Jeff Bingaman

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that an oversight hearing has been scheduled before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will be held on Thursday, June 12, 2008, at 2:15 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the relationship between U.S. renewable fuels policy and food prices. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record may do so by sending it to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510-6150, or by e-mail to Rosemarie _Calabro@energy.senate.gov. For further information, please contact Tara Billingsley or Rosemarie Calabro. Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that an oversight hearing has been scheduled. The hearing will be held on Wednesday, June 18, 2008, at 2 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The purpose of the hearing is to consider the preparedness of Federal land management agencies for the 2008 wildfire season. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send it to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510-6150, or by e-mail to Rachel_pasternack@energy.senate .gov. For further information, please contact Scott Miller or Rachel Pasternack.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today on a sad note--to inform the Senate of the recent death of a model public servant who served our country well. John W. Keys, III, was the 16th Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. He served in that capacity from July 17, 2001, to April 15, 2006, and worked closely with the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources which I have the privilege of chairing. Commissioner Keys retired 2 years ago to return to Utah and pursue his favorite pastimes which included flying. Tragically, he was killed on May 30, 2008, when the airplane he was piloting crashed in Canyonlands National Park, UT, with one passenger aboard. Commissioner Keys' appointment by President Bush to lead the Bureau of Reclamation was actually his second stint with the agency. He returned to Federal service after previously retiring from a 34-year career with reclamation. During that time, he worked as a civil and hydraulic engineer in various positions throughout the western United States. Ultimately, he served as reclamation's Pacific Northwest regional director for 12 years before his initial retirement in 1998. Commissioner Keys was a dedicated public servant whose knowledge, experience, and demeanor were key factors in his successful leadership of the Bureau of Reclamation. Those same skills, combined with his willingness to work with Congress on a bipartisan basis, were instrumental in addressing a wide range of water resource issues across the West. He will be sorely missed, but left a legacy of accomplishments that will ensure that he is long-remembered. I offer my condolences to his wife, Dell, and their daughters, Cathy and Robyn.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that a hearing has been scheduled before Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks. The hearing will be held on June 17, 2008, at 2:30 p.m, in room SD- 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the following bills: S. 1774, to designate the John Krebs Wilderness in the State of California, to add certain land to the Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park Wilderness, and for other purposes; S. 2255, to amend the National Trails System Act to provide for studies of the Chisholm Trail and Great Western Trail to determine whether to add the trails to the National Trails System, and for other purposes; S. 2359, to establish the St. Augustine 450th Commemoration Commission, and for other purposes; S. 2943, to amend the National Trails System Act to designate the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail; S. 3010, to reauthorize the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program; S. 3017, to designate the Beaver Basin Wilderness at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in the State of Michigan; S. 3045, to establish the Kenai Mountains-Turnagain Arm National Forest Heritage Area in the State of Alaska, and for other purposes; and H.R. 1143, to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to lease certain lands in Virgin Islands National Park, and for other purposes. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send it to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510-6150, or by e-mail to rachel_pasternack@energy.senate .gov. For further information, please contact David Brooks at (202) 224- 9863 or Rachel Pasternack at (202) 224-0883.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak briefly about a number of important provisions in this domestic funding amendment. I am delighted that this amendment passed the Senate by an overwhelming vote of 75-22, and I hope the House will pass it swiftly and overwhelmingly as well. There are many provisions in this amendment that will meet many important needs we are facing as a country, but I would like to mention a few that are of particular note. First, the bill contains a total of $15 million to help reduce drug-related violence in the border region by aggressively stepping up efforts to prevent weapons from being smuggled into Mexico to arm drug cartels. Of this money, $5 million would be allocated for ATF to provide assistance to Mexican authorities in investigating weapons trafficking cases and $10 million would be set aside for ATF to enhance Project Gunrunner Teams in the southwest border States. This funding is based on S. 2867, the Southwest Border Violence Reduction Act, which I recently introduced with Senator