand jobs in this country last last month and just last week it was announced last month we lost eighty thousand jobs in our country and what do we get this week from the president other proposals of a free trade agreement let me describe we've had plenty of practice with these free trade agreements some while ago some long while ago we had a proposal well we've got to have a free trade agreement with mexico at the time we had a one and a half billion dollar trade surplus with mexico and the first president bush began negotiating a free trade agreement with mexico and he had a bunch of economists tell us how wonderful this would be this would be nirvana if we can just have a free trade agreement with mexico well and so we did i didn't vote for it i led the opposition to it but we went from a one and a half billion dollar trade agreement serp us with mexico to one of the half billion dollar surplus with mexico we now have a seventy four billion dollars trade deficit with mexico think of that we went from a one and a half billion dollar surplus to a seventy four billion dollar deficit we are borrowing money from the mexicans in trade it's unbelievable to me you talk about failed agreements  this agreement with colombia is modeled after nafta it's the same model you've got a failure well that's a let's do more of it the president says i just don't understand it all it's a curious strategy to me to  let's hold up a failure and let's suggest that we should double the failure i just i don't understand  i was watching c n n this afternoon and wolf blitzer who's a i think a terrific broadcaster kind of breathless from time to time to time he was breathless this afternoon describing the president coming out in his announcement and  ially demanding that the congress pass this free trade agreement and wolf blitzer put up on the screen on c n n the description the president offered saying most of colombian made goods come into this country with no tariff on and many of american goods go to colombia with a tariff assayas thirty five percent and they hire and up on the screen this is zero and thirty five with two arrows colombia united states and i'm thinking to myself now that's a curious thing that the president uses that to say we've got to have this trade deal with colombia is if we have no leverage with colombia we're sending a lot of money to the country of colombia and have for a long while to help present a rebate fight the insurgents fark the insurgent organizations we're sending american tax dollars down there in very substantial quantity we don't need to a bad trade agreement with a failed nafta strategy with colombia to get them to reduce their tariffs if they've got tariffs on american goods going to colombia and they do all we have to say to present a rebate and to colombia is look we're sending a lot of money down here to help you get ready or tariffs if we don't have tariffs on your good goods coming north don't you put tariffs on american goods coming south we don't have to pass a bad trade agreement to get that result we just have to say to present bit bankrolling a fair amount of the effort that you're making and we're doing it because we want to help you but in the process of wanting to help you with american tax dollars we expected remove those tariffs i want to say that i've met with president rebate bene's office in colombia and i have a lot of respect for president a rebate it's a tough job down there in colombia they've got they've got real problems i must say some say well this discussion about labor issues and trade agreements is not so relevant well it's pretty relevant in a country where one labor leader is killed every week on average this year it's pretty relevant when ninety seven percent of the killings of colombia labor leaders going back to two thousand and one have been unpunished ninety seven percent of them so it's it's pretty relevant seems to me  xcept that president reagan has a lot of issues a lot of problems and we as a country have tried to help them but it seems to me it doesn't help anybody for this country and for president bush to try to push through a bad trade agreement i also want to say that while i have respect the president rebate of colombia i don't have great happiness about president rebate being involved in america's political system he decides apparently that he feels he should comment on a presidential race he says of one of our presidential candidates that quote i think it's for political calculations that he is making a statement he's referring to a statement that one of the political candidates for president one of our candidates for president said they didn't he didn't support this trade again with colombia and so the president llambias says i think it is for political calculations he is making this statement i don't think we need the president of colombia describing motives of our presidential candidates here in the united states is a perfectly reasonable approach to support port or perhaps oppose the colombian trade agreement the reasonable approach to support is say we like faily we want to do more of the same so give us what you gave us a nafta and run a small trade surplus up to a huge deficit but it seems to me there's also a perfectly logical reason for a presidential candidate or a member of congress who may wish to say at some point we have to do a u turn and say this country is for trade the world should understand that we're for trade and plenty of it we believe in trade and plenty of trade but we demand and insist at last at long long last that it be fair to our country i don't think the colombia agreement by itself is some sort of pivotal moment and i don't lead that here on the floor the senate but i do say that i don't think that we ought to sit here with the president who has doubled the trade deficit in seven years and take advice about what we do in the next ninety days these trade agreements have not worked in this country's interest to trade agreement should be mutually beneficial when we negotiate them whether it's with china mexico canada europe japan they ought to be mutually beneficial and i'm just flat out tired of seeing the results of bad trade agreements i guess some may say you know if you have an eight hundred fifteen billion dollars trade deficit doesn't matter very much that means that over two billion dollars a day over two billion dollars a day we're putting in the hands of foreigners because that's where that's what we're buying every day that exceeds our ability to export we're importing two billion dollars a day more than we're exporting in goods and that means that debt some they will have to be repaid with a lower standard of living in the united states you would think at long last someone would say this strategy isn't working now it is true as i've said in the past that whether it's the colombia free trade agreement the free trade agreement with with mexico or canada or the agreements we have with china it's true that no one in this chamber