Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Medicaid is the largest government program we have today, bigger than Medicare; it has low-income Americans in every State. I believe the Baucus proposal plans to add about 11 million more low-income Americans to this plan that 40 percent of doctors will not see patients for?

Mr. ALEXANDER. We have 5 minutes left. We will go to Senator Thune and let Senator Brownback wrap up our time. But ``Medicare cuts,'' those are scary words to most Americans. And some people say: Well, you Republicans are trying to scare the seniors of America when you say the words ``Medicare cuts.'' But is it not a fact that the Baucus plan would cut Medicare by about $500 billion and use it for a different program instead of shoring up the Medicare Program?

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent that each side be granted 4 additional minutes in morning business.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, how much time is available for the Republican side?

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I congratulate the Senator from California. She is characteristically balanced in her approach and passionate about it which becomes a former mayor who is accustomed to making practical decisions. We have all had to change our minds about some things as we go along. There is in this body an entire range of views about climate change. Some are about ready to jump off the cliff. Others believe it is a complete hoax. That is probably the way it is in the country today among a variety of views. My own view is that if I had this much information about my house probably catching on fire, I would buy some fire insurance. What we need to do in the Senate is say: Yes, it is a problem, and we are helping to cause it. What makes the most practical sense for dealing with it in a rapid way without running our jobs overseas where they are looking for cheap energy? There are a variety of ways to do that. I totally agree that renewable energies are an important new source, but we need to be smart about it. One way to be smart is intensive research. We may find a way to make solar power a fourth the cost of what it is today. Then we have rooftops instead of thousands of square miles of thermal powerplants we can use. We may find cost effective ways to recapture carbon from coal plants. That would be a blessing not only for us but for the world because it would mean low-cost energy without polluting the world. It is important to recognize that the Obama administration's chief scientist, Dr. Chu, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, says unequivocally that nuclear power is safe and used nuclear fuel can be safely stored onsite for 40 to 60 years, while we have a mini Manhattan project to find the best way to recycle that used nuclear fuel, most likely in a way that doesn't produce highly enriched uranium of the kind that causes proliferation concerns. So the two questions often raised regarding nuclear power--what to do with the waste and is it safe. The chief scientist in this administration says those concerns aren't a problem. If that is the case, then nuclear power has to be a big part of the solution. I am delighted I had a chance to hear the Senator speak on climate change. I hope, as we talk more about this over the next several months, we can agree on a consensus and permit the President to go to international summits and show the United States is actually leading.

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

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I say to the Senator from California that I join her in urging our colleagues to come to the floor and offer their amendments so we can move on through the bill. There is an opportunity to offer them and to debate them. Mr. President, if someone comes to the floor I will finish quickly so they can take the floor and we can move on with the bill, but while we are waiting for that, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, with great respect to the President of the United States, I am still shaking my head a little bit in disbelief at his speech yesterday on climate change at the Climate Change Summit in New York. Here we had 100 leaders from around the world in our country to talk about climate change and the President said what he has said before, which is that we need to stop putting so much carbon in the air because carbon is the principal greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change, in the opinion of most scientists. But in saying that, the President did not mention the one way we have to create a lot of low-cost electricity without putting any carbon in the air, and that is nuclear power--a process that the United States invented; a process that the United States operates more efficiently than any other country in the world. It produces 19 percent of our electricity, and our plants operate 90 percent of the time. Even France, which gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, only operates its plants 80 percent of the time. He failed to mention nuclear power even though it produces 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity, and even though every one of the other top five carbon emitting nations in the world are committed to a full-scale construction program for nuclear power. This is what the President said: The developed nations that caused much of the damage to the climate over the last century have the responsibility to lead--and that includes the United States. Well, according to the Wall Street Journal on Monday, September 21, in its news pages, we know who produces the carbon: China is No. 1--6 million metric tons; the United States is No. 2--nearly 6 million metric tons. So we produce about the same. Russia is next--1.7 million; India is next; Japan is next. Those are the top five carbo emitting nations. President Obama lectured other countries when he said: But those rapidly developing nations-- And here he means China and India-- that will produce nearly all the growth in global carbon emissions in the decade ahead must do their part as well. He is right about that. The President went on to say: We cannot meet these challenges unless all the largest emitters of greenhouse gas pollution act together. There's no other way. He is right about that. But then, to my great astonishment--and I am sure to others--he stopped there and he basically was saying to China and to Russia and to India, as well as Japan: You must do something about carbon. We are going to take the lead. Yet they all are building nuclear power plants that emit zero carbon and we haven't started one new reactor in 30 years, even though we invented it. How can the President of the United States lecture other countries about the carbon they produce--the principal greenhouse gas--when they are expanding the one technology that could do the most to solve the problem? Let's be very elementary here. Coal and natural gas plants produce nearly 40 percent of the carbon when they produce electricity. The President did boast of how the United States is committed to building windmills and solar panels. In fact, his administration wants to build 20 percent of our electricity from wind turbines. These aren't grandma's windmills, these are the giant 50-story wind turbines that they want to string along the Appalachian Mountain tops, from the Smokey Mountains to the White