Hutchison. This measure is also cosponsored by Senators Feinstein, Kyl, Durbin, and Domenici. According to ATF, about 90 percent of the firearms recovered in Mexico come from the United States. These weapons are used by drug gangs to forcefully maintain control over trafficking routes and greatly undermine the ability of Mexico to fight drug traffickers. These violent groups use smuggled weapons to assassinate military and police officials, murder rival members of drug organizations, and kill civilians. In the Mexican state of Chihuahua, which shares a border with New Mexico, there have been over 200 killings since the beginning of 2008, an increase of about 100 percent over the previous year. Violence perpetrated by international drug trafficking organizations impacts the well-being and safety of communities on both sides of the United States-Mexico border. I am pleased that additional resources are being allocated to target weapons trafficking networks and enhance international cooperation in investigating these cases. The second provision I would like to discuss relates to assistance we are providing to local law enforcement situated along the southern border. The bill includes $90 million for a competitive grant program within DOJ to help local law enforcement along the southern border and other agencies located in areas impacted by drug trafficking. As the sponsor of the Border Law Enforcement Relief Act, I have been pressing for Congress to help border law enforcement agencies with the costs they incur in addressing criminal activity in the border region. I strongly believe this funding is greatly needed and I am glad the Congress is giving this issue the attention it deserves. This bill also takes an important step forward in advancing our economic security by increasing funding for math and science education programs by $50 million. In America Competes, this Congress recognized that in order to ensure an educated and skilled workforce, we needed to strengthen math and science education. Accordingly, we significantly expanded math and science education programs at the National Science Foundation. I am particularly pleased to see an increase of $20 million in the Robert Noyce Scholarship program, which recruits and prepares talented students and professionals to become math and science teachers. The bill also contains an additional $24 million to support graduate study in STEM fields. Further, earlier this year Senators Domenici, Alexander, Dorgan, Corker, Feinstein, Kennedy, Schumer and I wrote a letter to the Appropriations Committee requesting $250 million for the Department of Energy's Office of Science. This bill allocates some $900 million for agencies performing science, including $100 million for the DOE's Office of Science. In addition, it provides $400 million for the National Institutes of Health to keep its budget up with inflation and $200 million for NASA and their space flight mission. I am grateful to the committee for recognizing the importance of science and taking it into account in this supplemental appropriations bill. In light of the ``silent tsunami'' of the food crisis in the developing world, I am pleased that the Senate version of the supplemental provides for approximately $1.2 billion in funding for food aid through fiscal year 2009. I am also pleased that USAID will reportedly announce a $45 million package in food aid for Haiti, of which $25 million will be distributed via the World Food Programme, at a press conference tomorrow morning. However, I believe that more needs to be done for Haiti. According to Haitian President Rene Preval, Haiti needs $60 million in U.S. food aid assistance to avert famines over the next 6 months. Accordingly, I call upon USAID to allocate at least $60 million of the $1.2 billion food aid appropriation to Haiti. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, where approximately 76 percent of Haiti's population subsists on under $2 per day and 55 percent on under $1 per day. One in five Haitian children is malnourished. We must address these challenges, partly for reasons of preserving stability in the Caribbean, and partly to provide an alternative to emigrating to the United States, but mostly because it is the right thing to do. I am also pleased that the supplemental provides for $100 million of assistance for Central America, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic to support the Merida Initiative in those regions and countries. In particular, I am pleased that the Senate version of the supplemental set aside $5 million of this money to combat drug trafficking and for anticorruption and rule of law activities in Haiti. This amount doubled the $2.5 million called for in the House version. Last year, when the Drug Enforcement Agency stationed two helicopters in Haiti on a temporary basis, the level of cocaine shipments transiting the country by air and sea declined significantly. This decline resulted in lower levels of corruption in Haiti and less cocaine reaching the United States. I hope that today's $5 million in funding for Haiti will replicate these successes, and I call upon the DEA to use a portion of these funds to increase interdiction capability in Haiti by placing helicopters there on a more sustained basis. Finally, I would also like to voice my strong support for provisions within this legislation to block attempts by the Bush administration to reduce health care access for low-income children, seniors, and others. In the last year and a half the Bush administration has aggressively attempted to shrink the Federal Medicaid program by reducing the ability of States to provide Medicaid coverage to their