Max Baucus

Mr. BAUCUS

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on April 8, 2008, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed hearing.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 8, 2008, at 2:30 p.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``S. 970, the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007.''

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 8, 2008, at 9:30 a.m., in open session to receive testimony on the situation in Iraq and progress made by the Government of Iraq in meeting benchmarks and achieving reconciliation.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 8, 2008, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The adequacy of Representation in Capital Cases'' on Tuesday, April 8, 2008, at 10:15 a.m., in room SF-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Witness List Michael Greco, Former President of the American Bar Association, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis, Boston, MA; Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director, Equal Justice Initiative, Clinical Professor Law, New York University School of Law, Montgomery, AL; The Honorable Carolyn Engel Temin, Senior Judge, Court of Common Pleas of the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; Donald Verrilli, Partner, Jenner & Block LLP, Washington, DC.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Seapower of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 8, 2008, at 2:30 p.m., in open session to receive testimony on Navy force structure requirements and programs to meet those requirements in review of the Defense authorization request for fiscal year 2009 and the future years defense program.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Water and Power be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing on Tuesday, April 8, 2008, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. BAUCUS

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask to speak as in morning business. I might ask the Chair, is the Senate in morning business?

Mr. BAUCUS

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I am not managing this part of the bill. I think Senator Dodd is talking to Senators. They are working out some provisions, so if he wants to proceed until they work it out.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask how much time the Senator from Tennessee would like to speak. If it is a short amount of time----

Mr. BAUCUS

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, just a couple comments about the points made by the Senator from New Hampshire. No. 1, it is not a $20 billion bill. That is not accurate at all. It is, first of all, about $6 billion. It is over 10 years. So it is much less than what the Senator makes it sound like it is. Second, we all know the housing problems that occurred in this country--the subprime mortgage problems, as well as other mortgages in distress and home buyers in distress. The figure I saw was that about 10 percent of American homes are underwater, meaning the value of the homes for 10 percent of Americans is much less than the mortgage on their homes. This is a very complicated problem. It requires a complicated solution. Senator Dodd is to be commended for the Banking Committee's provisions in this housing bill. We in the Finance Committee wrote the tax provisions in this bill, and they are designed to help lots of different areas, lots of different people, in lots of different ways. One is the mortgage revenue bond provisions, which helps States finance new mortgages for people, homeowners. Another is the tax credit for distressed homes. That helps people. That helps home buyers. That is in this legislation. Another is to help give a little break to people who do not itemize their income tax returns but have property taxes so they can get a break on their property taxes. So we provide in this bill that if you have property taxes, you get at least a $500 deduction against your income taxes if you are single, $1,000 if you are married, irrespective of whether you itemize or use the standard deduction. That helps people. There is a business provision in here to give a break to homebuilders. Why? Because homebuilders are going out of business. This is not a typical homebuilders' housing cycle we are in now. This is atypical. A lot of areas in our country are very distressed. A lot of homebuilders are distressed, laying off a lot of people. The number of construction jobs is down--in the hundreds of thousands. For homebuilders' jobs, it is of a similar magnitude. These are people with hammers and nails going out building houses who no longer are building any houses, and they are laid off. So this bill--basically, in that one provision with respect to homebuilders--kind of evens things out a little bit so homebuilders do not have to lay quite so many people off and they can still keep building some homes, which helps prevent a further deterioration of the value of the homes in a certain area. This is nowhere close to solving the problem, but it helps a little bit. That is why this is in this legislation. So we have several provisions we in the Finance Committee passed out to help individuals. This one helps businesses in the business of homebuilding and homebuilders employ people, and those are the people who have lost their jobs. So we are trying to help that sector a little bit so those people who build homes--some of them--can get back to work and not be laid off and also so some homes that might otherwise not be built might now be built to help alleviate the problem. Homebuilders are not the cause of the problem. The problem, frankly, is worldwide where cash was slushing around, which helped create this situation where lenders were very easily lending money. The terms were very easy. People were enticed into buying homes. Mortgage brokers, for example, were very aggressive in encouraging people to buy homes with no downpayments and whatnot. But homebuilders--they are not the problem. They are building the homes. Now, they are feeling the pain, as a lot of other Americans are, and I believe--and I think the Finance Committee believes--this is one of several provisions which will help address the housing crisis a little bit. That is why I think it should be in this bill, and I very much hope the Senate approves the bill if not today, by tomorrow. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BAUCUS

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Ayesha Khanna, a detailee with the Finance Committee staff, be allowed floor privileges today.