Mountains, along the coastlines, and run 19,000 miles of transmission lines to get the power to our homes and businesses. That is the plan. And to a point, that plan can help. I mean, renewable energy--solar panels, wind turbines--is a supplement to the electricity we need. But today, wind turbines and solar panels produce about 3 to 4 percent of America's carbon-free electricity. Nuclear power produces 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity. So why not expand nuclear power? Yet we haven't built a new nuclear powerplant in 30 years. What is happening around the world? Well, they are not slowing down. They are taking full advantage, as the world often has, of American ingenuity. We invented nuclear power here. And after we invented the atom bomb, President Eisenhower and other scientists in the 1950s said: Let's have an atoms for peace program. So we went off on two tracks. We used nuclear reactors to operate our Navy, which we have done successfully, without incident ever since the 1950s. Admiral Rickover pioneered that. So today we have about 80 Navy vessels operated by reactors and, during the 1970s and 1980s, we built 104 nuclear reactors. This was the Atoms for Peace Program. We took what probably was the greatest scientific invention of the last century, the reactor, and used it to produce a lot of low-cost, reliable energy--which is the dream of the world, to have a lot of low- cost, reliable energy for everyone in the world. That is the one of the single best steps toward reducing poverty and increasing prosperity. So here we are in the United States, using our 104 nuclear reactors-- not having built a new one in the last 30 years--to produce 19 percent of our electricity and 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity. But what is happening around the world? There are 44 new nuclear powerplants under construction in the world. China has four under construction. This was the first country the President would be lecturing: Do something about carbon-free electricity. So China is planning 132 nuclear powerplants and we are constructing zero. We have not constructed one in 30 years. How can we lecture China about carbon if they are building 132 nuclear powerplants, which would be enough to produce one-fourth of all the electricity the United States uses? That is more than we produce today through nuclear power. Russia is building two a year. One reason Russia is doing it is because they want to sell their natural gas to Europe at a lot more expensive price, so they are taking advantage of nuclear power to raise their standard of living. Japan is 36 percent nuclear power today. Japan, as everyone knows, suffered under the two atom bombs that were dropped. But they have come to terms with the safe use of atoms for peace, nuclear-power-produced electricity--36 percent of their electricity is nuclear. They are building two more plants. The United States has not built a plant in 30 years. South Korea, one of the most successful emerging countries--in America, one of those countries that the President might be saying you need to do something about climate change--they are. Forty percent of their electricity is carbon-free nuclear power and they are building eight more nuclear plants by 2015 and we have not built one in 30 years. India, the largest democracy--we point our finger at them and say we don't have to do anything about climate change until you do. They are. They are considering a thorium reactor. They are committed to nuclear power, partly because of the agreement between the United States and the Bush administration and India, and we are helping them build nuclear powerplants. We are helping China as well. But we have not built one in 30 years. The President even said Iran has the right to build a nuclear powerplant; not a nuclear bomb but a nuclear powerplant. We have not built one in 30 years. France--we don't usually like to say the French are ahead of us. We have a little love-hate relationship with France, but look what they have done. They have taken our nuclear reactor invention and 80 percent of the electricity in France comes from nuclear power. They have among the lowest rates of carbon emissions in the entire European Union. They have among the lowest electricity prices in the European Union. They are selling electricity to Germany, which is the only one of the European countries that has said they don't want any nuclear power. So they are buying nuclear power from France. There are many other countries in the world that are using nuclear power. But as the Wall Street Journal said: China, the United States, Russia, India, and Japan produce most of the carbon. Scientists believe carbon produces 40 percent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming and the United States is the only one of those five countries that is not committed to the construction of new nuclear powerplants. The President's plan instead is an energy tax and renewable mandates that would force us to build more giant wind turbines. Wind turbines work some places. They don't work in my part of the country. The wind doesn't blow enough, and we don't want to see them on our mountaintops. I am a sponsor of Senator Cardin's mountaintop removal bill. We don't want people blowing up our mountaintops and dumping the tops of the mountains in our streams. We don't want them putting 50-story wind turbines that don't turn more than 19 percent of the time up there either. So there is a growing recognition that in addition to the unreliability of renewable energy, the energy sprawl on our landscape is something we should think about. One thing we should think about is think about where to put renewable energy installations, to make sure they are in appropriate places. The other thing to think about is are there any alternatives to renewable energy. The answer, of course, is, yes, there are alternatives to renewable energy. The principal one is nuclear power. Let me be specific. In order to make 20 percent of our electricity in the United States from carbon-free sources, we could either build about 186,000 wind turbines--these are 50 stories tall--that would cover an area about the size of West Virginia. Or we could build 100 new nuclear reactors. We have 104 today. Remember, China is building 132. Today, nuclear produces about 20 percent of all our electricity; wind provides about 1.3 percent. Nuclear power is baseload power because it operates 90 percent of the time. That means we could have it on almost all the time. Wind power is intermittent. It only works when and where the wind blows and there is no way today to commercially store large amounts of that electricity. Nuclear, as I mentioned earlier, operates 90 percent of the time. Wind operates about 33 percent of the time. When you read that you have 1,000 megawatts of electricity from nuclear, that means you have 900 megawatts because it operates 90 percent of the time. When you read you have 1,000 megawatts of wind, that means you probably have 300 or 350 megawatts because it only operates a third of the time and, as they found in Denmark and other places, the wind often blows at night when we don't need it. We have lots of unused electricity at night. As far as additional infrastructure, building 100 new nuclear reactors would take very little new infrastructure because you could locate them mostly on the existing sites where we now have the 104 nuclear reactors