most vulnerable populations. These actions have been taken under the ruse of ``fraud and abuse'' reforms but we should be clear about what they really are, an attempt to reduce Federal expenses on the backs of poor Americans. At a time when we are spending approximately $12 billion a month on the war, that is about $5,000 a second, and at a time when so many Americans are facing economic hardship and will be depending on low- income programs, it is unconscionable that the Bush administration is attacking the poorest among us--all in a weak attempt at appearing fiscally responsible. These programs are critical to many low-income patients and safety- net providers in my home State of New Mexico and across the Nation. For example, the most significant of the administration's proposals would devastate New Mexico's Sole Community Provider Fund, which plays a critical role in ensuring New Mexicans in rural areas of the State have access to life-saving hospital services and funds programs for uninsured New Mexicans. It also would cause the University of New Mexico Hospital and other New Mexico institutions to lose millions of dollars for the care they provide to our low-income residents. It is important to note this is not a partisan issue. I have worked for the last year and a half to block this specific proposal including introducing legislation with Senator Dole, S. 2460. Seventy-four members of the Senate, Democrats and Republicans alike, have gone on record opposing this Bush proposal. We were successful in blocking it last year and I am very pleased that we are acting to block it for an additional year. Sadly, the Bush administration's proposals don't end there. The White House also would undermine the ability of schools to help enroll children in Medicaid and coordinate their health care services. The administration would also cut rehabilitation services provided to people with disabilities, especially those with mental illness and intellectual disabilities; cut case management services for the elderly, children in foster care and people with disabilities; reduce specialized medical transportation services for children; and severely limit Medicaid payments for outpatient hospital services. Finally, the administration also is attempting to severely limit States' abilities to expand enrollment of children in the State Children's Health Insurance Program or SCHIP. Taken together the Bush administration's efforts would cost my State approximately $180 million this year in Federal low-income support and much more in subsequent years. The Nation's Governors oppose the Bush administrations efforts, as do State Medicaid directors, State legislators, and the National Association of Counties. More than 2,000 national and local groups--such as the American Hospital Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the March of Dimes--also oppose these efforts. They know the devastating effect these rules would have on local communities, their hospitals, and vulnerable beneficiaries.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. Presdient, I am pleased to cosponsor Senator Warner's legislation that calls on the President to reduce the gasoline consumption of the departments and agencies that he oversees. We are seeing American consumers begin to use less gasoline, as prices reach new historic highs almost daily. Many Americans simply cannot afford to maintain their regular driving habits at the moment. This is a situation that we have not experienced in this country in over 30 years. It is important that the Federal Government show its solidarity with the American people in this time of economic hardship. Just as individual citizens are finding ways to use less gasoline, the U.S. Government should also be finding ways to reduce consumption. Because the Executive Branch is by far the largest branch of Government, it is important that the President take the lead on this issue. As the Federal Government spends less money on fuel, we send fewer American taxpayers' hard earned dollars to oil-exporting countries. That is a goal I know we can all agree is laudable under any circumstance, but even more so now, as fuel costs continue to soar.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that a field hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Water and Power. The hearing will be held on Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 2 p.m., at the Best Western Ramkota Hotel and Conference Center, located at 3200 W. Maple Street, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the Bureau of Reclamation's implementation of the Rural Water Supply Act of 2006, and the status of implementation of authorized rural water projects in the Great Plains Region. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send it to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510-6150, or by e-mail to Gina_Weinstock@energy.senate.gov. For further information, please contact Michael Connor at (202) 224- 5479 or Gina Weinstock at (202) 224-5684. committee on rules and administration