Mr. BAUCUS

Mr. BAUCUS. As far as this Senator is concerned, it is fine if this Senator is added.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, as far as I am concerned, that is perfectly OK with me.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, under the rules, technically someone on the minority side would manage the time, theoretically, in opposition to this amendment. I do not see anyone here. Not to be too formal about this, I will speak anyway. I thank the Senator from Ohio, as well as the Senator from Michigan, for working out this amendment. Very basically, they have a very good point; namely, that many businesses, particularly in some parts of the country, are not able to take full advantage of bonus depreciation or so-called 179 expensing. That is because these are companies that have no profits. They do not have the ability to take advantage of these depreciation write-downs. So they have come up with an amendment to address that problem. The first version was a bit expensive. We have worked very closely together with the Senators, as well as with the Joint Committee on Tax, to find the proper amount that makes some sense, and it has been tailored down to about $1.3 billion. That is the modification which was sent to the desk by the Senator from Ohio. I think that is a proper amount. I think it is very helpful and ought to help these companies in these very stressed parts of our country that very much need the benefit of this provision. So I accept the amendment.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, a number of Senators wish to speak and offer amendments. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Ensign be recognized for 5 minutes and then I be allowed to follow him; following him, Senator Nelson of Florida recognized for 5 minutes and I be allowed to follow him. We will lock those two in at this point. There may be others throughout the day.

Mr. BAUCUS. That is on the Bill Nelson of Florida amendment.

Mr. BAUCUS. A better procedure is not to line up second degrees because nobody's second-degree rights are ever denied anyway on any amendment. That is automatic. For example, when Senator Ensign's amendment is offered, if somebody wants to offer a second-degree amendment, that is certainly in order. The unanimous consent request would not preclude someone from offering a second-degree amendment. The Senator always has that right. I don't want to get in the position of getting UCs for one second- degree amendment or another at this point, especially when, I say to my good friend from Tennessee, it is not necessary in any way. He will be fully protected when the amendment of the Senator from Nevada is up. He is protected to offer a second degree.

Mr. BAUCUS. That is absolutely this Senator's understanding, and I will protect that Senator's right as best I can.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, so the Senator from Louisiana does not have an amendment?

Mr. BAUCUS. Not to the housing bill?

Mr. BAUCUS. Later on today.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I would like to address the underlying Ensign amendment. I think most Members of this body believe very strongly we need to be much more self-sufficient in the production of energy. We are way too reliant on OPEC. We have made several attempts in this Congress in the last several months to try to pass tax incentive provisions to accomplish that objective. They have not been successful, for various reasons. Some because they are paid for, and people don't like to pay for this, and others because it was not paid for. For example, last February we passed an energy tax incentive package very similar to the Ensign package, which was not paid for, and that did not survive. So we are in a difficult position. I agree with the impetus of Senator Cantwell and Senator Ensign, but we also know the other body is probably not as friendly toward passing this because it is not paid for--not as friendly as this body. We hope the President signs this package. I am not terribly sanguine that will happen, but nevertheless let's at least try to see if the other body will in fact adopt it. This is a housing bill; it is not an energy bill. We want to get a housing bill passed very quickly, and now that we have an energy provision in it, that is a bit problematic as to whether we are going to get the housing bill passed as it is, especially when the energy provisions are not paid for. The Finance Committee has other options to pass this package. All Senators on the committee know what we have been working on. I am committed to getting these tax incentives passed this year. They are so important, so vitally important, for reasons everyone has mentioned. And, in fact, I am even more worried about it than probably some other Senators. I am as worried as the Senator from Washington about getting this passed. So I am committed to finding a way. If this approach is not successful, I am committed to finding a way, to finding a successful approach so these energy provisions are in fact enacted into law this year.

Mr. BAUCUS. I will be happy to yield.