Volume 154, No. 77 covering the 2nd Session of the 110th Congress (2007 - 2008) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“EMPLOYER-EMPLOYEE COOPERATION ACT” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Senate section on pages S4014-S4022 on May 12, 2008.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
EMPLOYER-EMPLOYEE COOPERATION ACT
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, one of fundamental importance and fundamental fairness, legislation we will be voting on tomorrow in the late morning, it is called the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act.
This week, May 11 to May 17, is Police Week, when we honor the sacrifices of the men and women of the law enforcement community who lost their lives this year. These officers paid the ultimate price for their service to our communities. They are American heroes, as are all of the firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and other first responders across the country who protect our families and communities every day.
President Kennedy established the first Police Week in 1962. He called on all Americans to recognize the essential role public safety officers play in safeguarding our rights and freedoms. That role is even more important in today's complex and often dangerous world.
We all continue to enjoy the fundamental rights of a free people because of the sacrifices of these dedicated public servants. The least that we owe them in return is to protect their basic rights and to treat them with the dignity and respect they deserve.
Unfortunately, too many of our public safety officers do not have the same rights in the workplace that most Americans enjoy. Police officers and firefighters perform some of the most difficult and dangerous jobs in our society, but they often don't have a voice at work to talk about safety issues. They are the ones on the front lines fighting fires, preventing crimes, apprehending offenders and doing their best to keep people safe from harm. But they don't have a way to share the lessons they have learned about how to do these difficult jobs safely and effectively.
We are asking these workers to do so much for their communities, and the least we can do in return is give them a voice at the table in the life-and-death discussions that affect their families and their futures.
Across America, unions give millions of workers that kind of voice on the job. Throughout history, unions have always led the fight for a safer, fairer workplace. Unions mean decent wages and benefits. Unions mean economic security and dignity for workers, and a strong middle class for our Nation.
Public safety officers deserve the opportunity to choose for themselves whether they want the advantages that unions bring.
Providing these basic rights of first responders is essential not only for their own interests but also for the safety of our communities, and the safety of our entire Nation. In this post-9/11 era, we have asked first responders to take on a new and indispensable role in homeland security. We face new threats that require efficient and effective coordination between State and local public safety workers and federal security agencies. With these new partnerships, it becomes vital to our national interest that State and local public safety services are carried out as effectively as possible. Studies show that giving workers a voice at the table, and facilitating cooperation between public safety workers and their employers is the best way to improve the quality of public safety services and protect our homeland security.
That is why it is an honor to join Senator Gregg in sponsoring the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act.
This important bill will ensure that all firefighters, police officers, and emergency medical personnel have the opportunity to have a voice in the policies that affect their safety and their livelihoods. Under this bill, public safety officers will have the right to form and join a union and to bargain over wages, hours, and working conditions. The bill also provides a way to resolve disputes, promote cooperation between labor and management, and reduce the conflicts that can undermine public safety.
The legislation accomplishes these important goals in fair and reasonable ways. States that already have collective bargaining in place for public safety workers are not affected by the bill at all. States that do not currently provide this basic workplace right may establish their own collective bargaining systems, or ask the assistance of the Federal Labor Relations Authority in doing so.
This approach respects the autonomy of the States. The bill sets basic standards, but allows States to find their own separate ways to implement these standards.
The bill does not dictate particular contract terms--all it requires is that there be a process for public safety officers and their employers to come to the table and talk. Each State legislature can have the last word on any agreement that is reached through these negotiations. This careful approach preserves the balance between workers' rights and State interests, enabling each State to have a collective-bargaining system that meets its particular needs and requirements.
Providing these basic workplace rights for all first responders will benefit workers, governments, and the public safety. Collective bargaining is the best way to achieve these strong, cooperative partnerships.
As Dennis Compton, fire chief in the city of Phoenix, has said:
When labor and management leaders work together to build mutual trust, mutual respect, and a strong commitment to service, it helps focus [a] fire department on what is truly most important . . . providing excellent service to the customers.
Across the country, we have seen how collective bargaining and public safety go hand in hand. In Omaha, the local firefighters' union and the city came together to find innovative ways to meet national safety standards and combat persistent hazards, such as asbestos and unsafe trucks, and their cooperation is paying off. The department previously had one death in the line of duty every 5 years, but since workers received a voice in decisions on safety and health, there have been no fatalities in 12 years.
In Hennepin County, MN, the union representing firefighters and paramedical personnel worked with management to improve services for the public. Through the union, the workers in the county were able to offer their expertise about how to redesign the county's ambulances and stretchers.
These new designs were adopted and saved many firefighters and paramedics from painful back and neck injuries. In turn, the county--
and the taxpayers--saved money in workers' compensation and disability benefits.
Taxpayers are obtaining better service at lower cost in Miami as well, because of cooperation between the firefighters' union and the city. The two sides worked together to establish one of the Nation's foremost fire department-based emergency medical services. Response time has been reduced and lives have been saved as a result.
Families and communities deserve the best public safety services we can provide, and they start with the strong foundation that collective bargaining provides. Every New York City firefighter, emergency medical technician, and police officer who responded to the disaster at the World Trade Center on 9/11 was a union member under a collective bargaining agreement, and those agreements strengthened their ability to respond so effectively in that massive crisis.
It is long past time to stop treating our heroic first responders as second class citizens. Giving them the rights they deserve is a matter of fundamental fairness, and an urgent matter of public safety. I commend Senator Gregg for his leadership on this very important issue, and I urge my colleagues to give our heroes the respect and support they deserve by passing this needed legislation.
Mr. President, this chart indicates what I mentioned, that the union in Miami, together with the city, established one of the Nation's foremost fire department-based EMS services, and they had very substantial savings.
This chart is interesting. States without collective bargaining have 39 percent more firefighter fatalities than States that do. Many fire chiefs acknowledge that this is a result of better communication, better cooperation, and a better exchange of information on how to do the job and do it safely. That is what this legislation does. Look at the difference when we are talking about fatalities. This is what is important.
This next chart shows that some 300,000 police officers in 24 States would gain basic workplace rights under the Cooperation Act. On this chart, we have more than 134,000 firefighters in 24 States who would gain basic workplace rights. That is why these firefighters, police officers, and first responders feel so strongly about this legislation.