is going to lose their job to a bad trade agreement says other people to lose their job people working in a manufacturing plant someplace making bicycles  or producing textiles or in high tech i wrote a piece once about natasha humphreys and tasha humphreys lost her job no she wasn't a textile worker she went to stanford and did everything right young african american woman who did everything right and then went to work for a palm pilot regrettably her last job for a palm pilot was to train the engineer from india who was hired at one fifth the salary that they were paying that's actually humphreys and so should american youngsters that come out of our college that american workers coming out of our colleges aspiring to work in engineering be willing to work for twenty percent of the salary that's paid in this country in order to compete with an engineer from india i mean those are questions we have to start asking in this country ever since we need to train more engineers and scientists that's true but not if their first job and their last jobs of trains their train their successor which is an engineer from india making one fifth of the salary and so  i went further than talking about colombia except to say this this is not new we have been a catcher's mitt for so long here in this congress of bad trade agreements from presidents for years and years and years and this trade agreement is the model of nafta it's the same old thing a couple of labor provisions environmental provisions in it but it is largely the same old strategy and i just remind my colleagues of what happened with mexico nobody writes much about it nobody makes much about it but we did a trade with mexico we had all of these claims all of these boasts all of these suggestions of what was going to happen we had a one point five billion dollar surplus with mexico in our trade relationship and other words it was about balance now it is a seventy four billion dollar united states deficit trade deficit mexico and we end up some years later borrowing money from the mexican mexicans even as we ship our jobs across the line that's a trade strategy i think that's bankrupt for our country and my hope is that the u s house which likely will deal with this first will make short work of it and simply send a message in the message to the president the simple this country stands for trade yankee ingenuity and shrewd yankee traders when we stand for trade it's our it's in our blood but we also stand for fairness and at last at long last this country will begin to write fair to trade agreements with other countries that stand up for our country's economic interests as well yes we want to pull others up but we will not any longer allow trade agreements that push standards down in this country and that's been the case for too long then a prisoner yield the floor and i make a point of  at this time morning business is closed and the previous order the senate will resume consideration of h r three two two one which the clerk will report current over three forty eight or thirty two twenty one an act moving the united states toward greater energy independence and was abjection sorted local report the amendment senator from washington mrs murray for herself and others proposes an amendment numbered forty four seventy eight men present ask for madam president man president is not my desire to debate this amendment at length at this time i will only only wanted to call it up so that it will be available for the senate to consider as we continue to debate this extremely important housing bill that it's that is in front of us late last week the senate considered the question of additional funding for housing counseling and when the senate voted on that matter there were sixteen senators that were absent from the chamber so that amendment did fail at the time on a procedural vote but i do believe that some senators may have voted against our initial amendment because it added funds to the overall cost of this bill the new amendment that i have just called up will add the necessary funding for housing counselor from within the funds already in the bill madam president senator schumer and i are going to be talking about this mehmet in greater detail at the appropriate time i think that as we continue to try and address the housing issue that we all remember that there are up to two million families who may go into foreclosure this year our main objective are to be to make sure that they don't go into foreclosure that's what this housing counseling funding does it's extremely important and i hope that as we move this bill along that we will be able to add the additional funds thank and as we wait for senators to come back to the floor continue their work on this mortgage foreclosure build a quick program note for you starting in about eight minutes on c span we'll have a live event from the american enterprise institute with judge danny boggs talking about the death penalty and we still wait for senators to come back to the floor as you can see we're continuing on this bill dealing with the mortgage foreclosure crisis on the floor democrats and republicans have been alternating on amendments an amendment offered by senator patty murray is the pending question we expect work on this package could take up most of the week once they're done senators might begin work on a bill that deals with public lands parks and wilderness areas of the house not in session day they're back tomorrow when they meet a number of bills dealing with health research and treatment as we wait for senators come back to the floor let's get an overview on this housing bill from a capitol hill reporter about how how bad the housing market is and they quickly made a bipartisan agreement to bring this bill to the floor what's interesting though is just how scaled down it is it's you know a lot of consumer advocates are disappointed this bill is more heavy on tax credits and items that are supported by the mortgage industry the homebuilders and has less direct help for people facing foreclosure now there was a bankruptcy amendment that failed to get enough support last week is that ever completely dead now it's completely dead in the senate it was tabled by a fairly overwhelming margin i think there are thirty six votes in support of it this would have allowed bankruptcy judges to restructure mortgages for people facing foreclosure now bankruptcy judges can do this for investment propert over mortgages and that they they killed it it might come up again on the house you know there is some support for this in the house so might become an issue that the goes to conference committee if they ever get that far as staying in the senate for a moment how many more amendments remain to be offered and what are some of the key topics with the amendments well it's not clear how many major amendments are left there aren't going to be many they're going to have this cloture vote to cut off debate at i think two fifteen on tuesday and then