Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, there will be no objection if an equal amount of time that is used by the Democratic side will be added to the Republican side.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I intend to consume about 12. Would the chair please let me know when 10 have expired?

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I saw the majority leader. I wonder if he needs time to speak or wrap up. I will be glad to forego if he wants to do that. I will speak for 10 or 15 minutes as in morning business, but I will be glad to wait for the majority leader to see if he wishes to speak.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the majority leader, Senator Reid, has spoken about an energy roadmap. He talked about it on Friday. He talked about it again today. I am glad he is talking about it. I want to make a suggestion to him, which I hope he can accept. I am sure that in his home State, Nevada, as well as in my home State, Tennessee, the first thing out of anybody's mouth has to do with gasoline prices. I try to read on the floor of the Senate regularly letters that have been e-mailed to me from Tennesseans whose lives are changed by the $4 and $4.25 gasoline. What Senator Reid said in his remarks was that he has an energy roadmap. I say, with great respect, that I am afraid his roadmap is only half a roadmap because he is willing to use less energy but not willing--as far as I can tell--to find more energy. In 1961, President Kennedy said: Let's go to the Moon in 10 years. But if the astronauts had a roadmap that took them only halfway there, they would be floating in space. That is where I am afraid we would be as a country if we only do half our job as we address $4 gasoline. The problem that we have is a very simple one, even though a difficult one. It has to do with economics 101, the law of supply and demand. We have low supplies and more demand because around the world, the Chinese, the Indians, and others are growing wealthier and using more oil, from which gasoline is made. Mr. President, the only real solution to the $4, $4.25 gasoline prices is to find more and use less--find more, as well as use less. Now, the majority leader's suggestions that he mentioned--and I don't think they are part of the bill yet--include some very promising ideas. Curb speculation. We on the Republican side have introduced legislation that would put 100 more cops on the beat to curb speculation. Say that oil produced in America should be used here. That is what is happening today. Increase our focus on renewable energy; renewable energy is important. It is only 3 percent of the total amount of electricity that we use in the United States today. We have a long way to go before solar, wind, and other energy of that kind can be a major part of what we need to do. Most of that is devoted to electricity. Of course, that is important. On the Republican side, we have supported that. But what we have done on our side is introduce legislation that would do both: find more and use less. We don't do that with the hope that we will have a Republican bill because we don't want to see a Democratic bill either. We want an American bill. We believe our legislation deserves--and will earn--Democratic support. In fact, Democratic Senators have voted for some of the provisions in our legislation before. In terms of finding more oil, we propose allowing deep sea exploration--give a State the option to drill for oil, if the State wishes to do that, and then take 37 percent of that money and put it into the State treasury for universities, beach nourishment, lowering taxes, or whatever. Put 12\1/2\ percent into the Land and Water Conservation Fund and half to the Federal Treasury. We could unlock, conservatively, 1 million barrels of oil a day if we were to allow deep sea exploration. Today the President has taken off the Presidential moratorium on deep sea exploration. So it is up to us in the Congress to say: Will we or will we not find more oil by exploring in the deep seas off our coast? Two, we have suggested in our legislation that we take the moratorium off oil shale development in four Western States. That could produce, over time, 2 million barrels a day. Just those two ideas--drilling offshore and oil shale--would increase by one-third the American production of oil, almost all of which we use here. So that is the supply part. We are also interested in using less. The most promising way to do that, I believe--and 44 of us have agreed, and I will bet many do on the other side--has to do with plug-in electric cars and trucks. When I first started talking about that, people thought I had been out in the sun too long. In fact, Nissan, General Motors, Toyota, and Ford are all going to be selling us cars that we can plug in at night--hybrid cars. Three quarters of us drive less than 40 miles a day, and I am one of those. I can drive back and forth to the Senate using very little gasoline, if any. We could electrify half of our fleet of cars and trucks in the United States. That would take time, but it would be a clear direction toward using less oil. With just those provisions I have talked about--finding more and using less--we could cut our oil imports in half. That would reduce your gas prices. If you are driving a plug-in electric vehicle, by the way, there is plenty of electricity. At night, while we are asleep, most utilities have plenty of cheap electricity they would sell us. You plug your car or truck in at night for just about the same amount of charge that your water heater would use, and you could fill up with 60 cents of electricity instead of $100 worth of gasoline. Just these three ideas--deep sea exploration, oil shale, and plug-in vehicles--would cut oil imports in half. We are ready to do that. We would like for the majority leader to bring to the floor of the Senate an energy bill that is directed toward reducing the price of gasoline. Let each Democratic Senator put up their best idea, and let the Republicans put up our best ideas. Let's have a debate and votes, and they would probably take 60 votes. We cannot get everything done before we leave in August, or even before October, but we can begin. From the day the United States of America--the third largest producer of oil and the user of a quarter of all of the oil in the world--finds more and uses less, the future expected price of oil will go down, and today's price of oil will stabilize and begin to go down. I say to my friend, the majority leader, as one Senator, I welcome his interest and attention to energy, and specifically to gasoline prices. We Republicans have offered--44 of us--a slimmed-down bill, a modest bill. We don't say drill everywhere offshore. We don't say drill in Alaska in this piece of legislation. We say give States the option, and lift the moratorium on oil shale. Make electric plug-in cars and trucks commonplace and cut our oil imports in half over time. That is the way to reduce gasoline prices. We hope if we are able in this Senate to act like a Senate and spend a week or two on this legislation and consider a number of amendments, we can come up with a result and we can go home to our constituents in August and say: Yes, we got a result. And when we come back in September, if we can do more, we will. When we come back in January, if we can do more, we will. Everybody in Tennessee is saying to me: Senator Alexander, why don't you get together and work something out? I would like to do that, Mr. President. I didn't come here to play politics, talk trash, or stick my fingers in the eyes of the other side. In my first speech on, for example, U.S. history, the majority leader, who was then the whip, was on the Senate floor, and he stood up and cosponsored my bill. Senator Kennedy got 20 cosponsors for it. It is now law today. Surely, if we can do that with U.S. history summer academies, we can do it with gasoline prices when it is the No. 1 issue. Last Tuesday we had a bipartisan breakfast that was attended by 14 Senators. We heard from Senators Conrad, Chambliss, Domenici, and Bingaman. We talked about what we could agree on that had to do with both finding more and using less. We cannot repeal the law of supply and demand. We know that mostly on the Republican side we talk about supply. Over on the Democratic side, they talk about demand. We have to put it together if we want to bring gasoline prices down. That is what we should be doing. I think that opportunity exists today. In that closed room last Tuesday--and there is another bipartisan breakfast in the morning--I heard some Senators say things such as: If we cannot deal with this across party lines, we don't deserve to be here. I think that is right, and most Americans feel that way. The majority leader has many issues that have to be dealt with in the next 2 or 3 weeks. I hope he can find a way to bring his best ideas to the floor and allow us to do the same. Let's bring up the debates and let's talk and let's vote and come to a result, and let's begin to lower gasoline prices. From the day the United States of America says to the world that we are going to find more American oil and we are going to use less oil, the expected price of oil and gas will begin to go down, and so will today's price of gas and oil go down. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, sometimes American lives are lived so eloquently that nothing needs to be written about them. Sometimes even eloquent lives can be eloquently written about. Such was the case over the Fourth of July weekend. When I had a little extra time, I came across Peggy Noonan's article in the Wall Street Journal on July 5 about John Whitehead of New York. John Whitehead was on Normandy Beach. He chaired Goldman Saks. He was President Reagan's Deputy Secretary of State. He headed the International Rescue Commission. He has been in the middle of New York's efforts after 9/11. As Peggy Noonan wrote, he is a model public citizen. For the eloquence of his life and the eloquence of her article, I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. ALEXANDER

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have received 600 e-mails and letters from Tennesseans in response to a request I put out asking them to share their personal stories about high gas prices. It has been my practice each week to put a few of those into the Congressional Record to remind my colleagues and to remind our country that we understand that people are hurting. Tennesseans are hurting in their jobs, in their families, and in their homes. Mr. President, $4-plus gasoline is a big problem for Tennesseans. Today, I wish to submit for the Congressional Record five more letters from among the nearly 600 that I have received, and I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks these letters be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. The first comes from Christy Long in Maynardville, TN. She works at the East Tennessee Children's Hospital in Knoxville, but she is worried about the cost of her commute. She is a diabetic. She is having trouble paying for her insulin shots due to the rising gas prices. She says: Gas for work or insulin to live. That is the decision I have had to make several times daily. James Edwards from Charlotte, TN: James drives a rural route for the Postal Service, and he uses his own car, but the $26-a-day allowance doesn't cover the gas he uses anymore. He says that since the 10- percent ethanol mandate, he gets less mileage and has to use more gas. His wife's 40-mile commute to and from work every day is also cutting into their budget. Kaye Nolen in Dyer, TN: Kay used to drive across the country once a year to see her family in Illinois, Utah, and New Mexico, but can't afford to do that this year. She says she is afraid that she will not be able to spend Thanksgiving with her family this year and that she will not be able to afford gas to make it to work if the prices keep going up. Ruthann Booher of Crossville, TN: Ruthann and her husband have had to make significant cuts in their driving and grocery buying because of escalating costs. Her husband, who is 62, is now considering quitting his job at Wal-Mart and drawing Social Security since driving to work is so expensive. They can't afford the payment on a new car with better mileage. Brenda Northern in Walland, TN, which is in the same county in which I live: Brenda is 60. She can barely afford to drive to visit her mother, who is 79 now, and it is getting harder and harder to make all of her payments. Her husband has to use diesel for his truck because he moves mobile homes for a living and diesel prices keep going up too. She says: I just do not know how we are going to make it. I want Christy and James and Kaye and Ruthann and Brenda to know that I believe Senators on both sides of the aisle care about this matter, understand what is happening, and are ready to deal with it. I know on the Republican side, here is what we believe: We believe the answer to $4 gas prices is to find more and use less; that is, find more oil and use less oil. Economics 101 taught us the law of supply and demand. The problem today fundamentally--and most Americans understand this; Americans know this--our problem is our supplies worldwide are not growing as fast as our demand worldwide for oil, and so the price of gasoline is going up. So if we had more supplies, and if we used less oil, the price of gasoline would go down. So we say on the Republican side: Find more, use less. There seems to be a lot of agreement on both sides of the aisle about the using less part. For example, last year, the Senate did the most important thing it could do to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by passing higher fuel efficiency standards that said that cars and trucks had to be up to 35 miles a gallon by 2020. We did that together, Republicans and Democrats. We on the Republican side are ready to try to make plug-in electric cars commonplace. I had a TVA Congressional Caucus hearing on that the other day in Nashville. Major car companies such as General Motors, Toyota, Nissan, and Ford are making plug-ins that are going to be available next year. TVA and other utilities have plenty of extra electricity at night to plug in, so literally you can plug your car in at night for 60 cents and fill it up with fuel instead of $70 worth of gasoline. I believe tens of thousands of Tennesseans and millions of Americans are going to be doing that. If we set as our goal and take all the steps we need to take in the Senate to make plug-in electric cars and trucks commonplace, we could use less. Many estimates from General Motors and others is that just the plug-in electric vehicles would cut our imported oil by one-third, which is now about 12 million barrels a day. That is a significant reduction. We can use less oil if we have a crash program in advanced biofuels. There is a lot of concern about ethanol and its effect on food prices. Well, we can grow a lot of crops that we don't eat such as switchgrass, for example, and with more research on cellulosic ethanol we can use less oil. The other half our strategy to lower gas prices is finding more. That is where we have a difference of opinion. It seems that the other side of the aisle wants to repeal half the law of supply and demand. It is a new form of economics. Maybe we could call it ``Obama-nomics'' or some other name. But we say: All right, we agree on using less; now let's talk about finding more. What about, for example, allowing other States, such as Virginia, whose legislature says it wants to, to do what Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama do, which is to explore for oil offshore. We have a lot of it. We permitted an enlargement of that in the Gulf of Mexico a couple of years ago. Already the money is beginning to come in from the bids, and 37\1/2\ percent of the money goes to the States for their use for education or to nourish their beaches or whatever, and one-eighth goes to the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The Presiding Officer and I both were Governors of our States. Neither one of us was fortunate enough to have an ocean on our State, so we don't have any potential for offshore drilling. I can't speak for the former Governor of Nebraska, but I can for Tennessee. If we had the opportunity in Tennessee to put oil and gas rigs 50 miles offshore where we couldn't see them and explore for oil and gas, and keep 37\1/ 2\ percent of the revenue and put it in a fund for our universities to make them among