It is reasonable, it is responsible, it is sound, and it is necessary. We spend a good deal of time around here talking about how we need greater cooperation in dealing with the central challenges on national security and homeland security. Who is at the backbone of homeland security in the United States? Our firefighters, police officers, emergency medical services, and first responders. These are the groups, as indicated on this chart, that are in strong support of this legislation, for the reasons I outlined this evening.
I intend, in the next 2 to 3 days, as we debate this legislation, to go into greater detail in all of these areas. On this issue, there is a strong case to be made. The time to act is now. This is an essential part of our whole national domestic homeland security. It is an essential part of making our fellow citizens safer in their community.
This legislation has been reviewed and studied and has strong support in the Senate. It passed the House of Representatives overwhelmingly. I look forward to strong support in this body.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask for 5 additional minutes to my time being allocated.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Tennessee will have a total of 25 minutes.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I may not use all of that time, but I wish to respond to the comments of the Senator from Massachusetts. And I will have more to say about this issue, as well, over the next 2 or 3 days as we debate this proposed legislation--involving unfunded mandates and overturning the labor laws of 21 States--about which the Senator from Massachusetts was talking.
When I was Governor of Tennessee a few years ago, I remember the debate we had about whether public safety employees--firefighters, police, and others--should be allowed to collectively bargain in our State. The arguments we considered were many of the ones the Senator from Massachusetts talked about: Did we need to authorize collectively bargaining so there could be better communication, better cooperation, a more effective fire department, a more effective police department?
The answer during the 8 years I was Governor was in every case, no; that it was not in the public interest for the public safety employees to collectively bargain, organize with the inevitable strike that might come because if they collectively bargained and organized, a strike was the weapon they would use to assert their rights.
Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. ALEXANDER. No, I would rather complete my remarks.
Mr. KENNEDY. Just on that point, if the Senator is going to represent the legislation, I hope he does it correctly.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I believe I have the floor, and I did not say the Senator's legislation prohibits strikes, if that is his point. Out of courtesy to the Senator, I will be glad to take a question from him.
Mr. KENNEDY. We will have a chance to debate. I thought the Senator was representing that this legislation permitted the option of striking. It does no such thing.
Mr. ALEXANDER. No, it does no such thing, but as we well remember, in New York City, where striking by public employees is prohibited, transit workers struck anyway because they collectively bargained and they didn't like the result.
The point I make to the Senator from Massachusetts is that I have a very different view of this issue, and so do the people of Tennessee. We considered this almost every year I was Governor and decided that we did not think it was in the public interest to authorize collective bargaining for public employees, with the exception of teachers.
This proposal has been considered in Tennessee repeatedly since I left the Governor's office--in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, and 2005 and each time the State has come to the same conclusion. Elected officials have come to the same conclusion in nearly half of our States. Twenty-
one States have decided that in the case of public safety employees, those we admire so much and whom we count on in times of distress, collective bargaining should not be required. That is the decision of 21 States.
What this legislation would do is overturn that judgment. It would say the judgment of the Senator from Massachusetts is better than that of the State legislature of Tennessee. The judgment of the Senator of Massachusetts may be better for the State of Massachusetts, but I respectfully suggest it is not better for the State of Tennessee. I imagine the Senators from 20 other States would have the same opinion.
When I was Governor, I didn't think my wisdom as Governor was superior to that of the mayor of Dyersburg or the mayor of Maryville or the mayor of Nashville about what kinds of labor laws they ought to have there--or the elected city council--or what they should decide about their labor laws. I didn't try to override them in that way.
What I am objecting to--and we will have a chance to talk about this--is the inappropriateness of the Congress of the United States overturning laws in 21 States that, in one form or another, do not allow for collective bargaining of public service employees. This proposed legislation would say to the mayors of small towns in Tennessee, and there are 347 total incorporated cities and towns in Tennessee, and 90 of them have a population greater than 5,000: You will collectively bargain. Instead of dealing directly with your firemen and your policemen and your other public safety employees, you will appoint somebody or let them pick somebody and you will deal with that person. The Senator from Massachusetts may think that creates better cooperation and a better police force, but the people of Tennessee do not think that, and they have considered it time and time again. Why should we decide we know more than they?
There is an amendment to the Constitution. It is called the 10th amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
That is an important provision. That is the way our country was formed.
We all take an oath to this Constitution, and I believe this legislation has a substantial chance of violating the 10th amendment to our Constitution.
There is one other thing it does. It inevitably imposes new costs on smaller towns. Nashville has a memorandum of understanding between the city government and public safety officers. It has decided to do that. But most of our 90 cities with 5,000 or more people do not think that better communication is improved with public safety employees by collective bargaining or even a memorandum of understanding--the latter of which they are permitted to do. So here we come along and say to a small town in Tennessee: You must collectively bargain; you must appoint this person to deal with.
This legislation would inevitably add to their costs. It would be an unfunded Federal mandate. I will have an amendment later which will say that this law, if it should pass--which I hope it does not--will be amended to provide that if the Governor or the chief executive officer of the city or the town in Tennessee or any other State believes this is an unfunded Federal mandate, the law has no effect.
I think we have a 10th amendment problem, and we have an unfunded Federal mandate problem.
I can remember when all the Republicans--Newt Gingrich, et cetera--in 1994, stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and said: We have had it up to here with unfunded mandates. We have had it up to here with Members of Congress who come up with these great ideas and then pass a law and then take credit for it and then send the bill to the Governor or to the mayor. That is what we would be doing here. Those same Members of Congress usually go right back to Massachusetts or Tennessee or wherever they are from, to the Jackson Day Dinner or Lincoln Day Dinner, and make a great speech about local control and how wise all the towns are. They have town meetings up in New England. We have county commissions down in Tennessee. Members of Congress say: We believe in you towns. You are the wise people, you come in and spend hours debating little issues, but we, when we fly into Washington, suddenly have this burst of wisdom that overrides all that you may do.
I think the people of this country should admire and respect and honor our firefighters. But we should honor and respect and admire our Constitution and our Federal system and say that we may have different opinions in different States and different cities about what we do, and then to impose a big unfunded mandate, at least violating the spirit of the 10th amendment to the Constitution by telling every town in Tennessee and 20 other States that suddenly the law is changed, you cannot decide your labor relations anymore, we in Washington will do that for you--I think we need to rethink that.