there should be there are some energy tax provisions that  some democrats might try to offer on this but there aren't a lot of major amendments left at this this thing is pretty well greased to pass and then head over to the house where the democrats will probably want to add a lot more consumer friendly provisions back into it now you mentioned a bipartisan effort to get this thing going senators reid and mcconnell working together to get the housing bill up on the senate floor how is that effort between those two men helping to move the bill along well as soon as they came out last week and said  we have an agreement to get this bill to the floor it was clear that both of them decided they'd rather do something even if it's scaled back even if it's a little bit more modest than either side would want you know republicans might want more aggressive free market principles and boy and democrats might want more government intervention but they said let's get something done and move on from there so in effect it's rare that you see reid mcconnell work together on such a big issue come out and say ok we have an agreement you know that and sort of a done deal at that point so then how are the mode shaping up for final passage i think this will pass pretty easily you'll have some democrats to vote against it because they don't think it has enough help for homeowners you might have some republicans vote against it because you know the true fiscal conservative might think that government shouldn't get this this involved in the housing market or in the markets in general now how about the other side of the capitol how is the house's version of a housing stimulus package coming together well the house doesn't really have a direct corollary here the house has a an f h a bill that's a separate deal the house has a bankruptcy bill that separate so they don't they don't have a specific game plan on that that would sort of mirror the the senate bill the financial services chairman barney frank is having a couple hearings this week to get into the housing issue but it's not clear how they conference this out actually how they get a bill to the president's desk so it'll be interesting to see well the last several weeks a number of visitors have come to capitol hill urging us to support renewable energy is a lot of soup interest in this country for so called renewable energy the idea would be that we'd be less dependent on on energy that shipped from other parts of the world some places some of those places are unfriendly to us a number of us are very concerned about climate change and we'd like cleaner energy and renewable energy is usually cleaner energy some of us as i do live in parts of the country that where clean air is a problem we have coal plants that produce sulfur and nitrogen and now we've become more concerned about mercury so we're interested in clean air so if there is some way to find new sources of renewable energy which can help our country have cleaner air deal with climate change and be less dependent on other countries that would be a terrific thing for the united states of america senator ensign and senator cantwell all the senators nevada and washington state have offered to the housing bill an amendment which would provide support for renewable energies i would like to talk about the ensign can't will bill and hope  i would be construed as talking about in a friendly way because senator kyl the senator from arizona and i have a proposal amendment number four four two nine which we have already introduced which we believe would improve the infant can't will bill in support of renewable energies and i would like to talk about that amendment for a few minutes this is evening our today the the federal support for renewable energy is basically in a piece of legislation called the production tax credit that gives two cents or one cent for each kilowatt hour produced of renewable energy to a variety of emerging technologies in summary what the ensign can't will bill does is extend the production tax credit for one the ear in its current form with the addition of wavin title as as an emerging technology what senator collins i would propose we do is double the amount of time that the tax credit be extended to make it from one year to two years to focus it more on emerging rather than proven technologies to focus it on base load technologies that is to say technologies that will produce large amounts of reliable electricity around the clock and not just from time to time and that would treat the various technologies the same that wouldn't cost any more than the estimated six or seven billion dollars over the next ten years over the next ten years can't will bill would cost so that's our goal to extend from one years to two years the extension to focus on emerging baseload technologies to treat wind which has been the proven technology that has received most of the support today fairly and not to spend more money than senator ensign and senator cantwell have proposed here is a picture of where we are today the the production tax credit began i believe in one thousand nine hundred two as with many government subsidies in the early stages it would suggested that it would just be there for a while until the technology until the technology was proven and then we'd step back and let it flourish on its own own in the marketplace but that was a long time ago and here here is here are the technologies that today get federal support getting two cents per kilowatt hour is closed loop bio mass that's burning of materials geothermal heat from underground solar receive this support for a long time but it was removed in two thousand and five because this is a tax credit the focus is on energy produced and most people who use solar power put panels on their  and so they were really selling that power to the grid or to the utility company so the solar manufacturers and others came to me among others and said the production tax credit and doing anything for us and in the two thousand and five energy bill i was sponsored over a proposal that increased the amount of federal subsidy for the solar panels and now there is within the federal law a separate provision that provides an  investment tax credit for a very promising what appears to be a very promising idea called solar thermal power plants instead of putting a panel on your row of what you would have instead is a whole field full of mirrors that would then catch the sun turn it into steam put the steam underground and then you could use the steam if you needed it but people often forget about solar and wind energy is available when the sun shines and when the wind blows and that may not be when you want to turn your air conditioner on to run your computer the solar thermal plant has the potential of being a fifty megawatt plant or a hundred megawatt plant five hundred megawatt plant it's now the on the experimental stage pacific gas and electric i believe in the west coast is putting in one five