we have today. Wind turbines, on the other hand, as I said, would take an area the size of West Virginia, plus 19,000 miles of new transmission lines that would go from unpopulated areas, through suburban areas, to populated areas where people need the electricity. What about the Federal subsidy? Sometimes people say these big new nuclear plants must have a big federal subsidy, but the fact is they do not. To produce the first 100 plants that we have, they were built without much federal subsidy. To build 100 more, the estimates are for $17.5 billion over 10 years, including a capped nuclear production tax credit--that would build the 100 nuclear plants. To build 186,000 wind turbines the taxpayer would shell out about $170 billion. We hear a lot of about green jobs, let's have renewable electricity because that produces green jobs. Green jobs are good jobs. We have two big new plants in Tennessee that the Governor recruited and they make polysilicone, which is for the purpose of making solar panels. We hope solar energy works and we believe it will. Today it costs four to five times in our area what other electricity costs, but we hope the price comes down and we are all for that. But the estimate for nuclear's green jobs to build 100 reactors would be about 250,000 construction jobs. To build 180,000 1.5 megawatt wind turbines would be about a third of that, 73,000 construction jobs, and then 70,000 permanent jobs for nuclear and 77,000 permanent jobs for the wind turbines. They would be about the same. The lifetime of a nuclear plant is about 60 to 80 years. The lifetime of the wind turbines is about 20 to 25 years. At a recent hearing which was chaired by the Senator from California, we talked with the Interior Secretary about the possibility of bonds for the developers who are putting up these 186,000 turbines. What if they wear out after 15 or 20 years, which is what they are expected to do? Or what if policies change? Or what if subsidies disappear? Or what if we decide we prefer other forms of energy? Who is going to take them down? We need to think about that, just as we did not think about abandoned mines all over the country--47,000 alone in California. Then there is the visual impact I mentioned. If you build 100 big nuclear powerplants, 100 reactors, they have tall cooling towers. There is a visual impact there. But you do it mostly on the sites where the 104 are today, where they are well accepted by the people in those communities and it is only 100 of them and it only takes about 100 square miles. Mr. President, 186,000 wind turbines would cover 25,000 square miles, which is an area the size of West Virginia. I hope as we proceed, after health care, to our debate on energy and climate change, that we will take a more realistic attitude. I am one of those Senators who believe climate change is a problem. I believe humans are contributing to it. I think it is time for us to stop emitting so much carbon into the air. But I would like for us to do that in a low-cost, sensible way that permits us to keep our jobs in this country and not in a high-cost way that causes us to drive jobs overseas, looking for cheap energy. Every single Republican Senator has endorsed an energy plan that is, No. 1, 100 new nuclear powerplants in 20 years; No. 2, electrify half our cars and trucks in 20 years; No. 3, offshore exploration for natural gas, which is low carbon and oil--we should use our own while we use it; and, No. 4, doubling research and development for alternative energy. How can we make solar cost- competitive? How can we find a way to recapture carbon from coal plants? How can we have advanced biofuels? How can we find the fourth generation of nuclear energy that recycles used nuclear fuel in a way that doesn't produce any plutonium? It is not just the 40 Republican Senators who are interested in that. I have had a number of Democratic Senators talk with me about that. Many were far out in front of the issue before I began to speak so much about it. My hope would be that, as we look more seriously at the issue of climate change and energy, that we adopt a low-cost energy strategy. We don't need an energy tax that raises everybody's electric bill. We don't need a renewable energy mandate that requires us to put up wind turbines in the Southeast, where the wind doesn't blow, anymore than we need a nuclear energy mandate that requires people to put up nuclear plants where people don't want them or a hydroelectric mandate that requires States to put up dams where there is no river. We need a low- cost, clean energy policy. Almost every other major country in the world is deciding that nuclear power is the key to the future. Wind is a supplement. One day solar may be widely used as supplement. But for baseload power for a prosperous country there is no choice, in my view. So climate change may be the inconvenient problem, as my friend and fellow Tennessean, Al Gore, says. But nuclear power, I am afraid, is the inconvenient solution, and I hope we will move to the day when the President of the United States will go to a summit on climate and say: Yes, we are building wind turbines in appropriate places; yes, we are having solar thermal panels in appropriate places; yes, we have doubled and tripled our investment in research and development for alternative energy. But as the country that invented low-cost, reliable, clean, carbon-free nuclear energy, I, the President of the United States, have set as a goal that we will double the amount of electricity we will produce from nuclear power. If the President went to Copenhagen and said we were committed to build 100 new nuclear powerplants in 20 years and to electrify half our cars and trucks in 20 years, just implementing those two goals would get us close to the Kyoto Protocol standards in 2030; just implementing those two goals--100 new nuclear plants and electrifying half our cars and trucks--and we can do both. We already did both. Between 1970 and 1990 we built 104 reactors, not to mention the 81 U.S. Navy vessels powered by nuclear reactors, so we have done that. Most experts, including many in the Obama administration, agree we can electrify half our cars and trucks, and probably without building one new powerplant because we have so much unused electricity at night. We can plug them in at night. We will be reducing imported oil, keeping the price of fuel low, we will be cleaning the air, and we will be dealing with global warming. So why are we engaged in a 1,000-page energy tax, a cap-and-trade system that doesn't effectively deal with fuel, that adds to taxes, and it runs jobs overseas, when we have before us the technology we invented that would lead us into the next century? So I hope those issues evolve. I have seen that sometimes we do not have the votes on this side of the aisle, but we have the right message. Sometimes we find if we work with our colleagues on the other side, we can have the same message. So I believe there are many Democrats and all of the Republicans who will join in setting a new national goal of 100 new nuclear plants in the next 20 years. I believe we already have consensus on electrifying half of our cars and trucks. So if that will help us reach the climate change goals, why don't we do that instead of a national goal that raises the price of energy, increases poverty, runs jobs overseas, and causes all sorts of unanticipated problems? I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. No objection.