Robert Bennett

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, we are about to adjourn for the August recess without having passed a single piece of legislation addressing the energy crisis or the most important issue, which is the concern over rising gasoline prices. I attended the Fourth of July parade in my home State. In Utah, there is also a 24th of July parade celebrating the anniversary of the time when the first Pioneer settlers came into the valley. In both parades, I had things shouted at me. Politicians have that experience. Usually, we hope the things that are shouted at us are complimentary. In this case, the things I had shouted at me in the parades were: ``Why aren't you drilling? Why aren't you producing more American oil? Drill now.'' I said: We are discussing it. We are trying to do that. We are trying to get something done. If there were a parade scheduled now, I would have to go back and say: The Senate would not let us vote on any of the proposals to increase the supply of American oil. There are proposals coming in the form of letters from Senators to the President of the United States saying: Will you please go to Saudi Arabia and beg them to produce some more oil? There are suggestions that somehow we should sue Saudi Arabia or members of OPEC to get them to produce more oil. But we are not even allowed the opportunity to vote on proposals to produce more oil in the United States. A lot of my constituents are not aware that at one point, not too distant in the past, America produced more oil than any other country in the world and controlled the pricing power over oil. We could affect the world price by opening more wells in east Texas. But in the 1970s, that pricing power left our shores and was transferred from the Texas Railroad Commission to the Saudi royal family. Now we are in the posture of begging the Saudi royal family to produce more oil when we have the capacity to bring that pricing power back to the United States by producing more here. I wish to talk specifically about oil shale because I understand there has been an exchange on the floor about oil shale earlier, with the junior Senator from Colorado saying we are not ready, the technology is not finished, and, therefore, we should maintain the congressionally ordered moratorium on the Department of the Interior from promulgating the rules under which leases could be granted on public land. Now, let's look at that argument for a minute. The Department of the Interior has released draft rules. We know what they want to do. They have been prepared to do this, and are prepared to do it today. They cannot turn those draft rules into firm rules as long as the Democrat moratorium is in place. So when we wanted to lift that moratorium--we tried to in the Appropriations Committee--we were denied on a straight party-line vote. The Republican leader tried to lift that moratorium here. We were denied in a unanimous consent request. So let's ask ourselves: What are those rules? The best analogy to help people understand what those rules are is to talk about a fishing license. If you want to catch fish, you have to get a fishing license. You go in and you pay for it and it is for a specified period of time. Now, there is no guarantee the fish will respond to your efforts to catch them. There is only an opportunity to go forward with it. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 2 additional minutes.

Mr. BENNETT. All we are talking about, with respect to the rules of the Department of the Interior, is let's give companies a fishing license. If the technology is not ready, the companies will know that. They will find that out very rapidly. If the technology doesn't work, the marketplace will prove that it doesn't work, and companies won't invest in it. This is not a government subsidy for oil shale. This is not even a government support of oil shale. This is simply a fishing license to say: Go see if you can find some fish or, in this case, go see if you can find some oil. If you can, and you can produce it at an economically acceptable price and in an environmentally friendly manner, then go ahead. But in this body we are saying: No, we won't even let you look for it. We won't even let you move forward to try to find out if it will work. The Senator from Colorado said: We are not ready. I would say to him: We are in Utah. We have a program going forward in Utah on State land that shows every indication of producing oil by the end of this year. The reason they can't produce large amounts of oil is that we don't have enough State land to produce on a larger scale. If you are going to produce large quantities, you have to allow development on public lands, but there is a moratorium in place that says: We won't even let you look at these lands. The easiest thing we could have done this week in Congress would have been to lift the moratorium. The least we could have done would have been to let the Department of the Interior implement the rules and give companies an opportunity to look at the Federal lands to see if they want to get a fishing license to catch some fish or, in this case, oil. That is all we are asking for, but it has been objected to repeatedly and repeatedly. If I march in a parade again, I am going to have a hard time explaining to anybody why the Senate won't allow us to do that.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. I appreciate the yielding of the floor to me, but I understand Senator Lincoln was going to speak on this same subject. If she is available, I would be happy to yield to her. I understand she will be coming later so I will proceed. Energy Mr. President, we have had a lot of debate, a lot of discussion that does not qualify as debate, over the last week or two with respect to energy. I simply want to make a few comments of my own with regard to that issue. The energy crisis we face is a worldwide crisis. It cannot be solved with a national solution. But it is a national crisis as well, and we need to do what we can as Americans toward finding the solution. We need to help build a bridge, a bridge that can be a worldwide bridge to the long-term vision we have. As we talk about that bridge, let's ask ourselves what is at the other end of the bridge? The vision people have at the other end of the bridge is a world that does not depend as heavily on fossil fuels as we do today. It is a world that has nuclear power, it is a world that has wind power, and solar power, geothermal power, biomass, hydropower, and one that I am particularly enthusiastic about is tidal power--the rising and falling of the tides being harnessed in generating electricity. All of those possibilities are there, and all of those possibilities should be embraced, because all of them can contribute to the world we want to be in 10, 15, 20 years from now. We need to build a bridge to that world because that world is not available now. There are wind farms, but they are producing a tiny fraction of the amount of electricity we use. There are solar panels that are basically demonstrating the technology, but not producing anything like the kind of volume we would need. There are studies about tidal power. There are experiments going on with biomass. There are explorations with geothermal. But all of those are in the future, 10 years away, 15, 20, 30 years away. That is where we want to be, but we need to build a bridge to get there. Now, who is going to build it? I want Americans to be in the driver's seat of building the bridge and solving the problem. I want Americans to take the lead in figuring out what we need to do as a world to get to the other side of the bridge I have described. I want Americans to once again achieve their ability to influence world energy prices. There was a time when the Americans could determine the world price of oil simply by determining whether they would drill another well in East Texas. When the price of oil seemed to be too high, we could open up additional areas of East Texas to exploration. East Texas was full of oil and at the time, we led the world in oil production. Now that leadership is gone. It left the shores in the 1970s. It lies now with the Saudi royal family. If we are talking about building the bridge, I want the Americans to be the ones to build the bridge. I want Americans to bring back to this continent our ability to affect the world's price of fossil fuels. And how do we do that? Well, we do it simply by increasing the number of American sources of fossil fuels. That is how we were in charge of the price of oil at one time, and that is how we can be in charge again. A lot of people do not realize that America, though, is