hundred megawatt plant there may be another and if there can be solar thermal power plants that would be a tremendous addition to our arsenal of electricity producing methods in this country because a lot of most parts of america can benefit from solar power if the technology can catch it and we can store it basically with solar and wind you've always had to use it or lose it and if the wind blew it midnight but your air conditioner was on at five o'clock the wind power or the solar power for that matter was not of much value so these have gotten too since these have been preferred this is an example of the government doing what i don't much like and what many on this side of the aisle that's called picking and choosing technologies i'd rather see if we're going to subsidize toward an objective that we let the marketplace pick the technology but we in our wisdom of said that biomass geothermal get two cents solar until it was removed because it wasn't benefiting at all from this production tax credit and wind get two cents now over here on the one cent side one cent per kilowatt hour have been tennessee made a contract with a private company that takes its landfill trash and over the next number of years makes electricity from it and and pays the city a million dollars a year which helps reduce property taxes so that's promising qualified hydropower about seven percent of our electricity in the united states comes from rivers and dam these are small new hydro power projects why even title is interesting in the east river in new york they're taking what amount to be wind turbines and put them under the water and there's more energy in the waves and the rivers then there is in the in the in the air in fact so much that tore up the turbans and they're having to replace them but at least there's energy there and we would sub so that to subsidize that to the tune of one cent per kilowatt hour under the ensign can't will proposal and here is the difference that senator kyl and i would make we would move wind to the one cent provision why would we do that and i'll get more into that in just a moment so that because wind is a proven technology we know it works where the wind blows wind works its competitive where it doesn't blow such as on buffalo mountain in tennessee we're paying t v in tennessee valley authority right payers are paying a big bill to some developers and some other big city to put up a bunch of wind turbines on our scenic mountain tops that only work ten percent of the time in august when we need the electricity so it may work in minnesota it may work in south dakota but it doesn't work in the foothills of tennessee so it's a proven technology and we would like to focus more on on technologies that have the capacity  becoming baseload technologies that is that might produce large amounts of electricity all day and all night if we needed wind can't do that solar until lately hasn't been able to do that to thermal irrigation power landfill gas trash combustion hydro power wavin tidal all of those have a potential of potential to substitute for what we use today which is primarily coal nuclear power and gets sold up alexander counterproposal what for about the same amount of money give two years of business certainty to those emerging renewable energy technologies it would focus them on the emerging ones not the proven one it would focus in on those that have the capacity to produce base load power it would treat wind fairly because wind would still get under our amendment two years instead of one and it would based on my computation get more of the federal dollars than any other of the of the types of technology it would cost about the same now let me let me go now madam president to a picture of where our renewable electricity comes from today this green chart this this this is wood burning w bonfires one might say we call that bio mass i guess in the scientific terms thirty five thousand megawatts that's a fair amount of electricity the tennessee valley authority operates at about a capacity of twenty seven thousand megawatts and that's about three percent of all the electricity in the country this is waste like the landfill in johnson city tennessee that i was describing where we take what we've disposed of turn it into a tricity that's beginning to amount to something the red line is geothermal i've seen some of these technologies you drill deeply into the ground and the heat comes up and you can use that on a regular basis there are new technologies for that and the yellow line is wind we can see that it has increased significantly since one thousand nine hundred ninety it's it's been the the technology that has grown the most although it's still at about maybe two percent of all the electricity that we well all these together about three percent of all the electricity we use in the country and then down here at the bottom is a blue line which is solar and the reason the solar is so small is because this represents electricity which is sold to the utilities as we say sold into the grid and most people haven't sold their solar power into the grid they've just put the panels on top of their houses or their businesses and used it when it was available now let me go to the larger overall picture of where electricity comes from because if we're talking about a realistic use of limited dollars and we do have limited dollars in the subtle government sometimes doesn't seem like we know that where will we put those dollars ensign can't will say let's add about seven billion dollars six or seven billion dollars for this worthy goal of renewable energy let's let's look at the whole picture this is where our electricity comes from today we are not madame president a desert island the united states of america uses a lot of electricity about twenty five percent of all the electricity in the world for about five percent of the people that's the number of us who are americans and how do we produce that electricity today almost half of it is coal half of the electricity is coal if coal disappeared the lights would go off the industries would stop the computers would shut down and there'd be a revolution in our country forty eight percent comes from coal next comes gas natural gas during the one nine hundred ninety s almost all the new power plants were natural gas the advantage of that was they were predictable easy to build investor owned utilities could could make practical business decisions and they were cleaner than co terms of nitrogen and sulfur and mercury and carbon problem is that drove the cost of natural gas from two dollars a unit to at one point in the last few years fourteen or fifteen dollars a unit and begin to drive almost all of the chemical industry jobs and many other manufacturing jobs out of the united states of america to other countries it began to drive up the cost of farming so that many farmers had a hard time  profit because natural gas is used to make fertilizer and that drove up the cost of food to