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I will be through in about 4 or 5 minutes. I welcome him and look forward to his comments. Instead of saving $87 billion, we save $47 billion. Then we have to deduct the administrative costs. Remember, instead of making some of the loans, the Department of Education is going to make 19 million loans. The Department estimates it might cost it $7 billion over the 10 years to do that. Others think it might cost $30 billion. So the real savings--the real savings are either $47 billion or more like $20 billion or $23 billion in savings over 10 years. In order to do that, of course, we are going to have to raise the Federal debt. We are going to have to borrow $1 billion a year for the next 5 years. So at a time when we are concerned that we are adding $9 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years, we are going to add another half trillion over 5 years so we can make student loans instead of doing it through private institutions. Here is the real clincher. When you press and say: In order to make these loans, what is the real reason you think you can do this if the savings aren't really $87 billion but they are more like $47 billion or more like $23 billion over 10 years? They say: Well, the real reason is the government can borrow money cheaper than the private banks can. That is true. The government can borrow money at a quarter of a percentage point, and then it loans it to the students at 6.8 percentage points. Well, my first point would be that I don't think the government ought to be making a profit by overcharging students for their student loans and then turn around and take credit for starting new programs. What the government is actually going to be doing is charging a student who has a job and is trying to get a student loan--is going to say: OK, we are going to borrow the money at one-quarter of 1 percent and loan it to you at 6.8, and then we are going to take that money and pay for your Pell grant or pay for someone else's Pell grant. In other words, they are going to overcharge the student to make the Congressman look good. That is what we are doing. We are going out and announcing all of these programs. So we are spending $87 billion, when it is really between $23 and $47 billion--that is the amount we really have--and we make that money by overcharging the students. At the very least, if we are going to take all of these loans into the government, we ought to reduce the interest rate so we don't overcharge the students. I see the Senator from Oklahoma. I am going to defer to him and welcome him to the floor. But I hope, as we think about the issue the President so accurately described--he said: The health care debate is really a proxy for the role of government in our society. He is exactly right about that. And while some of the Washington takeovers may not have been avoidable at the beginning of the year, there is no reason in the world why Washington should take over 19 million student loans, eliminate 2,000 lenders, stop students on 6,000 campuses from having a choice in competition, and say: The government is the best banker in America; line up outside the Department of Education, all 19 million of you, in January and get your student loan. So I am thinking of introducing an amendment that is called a truth- in-lending amendment if this legislation were to pass, and it would say to every one of the 19 million students: Truth in lending--beware. Your government is overcharging you so your Congressman and your Senator can take credit for starting a new program. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Senator Gregg basically asked: Is it true that if we stop making loans through private and nonprofit lenders whereby the Federal Government guarantees the loans and pays a regulated subsidy to the lender--if we stop that and start making all of them through the government directly, will we save $87 billion? And the short answer--if you want the long answer, the letter is available--the short answer is no, you do not save $87 billion; you are likely to realize $47 billion in savings over the next 10 years. Then, in addition to that, we have to deduct for the--I see the Senator from Oklahoma. Is he ready to speak on his amendments?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the pending business is the Interior appropriations bill. I know several Senators have amendments. If they would like to come and speak on those amendments, this is a good time to do that. Then, working with the Senator from California, who is chairman of the committee, we will try to move those amendments to a vote as quickly as possible. If Senators do come to speak on amendments, I will stop talking and give them the floor. But for the time being, I would like to say a few words about Federal student loans. President Obama said the other day, in what I thought was a very perceptive comment, that he understood the health care debate and all its intensity is a proxy for a larger debate, and that is about the role of government in our society. What I and many Republicans believe and, I think, many Independents and Democrats, as well, in the State of Tennessee, and I suspect across the country--is that we have suddenly seen too many taxes, too much spending, too much debt, and too many Washington takeovers. The President says, and he is correct to an extent with this, that some of these Washington takeovers were not his fault, were not his doing. I suppose he would say that about some of the bank takeovers and the insurance company takeovers. I am not so sure about the takeover of the automobile companies or the takeover of the farm bonds or the proposal to take over health care. But here is a voluntary takeover that is absolutely unnecessary, is unwise, and the American people should pay attention to this. This goes to the center of what the President said. If health care is a proxy for a debate about the extent to which the American Government ought to be involved in our society, then the proposal by the President to take over the entire student loan program and move it from the private sector into the government is a perfect example of what we ought not to be doing. Let me speak first to the dimensions of this program. The United States has the best system of higher education in the world. One of the greatest aspects of it, one of the greatest contributors to its quality, is that we have a generous amount of Federal dollars which permit about half or more of our students to either get a Federal grant, which we usually call Pell grants, or a Federal student loan which follows them to the institution of their choice. So unlike our elementary and secondary schools, your Pell grant--your grant going all of the way back to the GI bill in 1944--can follow you wherever you go. That choice and that competition and that money have helped to create not just some of the best colleges and universities in the world but virtually all of them. Most observers agree on that. The higher education system today is 6,000 institutions. These are the universities of North Carolina and Tennessee. That is what we might think of first, but there are also community colleges, the 2-year schools. There are also nonprofit colleges. There are also the religious institutions--Notre Dame and Brigham Young and many others. So