the third largest oil-producing country in the world. Saudi Arabia is No. 1, Russia is No. 2, America is No. 3. We used to be No. 1; we are now No. 3. If we can increase our ability to produce energy, we can control the building of the bridge to the long-term future when we are no longer as dependent on fossil fuels as we are now. If we want to get to renewables, we have to build a bridge to get there. The material we will use to build that bridge will be American energy. We have almost limitless sources to which we can turn to find that American energy. The Gas Price Reduction Act, which I have cosponsored along with a number of my colleagues, outlines two of the areas where we can increase American sources of energy and thus help build that bridge and control, influence, and impact world energy prices. The first one has to do with taking oil out of the Outer Continental Shelf. Since the early 1980s, we have prohibited drilling in 85 percent of our Outer Continental Shelf waters. It is interesting that this prohibition came about the time that pricing power left the United States and went into the hands of the Saudi royal family. It will not bring it back automatically, but it will certainly make a major impact if we can now make that 85 percent of our Outer Continental Shelf available for exploration and the delivery of oil. We now know in a way we did not in the 1980s that it is safe because Hurricane Katrina brutally told us that oil rigs can withstand virtually any kind of pressure from the weather. It is not a lesson we wanted to learn in that way, but it is a lesson that we now know. The other area in the Gas Price Reduction Act where we can find more oil hits closer to my home in Utah. It would allow us to extract oil from oil shale. In eastern Utah, western Colorado and southern Wyoming, there is more oil than there is in all of Saudi Arabia by a factor of three. People say: ``But we do not have it yet. It is unproven technology,'' although oil shale is being turned into oil in other countries of the world, just not this one. ``But new technology is being tried out. Well, it is 10 or 15 years away. It will be expensive.'' I take you back to the proposition of the bridge. The world where we drastically decrease our dependence on fossil fuels is far more than 10 years away or even 15 years away. We cannot wish it into existence immediately. It is hypocritical to say we are strongly for wind power and solar power and geothermal and biomass as the solution to our problems, but we are opposed to oil shale and Outer Continental Shelf drilling because they take years to develop. If one is 20 years or 30 years away, and the other is only 10 years away, we should be working on the one that is only 10 years away at the same time we are working on the one that is 30 or 40 years away. America has fossil fuels that are abundant, available, and affordable, and that can be used as the source of building the bridge to the world of less dependence on fossil fuels. Our economy runs on energy. The world economy runs on energy. We cannot, while hoping that the land we dream of is available at some point, refuse to build the bridge with America's available building materials. I hope as we wind down this debate and finally decide to do something about it, we will be focused on taking the assets we already have and using them as the material to build the bridge to get to the place where we want to go. If we do that, then our constituents will see the price of gas come down at the pump. They will see movement in the right direction as to where we want to be. They will say to us: You have finally started to do your job in the way we sent you to Washington to do it. I yield the floor.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. I say to the Senator from Tennessee, the one thing we should remember about markets is that markets hate uncertainty. Whenever markets are not certain as to what is going to happen, the price of commodities always goes up because people want those commodities. They want to hold them, and they are afraid, in an area of uncertainty, that they might not be able to get them, so they will bid the price up. Our inability to bring certainty to the energy debate by virtue of the parliamentary maneuvers that have occurred contributes to the high price of gasoline. An airline, a truck line, an energy company dealing with gasoline at the pump has to have gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, or they will be unable to function. When they cannot see any end to the present uncertainty of world supply, that is when they bid for long- term contracts. As they bid for the long-term contracts, others who say, we are not sure what is going to happen in the housing market or what is going to happen in the stock market, the one place where we are sure the price is going to go up is oil. They will come in and bid for the futures as well. We have had a bill on the floor that tries to deal with speculation as if it were a mystery. Speculation is not a mystery. The word ``speculator,'' as Bernard Baruch said, comes from the Latin phrase ``speculari,'' to observe. A speculator is one who observes what is going on and tries to make sense out of it. If we could say to the world market, we are serious about looking at oil shale, we are serious about looking at the Outer Continental Shelf, we are serious about doing things with respect to American automobile usage of oil, that would bring a degree of certainty to the marketplace. People would say: I don't need to buy that long-term oil contract because now there is a path of certainty that will mean prices will be stable. As prices become stable, they begin to come down. That is what we are trying to do. The parliamentary maneuvers entered into prevent us from bringing that certainty to the market and contribute to the constantly rising price of oil.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following individuals from my staff have floor privileges during the period of my speech today: Dustin Bradshaw, Nathan Gambill, Summer Price, and Stephen Young.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, the bill before us today has to do with speculation. Let's talk about speculation for a minute. What is it? It is investment on the basis of assumption or expectations. There are those who are investing in oil futures because of the expectation that the price of oil will rise. If you want to get speculation under control, you have to change those expectations. What are the expectations of investors right now with respect to oil? It is their expectation that the price of oil will go up. It is very rational. The only reason they are buying an oil futures contract is they expect the price to go up. What can we do to change those expectations? Well, let us look at the oil market as a whole and look at it in a historical perspective. The first thing we must remember--and remember all the way through this debate--is this: The oil market is a world market. Oil prices are set by world supply and by world demand. It is not a market that is limited to the shores of the United States of America. So what has been going on in the oil market? Over the last 10 years, available sources of supply--that is, reasonable sources that could be producing oil relatively quickly--have been growing but very slowly. I have tried to get absolutely authoritative figures. I have been unable to come up with exact ones. But there is a consensus that available production capacity has been growing over the last 10 years at the rate of about 1 percent per year. What we do know is, over the last 10 years, worldwide demand has been growing at 2.5 percent per year. Oil demand now is roughly 25 percent greater than it was just 10 years ago. It does not take a mathematical genius to put these two numbers together and recognize that if the available sources of supply are growing at only about 1 percent per year, and demand is growing at 2.5 percent per year, the time will come when the safety margin between available supply and worldwide demand will be very small. We have reached that time now. We have reached the time where the safety margin between available supply and worldwide demand is so small that any one single incident anywhere in the world can immediately trigger expectations that the price of oil is going to go up. Whether it is domestic difficulty in Nigeria or political activity in Venezuela, the price of oil goes up when an event comes along that indicates there might be a hiccup in available oil supply. This is perfectly rational. It is not an act of manipulation on anybody's part. It is simply a logical expectation. Now, at one time