the best in the world, and to keep taxes low, and to use the money for greenways or to nourish the beaches or for other purposes, we would do it in a minute. I would think sooner or later Virginia will say they would like to do that. Maybe North Carolina will. Maybe Florida will. Our proposal is simply, if the State wants to do it, the State can do it. No one is saying Virginia must do it or North Carolina must do it. It simply gives them the option, and it gives us more American oil and more supply to help stabilize and bring down the price of $4 gasoline. But Senator Obama and most of the Democrats on the other side of the aisle say: No, we can't. No, we can't to offshore drilling. No, we can't to oil shale, which is in four Western States. There is, conservatively speaking, according to the Department of the Interior, 1 million barrels a day that we could get from offshore exploration and 2 million barrels a day that we could get from oil shale. If we added 3 million barrels a day to our production in the United States, we would increase by one-third the production that we have in the United States. We would be making more of our contribution to the world supply of oil. We are the third largest producer of oil in the world. Why should we go begging the Saudis to drill more when we can produce more ourselves. That is part of it: Find more, use less. So we need to come to some conclusion. We want a bipartisan result. We know in the Senate we have to get 60 votes to make anything happen. But I would be hopeful that the Democratic leadership, which is in charge of the agenda, would allow us in July to bring up these matters and act like a Senate. Let's vote. Let's debate. Let's talk about ways to use less. We could find substantial agreement, whether it is on plug-in vehicles, research for advanced biofuels, or conservation. Senator Warner has suggested that the Federal Government ought to use less as a good example for the rest of the country. That is a good idea. Senator McCain and others have lots of good ideas as well. Let's talk about finding more, too, for gasoline in terms of offshore drilling or in terms of oil shale. We can leave drilling in Alaska out of the discussion if that keeps us from having a bipartisan agreement, although it is the fastest way to get 1 million new barrels of oil a day. Let's put it aside for just a moment and say we want to work across the aisle to get a bipartisan agreement. We know we can't reach that agreement with ANWR included, so we will put that aside for the moment. But can we not as a Senate, in a bipartisan way, agree that we should be finding more and using less and not be saying when it comes to offshore exploration, no, we can't, and not be saying when it comes to oil shale: No, we can't. When Senator McCain says we need to double our number of nuclear plants, we can't say that we have enough clean, carbon-free electricity to deal with clean air, global warming, and plug-in cars, but from the other side comes: No, we can't. We cannot say ``no, we can't'' to finding more if we want to bring down $4 gasoline prices. So I say to Christy, James, Kaye, Ruthann, Brenda, and the 600 Tennesseans who have written me about $4 gasoline, over this Fourth of July recess, a good thing to say to your Members of the Senate and Members of Congress is: Find more and use less. Yes, we can find more. Yes, we can use less. Yes, we can bring down the $4 price of gasoline. Some have said it will take 10 years. Well, President Kennedy didn't shy away from asking us to take 10 years to go to the Moon. President Roosevelt didn't shy away from putting in the Manhattan Project to split the atom and build a bomb to win the war even though he knew it would take several years. What is wrong with it taking several years? Are we supposed to sit here and let our 2-year-old grandchildren have the same energy crisis to deal with 10 years from now that we have today? Leadership is about looking ahead. It might take 1, 2, 5, or 10 years, but the time to start is today. The way to do it is working across the aisle. The formula for it is economics 101: More supply, less demand, find more, use less. Today, the Republicans are ready to do that. We are ready to do both, find more and use less. But the Democrats are not. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Exhibit 1 1. Christy Long, Maynardville, TN--Christy works at the East TN Children's Hospital in Knoxville but is worried about the cost of the commute. She is a diabetic and is having trouble paying for her insulin shots due to the rising gas prices: ``Gas for work or insulin to live . . . that is the decision that I have had to make several times daily.'' 2. James Edwards, Charlotte, TN--James drives a rural route for the Postal Service and uses his own car, but the $26-a- day allowance doesn't cover the gas he uses anymore. He says that since the 10% ethanol mandate, he gets less mileage and has to use more gas. His wife's 40-mile commute to and from work everyday is also cutting into their budget. 3. Kaye Nolen, Dyer, TN--Kaye used to drive across country once a year to see her family in Illinois, Utah and New Mexico, but can't afford to do that this year. She says she is afraid that she won't get to spend Thanksgiving with her family this year and that she won't be able to afford gas to make it to work if prices keep going up. 4. Ruthann Booher, Crossville, TN--Ruthann and her husband have had to make significant cuts in their driving and grocery buying because of escalating costs. Her husband, who is 62, is now considering quitting his job at Wal-Mart and drawing Social Security since driving to work is so expensive. They can't afford the payment on a new car with better mileage. 5. Brenda Northern, Walland, TN--Brenda is 60 and can barely afford to drive to visit her mother (who is 79) anymore, and its getting harder and harder to make all her payments. Her husband has to use diesel for his truck because he moves mobile homes for a living and diesel prices keep going up too. She says, ``I just do not know how we are going to make it!''

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, this week high school students from all across the Nation have come together to celebrate National History Day at the University of Maryland. I would like to commend these students, their parents, and their teachers for demonstrating such interest to the study of history. History education is the foundation of a quality education, and ensuring that we have passionate and dedicated students of history is an important accomplishment of the competitions and events at the University of Maryland this week. The National History Day program delivers yearlong programs dedicated to improving the teaching and learning of history across our country. Over 1.5 million students, teachers and parents, participate in the instructional and research projects each year. Since 1994, millions of Americans from all across the country have improved their knowledge of history through participation in this creative program. We know that there is a need for better teaching and learning of history. The 2006 National Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP, U.S. History report card shows that 82 percent of 4th graders, 83 percent of 8th graders, and 77 percent of high school seniors scored below proficient in historical knowledge. These results are similar to results for the past decade in NAEP assessments, and it concerns me greatly. As an advocate for putting American history and civics back into its rightful place in our school curriculum, I chose to do my maiden speech on the education of our children and the principles that unite us as Americans. Along with several other distinguished cosponsors, I introduced the American History and Civics Act in 2003 to create Presidential and Congressional Academies for Teachers of American History and Civics--and was pleased when that legislation was signed into law. I have had some experience with such academies when I was Governor of Tennessee. In 1984, we began creating Governor's Schools for students and teachers. Eventually there were eight Governor's Schools helping thousands of Tennessee teachers improve their skills and inspiring outstanding students to learn more about core curriculum