You know, what the Republicans said in 1994 was: No more unfunded Federal mandates. If we break our promise, throw us out. Well, the voters put in the Republicans--my party--in 1994 and we broke our promise and last year they threw us out. I think they will throw some more people out if we keep ignoring the will of the people and acting as if, when we fly to Washington, DC, we suddenly have a right to run amok on the 10th amendment and to overturn decisions, in my State, for example, that were debated annually during the 8 years I was Governor--
and that also were rejected in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, and 2005.
This is not a bill about cooperation, this is a bill against the 10th amendment. It is a bill, in addition, that imposes inevitably unfunded Federal mandates on cities and towns that are already struggling. I hope the Senate will reject it.
Mr. President, on a more optimistic note about a bigger problem, there has been a lot of discussion about gas prices. I would like to talk about gas prices and energy prices in a little different way.
Some have blamed this person, some have blamed that person, some have offered a short-term remedy. I would like to challenge our Senate to do something that I believe the American people would be grateful if we did. Let me begin it with a short story.
In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Senator Kenneth McKellar, a Tennessean who was chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, to come down to the White House for a little discussion. The President asked Senator McKellar if he could hide $2 billion in the appropriations bill for a secret project to win World War II, and Senator McKellar replied to the President: Mr. President, that will be no problem. I just have one question: Where in Tennessee do you want me to hide it?
That $2 billion and that place in Tennessee became Oak Ridge, TN, one of three secret cities that became the principal sites of what was then called the Manhattan Project. The purpose of the Manhattan Project was to find a way to split the atom and build a bomb before Germany did so the United States could win World War II. Nearly 200,000 people worked in 30 sites in 3 countries at breakneck speed until they succeeded. The
$2 billion appropriation President Roosevelt asked for would be $24 billion today.
According to New York Times science reporter William Laurence:
Into [the project] went millions of man-hours of what is without doubt the most concentrated intellectual effort in history.
On last Friday, I went back to Oak Ridge, one of those secret cities--now out in the open--and proposed that the United States launch a new Manhattan Project, this one a 5-year project to put America firmly on the path to clean energy independence. Instead of ending a war, the goal will be clean energy independence so we can deal with rising gas prices, electricity prices, clean air, climate change, and national security--for our country first and then, because the world has the same urgent needs, for the rest of the world.
By ``independence,'' I do not mean the United States would never buy oil from Mexico or Canada or Saudi Arabia. By ``independence,'' I do mean the United States could never be held hostage by any country for our oil supplies.
In 1942, many were afraid that Germany would get the bomb and blackmail the world. Today, countries that supply oil and natural gas can blackmail the world.
Some have questioned whether the word ``independence'' is the right word. I believe it is exactly the right word. Go to the dictionary. The dictionary says that independence means you don't want to be controlled by someone. Our war of independence against Great Britain didn't mean we would never talk to them--we just didn't want to be in their pocket.
I think the American people understand what we mean by clean energy independence. It is the right goal, and I would say the scientists in Oak Ridge whom I talked with on Friday seemed to agree.
A new Manhattan Project is not a new idea. But it is a good idea and fits the goal of clean energy independence. The Apollo program was a sort of Manhattan Project. It sent men to the Moon.
Senator McCain and Senator Obama have each suggested a new Manhattan Project for energy. I think it is time for us to begin to put some flesh on the suggestion. What would they mean? Have something ready for them and for us that we could move ahead with. Many Senators have made a similar suggestion. It is time to do more than talk.
During the passage of the America COMPETES Act, we worked together across party lines--the Senator from Massachusetts, who was just here, was key to that. I worked hard on it. Senators McCain and Obama and others worked on it as well. Senators Domenici and Bingaman were the leaders on that legislation here in the Senate. Several suggested as part of that discussion on how to preserve America's competitive edge that we should focus on energy because focusing on energy independence would force the kinds of investments we need to keep our competitive position in the world.
In 1942, the prospect was that Germany would get the bomb before we did. That was the overwhelming challenge. The overwhelming challenge today, according to National Academy of Sciences president Ralph Cicerone, in his address to the academy 2 weeks ago, is to discover ways to satisfy the human demand for and the use of energy in an environmentally satisfactory and affordable way so that we are not overly dependent on overseas sources.
Cicerone estimates that this year Americans will pay $500 billion overseas for oil; that is $1,600 for each one of us, some of it to nations that are funding terrorists who are trying to kill us. It weakens our dollar. It is half our trade deficit. It is forcing gasoline prices toward $4 a gallon and is crushing family budgets.
Then there are the environmental consequences. If worldwide energy usage continues to grow as it has, humans will inject as much CO2 to the air from fossil fuel burning between 2000 to 2030 as they did from 1850 to 2000.
There is plenty of coal to help achieve our energy independence, but there is no commercial way yet to capture and store the carbon from so much coal burning--and we have not finished the job of controlling sulfur and nitrogen and mercury emissions.
I suggest the Manhattan Project of World War II fits today's proposal for a new Manhattan Project for energy in the following ways. The original project proceeded as fast as possible along several tracks to reach one goal. The entire project, one engineer said, was a shotgun approach, using all possible approaches simultaneously. It had Presidential focus and bipartisan support in Congress. It had the kind of centralized, gruff leadership that only an Army Corps of Engineers general could give it. It broke the mold.
Dr. Oppenheimer told his scientists in 1945 that the bomb was ``too revolutionary to consider in the framework of old ideas.'' So is clean energy independence. It began with a small, diverse group of great minds, as this one needs to as well.
There are also some lessons from the America COMPETES Act that we enacted just last year. Remember how that started. A bipartisan group of us asked the National Academies: Please give us 10 things that we, the Congress and the Government, should do to keep our brainpower advantage so our jobs don't go overseas. The National Academies took us seriously, and within 3 months assembled a small group of wise men and women headed by Norm Augustine, and they gave us 20 recommendations, and we considered them. The President had his ideas. We considered proposals by other competitiveness commissions. The Speaker of the House weighed in. Within a couple of years--it got a little messy a few times--we passed a blueprint which will put us on a path to double our investments in the physical sciences and significantly upgrade our competitiveness efforts from Washington.
Some people have suggested that this year is not a very good year to try such a bipartisan approach. I think it is a perfect year to try a bipartisan approach. Senator Obama and Senator McCain and Senator Clinton seem ready for it. Congressman Bart Gordon, the Democratic chairman of the House Science Committee is supportive--we were together in Oak Ridge on Friday. He and I are equally interested in this, just as we were equal participants in the America COMPETES legislation.