in our history America could determine what the world price of oil would be. The Texas Railroad Commission could determine what the available productive capacity would be simply by permitting a few additional wells in east Texas. Every time there was a concern that there would not be enough oil, the Texas Railroad Commission would permit more wells. People would look at the safety net between available production and demand and say that it is high enough for us to keep the price of oil close to the cost of producing. For years and years and years, the price of oil was around $7, $8, $9, $10 a barrel because that is what it cost to produce, and the safety margin between the available source of supply and demand was very large. Sometime in the 1970s, that power left our shores. It went from America over to the Middle East, and the Saudi royal family replaced the Texas Railroad Commission as the agency that could determine the price of oil. They would either increase production or lower production, and they found they could control the world price of oil by what they did to the safety margin. But as the safety margin has shrunk, now even the Saudi royal family cannot control the price of oil. There are Members of this body who have written President Bush asking him to go to the Saudis with a tin cup and beg them to increase that safety margin in the hope it will bring down gas prices. That is not the long-term solution to this problem. What I want to do, what Republicans want to do, is get America back in the game and bring the pricing power back on American shores by finding more and using less oil. We can do this because we have, within our continental boundaries, the ability to increase that safety margin. The Gas Price Reduction Act talks about it in two obvious areas. The first one is oil development in the Outer Continental Shelf. This could produce enough oil to increase the safety margin by a million barrels a day originally, and it could go up significantly from there. This would change the expectation, if you are focusing on speculators. Right now, 85 percent of our Outer Continental Shelf is off-limits by virtue of an executive branch moratorium that was placed on it over 25 years ago. President Bush has lifted that moratorium and the markets reacted immediately and the price of oil fell dramatically--not because the oil was immediately available but because the expectation was changed. Now it is up to Congress to lift the congressional moratorium on the Outer Continental Shelf and make sure the expectation is fulfilled. The second area where we can find more oil is in oil shale, an abundant resource located in my home State of Utah. There are people who say, ``Oh, the technology is expensive. The technology does not work.'' Oil shale is producing oil in other countries today. It is time we allowed oil shale to produce oil in the United States. And how much? There is three times as much oil in the oil shale in my State, Colorado, and Wyoming than there is in all of Saudi Arabia. We have not gotten to it because it is all on public lands, and we have been prevented from going on to that. There is now a moratorium in the law that prevents the Department of the Interior from even writing the final rules under which exploration for oil shale can take place and bids under which the oil shale for leases can go forward. The Department of the Interior has now issued a draft of what the rules will be if that moratorium is lifted. In the Gas Price Reduction Act, we call for that moratorium to be lifted. As soon as the moratorium is lifted, what will happen to the speculators? Expectations will change, and they will understand that America is serious about getting back in the game and bringing the pricing power back onto American shores and away from the Saudi royal family. Now, there has been discussion here about the other aspects of the Gas Price Reduction Act: hybrid cars, plug-in hybrids. I have been driving a hybrid car for 8 years. I know what it is like to drive a car that gets 55 miles to the gallon. I understand how important that is. That is why it is in the Gas Price Reduction Act. I have already addressed the question of speculation. What we need to do--and it is in the Gas Price Reduction Act--is increase the number of accountants at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission so we can make sure, if there is real market manipulation going on, it can be discovered and dealt with. But only going after speculators is not the way to get the price of oil down. I agree with Warren Buffett, perhaps the Nation's richest Democrat, who says all this talk about speculation being the problem is nonsense. The problem is supply and demand. The Gas Price Reduction Act is the logical way to deal with supply and demand, get America back in the game, change the expectations, and bring down the price of oil. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that speakers on the Republican side be limited to 10 minutes each.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, I thank the sponsors of this legislation and the leadership of the Senate for bringing this debate forward. I think it is warranted. I think the issues are serious. I am not a naysayer who would say that global warming is not taking place or that human beings are not contributing to it. However, when I start discussing this with my constituents with respect to the present bill, they hit me immediately with one single question: What is it going to cost me? So before I get into any of the aspects of global warming, I want to answer that question. We know we have had a wide range of costs cited on the Senate floor. They have said the increasing gasoline price will be anywhere from 11 percent to 140 percent. We have heard that the increase in cost to electricity will be anywhere from 44 percent to 500 percent. We have heard that the increase in cost in natural gas as a result of this bill would be anywhere from 35 percent to 87 percent. I do not want to pick a number between those two wide ranges in each case. I went to Utah, and I went to the Utah Petroleum Association and said: All right, you have looked at this bill. What will this cost Utah motorists if this is passed? Do not give me 2030 estimates. Do not give me numbers that are in a wide range. Tell me, what will drivers in Utah have to pay at the pump if this bill passes? They gave me a range: somewhere between 32 and 34 additional cents price at the pump. How did they calculate that? They said the total cost to Utah's oil refineries of the bill would be $500 million in the first year of implementation. They can extrapolate that $500 million into the price at the pump. On electricity, I got a wider range. A Utah company estimated it would have to raise electricity rates somewhere between 100 percent and 500 percent in order to cover the cost of their purchasing the carbon allowances. So we start with this debate answering the constituent question: What will it cost? These are what it would cost in Utahns approximately 32 to 34 more cents at the pump and somewhere between 100 and 500 percent in their electricity bill. Now, let's get to the heart of the problem. I would like to make a point I think everybody ignores. This is a global problem, and the bill attempts to solve it with a national solution. On this chart I have in the Chamber I have two lines. The blue line is the projection of what is going to happen in carbon emissions globally. The red line is what is going to happen in carbon emissions in the United States. You can see, the blue line is going up dramatically, whereas the red line is virtually flat. Now, if the bill passes, and everything works as its sponsors say it will--everything comes to pass in the best possible way--what will be the impact? The dotted line in red shows what will be the impact in the United States. The dotted line in blue shows what will be the impact globally. The impact globally will be minimal because increasingly the U.S. share of global emissions is going down. So that is why I am opposed to this bill. I close with a comment from Daniel Botkin, Ph.D., professor emeritus of the University of California, Santa Barbara. He says in his statement: You may think I must be one of those know-nothing naysayers who believes global warming is a liberal plot. On the contrary, I am a biologist and ecologist who has worried about global warming, and been concerned about its effects since 1968. . . . Then he says: I'm not a naysayer. I'm a scientist who believes in the scientific method and in what facts tell us. I have worked for 40 years to try to improve our environment and improve human life as well. . . .

Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. BENNETT. This is his summary: My concern is that we may be moving away from an irrational lack of concern about climate change to an equally irrational panic about it. Many of my colleagues ask, ``What's the problem? Hasn't it been a good thing to raise public concern?'' The problem is that in this panic we are going to spend our money unwisely, we will take actions that are counterproductive, and we will fail to do many of those things that will benefit the environment and ourselves. That is the irrational panic I think we would move to if we do this bill without serious amendment.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, Memorial Day is a day of reflection. It is a day reserved for remembering those who have given their lives in service to our country. While we may choose to remember these individuals in different ways, each American has a responsibility to recognize the contribution of those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice to defend the values upon which this Nation was built. Over the years, I have had the opportunity to meet with a number of the men and women serving in our military, many of whom I am proud to say are fellow Utahns. I am always very humbled by this experience. The courage and dedication of these individuals offers much to emulate. I recognize the sacrifice of the countless men and women who over the decades have selflessly given their lives to uphold freedom and defend the many values we hold dear. Each of these individuals not only gave of their own life but left forever altered the life of a mother, father, husband, wife, son, daughter, brother, or sister. Those loved ones who are left behind are owed our respect and support. We must continue to work to ensure the fallen are remembered and those they leave behind are not forgotten. In this time of war, my thoughts and prayers are with all who serve this Nation and with those families who have made the ultimate sacrifice. I am deeply grateful for this service. Please let us not forget the courage and selflessness of these individuals--to them we owe a debt beyond our means to repay. This Nation shall forever stand grateful and proud of each man and woman who has willingly accepted the call to defend our freedoms and provide for our safety at home.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. I move to reconsider the vote.

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

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I might be allowed to proceed as in morning business for the next 5 minutes.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, this afternoon, I and a number of others who have been supporting Gov. Mitt Romney for the Presidency of the United States met with the Governor and his good wife Ann to have a postmortem following his announcement that he was suspending his campaign. I was perhaps the first Member of this Chamber to announce my public endorsement of Governor Romney, so I wish to be among the first to extend my congratulations to Senator McCain, who has now, by virtue of Governor Romney's suspension of his campaign, locked up the Republican nomination. We all have our understanding of Senator McCain's persistence and his determination to go forward in what he considers to be a good cause. There has never been a demonstration of the importance of that persistence quite as dramatic as his comeback from this campaign. We can remember the time when all of the pundits and, frankly, all the rest of us, myself very much included, wrote off the McCain campaign, assuming that Senator McCain was lying dead in the gutter by the side of the road. I remember talking with some of his supporters in this Chamber at that time who said the McCain campaign is reeling and we don't know whether it is going to ever come back. I remember the rumors that flowed around this town, where people said: We cannot raise any money for the McCain campaign. No one wants to contribute to a lost cause. John McCain, perhaps alone--maybe he had the support of his wife; I assume he did--said: No, I am going to go forward. He picked himself off, took himself off to New Hampshire, and did the same kind of thing he did 8 years ago when he ran against President Bush. In this case, he not only won New Hampshire, but he was able to expand that to wins elsewhere, to the point where we have the result today. So he deserves our congratulations as we recognize this truly extraordinary political accomplishment on his part. I share with my colleagues this comment from Governor Romney. As those of us were supporting him from both the House and the Senate were gathered around him and talking about this, he shared with us this particular insight. He looked at what has happened. He sat down with his supporters. He looked for all the reasons why he should feel good. They pointed out he had won 4 million votes in the various primaries and caucuses and Senator McCain had won 4.7 million. So in terms of the voters who supported him, he was not that far behind. He had won 11 States. Senator McCain had won 13. So on that basis, he was not that far behind. But the cold calculating reality of it was he was very far behind as far as the delegates were concerned. So he said to his advisers and his political consultants: What would it take for me to win the nomination? And they said to him very bluntly: You must destroy John McCain. That was not his word. I don't remember his exact word, but you must go negative, to use the vocabulary of the political consultant, in such a way as to make it impossible for John McCain to proceed with the confidence of the American people. Governor Romney said: I am not going to try that. Even if it might work, I don't want to try that. I don't want to do that. And he made the decision that was announced today. Along with my congratulations to Senator McCain on his extraordinary achievement and his assuming the position now as the obvious Republican nominee, I also congratulate my friend, Mitt Romney, on the graciousness with which he recognized what was happening and his willingness to withdraw now rather than drag the party on into a protracted fight that would make it very difficult for Senator McCain to take control of the levers of power in the party and organize himself for the fight in the fall. These are two good men, each one of different views, each one of very different background, each one of which would bring a different set of talents to the Presidency, each one of which has now exposed himself to the fire of the primary process. One has emerged victorious; the other has recognized that and stepped aside. I think it is a demonstration that the American political system, however messy, works. Again, I extend my congratulations to Senator McCain. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, as the majority leader noted, last night Gordon B. Hinckley, the oldest serving president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the history, passed away. He was 97 years old. Many might think that in lasting until 97 he passed away as a wasted, worn-out man. That is not true. President Hinckley was energetic and enthusiastic and fully engaged within just a day or two of his passing. With my senior colleague Senator Hatch, I have had meetings with him and the other leaders of the church and was always amazed at how well connected he was. He read the papers. He watched the television. He knew what was going on in the world outside the church every bit as much as we did. His memory was phenomenal. There are many people who were 20 to 30 years his junior who could not remember current items of news as well as he could. So it is appropriate we take a moment or two to comment on the stewardship and contribution of this great man at the time of his passing. We do not mourn for him. He has joined his wife, his parents, and those others who have gone before him who may have a little sense of ``Gordon, what took you so long?'' But he stayed at his job and he fulfilled his stewardship in an impressive manner. The mourning we have on this occasion is mourning for ourselves, for the loss we have sustained in seeing this great and good man go on. I have made mention of his energy. I should also mention his enthusiasm. He had a great zest for life. He was always looking forward to the next activity and the next opportunity. Along with his energy and enthusiasm, he was a man of humility and humor. You were never quite sure when he stood at the pulpit to speak if he was going to say something that would put you at ease and make you laugh, because that happened much more often than it did with some others who were a little more serious in their message. His messages were always serious, but they always had that touch of humor. The last message we heard from him, speaking to the entire world in general, and to the church specifically, was his sermon of last October. I am sure he did not know that would be his final sermon to the members of the church. But it started out again with a touch of Hinckley humor. He noted, as he stood to speak, that singers will sing the same song over and over again, as people ask them to perform; orchestras will play the same symphony over and over again; but speakers are always expected to say something new. He said that bothered him a little, as he was going to repeat a sermon he had given before. After we smiled at his early comments, we heard a lecture on anger. He talked about the toxic effects of anger and how we should do our very best, both in our personal lives and in our professional lives, and, if I may, here in the Senate in national dialog, to do away with the sense of anger. I have just returned from the annual session in Davos, Switzerland, where I heard a lot of people who could benefit from that sermon, as there was a lot of anger people had toward other governments and other government officials. I will not in any way attempt to capsulize what President Hinckley had to say about anger, except to demonstrate that this was his benediction prior to his death to the members of his church, telling them not to be angry with their families, not to be angry in their communities, and not to be angry with the world. A former Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul, spoke in his letter to the Corinthians about the three most important attributes of a Christian: faith, hope, and charity. Gordon B. Hinckley spoke of these same attributes and lived them in his life. But he put them, if you will, in modern terms: optimism, confidence, and love. A sermon telling us not to be angry with our fellow men is a fitting capstone to the stewardship of this man. It is a modern way of saying Paul's term ``charity'' or the pure love of Christ. We shall miss him.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. I concur with Senator Kohl, the subcommittee chairman, in this action.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BENNETT. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I rise to note with some sadness that we are reaching a point at the end of this session where it appears we will adjourn without acting on any of the nominees for the Federal Election Commission. The effect of this will be to leave the Federal Election Commission with only two functioning commissioners, when the law calls for six. It is worse than that. The law insists that no action can be taken by the commission without the votes of at least four. So by having only two left, we will leave the Federal Election Commission with no capacity to function. I have a history with the Federal Election Commission which makes me sensitive to the importance of this group. When I was elected, there was an allegation made against me which I considered highly partisan. It went before the FEC and before the entire commission a vote was taken, with the three Republicans upholding the position I took and the three Democrats holding the position on the other side. Because they could not muster four votes, nothing was done. In my view, this was justice. But the thing I found difficult was the fact that the partisanship on the FEC was so heavy, there was an almost automatic 3-3 vote on everything. It makes far more sense for the commissioners to work together to recognize the merits of the case, rather than simply responding in a knee-jerk partisan fashion to the individual or group that is bringing the charge. In my case, that is what was happening. A Democratic group brought the charge that I had violated the law. The three Democrats on the FEC automatically agreed with that, and the three Republicans automatically disagreed. I don't think, frankly, any of them spent any time examining the merits. If they had, I am sure I would have been unanimously exonerated, but that is not the way it worked in those days. It got to the point here on the floor where a piece of legislation was introduced saying, whenever there is a tie in the FEC, the general counsel will break the tie. Along with Senator McConnell, I and others did our best to defeat that bill because it would have de facto made the general counsel of the FEC the sole decisionmaker for that body. I am happy to report that those days seem to have passed. We now have an FEC where the vast majority of the votes are unanimous, where partisanship seems to have taken a back seat to an attempt to get things right and act on the merits rather than the partisan challenge. Four of the members of the FEC are recess appointees who must be confirmed. The President has sent forward four names--two Republicans and two Democrats. In the standard tradition, practice, procedure, and precedent of the FEC, the Democratic leadership in the Congress got to pick the two Democrats. The Republican leadership got to pick the two Republicans. Always before we have moved these nominations forward en bloc, maintaining the balance between Republicans and Democrats, with Republicans approving the Democratic nominations, and Democrats approving the Republican nominations. In our committee, the Rules Committee on which I have the honor to sit, we sent all four of the names en bloc to the Senate. There was great controversy about one of them, which I will address, but in the spirit of the past history of the committee, instead of singling out this one individual to come to the Senate without recommendation, we said we will treat all four of them alike, and all four names came to the Senate without recommendation so that the Senate could work its will. Now because of the controversy surrounding one of the Republican nominees, it becomes clear we will not have a vote on any of the four, producing the deadlock I described at the opening of my remarks. We will have only two functioning FEC commissioners beginning next year, and the FEC will not be able to rule on any of the controversies that may arise in the 2008 election. Furthermore, the FEC will not be able to distribute any Presidential matching funds in the 2008 election. This comes as bad news to some of our colleagues in the Senate, because many of them were dependent upon and expecting the matching funds to come out of the Presidential campaign fund. They will not get them, because these nominees will not be approved. Who is the one who is causing all of this problem? His name is Hans von Spakovsky. He has been attacked by outside groups on the grounds that he is somehow insensitive to minority voters. I wish to spend a moment examining that particular attack. It all comes back to a position Mr. von Spakovsky took when he was at the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department and recommended the pre-clearance of a voter ID law. There were those who were career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division who said a voter ID law is terrible and should not go forward. But Mr. von Spakovsky disagreed