people who couldn't afford to pay more for it so using natural gas as more of an option for electricity is not a good idea for our country right now particularly since the united states congress the other day voted down my men went by fifty two to forty seven to allow us to drill offshore for more natural gas so that we could increase the supply and reduce the advantage of having no nitrogen no sulfur no mercury and no carbon if you're concerned about climate change and then hydroelectric i said seven it looks like it's now six percent these are the rivers in the dam are even some parts of the united states people want to take the dams out of the rivers for a variety of environmental reasons which may be good reasons but that will reduce one source of electricity and in that sense clean electricity and then we get down to boil and petroleum sometimes we get oil confused with electricity we don't use oil to make much electricity in this country we use some natural gas oil we us automobiles for fuel but we don't use it for electricity it's actually about the same amount it produces about the same amount of electricity as all the renewable electricity is put together so what is less than one percent waste is a half of one percent jills thermal half of one percent solar because it's not sold into the grid wind is not even one percent so the point is the renewables are less than three percent of the electricity we use and madam president we live in not only a big economy but a growing economy the tennessee valley authority in the area where i live seven states has said to me that they need seven hundred more megawat every year during this next few years the dimension power company which is virginia i read in the washington post the other day they're estimating they need four hundred more mega wise seven hundred megawatts is more than one gas plant or more than one coal plant or a little more than half of a nuclear power plant which today takes eight or ten years to build so we not only use a lot of electricity primarily produced from coal nuclear gas and almost none from or very little from renewables but it's growing and if it doesn't grow our incomes will go down and we won't enjoy the same high standard of living we need i know having been a governor that when i'm recruiting nissan to come to tennessee and and saturn to come to tennessee and now one third of our manufacturing jobs in tennessee are automotive jobs and we have nearly one thousand suppliers of auto parts in tennessee one of the most important items in our favor after location and right to work law is the supply of large amounts of reliable low cost clean electricity because that's not available everywhere in the united states and certainly not everywhere in the world so this is the picture of where we get our electricity and what we're talking about in the ensign can't will bill in the amendment that senator kyl and i have is to is to increase this renewable electricity from about three percent of all the lectures do we produce to something a little higher but in the next ten or twelve years madam president it's not going to be a lot higher it'll be someone higher and we hope we stumble upon something that will make a big difference but even though for example when it's been around and heavily subsidized since one thousand nine hundred two it's still point eight percent of one percent point of one percent of electricity now the only difference in this chart is this has the word clean there we care about clean for a couple with really for three reasons one is nitrogen sulfur and mercury  federal ozone standard for steffan the other day that means knoxville chattanooga memphis cities and our region all have to work a little harder to have cleaner air to meet those standards but they can't do it because a lot a lot of  easily because a lot of the dirty air comes in from other parts of the united states which have dirty dirty plants mainly coal plant the clean electricity which we prefer and this is the reason why the t v is now focused on nuclear power produce says is sixty nine percent nuclear that's an important figure for anyone who cares about clean air and climate change nearly seventy percent of all the clean electricity produced in the united states today is nuclear power twenty one percent of it is hydroelectric there not going to be many more dams on rivers and this little bit here which all adds up to about six or seven percent it looks like is renewable energy so if you care about climate change and you care about clean air in this generation or in the next ten years you better look at nuclear or hydroelectric that's out because they're not going to be a lot more dams or we'd better be realistic about renewable or look at one other area which would be conservation but what have we done with our money what we've we've we've tried to focus so we say on renewable energy and i've noticed on the debates here people get up to talk about all the different kinds of renewable energy but the fact of the matter is almost all of it's gone to win if we are in this i imagine would startle most senators to know is that over the next ten years we're already committed to spending eleven billion dollars subsidizing wind factor although it produces less than one percent of our electricity and it doesn't do it when we need it does it when the wind blows but we've proven we can do this we have large amounts of huge turbines are going up around the country some are some of our most scenic areas which in some parts of america are providing useful power but at what cost this is a recent report that i asked for just received it this week from the energy information administration i ask how much are we spending of the federal taxpayers dollars to subsidize the electricity that we are are are using in this country for coal remember coal produces about half the electricity we're using at this minute in the united states of america  forty four cents per megawatt hour refined coal which is a very small part of coal is a very expensive subsidy and at this moment the biggest federal subsidy for electricity although it's sunset in the year for natural gas almost nothing a quarter per megawatt hour nuclear a dollar fifty nine for megawatt hour  nine cents geothermal less than a dollar i draw electic two thirds of a dollar solar twenty four dollars per megawatt hour for federal subsidies electric power now this is a little misleading because as i mentioned earlier almost no one sells electricity today into the electric grid and that's all this represents is is the if you if you have extra electricity from the panels on your roof and you sold it to the local power company that's what this would be almost no one does it is now in the future we may have solar thermal plants but today but when we when we have quite a bit of and we spent twenty three dollars and thirty seven cents per megawatt hour actually produced or when landfill gas a dollar thirty seven municipal solid waste all renewa average