there are 6,000 institutions. Last year, 4,400 of those 6,000 institutions used the regular student loan program. That is the one where you go to the bank, usually your community bank or local bank, and you get a student loan. And 1,600 schools, or about one-fourth, used the direct loan program, which was put in at the time I was Secretary of Education about 20 years ago, and you just go to the U.S. Department of Education and get your money. On the private side of it, which is what 3 out of 4 students choose, there are 2,000 lenders that participate in the program. This year, there are nearly 18 million loans to students and parents--18 million--and 14 million of them are in the regular student loan program, 4.5 million through the government. There was $86 billion of loans made. So the regular student loan volume through the private lenders was about $64 billion; the direct loan volume was $22 billion. So all in all outstanding, $617 billion of volume for both programs, and the President has said we are going to take all of that and put it in the U.S. Department of Education. So what his proposal is, if you are one of the 14 million students today who are getting their student loans from their local banks, starting in January you are out of luck. You better line up outside the U.S. Department of Education with the other 19 million people who want a student loan and hope they can provide you with the same sort of service your community bank or lending institution or nonprofit organization in your area provides you today. There is a lack of evidence to show that the U.S. Department of Education can do a better job of making loans than banks can. I used to work at the U.S. Department of Education. I was the Secretary. It is one of the smaller departments in government. The people there know a lot about education, but none of them really is running for banker of the year. Arne Duncan is President Obama's Education Secretary. He is one of his best appointments. I would much prefer seeing him in Memphis working on charter schools or in Denver trying to find ways to pay outstanding teachers more or trying to help create a better system of colleges and universities or community colleges instead of trying to manage the problem of, how do I grant $100 billion in new loans to 19 million people every single year? How do I replace 2,000 private lenders? Let me give you an example of what a private lender might do. In Tennessee, we have EdSouth. This is a nonprofit provider. Here is what they do. They had five regional outreach counselors to canvass Tennessee to provide college and career planning, financial aid training, college admissions assistance, and financial aid literacy. They made 443 presentations at Tennessee schools through college fairs, guidance visits, and presentations. They worked with 12,000 Tennessee students to improve their understanding of the college admissions and financial aid process. They provided training to over 1,000 school counselors so those counselors could work better with their students. They distributed almost 1.5 million financial aid brochures to Tennessee students and families. Will the U.S. Department of Education start providing those services, or will the 19 million students who want student loans simply line up outside the U.S. Department of Education or one of its offices somewhere and apply for a loan? I think I know the answer to that question. According to the Department of Education, it costs them about $700 million a year to administer the loans they make today. That is for one-quarter of all the students. They estimate they can make those same loans to 19 million students at about the same amount of money. I doubt if that is true, which brings me to the point of the savings--the alleged savings of this program. Senator Gregg and I--the Senator from New Hampshire, who is the former chairman of the Budget Committee, ranking member now--talked about the alleged savings in moving all of these loans from the lending institutions that make them to 19 million students today, to the U.S. Department of Education. Senator Gregg received a letter from the Congressional Budget Office on July 27. I ask unanimous consent to have that letter printed in the Record.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I commend my friends on the Democratic side for their interest in health care reform and their coming here to express their views. I can say to them very clearly there is 100 percent agreement on the Republican side that we do not want the status quo, and there is 100 percent agreement on the Republican side that there would be one thing worse than the status quo and that would be higher premium costs, more debt for the government, and higher taxes. I am afraid that is what my friends are arguing for because they are continuing to say they want to insure at least 30 million more people, they want to improve the benefits for people already on insurance, and they want to reduce costs. That does not add up. So I think it is time we get down to some reality in this discussion about: How can we best achieve health care reform in this country? We, on the Republican side, want health care reform, but we do not want more debt, more taxes, and higher premium costs for people who cannot afford their insurance policies now. Yet the proposals we have seen on that side of the aisle do that. Our focus should be about one thing. Health care reform should be about one thing: reducing costs, reducing costs to individuals and small businesses who are paying for health care, and reducing the cost to our government, which is the responsibility of every single one of us taxpayers in this country. We have had several proposals from the Democratic side that increase the debt and increase the cost, and the President himself, in effect, rejected them in his address to Congress the other day because he said there cannot be one dime of deficit, not one dime. So the bill that came out of the HELP Committee in the Senate--it is out of here. The bill that is coming out of the House of Representatives that has been through several committees--it cannot be considered under the President's own standard that it cannot increase the deficit one dime. I am glad he is saying that. I am glad he is saying that because he is already proposing we increase our national debt by $9 trillion over the next 10 years--doubling our national debt, tripling it over 10 years, spending more over the next 10 years, three times as much as we spent in World War II--amounts that have most people in this country alarmed about the debt of this government. So this should be a straightforward discussion about costs, reducing the cost of health care to you, if you are buying health care, and reducing the cost of health care to your government, which you are responsible for. So the President has done us a favor. He said do not worry about the Senate bill that came out of the HELP Committee because--in effect, he said this--it adds to the deficit, so it has to go. For the bills coming out of the House of Representatives, the Congressional Budget Office has told us it adds to the deficit in the first 10 years, and it adds to the deficit even more in the next 10 years, so it has to go. So now we have a new bill, and it is already a 250-page--I misspoke. It is not a bill yet. It is 250 pages of concepts. It is important for the American people to understand