I have talked to Senator Bingaman and Senator Domenici and Senator Murkowski. Many other Senators--I will not begin to mention them all--
have suggested this idea. I would say a Presidential election is a perfect time for this. Voters expect us to have answers to $4 gasoline, for climate change, for clean air, and to the national security implications of our overdependence on foreign oil.
The people did not elect us to take a vacation this year just because it is a Presidential election year. So how to proceed? When I spoke with Senator Bingaman, the chairman of the Energy Committee, he said: Well, instead of a single Manhattan Project, maybe we need several mini Manhattan projects. And he offered to me the example that Chuck Vest, the former MIT President who is the head of the National Institute of Engineering, has made.
Dr. Vest made an address in which he suggested 14 grand challenges for the 21st century for engineering; three of them had to do with energy.
I think Dr. Vest and Senator Bingaman are right. We do not do comprehensive very well. I think we proved that with the collapse of the comprehensive immigration bill. Step-by-step solutions along different tracks toward a single goal are easier to digest and have fewer surprises. And, of course, the Manhattan Project itself in World War II proceeded that way.
So here would be my criteria for choosing several grand challenges toward the goal of clean energy independence:
Grand consequences: This is not a project for small thinking.
Real scientific breakthroughs: We know how to build nuclear powerplants. I think we should be doing it. We know how to drill 50 miles offshore for oil and gas in an environmentally safe way, giving a large part of the revenues to the States so that they can then put them in trust funds for education. I think we should be doing it.
We know how to do a great many things that we are not doing. But this should not be about doing things that we already know how to do. This should be about the scientific breakthroughs to help us within 5 years get firmly on a path to clean energy independence.
Family budget: Our solutions need to fit the family budget so gas prices and electricity prices are something that we can afford.
And finally consensus: We need to come to some consensus. We found with the America COMPETES Act that when we went for consensus, we could pass an important bill. And the members of the Augustine panel wisely put aside some subjects relevant to competitiveness, like excessive litigation, which we could argue about for days. They left that to the side and focused on 20 things they thought we could agree on, and we did.
So here are seven grand challenges that I would respectfully suggest to begin the suggestion, seven scientific breakthroughs that I believe we should focus on for the next 5 years to put us firmly on a path to clean energy independence which fit the criteria that I outlined.
No. 1, make plug-in electric cars and trucks commonplace. And let me offer another story. Most people remember H. Ross Perot. Many people may have forgotten how he made his money. He noticed that the banks in Dallas in the 1960s were closing their doors at 5 o'clock and turning off their new computers. So Mr. Perot asked the banks: May I buy your idle nighttime computer capacity?
And they said, yes.
He then went to States such as Tennessee, before I was Governor, and said: May I manage your Medicaid data? I have some computer time.
They said yes.
So the banks made a lot of money, the States saved a little money, and Mr. Perot made a billion dollars.
Now, what does that have to do with clean energy? I would mention this: I believe the idle nighttime computer capacity of the 1960s is a lot like the idle nighttime power plant capacity in the United States today.
An example: The Tennessee Valley Authority in my neck of the woods, which produces about 3 percent of all of the electricity in the United States, has the equivalent of 7,000 or 8,000 megawatts of electricity idle most nights. That would be our largest untapped resource in the region: I would think every night, or most nights, seven or eight nuclear powerplants' worth of unused electricity.
Add to that how, beginning in 2010, Nissan, Toyota, General Motors, and Ford--and possibly others--will sell electric cars that can be plugged into wall sockets. FedEx is already using hybrid electricity delivery trucks. TVA could offer smart meters. Many utilities are doing that. That would allow its 9 million customers at night to plug their car or truck in and for a few dollars fill up with electricity and then drive to work and back without using a drop of gasoline.
It might take a while, but it has been estimated that because 60 percent of Americans drive less than 30 miles a day, we could gradually replace most of our light cars and trucks with plug-in electric vehicles that do not use gasoline and cut our overseas oil bill by perhaps as much as half.
In other words, we have got the plugs, the cars are coming, we need the cord. To good to be true? Well, have not Presidents back to Nixon promised a revolutionary car? It has never happened. But times have changed. Batteries are better, gas is $4.
Mr. President, how much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 1 minute remaining.
The second grand challenge would be to make carbon capture and storage a reality for coal-burning power plants. This also was one of the National Institute of Engineering's grand challenges. And there may be solutions other than underground storage, such as using algae to capture carbon. Interesting, the National Resource Defense Council argues that, after conservation, coal with carbon capture is the best option for clean energy independence because it provides for the growing power needs of the U.S. and will be easily adopted by other countries.
No. 3, make solar power cost competitive with power from fossil fuels. This is a second of the National Institute of Engineering's grand challenges. Solar power, despite 50 years of trying, produces on one-hundredth of one percent of America's electricity. The cost of putting solar panels on homes averages $25,000-$30,000 and the electricity produced, for the most part, can't be stored. Now, there is new photovoltaic research as well as promising solar thermal power plants, which capture the sunlight using mirrors, turn heat into steam, and store it underground until the customer needs it.
No. 4, safely reprocess and store nuclear waste. Nuclear plants produce 20 percent of America's electricity, but 70 percent of America's clean electricity--that is, electricity that does not pollute the air with mercury, nitrogen, sulfur, or carbon. The most important breakthrough needed during the next five years to build more nuclear power plants is solving the problem of what to do with nuclear waste. A political stalemate has stopped nuclear waste from going to Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and $15 billion collected from ratepayers for that purpose is sitting in a bank. Recycling waste could reduce its mass by 90 percent, creating less stuff to store temporarily while long-term storage is resolved.
No. 5, make advanced biofuels cost-competitive with gasoline. The backlash toward ethanol made from corn because of its effect on food prices is a reminder to beware of the great law of unintended consequences when issuing grand challenges. Ethanol from cellulosic materials shows great promise, but there are a limited number of cars capable of using alternative fuels and of places for drivers to buy it. Turning coal into liquid fuel is an established technology, but expensive and a producer of much carbon.
No. 6, make new buildings green buildings. Japan believes it may miss its 2012 Kyoto goals for greenhouse gas reductions primarily because of energy wasted by inefficient buildings. Many of the technologies needed to do this are known. Figuring out how to accelerate their use in a decentralized society is most of this grand challenge.