two dollars eighty cents all source is a dollar sixty five i would argue madam president that wind is over subsidize that we're not making the wisest use of our federal dollars when we take a proven technology and we spend twenty four dollars per megawatt hour and we starve a lot of the other emerging technologies and we ignore what we're spending for the ones we rely on for example we spend twenty four dollars per hour for wind and one dollar and a half per hour for nuclear nuclear produces seventy percent of our clean electricity wind produces about two percent of our clean electricity if we were subsidizing nuclear power at the rate we subsidize wind we'd be spending three hundred forty million dollars billion dollars over the next ten years for nuclear power no one is proposing we do that it wouldn't be a wise expenditure even though it's a working technology that today provides most of our power and we're going to deal with climate change in clean air in a generation we would have more nuclear power but i'm doing this to show how disproportionate this has become for coal provides half of our spend some of this money on investing for the recapture of carbon from coal plants so that they could be operated cleanly one of the major environmental organizations has a coal solution for climate change because it knows that china is producing two new dirty coal plants a week and unless we invent a clean way to use coal which means also getting rid of the carbon then the rest of the world won't use it if we do it they will do it or they'll suffocate and if they don't it would suggest that at the very least what we might do with a proven technology when which is competitive where the wind blows and not competitive obviously where it doesn't take some of that money and focus it on some of the other emerging technologies which have been starved over the last fifteen years because windows gobbled up most of the money and and these new technologies have a capacity for being base load technologies i mean this solar thermal power plant is a very good example if it works for the pacific gas and electric company i bet you t v a within a short period of time will start building it for for for peaking plants why would they do that because last summer in the middle of our drought when the tennessee when we were all sweating in the rivers would run dry in the lakes would run dry in our air conditioners were turned up the tennessee valley authority had to go out by six or seven thousand megawatts of electricity and what did they buy they bought natural gas because it was all that was available and they were paying and i'm no my numbers are going to be a little off here but they were paying in the neighborhood of seventy eight or eighty dollars per hour or per megawatt for natural gas is compared to two dollars per hour for four for electricity from their hydro plant so they ba need some other form of of energy so why spend twenty four dollars per hour on wind when we could still subsidize wind generously at one cent per kilowatt hour and release enough money to subsidize the to extend it to you here's the the length of the subsidy for other emerging technologies just to be specific the percentage of the renewable electricity production tax credit that goes for wind energy is seventy five percent in other words since seventy five percent of all the money that we give to renewable energies goes to win doesn't go to all these different ones over a ten year period from f y o seven to sixteen according to the joint committee on taxation and a letter they wrote to me in may of two thousand and seven we are committed to spend eleven point five billion dollars in the ensign can't will bill add another couple billion to that so we'd be spending thirteen or fourteen billion dollars for wind even though we're paying twenty four dollars per kilowatt hour senator bingaman the chairman of the energy committee said in the debate of the energy bill in two thousand and seven that wind will receive about seventy six percent of the production crat tax credits subsidy over the next ten years according to the joint committee on taxation when energy is estimated to be seventy four percent of that and is projected to grow so what we're doing is is increasing our support for a technology that is proven that is not reliable enough to be used for baseload or for peaking because it only works when the wind blows you can't store it you can't store it and that's already over subsidised by a massive amount compared every form of electricity the largest single federal tax expenditure for electricity over the next five years is the renewable production tax credit and seventy five percent of that goes to one proven technology wind which is competitive where the wind blows not competitive where it doesn't isn't reliable for baseball isn't reliable for peaking that's not being good stewards of the federal taxpayers dollars at a time when we really do need to encourage renewable electricity and we need to deal with climate change and with clean air just a couple of more points  as you might suspect when you're subsidizing something at twenty four dollars per kilowatt hours compared to a dollar and a half for nuclear and twenty five cents for natural gas you get a big surge and when capacity that's what happened during the period of the subsidy but this isn't very much electricity really we've seen that it's about two point two percent of all of our clean electricity and it's less of that of all of our electricity and as i've mentioned several times it's not reliable can't store it it's not there when you when you need another limitation on wind power is that it is not available everywhere in the united states there are some parts of the united states where wind power works by and there are some members of the united states senate that love to advocate when perhaps you can see where those where the wind blows down from the north and blows our elavil bases so you can put up wind and particularly if you're paying twenty four dollars per kilowatt hour to subsidize it you're going to find a lot of investors in chicago and new york and around this country that can make a big buck off putting when up here where it's competitive and where they don't need the subsidy or putting it down here where the wind doesn't blow and they get in and they apparently get enough subsidy anyway you may say well if they only get paid when the wind blows how do they make any money will we have all kind of tax subsidies for when a project and tax credit is one but there are a number there are a number of other subsidies that th there's there's the clean and renewable energy bines federal government those can help build the wind turbines there is the department of energy's grant incentive programs for renewable energy production there in that farm bill there be some renewable energy and energy efficient grants and loans thirty three main event goes to wins the large a lot large variety of state subsidies for