this. I think one of the things we have all heard, as much as anything, when we have gone home is: Did you read the bill? That is a pretty good question. It is a pretty big job because we have gotten in the habit around here of coming up with 1,000-page bills that Senators and Congressmen do not read. So the American people are saying to us: At least read the bill. They are saying to us, second: At least know what it costs. So that is a bare minimum of what we should insist on as we are going forward. The bill introduced by the distinguished Senator who is the chairman of the Finance Committee is 250 pages of concepts. So everyone understands where we are in the process, the Finance Committee is meeting. They will be meeting all week. My guess is they will be meeting next week. They are trying to agree on what those concepts will finally be. The chairman has recommended what he thinks they ought to be, and now the committee is going to say what they think they should be. Then, as I understand it, the Democratic leader is going to try to fit this bill that came out of the HELP Committee--that the President, in effect, has rejected because he says no deficit--well, it has a deficit--and he is going to try to put that bill that raises costs with the Baucus bill and turn it into one bill. The bill that came out of the HELP Committee is already nearly 1,000 pages. I do not know yet what will be coming out of the Finance Committee. So in a week or two, we are going to be having another big bill we will have to read. Then the Congressional Budget Office, which is our official nonpartisan outfit that tells us what things cost--appointed by the majority but still nonpartisan--told Senator Baucus yesterday it would take about 2 weeks for them to tell us how much it will cost. So the way I am adding up the weeks, I am saying a week or two for the Finance Committee to come up with a bill--maybe a week to write the bill--and the Congressional Budget Office says after the bill is written, it takes 2 weeks to know the formal cost. Then we ought to have several weeks to debate the bill. That is what we did with the Energy bill for 4 or 5 weeks and, of course, we should do just that. So we need the time to do it, and we need to be able to say to people when we go home: I read the bill and I know exactly what it costs and here is what I think about it. What about the Baucus concepts--not the Baucus bill; they don't have the bill yet--but the concepts. The Congressional Budget Office released an analysis of the impact of the Baucus budget plan on insurance. It shows that the premiums for those in the individual market under the Baucus bill don't go down, they go up. This is supposed to be about reducing the cost of premiums that Americans have for their health care, and under the Baucus bill so far, on its first day of consideration by the full Finance Committee, the premiums go up and taxes on insurers, drugs, and devices would be passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums. This is not fearmongers saying that; this is not Republicans saying that; it is not the doctors saying that; it is the Congressional Budget Office appointed by the majority, the Democratic majority. Premiums go up under the Baucus bill. That means Americans will pay more, not less, for their health insurance under the bill as it is today. Here is what the Congressional Budget Office said: Under current law, premiums on employment-based plans would not include the effect of the annual fees imposed under the proposal on manufacturers and importers of brand-name drugs and medical devices, on health insurance providers, and on clinical laboratories. These are new taxes. Premiums for exchange plans---- These would be plans in the exchange that you might choose if you were an individual-- Premiums for exchange plans would include the effect of those fees, which would increase premiums by roughly 1 percent. That is the Congressional Budget Office about the Baucus concepts. CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, went on to say: At the same time, premiums in the new insurance exchanges-- -- These are the marketplaces where under this plan you would go to buy your insurance---- would tend to be higher than the average premiums in the current-law individual market. So the premiums under the new bill and the new exchange would be higher than you are paying today. CBO says: Again, with other factors held equal, because the new policies would have to cover preexisting medical conditions and could not deny coverage to people with high expected costs for health care. CBO goes on to say: People with low expected costs for health care, however, would generally pay higher premiums. So if you make a promise to improve the benefits, somebody else is going to pay for them. That is mathematics. That is the way the world works. Fortunately, we have the Congressional Budget Office to say under this plan premiums would go up. It continues: For families, premiums plus cost-sharing payments would range from about $2,900 for those with incomes of $30,000, to nearly $20,000 annually for premiums for those with incomes above $96,000. So costs go up to individuals under the Baucus concepts. Additionally, we should consider the cost to our government. Most Americans are very much aware--I think that is why they have been turning out in record numbers in town meetings--that the government is not some remote, abstract thing; we own it, and we own the debt too. According to the Budget Committee staff, the real 10-year cost of the Baucus concept when fully implemented will be $1.67 trillion because the main spending provisions won't go into effect until 2013. In other words, when we talk about 10-year costs around here, the next 10 years aren't an accurate picture because the bill isn't fully implemented until you get on down the road 3 or 4 years to 2013. So if you take a full 10 years--a full implementation of the bill--the Budget Committee says it is about $1.67 trillion in new costs. However, there are new taxes and fees to pay for that: $838 billion over 10 full years of implementation, and those new taxes and fees go into effect immediately. The long-term deficit reductions predicted in the bill depend on Congress--that is us--approving cuts year after year to Medicare providers. Medicare providers are doctors, hospitals, hospices, and home health agencies. In other words, to make this bill balance the budget and not add to the deficit, we are going to have to have cuts year after year to Medicare, cuts to doctors, cuts to hospitals, cuts to hospices, and cuts to home health agencies. I thought I heard the President say in his speech the other night there will be no cuts to Medicare. He did say that. It turns out not to be true in the Baucus proposal. It could be true if Congress were willing to support cuts year after year to Medicare, hospitals, doctors, home health agencies, and hospices, but we have never done that. In fact, a few years ago we Republicans tried to restrict the growth of Medicare by $10 billion a year--I think it was from 43 percent to 41 percent over 5 years--and we had to bring the Vice President back from overseas to cast the deciding vote because everybody on the Democratic side wouldn't even vote for $10 billion in reduced savings to Medicare. Yet what we are proposing here assumes that suddenly we have all changed and we are going to allow cuts year