subjects. When the school year began, students and teachers brought with them a new enthusiasm for learning and teaching that directly impacted their peers. Governor's Schools were one of the most effective and popular educational initiatives in our state, and I am pleased that we have been able to use that as a model for the Nation. I applaud the organizers National History Day for recognizing the importance of educating today's youth of the many great feats that were accomplished, the struggles that were overcome, and the events that took place to make this country what it is today. I also congratulate all of the students, teachers, and parents who participate in it--and in particular wanted to congratulate the following Tennessee students participating in this event: Emilee Frazier--Chuckey Doak Middle School, Afton, TN; Katie Adams--Chuckey Doak Middle School, Afton, TN; Gary Moats--Polk County High School, Benton, TN; Nick Ramsey--Polk County High School, Benton, TN; Matthew Vandevander--Polk County High School, Benton, TN; Anthony Joslin--Polk County High School, Benton, TN; Jon Rivers--Tyner Academy, Chattanooga, TN; Manish Jethva--Tyner Academy, Chattanooga, TN; Jacquelyn Benford--Tyner Academy, Chattanooga, TN; Markcus Kitchens--Tyner Academy, Chattanooga, TN; Walker Thompson--St. George's Middle School, Collierville, TN; Ryan Grover--St. George's Middle School, Collierville, TN; Mason McGough--St. George's Middle School, Collierville, TN; Andrew McBride--St. George's Middle School, Collierville, TN; Nikki Martinez--St. Benedict at Auburndale, Cordova, TN; Anna Cabe--St. Benedict at Auburndale, Cordova, TN; Mary Barczak-- St. Benedict at Auburndale, Cordova, TN; Andrew Grayson--Fred Page Middle School, Franklin, TN; Adam Anderson--Fred Page Middle School, Franklin, TN; and Olivia Smith--Fred Page Middle School, Knoxville, TN. Dylan Rasnick--Fred Page Middle School, Knoxville, TN; Katherine Ballew--Fred Page Middle School, Knoxville, TN; Willis Walker--Fred Page Middle School, Knoxville, TN; Erin Stapleton--Fred Page Middle School, Knoxville, TN; William Coe--Greenway School, Knoxville, TN; Sophie Yates--Greenway School, Knoxville, TN; Shannon Gleason--Knoxville Catholic High School, Knoxville, TN; Hannah Armendarez--Knoxville Catholic High School, Knoxville, TN; Xrista Christopoulos-- St. John Neumann School, Knoxville, TN; Alexander Grimm--St. John Neuman School, Knoxville, TN; Claire Northern--St. John Neuman School, Knoxville, TN; C.C. Hermes--St. John Neuman School, Knoxville, TN; Sarah Gallagher--Lebanon High School, Lebanon, TN; Jennifer Melroy--Lenoir City High School, Lenoir City, TN; Rachel Collins--Fort Loudoun Middle School, Loudon, TN; Sarah Aldy--St. Agnes Academy-St. Dominic School, Memphis, TN; Ali Delgado--St. Agnes Academy-St. Dominic School, Memphis, TN; Alex Arcamuzi--White Station High School, Memphis, TN; Sahaj Singh--White Station High School, Memphis, TN; Bhavna Kansal--White Station High School, Memphis, TN. Melissa Swauncy--White Station High School, Memphis, TN; Breanna Morrow--Mosheim Elementary, Mosheim, TN; Brittany Loveall--Mosheim Elementary, Mosheim, TN; Melissa Kinser-- Mosheim Elementary, Mosheim, TN; Melody Zurawski--Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet-Pearl High School, Nashville, TN; Quidra Cothran--Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet-Pearl High School, Nashville, TN; Kayla Garrett--Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet-Pearl High School, Nashville, TN; Amber Jackson-- Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet-Pearl High School, Nashville, TN; London Colbert--Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet-Pearl High School, Nashville, TN; Sonali Mahendran Meigs Magnet Middle School, Nashville, TN; Vivian Hughbanks--Stone House School, Signal Mountain, TN; Grace Hughbanks--Stone House School, Signal Mountain, TN; and Caitlyn Sudkamp--Walden Home School, Signal Mountain, TN.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I believe it is a good thing for us to talk about change. There is a right change and a wrong change. We believe in the law of supply and demand. They believe only in demand. We believe in lower taxes; they in higher taxes. We believe in change that allows you to buy your own policy and choose your own doctor. They would have a Government program. We believe in giving moms and dads more flexibility in choosing schools. They believe in letting the bureaucracy do it. I welcome this debate. We look forward to change. We just want to make sure it is the right change instead of the wrong change. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, Republican Senators--men and women-- welcome this opportunity to talk about the checklist for change offered by Democratic Senators. As Senator McCain has said: We all want change. But there is a right change and a wrong change. So I wish, in my few minutes, to take a few of the items on the Democratic checklist for change and talk about what I consider to be the right change and the wrong change. Let's start with taking care of our military families and veterans. That probably should go at the top of our list because of our respect not only for the men and women who are fighting overseas but for those who are at home, both families without children or families with children. Those who are here also served. We all have been seeking to update the GI bill for veterans so we can provide educational benefits to veterans today and to men and women who are on active duty that fit today's circumstances. Here is the major difference between Republicans and Democrats, an example of what I would consider to be the right change and the wrong change. Most Republicans favor an updating of the GI bill for veterans, as recommended by Senators McCain, Graham, and Burr, that would allow more servicemembers to transfer educational benefits to dependents. It would allow servicemembers to transfer educational benefits to their spouses or to their children. After serving at least 6 years, a member could transfer up to half of his or her education benefits to a spouse or children, or both. After serving for 12 years or more, a servicemember could transfer all of his or her education benefits to a spouse, children, or both. In bottom-line terms, the Republican bill would do what the Democratic checklist says--take care of our military families and veterans--but most Republicans support the idea of giving this transferability of benefits, which could provide up to $72,000 for a dependent or a spouse's education. The bill sponsored by most Democrats did not include that transferability of benefits. We believe we have the right change and that they have the wrong change. Let me take another item on the checklist--enforced fiscal accountability, or protect the family checkbook, both of those. Here is an example of what we believe would be the right change in fiscal accountability and helping balance the family budget. The Democrats had an opportunity, because they have the majority in this Chamber--remember, when we are talking about change, change in this Chamber would mean we would go from a Democratic majority to a Republican majority. The Democrats are in charge here. They set the agenda. What we talk about is what they bring up, the same as in the House of Representatives. The Democratic budget provided a tax plan which will cause most Americans to be paying a lot more. Over the next 5 years, their tax plan provided for 84 million women to see a $1,970 increase, because they would allow the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to expire. Also, 48 million married couples would see a $2,700 increase, and 12 million single women with children would see a $1,000 increase. And more than 6 million low-income individuals and couples will no longer be exempt from the individual income tax. Again, the right change for women and men in America would be the Republican version of lower taxes. The Democratic version is higher taxes. Let me go to a third item--making America energy independent. How will we do that? The new economics professors on the other side of the aisle have come up with a brand new economics theory which would repeal supply from the law of supply and demand. They are led by Senator Obama, who is the leading