No. 7, provide energy from fusion. The idea of recreating on Earth the way the sun creates energy and using it for commercial power is the third grand challenge suggested by the National Institute of Engineering. The promise of sustaining a controlled fusion reaction for commercial power generation is so fantastic that the five-year goal should be to do everything possible to reach the long-term goal. The failure of Congress to approve the President's budget request for U.S. participation in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor--
the ITER Project--is embarrassing.
To sum up the seven grand challenges: No. 1, make plug-in electric cars and trucks commonplace; No. 2, make carbon capture and storage a reality for coal-burning power plants; No. 3, make solar power cost competitive with power from fossil fuels; No. 4, safely process and store nuclear waste; No. 5, make advanced biofuels cost competitive with gasoline. That would be fuel made from crops that we cannot eat, not crops that we can.
No. 6, make new buildings green buildings; and, No. 7, provide energy from fusion.
This is a longer range goal, but one we should work on. Our country is remarkable. We have all of the talent that we had during the time of the original Manhattan Project in terms of university brain power, laboratories, private sector companies. We still believe anything is possible.
These are precisely the ingredients we need during the next 5 years to place ourselves firmly on a path toward clean energy independence within a generation, and in doing so to make our jobs more secure, to help balance the family budget, to make our air cleaner, and our planet safer and healthier, and to lead the world to do the same.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington State.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise tonight to continue the discussion on the votes we are going to have tomorrow on this important legislation and, really, what will be the start of the legislative alternative to deal with the high price of gasoline.
I know tomorrow there is going to be a vote, and many of my colleagues have come to the floor talking about the high price of gasoline and what we need to do about it.
I know going home this weekend and filling up my own car I spent over
$3.80, and almost $3.90 a gallon. It is not lost on the consumers of Washington State that this problem has to be fixed.
Many of my colleagues are talking about supply. And while I wish this was an issue of simple supply and demand, I think the market is showing us that it is not about supply and demand; that it is about the manipulation of oil markets and the fact that we have deregulated the energy futures market and created loopholes so that the speculators can have their say in how the market functions without the proper oversight that I think we need to restore.
So we are going to have a chance to talk about that later when the Democratic proposal is put forward before the Senate. But tonight I want to make sure my colleagues understand this is not an issue about getting more supply out of the United States. I have been on the Senate floor several times talking about energy executives saying that it is not the companies that have been holding up the supply in the United States or that is going to solve this problem.
But I think it is important to look at the world's oil market and to understand that the United States only has 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. We are not in the top 10 leading countries in producing oil. And this exaggerated chart on size shows the top countries with the most oil: Saudi Arabia and Iran and Iraq and Kuwait and UAE. And this shows by proportion, for national size, how small the United States is. The United States is over here because we do not have that much supply of oil. In fact, if you look on the chart, the top 10 countries, we are not in the top 10 countries in supply of oil. So the bottom line is, do we want to continue to be reliant on these countries for an oil supply or do we want to diversify? I think many of my colleagues realize we have to take aggressive steps to diversify a little differently.
Here is a pie chart that shows exactly where the world oil reserves are: 20 percent in Saudi Arabia, Iraq is another big number, Iran is another big number. This little red piece of the pie here, 2 percent; 2 percent is what the United States has. So this notion that we are going to dramatically change this equation for the U.S. consumer or the price of gas by taking that 2 percent of the world's oil reserves and somehow maximizing it, I do not care how much you maximize it, I do not care how or where you drill, you are not going to change the impact on the price of oil today on the market when these are the other players. These are the people who are dominating the marketplace.
So I think it is very important that we get a handle on this situation. We have seen now that oil has been over $125 a barrel. At one point in time last Friday, oil closed at $126, and went back down.
But we keep seeing this inch up every day. You turn on the television, the situation does not seem as though there is any relief in sight. This keeps going up. This is the national average, $3.71. In my State I clearly saw $3.80. I will not be surprised if it is even higher than that. And we have to do something to give consumers relief. They cannot continue to afford to pay this price.
Well, we have listened now to oil company executives. I like to listen to what they have to say about this matter because they are the people who are involved in the supply and demand on a daily basis. They are the ones who are going out and getting this product and putting it in the marketplace.
Here is the CEO of Marathon Oil, who said:
$100 oil is not justified by the physical demands in the market.
It is not justified. So here we are, a lot of these executives having testified before various House and Senate committees saying that oil should be at $60 a barrel. They are saying it is not even justified at
$100 a barrel. What is causing this problem?
I would have to say that the $100 a barrel in the market is definitely causing problems with various industries. Last week we heard from some in the airline industry who were testifying before the Commerce Committee. These are their first quarter losses: Delta, $274 million; American Airlines, $328 million; United, $537 million.
When you talk to them about these losses, because these are things that help take care of the employees, take care of pensions, take care of bills, they will tell you that fuel costs used to be the second expense in the business. Now it is No. 1 because of the extraordinary costs of fuel. And these are the losses they are racking up because of that.
This is what one market analyst basically was saying about out-of-
control jet fuel prices:
Should the current fuel prices persist, the impact on airline industry profitability is expected to rival if not exceed that of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
This is a quote from a JP Morgan analyst. What they are saying is, I think people here remember how dramatic the impact was on the airline industry after 9/11, how people did not want to fly. Here is an analyst saying, if this keeps going, it is going to be worse than 9/11.
I had a flight attendant tell me the same thing this weekend. She said: You know, we survived 9/11 and the terrorist attacks. We survived bankruptcy and reorganization. Now we have to survive this. I do not know that we can do it if oil just keeps going up and up and up.
That is what these people are saying; that it is going to get as dramatic as the impact that we saw from 9/11 if we do not deal with this issue. Well, one way I can tell you that we are not going to deal with it, and not because of the legislative approach, simply because if it even was a solution, drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge would only reduce it by a few pennies per gallon when it is at its full peak production, say, 10 to 20 years from now. And the fact that it would only be two pennies per gallon, if you average that out over what a consumer buys in a year, we are only talking about a few dollars to the American consumer because I go back to that chart where it shows the United States with only 2 percent. How can we affect the price? These are new updated numbers.
Basically, the fact is, you cannot affect the price by drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. That should tell us something. This is a false argument on the other side about the supply.
Our own administration, the Energy Information Administration, came to the conclusion that if we would drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge thinking that we were going to put world supply on the market, this was their conclusion, not mine.
They said: OPEC could countermand any potential price impact of ANWR coastal plain production by reducing its exports by an equal amount and basically continuing to keep the price high.