wind twenty four states have enacted renewable portfolio standard we've got all excited about renewable energy which is a good thing but what we forgot to do is there a variety of forms of renewable energy and we need reliable energy that has a base load has capacity to be used as a base load and then there's the other limitation that affects some people and doesn't affect others here is the buffalo mountain wind project in tennessee this is the only wind farm in the southeastern united states is only one the tennessee valley authority has there are two dozen or so of these turbans here they're tall and they're why they're about twice as tall as the sky boxes and the football stadium at the university of tennessee now the senator from michigan will smile at that because michigan in tennessee have for years had a little friendly competition going about who has the largest stadium where we're up to about a thousand seven on a saturday afternoon i think you're at a thousand ten or eleven you're you're a little ahead of us now but just to visualize that each of those stadiums are these large sky boxes and each of these towers is twice as large as the sky boxes and each one goes from the ten yard line to the ten yard line and they white and they have flashing lights and you can see em from twenty one twenty miles away during the day and we're paying twenty four dollars per kilowatt hour to subsidize that all over the country only twenty five cents an hour for  natural gas in a place where the wind doesn't blow last august during the drought that farm was operating at ten percent so it doesn't work they are very we'll so madame president argument is for for for realism i would like to see us have a realistic but let's go back to first a realistic policy i would like to have clean air and deal with climate change not only in this generation but in the next ten years and to the extent we need to do that with electricity we need to look first at conservation the tennessee valley authority has operates at about twenty seven thousand megawatts on the average but every night it has about ten seven eight nine ten thousand megawatts of idle capacity now some people remember how ross perot made his money he noticed that in texas in the sixty's the banks  closing at five and not using their computers so he bought their time and came to the states and and got a contract to manage medicaid medicaid data and he made a lot of money doing that the same thing here we have capacity we should be spending this eleven billion dollars on smart meters that encourage people to buy a lector a car's unplug a minute night and use the out of the past we've already built rather i'm paying twenty four dollars an hour for wind which is proven where it works and won't work where the wind doesn't blow or we should take some of that money is i've suggested with senator kyl and folks it on other emerging technologies wins had its chance it's done will i see the majority leader and i'll be through momentarily because i imagine there's a report to make about about business so i wind up in in this with like the kyle alexander kyle amendment would seek to do is to improve the ensign cancel proposal by extending from one year to two the length of the production tax credit extension by focusing it on emerging technologies by focusing it on base load technology is technologies that would treat wind fairly add another billion dollars to the eleven point five billion we're already spending for less than one percent of our electricity unwin and that would cost about the same  hope our colleagues will consider the alexander kyl amendment number four four two nine when the ensign can't will amendment is offered tomorrow i thank the chair and i and understanding of this bill and he's done that we all agree on the need to strengthen foreign intelligence surveillance act of one nine hundred seventy eight congress and modernize act many times since then and there is broad agreement on approving it should be made now i've said many times we need to give the intelligence any all the tools that it needs without compromising the privacy law abiding americans the senate passed its bill in early february house which had passed a bill on the subject last november passed a new version just before these to recess the new house bill is similar to the senate bill although there remains a disagreement over the issue of immunity in any event the two houses must resolve their differences so the final bill can be enacted the president keeps giving speeches saying the house machine will do is demand to pass the senate bill but that thing we call the constitution gives getting in the way mr president it can't pass legislation unless the house and the senate put its stamp of approval on this and the house has not been willing to this point to move that's how our system works the president must work with democrats in congress to find common ground and also mr president give some direction to republicans in the house and the senate to negotiate this and we have tried since this legislation passed to work out some type of a compromise legislation is the art of compromise a number of me has been scheduled but with rare exception democrats have been meeting with themselves the republicans have not been coming to these meetings and there are some positive signs  republican position maybe thawing i hope that's true we need goodwill on all sides to finish this important piece of legislation on several occasions i've posed the thirty day retroactive extension of the law expired  said february so the so called protect america act can move forward at least for a limited period of time my purpose is make sure that there's no gap in our intelligence gathering capacity and i said i've done the deadline for final action on a longer term bill but the president's right to veto such a bill and it's been blocked procedurally by the republicans so i now again propose which an extension republicans may get object because they do they bear responsibility for the fact is law is not in place as president vengefully the present republican leaders must come to negotiating table for the good of the country we believe that something needs to be done and can be done and should be done i now ask consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration counter number five three yes two six six for a thirty day extension of the protect america act further third time passed most reconsider be laid on the table and there be no intervening action or debate is there action mr president reserving the right to jack i'm going to make a short statement here in response to what the majority leader just said before making an objection last august we passed a six month authorization which we call the protect america act that gave us plenty of time to complete our work at our democratic colleagues didn't put a bill on the senate floor until the week before christmas and even then a democratic filibuster forced the majority to pull it