after year to people who provide services to Medicare. CBO found that its projections ``assume that the proposals are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case,'' it wisely said. CBO goes on: ``For example, the sustainable growth rate''--we call that the ``doc fix'' around here when we come in once a year and automatically--doctors' payments under Medicare, which is already only 80 percent--doctors earn only about 80 percent under Medicare compared to what they earn when they see private patients--so we automatically cut their pay by 20 percent and we always come in and raise it back up to about what it was the year before. So CBO is telling us that the sustainable growth rate--the ``doc fix'' ``governing Medicare to physicians--has frequently been modified.'' That is an understatement. It has been modified almost every year ``to avoid reductions in those payments'' and that ``the long-term budgetary impact could be quite different if those provisions were ultimately changed or not fully implemented.'' So unless we have massive cuts in Medicare, we are not going to be able to balance the budget with this bill. We don't know how much this bill will cost State governments. The distinguished Senator from Nebraska is on the floor. He was a Governor. I was a Governor. We have all struggled with Medicaid. I think our view is that dumping another 15 million low-income Americans into Medicaid is not health care reform. Doctors and providers are only reimbursed about 61 or 62 percent of their costs for providing services to Medicaid patients, so 40 percent of doctors won't see Medicaid patients. Dumping a low-income American into the Medicaid program is like giving them a bus ticket to a bus line that only runs 60 percent of the time. It is not health care reform. Even so, this will cost State governments, and all the Governors--Democrats and Republicans-- are opposed to the concept in this bill that transfers some of the cost of increased Medicaid to the States. Their view is--and I think they are right on this--if the Federal Government wants to expand Medicaid, the Federal Government should pay for it. I haven't been able to even get an estimate of how much this will cost Tennessee. We are trying to figure that out. Senator Cornyn said his estimate is about $2 billion a year for Texas. Additionally, the proposal cuts nearly $500 billion from Medicare to fund this new government program even though Medicare will start going bankrupt in 2017. Yesterday I heard the president of the Mayo Clinic on National Public Radio say that any public option that looked like Medicare would bankrupt the country overnight, since trustees have said that Medicare is likely to go broke in 2015 to 2017. I am afraid we need to start over. I admire Senator Baucus's effort, but we don't do comprehensive very well here. A 1,000-page bill is not likely to solve the problem. It is time to bring an end to the era of these 1,000-page bills that are so complicated no one can understand them or have time to read them. Instead, I believe we should move step by step to lower health care costs and re-earn the trust of the American people. I see the Senator from Nebraska and I will soon defer to him, or to the Senator from South Dakota, whichever one is next. But in conclusion, these are the things we can start doing today to move step by step in the right direction to lower costs: allow small businesses to pool to reduce health care costs; reform medical malpractice laws; allow individual Americans the ability to purchase health insurance across State lines; ensure that Americans who currently qualify for existing programs such as Medicaid and SCHIP who are not enrolled to be signed up; create health insurance exchanges so you can find coverage; and incentivize health reform technology. We can agree on those things. We can take those steps and we can reduce the costs of health care to each American family and to our government. I thank the President and I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. How much time is remaining?

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. ALEXANDER. No objection.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, that would be the Reid amendment as modified?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I wish to congratulate the Senator from Maine for her leadership on this issue. She has shown great respect for the President's authority under the Constitution. We all respect that. He has the right to appoint his own advisers, period, and to take their advice and, as a result, assert some executive privilege. And we don't inquire into that. He is entitled to that. But under the Constitution, article II, section 2, states that the Cabinet officers and other appointments of significant policy positions should be appointed by the advice and consent of the Senate. It is true a number of Republican Senators have raised a question about the 18 new czars appointed by President Obama who are not confirmed by the Senate, all of whom are new. They didn't exist before. This large number of new senior positions is of great concern. Senator Collins, in her letter of September 14 to the President-- written with great respect, signed by Senator Bond, Senator Crapo, Senator Roberts, Senator Bennett, and myself--basically made the argument she just made. She acknowledged the President's authority under article II to appoint his advisers and to be the leader of the country. But in terms of these specific responsibilities, the letter asks for information about the responsibilities of these 18 new czars; of how they were picked and how they were examined and whether they would be willing to testify before us. In her remarks, Senator Collins pointed out if we have a Health Secretary and a health czar, who is in charge? If we have an Energy Secretary and an energy czar, who is in charge? Those are the big issues before us. Health care is nearly 20 percent of the economy. We have town meetings all over the country about it. Right after that comes energy and climate change, and those are going to be a massive issues for our country. So it is important for us to know who is in charge so they can testify before the Congress and so we can effect their appropriations if we should choose to do so. The main point I want to underscore is the fact that this is not just a concern on the Republican side of the aisle. The senior Senator in the Senate, and the senior Democrat--the President pro tempore--is Robert C. Byrd. Sometimes we call him the constitutional conscience of the Senate. Senator Byrd was the first Member of this body to raise questions about the czars. I am sure he would have done it if there had been a Republican President--he probably has many times before--but he also did it even though there is now a Democratic President. I think it is important to reflect upon what he said in his February 23 letter to President Obama. Senator Byrd said: As presidential assistants and advisers, these White House staffers are not accountable for their actions to the Congress, to cabinet officials, and to virtually anyone but the President. They rarely testify before congressional committees, and often shield the information and decision- making process behind the assertion of executive privilege. In too many instances, White House staff have been allowed to inhibit openness and transparency, and reduce accountability. In