with them. Then, acting on Mr. von Spakovsky's recommendation, the management of the Justice Department said: No, we are going to go forward. According to those who have attacked Mr. von Spakovsky, he was overruled by a court. The court did issue an injunction, saying that the voter ID law could not be enforced, thus leaving the impression that von Spakovsky is an ideologue, while the career attorneys were simply doing their job and the court stepped in to protect the country from this ideologue. In fact, the injunction had to do simply with the timing of the implementation of the law and was not a determination on the merits of the case, with the court saying it didn't want the law enforced right now but wanted to wait until the matter could be fully considered. After the case was heard, a Federal judge, one appointed by President Carter, although that probably shouldn't make any difference, and the one who had initially issued the injunction, upheld the constitutionality of the Georgia voter ID law and, in that fashion, ratified the position Mr. von Spakovsky had taken all along. Mr. von Spakovsky's position was consistent with the ruling of the Federal court that said the career attorneys who argued with him were wrong. He was on the right side of the law; they were on the wrong side of the law. Yet he is being attacked as somehow being the ideologue who must be kept off the FEC lest the FEC be turned into some kind of partisan hotbed of difficulty and dissension. The fact is, Mr. von Spakovsky has served on the FEC as a recess appointee for 2 years. We need not project what he would do if he were confirmed. We can look at what he has done in that 2-year period. To that point, I repeat that the vast majority of the cases that have been dealt with since he has been on the FEC have been unanimous. He has not been a lone voice seeking to destroy the FEC or turn it into some kind of partisan hotbed. He has acted completely in the mainstream, in the opinion of the other members of the FEC. Let me quote from one of the Democratic members of the FEC, repeating again these people are appointed for their partisan positions. This is not a circuit court where you want to find someone who is above partisanship. This is where the law specifically says there will be three Republicans and three Democrats. This is what Mr. Walther, a Democratic member of the FEC, had to say at the December 14 FEC meeting. This is from a very recent article. He said Mr. von Spakovsky was ``a terrific person to work with'' as a colleague, a ``fine commissioner.'' The article continues: ``He (Walther) spoke after Mr. von Spakovsky made a traditional nominating speech, praising Mr. Walther's qualifications to be vice chairman. Mr. Walther's comments echoed a speech during the FEC meeting by Mr. Lenhard to close his year-long chairmanship by praising bipartisan cooperation on the commission and recounting the FEC's accomplishments in resolving enforcement cases.'' One of the things we hear around here during confirmation battles is, the President ought to make more mainstream nominations. Not for this one; this one, by law, is supposed to be partisan. But here is a man who has had 2 years of experience, 2 years of service, being praised for his activities, clearly in the mainstream, being attacked for a position he held before he came to the FEC where polls have been done and found that 81 percent of Americans, with only 7 percent dissenting, agree with Mr. von Spakovsky's position that we ought to have voter ID. We have photo ID requirements in order to keep cigarettes out of the hands of teenagers. We have photo ID requirements in order to keep terrorists off airplanes. I have had the experience in my home State of Utah, where I like to think I am fairly well known, of being asked for a photo ID when I have presented a credit card, in an effort to avoid identity theft. Isn't preventing voter fraud as important as keeping tobacco out of the hands of teenagers or preventing identity theft? Eighty-one percent of Americans agree with von Spakovsky's position on this matter. Yet he is being attacked as being outside the mainstream for what his critics call a partisan position. Because of the holds that have been placed on Commissioner von Spakovsky's nomination, we now come to this impasse where the FEC will be left with only two Commissioners, unable to rule on any potential violation that may occur in the 2008 election--a Presidential year, along with all of the Senate races that are up, and every Member of the House of Representatives. The FEC will not be able to rule on any violations because they will have only two Commissioners--all because of an ideological bent pushed by groups outside of the Congress saying that this one man, because he agrees with 81 percent of the American people, is somehow disqualified for being too partisan. The principle has always been that the Republicans pick the Republican nominees for the FEC and the Democrats pick the Democratic nominees for the FEC--a principle that makes sense. I do not know very much about the Democratic nominees for these positions who will not be confirmed, and, frankly, I do not care because they are not mine to select. They have been picked by the Democratic leadership to represent the Democratic position, and I am willing to vote for them on that basis. Mr. von Spakovsky has a 2-year history of acting intelligently, with great integrity, and great collegiality in this position, and it is a tragedy that the whole Commission will be denied the opportunity to function in a Presidential year; that those Presidential candidates who are depending on Presidential matching funds will not get them because outside groups have demonized this one public servant. It is a sad day that this kind of thing is happening with respect to our governmental appointments.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, one of the words we often hear as people talk about relationships is the word ``mentor.'' It is always assumed that the older person mentors the younger person. The record is clear that I am 8 years older than Trent Lott. But the record is also clear that he has acted as my mentor as I have come here to the Senate. We have all heard about his legislative accomplishments. I wish to pick out three items of my relationship with Trent where he has taught me things that have been valuable. When Trent ran for the whip position, I worked for the election of Alan Simpson. I didn't know Trent all that well. Alan and I were friends from long ago. We first met up in the family gallery when our respective fathers were being sworn in as Senators. He introduced me to his child bride and I introduced him to mine. He made the Simpson-like comment. He said: Having married younger women, this means in our older age we will smell perfume instead of liniment. After I got to know Trent and appreciate his abilities, I made the comment, If I had known you to have been as good a leader as you are, I would have voted for you in the beginning. He corrected me and said, No, your relationship with Simpson was so strong and so personal that you should have supported him, and I didn't even ask you because I respected that relationship. That was a very important thing he taught me there about relationships and commitments that I have tried to remember ever since. Second: As a freshman Senator who was sure I understood the institution, I moved out aggressively in a variety of circumstances and suddenly found myself caught in a vice between two very senior, very powerful, very opinionated Senators, whose names I shall not disclose. I didn't know what to do. Whatever I did, I would offend one or the other and both of them had reputations for very long memories and determination to take revenge. In my moment of great panic, I called Trent and laid this before him, more or less seeking some kind of balm or salve, and received instead a solution. He, with his