economics professor on that side with this new theory. In the New York Times this morning he said he opposes drilling in Alaska for oil and gas. He is not, in his words, a proponent of nuclear power, which provides 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity. He would consider banning new coal plants--and coal provides 45 percent of our electricity--and in 2006 he voted against expanding oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. That leaves him, it seems to me, with very little to supply electricity and oil for a country that uses 25 percent of all the energy in the world. Instead of a national energy policy, that side has a national windmill policy. They still have demand, but we agree with demand; that is, using less oil. Many of us on the Republican side voted for fuel efficiency standards. We believe in green buildings. We are ready to move toward electric plug-in cars and trucks to reduce our demand. But we are going to have to plug them into something. So we need five or six new nuclear plants a year, we need to explore offshore, we need to take the moratorium off oil shale, and we need to go into the very narrow part of Alaska where we would propose to explore there, still leaving nearly 17 million acres for wilderness. We believe in the law of supply and demand. They do not believe in supply. We have the right change, we believe. They have the wrong change when it comes to energy independence. In health care, the right change we believe would be a policy that would merge the idea of giving every American an opportunity to afford health insurance by reforming the Tax Code but using at the same time two words, ``private sector,'' to make sure you can buy your own policy and choose your own doctor. They want the wrong change which would create a Government system where you could not do that. Finally, I notice that education is not even on the Democratic checklist. I am not so surprised. I wouldn't put it on either if I had their set of priorities because they are opposed to the one thing that most women in America want more of, which is flexibility of time. They are opposed to giving parents more choices of schools. We have choices of colleges and universities and community colleges, but working moms cannot have a choice of the school or of an afterschool program. Some bureaucrat decides that. That is the wrong change. We would give them the right change. The Democrats oppose a Pell grant for kids, which I proposed, which would give $500 to every low-income child for afterschool music lessons, programs, other afterschool education activities. We support charter schools. Some of the other side do, but mostly they are opposed to that. We would favor paying teachers more for teaching well. I did that in Tennessee when I was Governor. That mainly benefited women because there were more female teachers than men. We wanted them to have a better professional career and time in the classroom, but it was the Democrats who said no to that. And it is better for the students, to pay outstanding teachers more for teaching well because then the classrooms keep better teachers which is good for students. Finally, in No Child Left Behind there is something called the Teacher Incentive Fund. I thank Senator Durbin for joining me in trying to support that, but many of the Democrats on the other side have said no because that money is being used to find ways to pay principals more for being better principals, and to pay teachers more for being better teachers. They want a flat pay for all of them because that is what the unions want. So we want the right kind of change on education, but it is not even on the Democratic checklist.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have invited Tennesseans to send me e-mails or to write letters about how high gas prices are affecting their daily lives. I am hearing from a lot of them. Pat Taylor of Morristown, TN, who is the director of the local Meals on Wheels program, tells me the drivers travel 1,100 miles a day to deliver meals, but food and gasoline prices could force many meal recipients into retirement homes if something is not done. Mileage reimbursements are not sufficiently covering the expenditures of drivers. Dr. Kathryn Stewart, of Winchester, TN, tells me that the school nutrition director has had to raise school lunch prices 50 cents per meal to compensate for the rise in gas and food prices, but they will still lose money this year. She worries about the future of her business there. Abbie Byrom, of Johnson City, TN--that is in the eastern part of our State--is a third-year medical student at East Tennessee State University. She lives on loans through the school system. But, she says, cost-of-living loans do not cover expenses on traveling to all the area hospitals and medical centers. She says most of her fellow students are living by maxing out their credit cards. Jerry and Judy Wilson, of Monterey, TN, run a weekend concessions business, but sales have been cut in half because of rising gas prices. They say: People can't come to the events because of fuel prices. Joshua Yarbrough, of Franklin, TN, moved his family with three children to a larger house in Franklin, outside Nashville, 4 years ago, and is now having trouble paying his mortgage because of rising gas prices. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, following my remarks, each of these letters.

Mr. ALEXANDER. So, Mr. President, given the extraordinary impact of $4-a-gallon gasoline on the people of Tennessee and the people of this country, they are looking to us in the Senate and the Congress to do something about this. I noticed there are some interesting new professors of economics on the Democratic side of the aisle who seem to be trying to repeal the law of supply and demand. I have been studying this strange development, and I am trying to trace the source of it. It would appear that maybe the source of it is the young new chairman of the department of economics on that side of the aisle, because the New York Times reports this morning that Senator Obama opposes drilling in Alaska, and says he is ``not a proponent,'' in his words, of nuclear power, which provides 20 percent of our electricity today and 70 percent of our clean carbon-free electricity. He would consider banning new coal plants without clean coal technology. Coal produces 45 percent of our electricity today. In 2006, he voted against further exploration in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas, in a portion of the Gulf known as Lease 181. More than 70 Senators from both sides of the aisle voted for it, which, so far as I can tell, leaves Senator Obama with not much more than a national windmill policy, as opposed to a national energy policy, for this great United States of America, which consumes every year 25 percent of the energy in the world. Of course, it leaves these new professors of economics with the demand part of the supply-and-demand equation. We Republicans also believe in demand. We are for green buildings. We believe most of the new buildings ought to be green buildings. That is probably the easiest way to save electricity. Japan has discovered over the last several years that most of its failure to reach the Kyoto standards it was trying to achieve came from the inefficiency of buildings. Half of us on the Republican side voted for the fuel efficiency standards in December. That has to do with the demand side of the equation--using less oil, less energy. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists told me that the single most important thing we could do as a Congress would be to increase the fuel efficiency standards by 40 percent. That means the cars and trucks in America should average 35 miles per gallon by the year 2020. We voted to do that in a bipartisan way. So we agree on that part of demand as well. Then we Republicans, as well as many Democrats, I am sure, are ready to give strong support to the idea of plug-in electric cars and trucks. I was in Nashville on Monday with Congressman Bud Cramer, who is a Democratic Congressman from Alabama. He and I cochair the TVA Congressional Caucus. The question we presented for the hearing was, Will electric plug-in cars and trucks help lower $4 gas prices? I believe the answer is yes, and so did a lot of the people who came to see the cars. One of the vehicles there was a plug-in electric car made by the A123 company in Boston. It is a Toyota Prius, of which there are now a million on the road, and the A123 company had converted the Prius, which is a 40-miles-per-gallon car, into an electric plug-in vehicle, and it is now a 100-miles-per-gallon car. All they did was replace the car's smaller rechargeable battery with a larger rechargeable battery, and they put a cord on the back of it and the driver plugs the cord in at night at his house in a wall socket and he charges it up for 60 cents. So instead of filling it up for $70, he is charging it up for 60 cents. According to the General Motors Company witness who testified at our hearing on Monday, 75 percent of us drive fewer than 40 miles a day. I know I drive less than 40 miles a day going back and forth when I am in Washington, so if I were driving that electric plug-in car, I would be using no gasoline whatsoever. So plug-in cars and trucks are a real prospect and a real important part of the demand part of the supply-and-demand law we strongly support on this side of the aisle, and so do many Democrats as well. It is 100 percent American energy. GM, Toyota, Nissan, Ford--all are going to be selling these cars to Americans in the year 2010, which is a model year that is about a year and a half away. Sixty cents is the cost of the charge for a 30-mile drive. It is about the same amount of electricity it takes to use your water heater for 1 day. It doesn't require new powerplants because the Tennessee Valley Authority chairman who was at the hearing told us that they have plenty of extra electricity at night when our lights are off, so we can plug in at night. This involves trucks too. There were FedEx delivery truck witnesses at the hearing. They are already using hybrid delivery trucks, and they are planning to use that technology for big trucks. If we were to electrify half our cars and trucks in America over time--which is 120 million, since we have about 240 million cars and trucks in this country--we could cut in half the amount of oil we import. That would cut from $500 billion to $250 billion the amount of money we are sending overseas to people, many of whom are funding terrorists who are trying to kill us. It would strengthen the dollar. It would certainly lower fuel costs for those who are plugging in their cars instead of driving them--or plugging them in instead of filling them with gasoline--and it would reduce the demand for oil so much that it would surely reduce the price of gasoline as well. Plug-in electric cars and trucks would lead us to support a number of other initiatives: Smart meters so that in our homes we could pay TVA-- or whoever our electric utility is--a little more in the afternoon for electricity used at peak power, but at night we would have cheap power for our plug-in vehicles. Battery research. The additional cost of such a plug-in vehicle is determined primarily by how rapidly we can develop batteries that will take a charge to allow 40, 60, 80, 100, or even more miles each time because we will be running coal plants at night to provide this electricity. We would need to clean up our coal plants, but we should be doing that anyway, whether they are in Pennsylvania or Tennessee or Ohio. We need to get rid of the sulfur and the nitrogen and the mercury, and we need a crash program to find a practical way to recapture the carbon from coal plants if we are serious about dealing with climate change. So there are a number of policy changes we on the Republican side of the aisle are ready to make to lower gas prices and to honor the law of supply and demand. But the problem is the new professors of economics on that side of the aisle, led by Senator Obama, are trying to take the word ``supply'' out of the law of supply and demand. If we are going to drive plug-in electric cars and trucks, we are going to need a supply of electricity, so we need to be building five or six nuclear powerplants a year. But the professors on that side say they are not proponents of that; they don't think it's part of the solution. It has to be a part of the solution in a country that uses 25 percent of all of the electricity in the world. It would be embarrassing to say that France is ahead of us in this, but they are. Eighty percent of the electricity in France is from nuclear powerplants. It is clean--no mercury, no sulfur, no nitrogen, no carbon. They meet the climate change standards today, and if they shift in France to driving electric cars and trucks, they will have no problem. They can plug them in at night to recharge them. They will have no pollution problems. They will reduce their dependence on oil. They will save money in their pockets. They won't be exporting money to Middle Eastern countries or to others that may be funding terrorists. They will be ahead of us if we don't advance the technology we invented and begin to build five or six new nuclear plants a year for the foreseeable future. We also need to take the ill-advised moratorium off oil shale. We have plenty of oil shale in the ground and new environmentally sound ways to get it out of the ground. That is a part of supply as well. Most of that is in our Western States. We also need to give other States the opportunity to do what Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi already do, which is to explore 50 miles offshore for oil and gas. We have plenty of that. We could be producing an extra million barrels a day of oil and gas from offshore exploration, and by adding to the supply we would be reducing the price of gasoline and bringing it down below $4. We need to change the law and do that. Senator McCain says we need to do it. What would it involve to give States that option? The Virginia State Legislature, for example, has said they would like to explore off the coast of Virginia, at least for natural gas. So we need to lift the Federal moratorium and the Presidential Executive order that keeps them from doing that offshore. If I were the Governor of Virginia, I would certainly want to do it. I would put the rigs 50 miles out where no one could see them. We know we can do it in an environmentally clean way. We heard a lot of bad things as a result of Hurricane Katrina, but we didn't hear of one oil spill from any of the oil and gas rigs that are all in the Gulf of Mexico. So we know how to drill cleanly. The oil spills we have are from cargo freighters that are bringing oil from overseas to us. That is where the problem is. If we were exploring offshore for our own oil and gas, we would not only be lowering our gas prices, but we would be providing States and the Federal Government with additional revenue as well. Under the formula we passed in 2006 for Lease 181 in the Gulf of Mexico, Virginia would get 37.5 percent of the dollars. What would that do for Virginia? They already have a good higher education system, but I think if I were the Governor, I would say: Let's put a lot of that in a trust fund for higher education and make the Virginia colleges and universities the best in the world without raising taxes. Let's put some of it to nourish the beaches of Virginia. Let's maybe use some of it for roads or for health care or for lowering taxes. They could do all of that with their three-eighths of those revenues. We also said that one-eighth of the money from that offshore exploration in Lease 181 would go to the State side of the Land and Water Conservation Fund for city parks and greenways and open spaces in Pennsylvania and Tennessee and all across this country, which we have been trying to do for 40 years. The whole idea of the Land and Water Conservation Fund enacted in the 1960s was to say: We will fund it up to $900 million a year from money from offshore oil and gas exploration; we recognize that exploration is an environmental burden, so we will turn part of it into an environmental benefit. We have never fully funded the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and this is a way to do that. There are other ideas--Senator Salazar, Senator Kyl, and I join in this as well--to take some of the excessive money from offshore drilling and fully fund the National Park Centennial Initiative that President