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague. I will start by congratulating Senator Harkin and Senator Chambliss for their good work on this legislation, and also Senator Baucus. I know Senator Conrad also had a very important role in completing this legislation. This is a good bill for New Mexico, a good bill for the Nation. I plan to vote for the conference report. Mr. President, I am pleased with the numerous provisions in this bill that help promote specialty crops like chile and pecans, conserve natural resources, invest in food and nutrition for children, increase production of advanced biofuels, promote broadband service in rural areas and provide fresh fruits and vegetables for schools. The bill includes the consensus language I support on country-of-origin labeling of meat and vegetables. I also appreciate the conferees including a provision authorizing a new Southwest Border Regional Commission. I originally introduced the Southwest Border Authority bill, which created this Commission, in 2002. I have been working since then with Senators Boxer, Feinstein, and Hutchison toward its passage. I would also like to commend the work of Congressman Silvestre Reyes, who championed the bill in the House. The new commission will give the Southwest border region the ability to coordinate economic activity and innovation. There can be no question that the Southwest border is an area of tremendous promise and economic activity. Unfortunately, this region has long suffered from a lack of coordinated effort among and between the border counties. The Southwest Border Regional Commission will, for the first time, provide the tools and personnel necessary to harness the opportunity in the area and create a dynamic economy that will benefit the entire Nation. Nevertheless, there are provisions in this bill that cause me concern. The dairy industry is New Mexico's single most important agricultural commodity. My State is currently the Nation's ninth largest dairy State and sixth in total cheese production. Dairy producers in my State see little in the bill to help them deal with today's high production costs and believe this bill will hurt them. It is unfortunate that the bill extends and expands a subsidy program called the milk income loss contract at a cost of $1.6 billion over 5 years. I led the opposition to the MILC subsidy in the 2002 farm bill and voted against the extension of it in 2006. I do believe the program unfairly favors producers in only a few States and is not a good use of taxpayers' money. I am also disappointed that the conferees did not include my bipartisan provision that promoted water conservation for producers in the Ogallala aquifer. The Ogallala aquifer is a critical source of groundwater for agricultural and municipal uses. My voluntary program would have helped slow the rapid depletion of this vital resource. In place of my provision, the bill has a new Agriculture Water Enhancement Program. I intend to work with USDA to ensure that priority is given to States and agricultural producers in the Ogallala region to coordinate Federal assistance with State programs and to encourage cooperation among States in implementing conservation programs and efficient use of water. Let me conclude my statement by spending a minute or two talking about the provision in this bill to expand trade preferences for Haiti, and the situation in Haiti more broadly. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. According to United Nations Development Programme data, approximately 76 percent of Haiti's population subsists on under $2 per day and 55 percent on under $1 per day. As much as three-fifths of the population is unemployed or underemployed. One in five Haitian children is malnourished. Since late 2006, President Preval, in conjunction with the United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti, or MINUSTAH, has made real progress in reclaiming the streets from the toughest gangs in Cite Soleil and other Port-au-Prince slums. Last month's food riots--and the dismissal of Prime Minister Alexis, and the Haitian parliament's rejection of Ericq Pierre, the Inter-American Development Bank official nominated to replace him--now threaten to reverse these hard-won gains. On balance, though, for the first time in many years, Haiti has a real opportunity to build a future. And we owe it to the Haitian people to help them in this task--partly for reasons of preserving stability in the Caribbean, and partly to provide an alternative to emigrating to the U.S., but mostly because it is the right thing to do. As part of this ongoing commitment, we must take two immediate actions to consolidate stability by fostering economic growth in Haiti. I am pleased that one of these steps is taken by this farm bill. The HOPE-II Act contained in this conference report has significant potential to create jobs in Haiti's apparel sector by expanding its duty-free access to the U.S. market. It also gives Haiti a degree of access to ``third country'' fabric, whose low cost makes the business case for opening an apparel factory in Haiti much more attractive. And it helps Haiti to adopt best practices on working conditions by authorizing a program under which the International Labor Organization assesses the apparel industry's compliance with core labor standards and Haitian labor law. I would like to commend my colleague, Chairman Rangel, for his efforts to get this provision included, and my colleagues Senators Corker and Harkin and Nelson from Florida, for all of their hard work and attention to the urgent needs of Haiti. The second immediate action we must take is to address the food crisis in Haiti. I am pleased that the upcoming emergency supplemental appropriations bill will call for significantly increased levels of food aid. I urge my colleagues and the Bush administration to place a priority on Haiti when allocating that aid. Specifically, Haiti needs, at bare minimum, $75 million in food aid. I also believe we must continue working with the administration to ensure that our food aid is dispersed as efficiently as possible by allowing at least 25 percent of it to be used for purchases of food in developing countries. We must not let this pivotal moment slip out of our hands. In an era when too