So this notion we are debating tonight, that somehow we are going to drill our way to energy security and lower the $120-plus barrel of oil, even by the account or our own Energy Information Administration, is not correct.
So what do we want to do? Democrats want to police the oil and gas markets. Democrats want to police these markets because we are tired of the oil company executives saying that prices are not justified. We are tired of analysts saying that this price is not justified. We are tired of looking at the results when we deregulate the energy futures market and allow excessive speculation without proper controls. Like we have on the stock exchange, like we have on other exchanges such as NYMEX and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, we want rules in place. We want rules in place so consumers can be protected.
We know hedge funds are playing a big role here. This is not my quote. This is from Ann Davis of the Wall Street Journal:
Hedge funds are taking ever-larger bets in a futures market that is smaller than the stock or bond markets, and the funds are using borrowed money to maximize their bets, magnifying the impact on [energy market] prices. That is why people on this side of the aisle have talked about a few things such as closing loopholes and making sure there is transparency in the energy markets. The Amaranth case showed the harm of this excessive speculation and large trader positions without proper market controls. Amaranth was a natural gas company that basically took huge positions in the natural gas market, and because we had deregulated the oversight of that energy trading, they were able to manipulate the market. And after they got out of the marketplace because they crashed after some of their manipulative activities, we were able to see a huge decrease in the price of natural gas. So we know these hedge funds are able to impact the price of energy, and we are very concerned about that.
We know that after the electricity market crisis, we were able to put new rules into place for electricity and natural gas. It ended up having a very positive impact. In fact, this is what the chairman of the FERC said about that:
The manipulative schemes in question were designed to lower the prices in [a futures] market in order to benefit positions held in a [physical] market.
I want my colleagues to understand how this works, but here is what the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that has oversight over electricity and natural gas markets said. What he was pointing to is the fact that people were driving up the physical price of oil by manipulating the futures market. When the futures market isn't regulated, the price is easier to manipulate. Right now some oil futures for 2015 delivery are well over $100 a barrel, and that is going to continue to dictate the price of oil markets in the future.
One analyst basically said the Government must act:
Unless the U.S. government steps in to rein in speculators' power in the market, prices will just keep going up.
If we have analysts on Wall Street telling us we should act and do something, they are telling us what is happening on Wall Street. Here is an energy analyst saying:
Unless the U.S. government steps in to rein in speculators' power in the market, prices will just keep going up.
The reason why they are saying that is there are exemptions for oil that aren't there for other commodities. Cattle futures is an example. If you want to trade in cattle futures, you are not exempt from CFTC oversight. You have to register at an exchange. You have daily reporting requirements. That is so somebody who comes in and takes a big position in oil to impact the price and trades around to impact the price can be evaluated, and the CFTC and others can understand exactly what is going on and there is speculative limits. But look over here at oil trading, not on the NYMEX but on this other international continental exchange, and you see none of the same requirements. So we have deregulated this on this side, and now we wonder why oil has gone from $60 a barrel to $125 a barrel. It is not supply and demand. People in the industry will tell you it is not supply and demand. You have oil company executives telling you it is not supply and demand. You have analysts telling you it is time for us to do something to restore the oversight and transparency so the markets function properly.
I hope we get to this debate on the Senate floor in the next week or so.
As I said, we will be out here to talk more about that because there are several factors in the proposals we are talking about that I think will be important. Obviously, closing the Enron loophole is critical, which we are trying to push out of this body in a final farm bill conference report; this will require oversight of all oil futures in the futures markets, which my colleagues, Senator Levin and Senator Feinstein, and others have been working on; getting the FTC to implement market rules, and they are in the process of doing that. Our body has to have a huge oversight in making sure the proper rules are put in place. We want to make sure the price-gouging legislation that is being proposed in the Democratic package gets passed. But having the Department of Justice continue to help in this effort to look at the fact that there has been this lack of transparency and funny business going on in the marketplace is going to be very important for us to continue to police these markets.
I urge my colleagues to think about the fact that this is a real crisis, that our economy can't continue to pay these prices, and that there is nothing wrong with bona fide speculation, but there is certainly something wrong with excessive speculation and with markets that don't have sufficient transparency and oversight or rules in place to make sure it is functioning correctly. That is why Democrats want to make sure we police the oil and gas markets to protect consumers. We are going to propose that through votes on the Senate floor. We are going to continue to push Federal agencies such as the FTC and the Department of Justice and the CFTC to do their jobs.
If I may, Mr. President, on a separate note, I saw last week one of the solar companies made an announcement on their earnings. I will not detail the company today, but the company was very specific in its announcement. It had increased record sales. They were very excited about what was happening in the solar market. But they announced they were going to lay off people, and they were going to cancel jobs. They said in their earnings statement, because this is what companies have to do, you have to give guidance to your investors. You have to tell them what are you are going to do for the rest of the year. This company made this announcement, and it said, because Congress is not giving predictability about the investment tax credit, we can't plan for the future for these projects. So we will be canceling projects, and we will be laying off people.
I say that tonight because I am frustrated we have not been able to get the production tax credits and investment tax credits passed. I thought we would get to this point where companies would start canceling projects and thought that we had until about the first quarter of this year and their earnings statements where, again, they have to give guidance and tell the public what is going on. But that is where we are. We need to do our job. If we believe in this situation where we are right now with this energy crisis out of control and the future being uncertain, it is time to invest in different types of energy solutions. I know many of my colleagues, 88 of us here, support getting a bill out and passed over to the House of Representatives. I know there has been a debate between the Senate and the House of Representatives on that measure and exactly how to pay for it.
What I can say to my colleagues is that when we start losing jobs and canceling projects that are needed for energy production, we haven't done our job. It is time for us to put differences aside and to get this investment tax credit and production tax credit passed and get it implemented so we can save this investment cycle and save the production for what is going to be much needed in future generations.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise in support of the McConnell amendment which is based on legislation introduced by the senior Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Domenici, who was joined by several of us as cosponsors and which seeks a responsible comprehensive national energy policy.
First, I would like to thank Senator Domenici for his continued leadership on this issue. For years, many of us have followed his lead in trying to guide us toward policies that would expand our domestic production and supply of energy. Quite frankly, if more of my colleagues had listened to him, we would likely not be here on the floor today decrying the high cost of energy, especially gasoline.