which should have turned to it at the start of the year instead we went to and in health care that caused another delay which forced another extra our democratic colleagues claim this extension would give us enough time to complete our work unfortunately that extension has come and gone the senate to use that time to overwhelmingly pass a bill that gives our intelligence professionals the tools they need and protect good corporate citizens whose assistance is essential as a result of senate bill the bipartisan rockefeller bond bill is a bill that we know can get a presidential signature we also know that a majority of the house on a bipartisan basis would pass it if they had a chance to instead house is not use that time wisely refused to pass a bill that meets the minimum required criteria so our democratic colleagues want yet another extension as cover for their failure to responsibly act what is needed to keep the program going is not another extension that other really rather we need to get serious and protect the companies that helped protect our country right now these companies face multi billion dollar losses because they entered our call for help we asked them to come help us the government is not in the communications business they will not continue to help us if sued out of existence for doing so and if they do not help us then of course we will not have a program at all in short to ensure the continued functioning of this vital intelligence program we need to protect our intelligence operations not the trial lawyers to address that concern us consent to modify the u c that the majority leader just offered by including an amendment at the desk that would enact a liability protections passed by the senate on an coming to the floor and objecting to this rather than having someone doing he gave his explanation and i appreciate that if it would have been easy for anyone on the other side is to object and i appreciate laying out the reasons supported the senate pass position and that was something that senator rockefeller recognizes and as a result of that he's tried very very hard very wary march and course he's also working in april to try to work something out on this initially a white house directed none of its people to come a little tough to work something out when that in fact is what happened the house must be involved as i've indicated mr president that the constitution we pass a lot of things here that the house disagrees with they passed things over there that we disagree with and no matter how foolish they me think we are we think they are we have to work together and get things passed and that's where we are with yes i will i would say that my friend there's no need to criticize trial lawyers and try to focus blame on anyone group of people there are a lot of consumer organizations have nothing to do with really don't like what the senate did and they have really made their voices heard my friend said that this unanimous consent request is cover for failure responsible act responsibly act i w president i think we're at the point where we are as a result of the white house's irresponsibility many say that what was done here in the senate is only something to protect telephone companies the present vice president from liability we have even gone so far as to say if in fact there is liability and the phone companies are responsible for having done this that they  following orders from the white house or wherever they followed orders from someone in one of the teligent communities then the government should pay for it's called substitution two hundred eleven has pushed this for a long time as has republican senator a not as if we're not trying to work through this it just appears to me as has happened for more than seven years with this administration it's the present way or no way and i think we've come to the realization here that it's not going to do with presen way he needs to work with us we believe that the actions of the present have been irresponsible but that's what legislation is all about his people and the republics in the senate in the house should work with us to see if we can come up with something just ignoring us  twenty one democrats in the house who support what the senate had those twenty one democrats on of the republicans in the house we know there's a bipartisan majority in the house of representatives to pass the very same bill we passed in the senate i keep hoping that we will somehow through this process evolve the same kind of spirit that we were able to exhibit on a bipartisan basis in passing the economic stimulus package earlier in the year and that we exhibited extremely important issue and the whole that at some point here we will figure some way forward that gets the job done but i don't see it at the moment and i don't think that we can get things done i don't know but at least people are beginning to talk a little bit and that's good there's been some staff level discussions have been very very good so i hope we can work together to bridge the difference between the house and senate and recognizing that we're going to everything we can to get that done but also also understanding that the one hundred seventy five act gives the president a lot of leeway to get this stuff done anyway the bill doesn't do anything about the problem the senate passed a good bill i hope at some point the house will wake up here and do what's necessary to protect america in any event the issue is not going away  the program may go away if we can't figure a way to get the job done this is a very very serious problem and i appreciate the good faith and attitude of the majority leader that the senate really is not the problem they are hopefully  should have the opportunity of a vote so this is a good piece of legislation it is it solve the housing problems of course not but it's a step in the right direction it's imperfect and i have to say mr president it's an indication of how good it is we're not happy on this side before he's not happy in that fight a little working together and his legislation i can defend anyplace it's a good piece of legislation would i have what i think it would be do i think would be better if we had to make the buzz bankruptcy provision of course i do but it's not there and this is a very very strong package and i look forward to passing it i think it sets a proper tone for the many things that we have to accomplish in the senate this were created we were going to have to you've got a patent bill that is very difficult we've got highly technical corrections we've got the supplemental appropriation bill the only way we can get that done is by working together on that and we have a number of other things we need to work on so i'm happy that we were able to work together to this point on this very important housing legislation is their objections without objection so ordered i have further asked them to stand recess from twelve thirteen to fifteen germane would not allow us to do that