speaking about the lines of authority between these new White House positions--these czars--and their executive branch counterparts, the Secretaries, Senator Byrd said this to the President: Too often, I have seen these lines of authority and responsibility become tangled and blurred, sometimes purposely, to shield information and to obscure the decision- making process. Senator Byrd went on to say: As you develop your White House organization, I hope you will favorably consider the following: that assertions of executive privilege will be made only by the President, or with the President's specific approval; that senior White House personnel will be limited from exercising authority over any person, any program, and any funding within the statutory responsibility of a Senate-confirmed department or agency head; that the President will be responsible for resolving any disagreement between a Senate-confirmed agency or department head and the White House staff; and that the lines of authority and responsibility in the administration will be transparent and open to the American public. Not only Senator Byrd, but Senator Lieberman, who is the chairman of the committee on which Senator Collins is the ranking Republican, has expressed his willingness to hold hearings on this issue. Senator Feingold of Wisconsin, a Democratic chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, has written to the President expressing his concern. Senator Feingold says: The Constitution gives the Senate the duty to oversee the appointment of Executive officers through the Appointments Clause in Article II, section 2. The Appointments Clause states that the President: ``shall nominate and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law. Senator Feingold goes on to say: This clause is an important part of the constitutional scheme of separation of powers, empowering the Senate to weigh in on the appropriateness of significant appointments and assisting in its oversight of the Executive branch. Senator Feingold and Senator Byrd and Senator Collins, and several of us who signed Senator Collins' letter, and Senator Vitter of Louisiana--we all respect the President's authority to be the President and to appoint his Cabinet members and other executive branch officers. But we expect that those officers, the people who are actually setting the policy and running the departments, should be accountable to those of us in the Senate because the Constitution says so. As a practical matter, we all know in Washington most people in the executive branch measure their power by the number of inches they are from the President of the United States. In the White House, most of the scurrying around at the beginning of an administration is to see who can get the office closest to the Oval Office. So it is always an issue about the amount of power that begins to accumulate in the White House. When it begins to take away accountability and authority and responsibility and create confusion about whether the Cabinet Secretaries have the authority, that is the time that we begin to cross the constitutional line. That is what Senator Byrd talked about in February, what Senator Feingold talked about last week, and what Senator Collins is talking about today. I congratulate her on her amendment. I think it is constructive. I think it is respectful to the President. It acknowledges his role in the Constitution, but it reiterates the importance of the role of the Senate in accountability and in transparency. I look forward to supporting her amendment.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I want to congratulate the Senator from Wyoming on his vigilance. There is no Senator--certainly on this side of the aisle, and I suspect not in this Chamber--who gets up earlier, works harder, or keeps in closer touch with what is going on in Wyoming and in this country than Senator Barrasso, and he is exactly right on this issue. The chairman, Mrs. Feinstein, the Senator from California, has made fighting wildfires a major part of her effort this year. She and the administration have included within this appropriations bill the firefighting money that usually is set aside for emergency appropriations. So that money needs to be spent correctly, as it should be. I think Senator Barrasso and the other Senators who cosponsored it are exactly right, and I agree with the chairman of the subcommittee that it is a good amendment.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I assume, Mr. President, that the big drug companies that are running ads against Republican Senators for questioning the health care reform bill, they have a right to do that. I know what is happening in Memphis is people are seeing the ads and calling me and telling me: Continue to oppose what is going on. But that is part of our system. I congratulate the Republican leader for bringing to the attention of all his colleagues this action.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, as I understand it from reading it in the newspapers some of the big drug companies are lined up with the Obama administration with the Democratic health care bill. I wonder what the Republican leader would think if some Republican Senator called one of the big drug companies and said: You are going to suffer serious consequences or even went to one of the agencies of government and caused them to tell a big drug company that because of their speeches and remarks, they were going to suffer some consequences.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, before the Republican leader leaves, I congratulate him for his statement. Over the years, he has been a consistent defender of first amendment rights, even for a great many Americans with whom he disagreed. Senator Byrd, who is the constitutional conscience of the Senate, often encourages Senators to carry with us a little pocket version of the Constitution. I am reading the first amendment to the Constitution, which the Senator from Kentucky spent a great deal of his career defending: Congress shall make no law-- No law-- respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. I ask the Senator through the Chair whether, as he understands the first amendment to the Constitution, it would be clearly unconstitutional for us to pass a law that would tell a major health care company that if they objected to a piece of legislation by informing their customers of its consequences that there would be some penalty?

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I congratulate the Senator from California for her leadership. We Americans are united by our founding documents and our language and our history, not by our race or ethnicity or where we come from, so therefore we are very hungry for stories about ourselves. The great writers of American history, such as David McCullough, whose books are sold out immediately, would wish we had the same sort of documentation the Senator from California has proposed here about the writing of the Constitution or the American Revolution or the Civil War or the great world wars. Ken Burns would like to have more of it for his upcoming series on the national parks. This will mean we will have more of it for the great civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s. Alex Haley, the author of ``Roots,'' said an older person dying is like a library burning down. This will help to make sure we keep those libraries.