There are three necessary components that we must address to move us toward an energy independent future: Supply, conservation, and alternative sources. I and many of my colleagues understand that conservation and alternative sources are critical pieces of this puzzle. We took some steps to address those issues in the 2000 energy bill with higher CAFE standards and incentives for technological innovation such as hybrids and fuel cells. This amendment before us deals with the third of the three necessary components--domestic supply--because none of the three are by themselves sufficient to achieve real energy security.
The United States is in the midst of an energy crisis. The folks in my State know that all too well. Every day they are working harder and smarter to make ends meet as the prices of the most basic essentials, food and energy, continue to rise at record rates. Between 2000 and 2005, 208,000 manufacturing jobs in Ohio have been lost, and 3 million nationwide, in part because of high energy costs that have forced employers to find savings elsewhere such as payrolls.
There is no question that because of the high cost of natural gas, we have gone from a country where we exported some $19 billion of chemical products to now importing chemical products. The reason for that is we didn't realize natural gas was part of the food stock we needed for the chemical industry.
Energy costs have been skyrocketing in Ohio. Since 2000, gasoline costs have risen 175 percent. Natural gas is up 107 percent. Heating oil prices are up 130 percent. The nearly 350,000 Ohio families with annual incomes of less than $10,000 are now spending more than 47 percent of their aftertax income on energy costs. You wonder how people are able to handle these additional costs they are paying.
I believe it is the result of a tail-wagging-the-dog environmental policy that has ignored our energy and economic needs. This policy prevents us from taking advantage of our domestic sources of energy and has helped put us in the current crisis. The chickens have come home to roost. Many of us predicted it 8 or 9 years ago. No one seemed to listen.
We need to enact an energy policy that broadens our base of energy resources to create stability, maintain reasonable prices, and protect our Nation's security. It must be a policy that will keep energy affordable, and it must be a policy that would not cripple the engines of commerce that fund the research that will yield environmental protection technologies for the future.
We need a ``second declaration of independence'' to move us away from foreign sources of energy in the near term and away from oil in the long term. While we may not become truly independent of foreign energy, we must make investments today that will help us achieve our goal tomorrow, including renewable fuels and alternative methods of powering our vehicles, such as hybrids, plug-ins, and fuel cells.
I believe the country that becomes least dependent on oil is the country that is going to be prevailing in this century. Other countries are becoming addicted to oil, and we all have heard about why some of this is happening today. The Chinese are building automobiles every day and sucking up as much oil as they possibly can from whatever source they can get it.
I believe this crisis was foreseeable. Since I entered the Senate in 1999, Congress has chosen not to design a comprehensive, long-term national energy policy. We have failed to harmonize our energy, environmental, and economic needs. Unless we do, we will experience a diminished standard of living in the future.
I have been calling for increased domestic production for years. Before I came to the Senate, Congress and President Clinton had a chance to open ANWR to responsible oil exploration. In 1995, when oil was only $19 a barrel--did you hear that, $19 a barrel--President Clinton vetoed increased domestic production. In addition, many of us have been trying to open the Outer Continental Shelf to expanded exploration for years. Again, we have been blocked. Had we opened these domestic sources of oil and gas years ago, prices of gasoline, natural gas, and home heating oil would not be where they are today. As I said, the chickens have come home to roost.
A few years ago, we finally made some limited progress when we passed the 2005 Energy bill. That bill should have been passed early on in this century. We debated it back in 2003 for 6 weeks, and then it got stopped because we could not get the Senate to agree to it. We finally, as I say, got it done in 2005. That bill took some good steps forward. It provides incentives for more oil and gas production. It increases the use of clean coal technologies, nuclear power, and renewable sources of electricity and fuel, and it encourages conservation.
We need to do more, however, if we are to continue to remain competitive in the global economy. We need a plan for a future of tight energy supplies in the near term and plan accordingly so we have a stable bridge to the future that does not set us at a disadvantage against other countries. In the short term, we need to wake up to the fact that our Nation will continue to rely on more traditional forms of energy, such as oil, coal, and natural gas, to fuel our vibrant economy, as no viable alternatives are yet available to take their place.
This is important not just for the economy but for our national security and our environment. In this era when the United States is engaged in the war on terror, energy independence is even more critical. So many of the world's energy exporters are also breeding grounds for the terrorists and anti-American regimes, such as Venezuela, that want to destroy America. Being dependent on these regimes for our energy supply increases the danger to our way of life.
American people should also understand that more and more countries are nationalizing their oil. As a result, they are driving out companies that could invest in exploration, as has been the case in Venezuela, and the same way in Russia. So we are seeing a situation--
and I have heard the arguments that we have to get the Commerce Department and other Federal agencies involved, but some of the problem we have is as they nationalize the oil, what they do not do is the exploration that is needed to produce the oil that should be coming on the marketplace.
Increasing domestic energy production, renewable sources, and alternatives to oil would help smooth this country's transition to a carbon-constrained world.
But we are on the cusp of another gathering storm--a storm that could deal a destructive blow to my State of Ohio's already struggling economy and our quality of life. In its wake, we could see the loss of hundreds of good-paying jobs, shocking increases in natural gas, electricity, and gasoline prices, and pocket-numbing decreases in household incomes. I know Americans right now are up against it. But I can tell you, we ain't seen nothing yet if this legislation that is now pending in Congress is passed.
This storm comes in the form of current legislative efforts in Washington to mandate massive reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The debate is not about whether these reductions are necessary. I think I make that very clear; these reductions are necessary. Most of us agree to that. And we must act quickly to address climate change. The debate is about whether to invest the time and effort necessary to do it in a responsible, comprehensive, and progrowth fashion as opposed to rushing through an irresponsible, piecemeal plan that will raise energy costs on already hurting families, send jobs overseas, and fail to help the environment as intended.
As ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety, I am at the center of the debate, and I believe Ohioans should pay close attention. The decisions made could result in the most massive bureaucratic intrusion into the lives of Americans since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service.
As I mentioned, I have long championed harmonizing our economic, energy, and environmental needs. I did so as mayor of Cleveland, as Governor of Ohio, and we had great success in bringing both sides to the table for the betterment of our State and Nation. That is why I am so committed to educating my colleagues and Ohioans about the unprecedented opportunity we have before us when it comes to crafting a comprehensive solution to climate change. We must be smart and measured in our steps forward, always keeping in mind what is best for working families, seniors, and those trying to make ends meet on fixed incomes.