Bush has proposed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of our National Park System. I know of the excitement around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as we have added 55 new park personnel to that park and a lot of new private funding for park projects simply because of this Centennial Initiative the President has proposed. We need to fund it, and this would be a way to fund it. So we need a supply of electricity if we are going to drive electric cars. We need oil shale if we are going to continue to produce oil, from which gasoline is made. We need offshore exploration--another way to increase the supply of oil. I believe, as do many others on our side of the aisle, that we should also be exploring in Alaska. Jay Leno said the other night that the Democrats objected to that because they said it wouldn't produce any oil for 10 years. Well, as Jay Leno said, that is what the Democrats said 10 years ago. Presidents and Senators are supposed to look ahead, to look down the road. If we can add a million barrels of oil a day from Alaska; if we can add a million barrels of oil a day from offshore exploration; if we can add 2 million barrels of oil a day from oil shale, which we can do; if we can build five or six nuclear plants a year and help us create carbon-free, clean energy so we can electrify our cars and trucks and reduce our demand for oil, then we will have lower gas prices because we will be honoring the immutable law of supply and demand which says find more and use less. The difference between us is that on this side of the aisle we believe in the law of supply and demand: find more and use less. On that side of the aisle, they seem to believe in a different economics, which is use less. They want to repeal supply and only insist on demand. So there is a fundamental difference. I am glad Senator McCain must have gone to a different college of economics than the one I think I sense on the other side of the aisle. He has suggested that we do both, that we increase our supply and we reduce our demand by finding more oil and using less oil. He has specifically supported offshore drilling if States want to do that. He has specifically said we should lift the moratorium on oil shale and proceed in an environmentally responsible way to explore for that. He has said as well that we need to move ahead with five or six nuclear powerplants a year, and he has been a strong advocate for green buildings, for fuel efficiency, and for plug-in electric vehicles. At the same time, he has said he believes we need to take steps to deal with climate change, emphasizing the importance of nuclear power because that provides 20 percent of all of our electricity but 70 percent of our carbon-free power. So I look forward to the debate over the next few months. It is beginning to come into shape. Two different views of economics: an attractive young head of the department from that side of the aisle who wants to change the law of supply and demand to only include demand, which apparently would leave us with a national windmill policy; or a more grizzled Senator who apparently went to a different college of economics who believes in the old-fashioned law of supply and demand and would like to focus on both. This will be a debate worthy of the Senate. It will be important to all of those Tennesseans who are writing me wanting that $4 per gallon price to go down. My recommendation to them is to vote for Senators and vote for Presidents who will both increase our supply and reduce our demand--who will find more, use less, and not try to invent a new theory of economics which will leave us with our lights off and our gas prices high. I yield the floor. Exhibit 1 From: Pat Taylor Sent: Thu 6/12/2008 9:43 AM To: Alexander,Senator Cc: Susan Luker Subject: Gas Prices Affect Meals On Wheels In East Tennessee Dear Senator Alexander: My name is Pat Taylor. I am Program Director for Douglas Cherokee Economic Authority Senior Nutrition Program (Meals On Wheels). We are currently serving hundreds of elderly and disabled citizens in the counties of Cocke, Grainger, Hamblen, Jefferson, Monroe, and Sevier. I am writing to you on behalf of all of these homebound clients who receive our meals five days a week. We currently drive 1,100 miles per day to deliver these meals. With the increase in food costs as well as gasoline prices, this has become a burden for our program and our delivery aides. They use their own vehicles to deliver. With gas prices rising daily, the mileage reimbursement they receive desperately needs to be increased in order for meal delivery to continue. Anything you can do will be greatly appreciated. Many elderly and disabled Tennesseans are able to avoid being institutionalized because of the daily contact and nutrition provided by the Senior Nutrition Program. Sincerely, Pat Taylor, Director, Douglas Cherokee Economic Authority, Senior Nutrition Program.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I see the Senator from Delaware. I wonder, through the Chair, if he needs to speak.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 12 minutes as in morning business.

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

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

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the hour of morning business under the Republican control be divided equally among the following Senators: Senators Alexander, Kyl, Hatch, Cornyn, Bond, and Murkowski.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask that I be informed when I have consumed 9 minutes and have 1 minute remaining.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I congratulate the 2007 winners of the Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility, which recognizes companies that successfully have used flexibility to meet both business and employee goals. As I did last year, I wish to draw attention to the Sloan Awards because I think these companies should be commended for their excellence in providing workplace flexibility practices which benefit both employers and employees. Achieving greater flexibility in the workplace--to maximize productivity while attracting the highest quality employees--is one of the key challenges facing American companies in the 21st century. For 2007, businesses in the following 24 cities were eligible for recognition: Aurora, CO; Boise, ID; Brockton, MA; Chandler, AZ; Chattanooga, TN; Chicago, IL; Cincinnati, OH; Dallas, TX; Dayton, OH; Detroit, MI; Durham, NC; Houston, TX; Long Beach, CA; Long Island, NY; Melbourne-Palm Bay, FL; Morris County, NJ; Providence, RI; Richmond, VA; Salt Lake City, UT; Savannah, GA; Seattle WA; Spokane, WA; Tampa, FL; Washington, DC; and Winona, MN. The Chamber of Commerce in each city hosted an interactive business forum to share research on workplace flexibility as an important component of workplace effectiveness. In these same communities, businesses applied for--and the winners that I am about to name were selected for--the Sloan Awards through a process that considered employees' views in addition to employer practices. In Aurora, CO, the winners are Arapahoe/Douglas Works!, Lee Hecht Harrison, and The Medical Center of Aurora. In Boise, ID, the winners are American Geotechnics, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Idaho, Children's Home Society of Idaho, DJM Sales & Marketing Inc, Group One Real Estate, J-U-B Engineers, KPMG, The Leavitt Group of Boise, Prime Equity Mortgage Group, St. Luke's Regional Medical Center, and TitleOne Corporation. In Brockton, MA, the winner is Old Colony Elderly Services. In Chandler, AZ, the winners are A&S Realty Specialists, Abalos & Associates PLLC, AHM Mortgage, Arizona Spine and Joint Hospital, Cachet Homes, Chandler Chamber of Commerce, Chandler Connection, Chandler Unified School District, Clifton Gunderson LLP, Hacienda Builders, Henry & Horne LLP, Intel Corporation, Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, Johnson Bank, MDI, Microchip Technology Inc., Omega Legal Systems Inc., RIESTER, Spark, Technology Providers Inc., Today's Women's Health Specialists, US Airways, and Wist Office Products. In Chattanooga, TN, the winners are Center for Community Career Education at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Management