expertise, knew how to maneuver between these two giants, and what was in some ways my most difficult day in the Senate became, with Trent's help, one of the better days I experienced in the Senate, as I watched these two clash together, with me on the sidelines, staying out of it because of his help. He taught me again: Don't get yourself into that kind of problem in the first place. Finally, emotions run high around here. People get all wrapped up in the issue of the time. We had one of those, where some members of the Republican conference deserted leadership and there was a sense of great anger. Some people were talking about retaliation. Trent taught me this great truth. He said: The most important vote is the next one. Do not allow your concern over that vote to damage your relationship that you may need on the next vote. Those among us of the Republican conference who wanted to retaliate-- Trent did his best to say to them: No, don't carry that grudge, don't carry that forward. Understand, the most important vote is the next vote. Those were the three things I wanted to highlight that I have learned from Trent. But I want to point out that he himself, when the blow fell--as Senator Specter has said, in a vastly overblown reaction to an appropriate comment--he himself demonstrated in his own life his commitment to those principles. He did not allow anything that had happened as a result of that to destroy his relationships, the friendships he had built. Even if there were some who could have been attacked for having abandoned him, he did not attack those relationships. He did not show any desire to retaliate. He may have felt it. Indeed, he would not be human if he didn't. But he came back to the Senate with his optimism showing, his determination to stay calm, his determination to stay engaged and not allow a sense of revenge or retaliation to take him over. That, of course, served him in good stead when he was returned to leadership by the same massive majority that he had when he took the whip's job the first time--by 1 vote. This is a man we shall miss. This is a man who has taught us a lot. This is a man who served as a mentor to me, and because of him, I now own a pair of white bucks.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, last week a group of us, both Senators and Members of the House, Republicans and Democrats, had the opportunity to sit down with Frederick Kagan, who is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and listen to his comments about where we are with respect to Iraq. At the end of that very illuminating session, he gave us each a copy of a new report that he has authored called ``No Middle Way, The Challenge of Exit Strategies from Iraq.'' The report is too long for me to ask consent that it be printed in the Record, but I recommend it to all my colleagues. It is one of the most thorough and thoughtful examinations of where we are in Iraq I have seen. I will be quoting from it, but I wish to make a few observations about the situation in Iraq before I do. The Iraq debate seems to be mired down in arguments about past decisions and whether they were right. These kinds of arguments are useful, and they are particularly useful in the hands of historians who are reviewing an entire situation from a vantage point of years afterward, but they are not necessarily that valuable as we are addressing the question of what do we do now. If I can play the historian for a moment and give examples of how we have entered into conflicts and seen the situation on the ground change and, therefore, strategies change, let me go back to the Revolutionary War. At the time of the Revolutionary War, the original strategies the Commander in Chief, George Washington, applied didn't work. Indeed, the Continental Army was defeated again and again and again by the British troops, and Washington was forced to acknowledge that his original strategic decisions were the wrong ones. This did not mean we lost the war because Washington adjusted to the conditions on the ground, adopted new strategies, and ended up winning the war. In the Civil War, when Abraham Lincoln made the decision to provision Fort Sumter, he did not understand how long the war would last, how difficult it would be, how much life and treasure it would claim. He was forced to change again and again in reaction to the results that came from the battlefield. In Iraq, we made some decisions based on intelligence at the time which have proved to be wrong. Spending our time in this Chamber arguing over those decisions instead of recognizing how conditions have changed on the ground becomes a self-defeating exercise. As I look at the decisions that were made prior to the decision to go into Iraq, the one that strikes me as being the most significant was our failure to understand the degree to which Saddam Hussein had destroyed that country, not just physically, not just in terms of its infrastructure but psychologically. We believed there were Iraqis who could step forward and lead a resurgence of that country if we simply freed them from the heavy hand of Saddam Hussein. That was a false belief. We found Iraqis so shattered by 37 years of one of the most brutal dictatorships we have ever seen that the leadership vacuum was huge. For us now to spend our time saying, well, we made the mistake, therefore we have to cure the mistake by getting out, is to ignore the conditions on the ground that have evolved as a result of getting into the war in the first place. Mr. Kagan makes the point that there is no middle way. We are trying to find a middle way in these Chambers. There are those who say the only way is to withdraw immediately, and there are others who say, no, the only way is to stay the course. That phrase has been hackneyed; it doesn't work anymore. So it is natural for many of us to say: Let's find some middle way. Let's stay in there somewhat, but let's eliminate a good portion of the American footprint in Iraq and see if that doesn't help us get out without absolute withdrawal. Mr. Kagan makes the point that the conditions on the ground rule out such a middle way. I find his arguments persuasive, and I would like to share some of them with my colleagues today. He looks not at the question of did Saddam Hussein have anything to do with 9/11, a question we hear debated a great deal. He says: Is al- Qaida engaged now in Iraq? The answer is overwhelmingly yes. Whether al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein had any ties prior to our invasion in Iraq is now irrelevant. Al-Qaida is in Iraq. Al-Qaida is a major player in Iraq. There are those who say Iran is the major threat, and we should be looking at Iran. He points out that Iran is very much involved in Iraq at the present time. These are the conditions on the ground. We are not debating 9/11. We are not debating the U.N. resolutions. We are debating conditions on the ground that very much involve both al-Qaida and Iran. So those are the conditions to which we need to pay attention. If I may quote from Mr. Kagan's report, he says: A precipitous American withdrawal from Iraq will likely be portrayed in the region as a defeat for the United States and as a victory for Iran. Arab states are already concerned about the growth in Iranian power and pretensions in the region, but few have the capability to do more than complain. The Saudis and the Gulf states are no match for Iran militarily and would almost certainly seek an accommodation with Tehran rather than allowing themselves to be drawn into a major confrontation. That is a very interesting thing to contemplate as you look ahead-- Iran expanding its power in the region, making some kind of accommodation with the Saudis and the other Gulf States in order to consolidate its power. Is that something America wants to look forward to? He goes on: A possible side effect of the U.S. withdrawal is the establishment of Iranian hegemony in the Middle