The smart way to go about addressing this problem is not through unilateral actions that would hurt our economy and drive jobs overseas. The policy proposal now under consideration in the Senate--the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act--would do exactly that.
A recent analysis of the bill by the Environmental Protection Agency provided a devastating critique of their policy proposal, estimating that passage could result in annual losses in gross domestic product as high as $2.5 trillion by 2030. By 2050, annual losses in the GDP could be as high as $5 trillion, with electricity rates doubling over the same period of time.
The impact of this legislation will be disproportionately felt in States such as Ohio that depend on coal for much of their energy needs. Duke Energy, a major electricity provider in Ohio, has released data indicating that if the policy becomes effective in 2012, customers in their service area could suffer a 53-percent increase in their electricity bills.
According to a recent study by the American Council for Capital Formation, Ohio would lose 139,000 jobs by 2020. By 2050, net job losses could grow as high as 487,000. And with Ohio consumers paying as much as 29 percent more for gasoline, 50 percent more for natural gas, and 80 percent more for electricity, disposable household income would be reduced by about $2,000 per year by 2020 and $3,500 per year by 2050.
Additionally, the Lieberman-Warner bill completely disregards the international dimension of the problem. Countries such as China and India refuse to slow their economic development in order to address climate change. China--and listen to this one--puts two new coal-fired powerplants in service every week and now uses more coal than the United States, the European Union, and Japan combined. India is in the process of building the largest coal mine in the world. With facts like these, America could totally shut down all of our emissions-producing activities and we would not make a dent in CO2 emissions.
Americans should not suffer for symbolism while countries such as China and India emit increasingly large quantities of greenhouse gases without consequences. Ohioans are already struggling with the cost of living due to higher prices for gasoline, home heating fuel, electricity, food, and health care. Lieberman-Warner will only make things worse.
We cannot tolerate policies that harm our economy and drive businesses overseas to countries that do not recognize their environmental responsibilities or just do not have the political will to act. If we do, we will be worse off on two counts: fewer jobs and an environment that is not any cleaner than when we started.
That is why I am spearheading the development of an alternative solution to climate change which is less intrusive, less costly, and will more quickly achieve greater environmental benefits than the one option now before us. The smart way to address this problem is through collaborative, multinational efforts to develop and deploy the clean energy technologies that everyone recognizes as necessary to solve this global environmental problem.
I am pleased, with the support of our President, that consideration is being given to a clean energy technology fund--of some $2 billion we would participate in--an international clean energy technology fund. I know from reading a paper by Dr. Lin Jiang that China is giving serious thought to working with us. In a paper called ``The Nexus of Energy, Global Warming, and Environmental Concerns: Opportunities for U.S.-
China Cooperation,'' Dr. Lin wrote:
It is clear that greater investment is urgently needed to help China develop cost-effective methods to use coal more cleanly, through, for example, gasification and carbon capture and storage (CCS)2. Collaboration between the U.S. and China in accelerating the adoption of such technologies could be mutually beneficial, since the U.S. is equally abundant in coal reserve as well.
The Asian Pacific Partnership, which resulted from the passage of the Hagel-Pryor-Voinovich, et al. bill, is in its infancy in sharing technological breakthroughs on controlling carbon emissions. It is already happening through the Asian Pacific Partnership. For those who are really interested, you can go to www.asianpacificpartnership.org for more information on what is happening.
Recently, Richard Armitage and Dr. Joe testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and submitted for the record a paper called
``Implementing Smart Power: Setting an Agenda for National Security Reform.''
In this paper, Dr. Nye suggested that:
The next administration and Congress should establish and fund a joint technology development center. International collaboration helps reduce costs and accelerate the pace of innovation. The U.S. Department of Energy in partnership with major global energy companies should establish a 10-year endowment for funding energy and technology related research. This could be administered by an international consortium of the National Science Foundation and equivalents and disburse grants through a peer review process to researchers to provide venture capital to develop and deploy next generation energy technologies, such as biofuels.
Also, the paper suggests that the next President should ``seek to identify areas of mutual interest between the United States and China on which the two powers can work together on a smart power agenda.
``Work together.''
Energy security and environmental stewardship top that list, along with other transnational issues such as public health and non-proliferation. Global leadership does not have to be a zero-sum game.
The point I am making is, we are on the edge. We are seeing the result now in terms of the high cost of gasoline, the high cost of natural gas, the high cost of heating oil because of the fact that we did not put together a comprehensive plan some years ago, realizing we are in a global economy, the world is expanding, demand for these resources is growing every day, and in order for us to survive in this century, we have to become a whole lot more independent in terms of energy--as I said, the ``second declaration of independence.'' The only way that is going to happen is to develop a comprehensive plan.
My colleague, Senator Alexander from Tennessee, did a very good job earlier this evening in laying out a comprehensive plan we should put in place. It is not going to happen overnight. It is going to take time for it to take place.
The reason I am bringing up the issue of the legislation dealing with climate change is, again, how do we handle that issue? Do we just go ahead and say: ``Well, we are going to go forward with it. Cap in trade. This is going to solve the problem,'' when most of us know the technology is not there in order to cap carbon and sequester carbon, when most of us know the Chinese and the Indians and other growing economies are sending these greenhouse gases into the air.
Instead of just saying: Well, we will do it on our own, I think it is time for us to get together and realize we are part of this global economy. By working together, not only could the United States be a leader in dealing with climate change and greenhouse gases, but it would also be one of the most fantastic things our country could do in terms of public diplomacy.
We have been banged over the head over the years because we have not got on into Kyoto. That was voted on here on the floor of the Senate and it went down overwhelmingly ``no.'' Then, 2 years ago, we passed the Pryor-Hagel bill. The reason it passed is because it had an international dimension to it.
I think where we are today is we have to say: Here we are and here is where we want to be, and how do we get there. Wouldn't it be wonderful, as I have said, if the United States could be a leader in doing this and bringing other countries together in saying we are going to do this together. I have a motto: Together we can do it. I think that is the approach we should take. If we don't do that, if we go ahead with this cap-and-trade legislation and say: Well, it is going to take care of the problem, we are going to be having the same problem we are having today, only it will be compounded: a 55-percent increase in electric costs by 2012, an 80-percent increase in natural gas costs, and a 30-
percent increase in gas costs. We can't handle that. We have to worry about the standard of living of our people. So we have to balance this.
I think if we work on a bipartisan basis, we can come up with something that is spectacular. It is overdue.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.
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