Recruiters of Chattanooga, Reading Education for Adult Development (READ) of Chattanooga, and Unum. In Chicago, IL, the winners are Ernst & Young, First Midwest Bank, KPMG LLP, Lee Hecht Harrison, and Perspectives ltd. In Cincinnati, OH, the winners are Barnes Dennig, CSC Consulting Group, Deloitte & Touche, FSCreations, and Physical Therapy Options. In Dallas, TX, the winners are Accenture, BDO Seidman LLP, The Beck Group, Community Council of Greater Dallas, Deloitte, Direct Energy, Kaye/Bassman International, Lee Hecht Harrison, Nortel Networks, and State Farm Insurance. In Detroit, MI, the winners are Albert Kahn Associates Inc., Amerisure Mutual Insurance Company, Brogan & Partners Convergence Marketing, Detroit Regional Chamber, Humantech, and Menlo Innovations. In Durham, NC, the winners are Durham's Partnership for Children, Greenfire Development, Horvath Associates, P.A., and VirtualOfficeAmerica. In Houston, TX, the winners are Access Sciences Corporation, Binkley & Barfield Inc., Continental Airlines, Deloitte, Direct Energy, El Paso Corporation, Fullbright & Jaworski LLP, Klotz Associates Inc., KPMG LLP, PGAL, PKF Texas, and Simdesk Technologies Inc. In Long Beach, CA, the winners are KPMG and PeacePartners Inc. In Long Island, NY, the winners are CMP Technology, Girl Scouts of Nassau County, and KPMG. In Melbourne-Palm Bay, FL, the winners are Melbourne-Palm Bay Area Chamber of Commerce and Wesche Jewelers. In Morris County, NJ, the winner is Solix, Inc. In Providence, RI, the winners are Embolden Design Inc., Family Service of Rhode Island, KPMG, LGC&D P.C., Lighthouse Computer Services, Inc., Rhode Island Housing, and Rhode Island Legal Service, Inc. In Richmond, VA, the winners are Bon Secours Richmond Health System, Capital One Financial, Chesterfield County Government, and VCU Health System. In Salt Lake City, UT, the winners are Cooper Roberts, Enterprise Rent-A-Car Company, Intermountain Healthcare, Jones Waldo Holbrook & McDonough P.C., McKinnon-Mulherin Inc., Prince, Perelson & Associates, Redmond Minerals, Inc., and Select Health. In Savannah, GA, the winners are Lazard Dana LLP and Wachovia. In Seattle, WA, the winners are Blue Gecko, Cascadia Consulting Group, Child Care Resources, Consejo Counseling and Referral Services, Friends of the Children, Leadership Institute of Seattle, MarketFitz Inc., NRG::Seattle, PACE Staffing, Washington Health Foundation, WithinReach, Worktank, and URS. In Spokane, WA, the winner is Gonzaga University. In Tampa, FL, the winners are Argosy University Tampa, CIBERsites, Citigroup, Greenacre Properties Inc., Kerkering, Barberio & Co. P.A., Residential Drywall Inc., Self Reliance, Inc., Success 4 Kids & Families, and TEKsystems. In Washington, DC, the winners are Capital One Financial, Discovery Communications Inc., and MorganFranklin Corp. In Winona, MN, the winner is Wells Fargo Bank. The Sloan Awards are presented by the When Work Works initiative, which is a project of the Families and Work Institute, in partnership with the Institute for a Competitive Workforce, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Twiga Foundation. The When Work Works initiative is sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Building on the success of the first 3 years, the next phase of the When Work Works initiative will extend the number of participating communities to 30 in 2008 to include: Atlanta, GA; Birmingham, AL; Charleston, SC; Dayton, OH; Lexington, KY; Louisville, KY; and San Francisco, CA. Again, I congratulate the 2007 winners of the Sloan Awards and look forward to the continuing expansion of this worthwhile initiative.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. President. I will continue for about another 60 seconds, and then I will conclude my remarks. I have letters from Kathy Crowe from Hendersonville, TN; Joseph Rizzo from Townsend, TN, where I live; and Marti Lewis from Pleasantville, TN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letters be printed in the Record.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I will give the Senator from New York an A+ for creative imagination. Here we are wanting to debate the climate change bill--which is a 53-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase proposed primarily by Members of the other side, and which includes a $6.7 trillion slush fund that Members of Congress could spend as they see fit--and members of the majority party were so embarrassed by it they tried to bring it down and pull it from the floor. This is a bill we should be spending all month talking about. If it is really important to deal with gas prices and electricity prices and climate change and clean air and our overdependence on foreign oil, where are the debaters on climate change? That is the bill we are on today. We-- the Republicans--said let's continue to discuss this important issue. They said: No, let's bring it down. And for what purpose? To bring up their no-energy bill. Their solution to gas prices--very cleverly disguised by the Senator from New York--is more lawsuits, more taxes, and no exploration. Our solution is more American energy now. The Senator from New York said: Well, why should we drill in the 2000 acres of Alaska that would produce a million barrels of oil a day? It would be 10 years before we would see that oil. The answer is that it would be 1 million barrels of oil a day, which would add 1 million to the 6 million we produce. Ten years ago, President Clinton vetoed legislation passed by a Republican Congress to permit more oil exploration in Alaska. If he had not, we would have 1 million more barrels of oil a day of American energy. So that is the reason we should go ahead. We need more American energy now. We are for it; they are not. We are for it; they are not. More American energy now. We know the future is a different kind of future for energy. I have suggested--with support from many of my colleagues--that we have a new Manhattan Project, in effect, to focus on things we do not know how to do. How do we get solar power down to the cost of fossil fuel? How do we make plug-in electric cars commonplace? How do we safely dispose of nuclear waste by reprocessing it? How do we have more research for advanced biofuels, made from crops we do not eat? We want that kind of future, where America has achieved clean energy independence. We want to start today to move toward it with the same intellectual horsepower and speed and dollars that we moved toward splitting the atom and building a bomb in World War II. But that is the future. The bridge to the future is to use more American energy now. Gasoline is made from oil. We use 25 percent of the world's oil. Until we get to this future, we are going to need more of it. We can either buy it from the Middle East and from Venezuela, or we can make more of it here. It is that simple. Today, and in days to follow, I will be reading letters from Tennesseans who have written to me about the effect of gas prices on their families. I received 400 such e-mails in the last few days. Let me read one from Lounita Howard from Lascassas, TN, which is in Rutherford County: The high gas prices have hit my husband and myself especially hard. We are both self-employed. Bobby is a full- time farmer (one of few remaining in Wilson County, Tennessee), and I own a small community newspaper, The Watertown Gazette. I live nearly 20 miles from my office, but working from home is not an option. I'm spending close to $70 a week on gas just commuting to Watertown from our farm in Lascassas. (We live just in Wilson County.) Two years ago, it cost me $30 to $35 a week. Diesel fuel is another story. Road fuel is running around $4.70 a gallon. Off-road fuel for tractors is around $4.30 or $4.40. She goes on to tell about her husband Bobby, who is a seventh generation farmer. I have a letter, also, from Jonathan Henry, a marine for 18 years, who is a Tennessee native who returned from 12 months in Iraq. His family was given a flat rate for moving costs. Gas is so high, they have had to make cuts in about everything else, he says. He had to forego his family vacation. It is too expensive to go on now.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, could you let me know when 5 minutes have expired, please.