East. Tehran certainly seeks a predominant position in southern Iraq, including Baghdad, and it would be in a position to put great pressure on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States in the absence of a large American presence in the region following a visible U.S. defeat. That pressure might include efforts to deny the U.S. the use of bases or to support Iranian initiatives in the region and in the nuclear realm. The perception of an American defeat at the hands of Iran is likely to fuel seismic shifts in the politics of the Middle East, none of them to our advantage. We are having a great debate about what to do about Iran. We are showing great concern about the possibility of Iran getting a nuclear weapon. The new President of France, Mr. Sarkozy, has talked about the unacceptability of Iran having a nuclear weapon, even to the point of suggesting that military options should be on the table. Military options with respect to an Iranian nuclear weapon, if it comes to that, will undoubtedly involve more American troops and more American treasure than are currently at stake in Iraq. In the conclusion section of Mr. Kagan's report, he says: It is simply not possible to design a militarily feasible plan to draw down U.S. forces dramatically and on a rapid timeline that still permits the accomplishment of America's vital interests in Iraq and the region. The CNAS report-- The report he discusses in the group that tries to find a middle way-- has raised the extremely important question of devising a sound plan for transitioning to an advisory role, and this question deserves a great deal of careful study in the months ahead. But now is the time to start thinking about that transition, not to start implementing it prematurely. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. Kagan concludes: Any plan that requires a withdrawal based on a timeline, rather than conditions on the ground, is likely to lead to failure. The notion that imposing timelines would somehow force the Iraqi government to ``do the right thing'' and thereby resolve the problems in the country is always presented without any evidence. It is the logical argument without substantiation that appears to be contradicted by past precedent and by facts on the ground. It is a mirage that some people cling to as a way of convincing themselves and others that an action likely to lead to complete failure in Iraq will instead lead to at least partial success. As the president and Congress deliberate on the best way ahead for the United States and Iraq, therefore, the choices are quite stark. Either the United States can continue its efforts to establish security while improving the capabilities of the ISF or it can abandon those efforts, withdraw, and allow Iraq to sink into chaos where terrorists can flourish. I urge all Members of the Senate to pay attention to the wisdom of Mr. Kagan's report.

Mr. BENNETT

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

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I rise to make note of an event that the newspapers have talked about and then passed over, but one we should pay a great deal more attention to. This has to do with the number of increasing cyber attacks that have occurred where hackers have gotten into computers and upset their ability to function. I am not talking about the kind of hackers who break into a computer to leave behind an obscene message simply to demonstrate that they could do it. These are amateurs. I am talking about attacks that appear to be state sponsored. The Nation of Estonia had its computers shut down for a period of a week, unable to perform any kind of connection with the outside world, almost as if it were a test on the part of some nation state to determine whether they could perform this kind of activity. Now we have had further demonstrations of their ability to do it in government computers. This has been going on for years. I remember, when I was connected with the Y2K issue as chairman of the Senate's committee on that problem, going over to the Pentagon and standing in the room where we watched the cyber attacks come in. The officials in the Pentagon would identify for me the countries from which they were coming. They would say: Those are attacks coming from the Philippines. Those are attacks, probing, trying to get into our computers. They come from South Korea. These are coming from whatever other country. That does not mean the attacks originated in any of those countries. It is entirely possible in today's world for someone to have a sophisticated computer attack in one nation and route the attacks through a second or even third or fourth nation as cutouts so the victim of the attack will not be able to know the original source. The recent attacks that have occurred against our Government computers clearly come from a higher level of sophistication than those I saw 3 or 4 years ago. I pursued an interest in this issue and then became consumed with other Senate business--that happens to us--and said, a few years later: I probably need to check into this to see what has happened. So I went back to the National Security Agency, I went back to the Pentagon, I made contact again with people at the CIA and said: What is going on in the world of cyberattacks and cyberterrorism? I was startled that everything had progressed two, three, four, five generations beyond what it had been just a few years before. It is a classic sword-and-shield confrontation. The attack comes--representing the sword--we create firewalls--representing the shield--and then a new sword is invented and a new shield is called for. This game has been going on now to an escalated level where now we are seeing sophisticated nation state-sponsored attacks, and they break through occasionally, and they get a little space in the newspaper and maybe a mention on the evening news, and then we go about business as usual. I am as guilty as anyone else of going about business as usual. I want to get back into this issue, dig a little deeper, and find out what is going on because eventually this will be the ultimate battlefield. Eventually, the people who wish this country ill will not come at us with tanks and aircraft carriers or cruise missiles; they will come at our computers. Our military is the most sophisticated in the world, but if you shut down their ability to communicate through satellites and by computers, our military becomes crippled and impotent. I remember when I went through basic training being told that an army has to do three things: It has to move, shoot, and communicate. Those who are mounting these cyberattacks are developing the capability to prevent us from communicating. We need to spend more time and effort looking at this issue. I have one suggestion for the executive branch. During the Clinton administration, the highest official dealing with this issue was in the White House. After President Bush became the President, that official reported to Condoleezza Rice in her role as National Security Adviser. I sat down with Condoleezza Rice to talk about this issue, to try to bring her up to date on what I thought was important. She was very polite, but I became quickly aware she knew more about this issue than I did. She was not patronizing about it, but she was up to speed and up to date on it, and I felt reassured that the White House had that level of understanding. Well, she has now gone on to other duties, and the highest official now is in the Department of Homeland Security. I am not sure that is the place where it needs to be. It may very well be that it needs to go back into the White House at the high level it held at one point in the past. I will be discussing this and other issues relating to this question in the months to come. I appreciate the opportunity of alerting my fellow Senators to this very important but often overlooked issue. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.