many countries around the world distrust the U.S., let us work together to build goodwill among the people of Haiti. Again, I thank Chairman Harkin and Senator Chambliss for all their good work on this bill. I will support the conference report, and I hope it will soon be passed into law. Again, I congratulate my colleagues for the good work on this bill, and I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me take up to 5 minutes at this point. If the Chair will advise me when that 5 minutes has been used, I would appreciate it. We have two votes coming up related to energy. The first is on the McConnell amendment, which is a compilation of various provisions that relate to energy but, I argue, do not hold out much promise for affecting the price of oil or gas. Following that, we have the vote on the proposal that is put forward by the majority leader, Senator Reid, with regard to suspending the filling of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for the balance of this year. I will be voting against the first amendment and voting for the second amendment. I hope my colleagues will do so as well. Let me give the reasons why I think we should vote against the Republican leader's amendment. First, the Republican leader's amendment doesn't do anything to deal with the issue of speculation in oil markets. We have had testimony repeatedly before our Senate Energy Committee that speculation in these markets is a significant factor contributing to the $126-per-barrel price of oil we are seeing today. So if someone is concerned--as all of us are--about energy, consumers, and the burden that is being place upon them, then dampening speculation in these markets should be high on our list of work to be done. It is not in the Republican leader's amendment. Of course, the amendment he proposes also doesn't do anything with regard to the weakening of the U.S. dollar, anything with our fiscal policies. Yesterday, I went into a discussion about how that is contributing to the increase in the price of oil. I think most economists would agree with that. The second reason I would oppose the Republican leader's amendment is that it misses the boat on how to promote more supply. The argument being used is the assumption within the amendment that the way to promote more supply is we need to open more areas for drilling. And particularly we need to open the east coast of the United States for drilling offshore on the Outer Continental Shelf, we need to open the west coast offshore on the Outer Continental Shelf, and we need to open a portion of ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. As I say, I think it misses the key issue in that we are opening additional areas for drilling at a pretty rapid rate in the onshore areas of the United States where oil and gas production occurs and in the offshore areas. But additional leases by themselves are not going to make a difference to consumers either in the near term or the medium term. What we need to be focused on is how we can promote more diligent development. Nearly three-quarters of what we have leased domestically onshore is not now being produced. A little over three-quarters of what we have leased offshore is not being produced, and that is what we should be concentrating on--how do we build in incentives for actual production in areas we have, in fact, leased. Finally, with respect to future lease sales, the Republican leader's amendment leaves out the most promising area, and that is the area in the gulf coast, particularly the area we have still not opened in the original lease sale 181 area of the gulf coast. This is something we clearly should be addressing as well. As I say, the second vote is going to be on the proposal to suspend the filling of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. A version of that is in the Republican leader's amendment, as well as being proposed by Senator Reid. I hope we will get a very strong bipartisan vote for that provision. I do think it is prudent to turn down this compilation of various energy-related provisions that has been put forward by the Republican leader with the claim that it is going to bring down the price of gas. It simply will not. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I urge Senators to vote against the McConnell amendment. It is a compilation of various proposals. The main thrust of it is to try to lease more Federal land. People should understand that we have been leasing a great deal of Federal land onshore. That pie chart on the left is offshore, and the Outer Continental Shelf, that is the pie chart on the right. We currently have 31 million acres of land that is leased and is not producing. What we need to do is to get diligent in the development of these areas that are already leased. Offshore, the same thing; the Outer Continental Shelf has 33 million acres that are not producing. So this amendment is a compilation of energy-related provisions that are put into the McConnell amendment. It is not going to bring down the price of gas at the pump. I urge Senators to oppose it and then to support the second vote on the proposal to suspend the filling of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that an oversight hearing has been scheduled. The hearing will be held on Tuesday, May 20, 2008, at 10 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on Energy and Related Economic Effects of Global Climate Change Legislation. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send it to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510-6150, or by e-mail to gina_weinstock@energy.senate.gov. For further information, please contact Gina Weinstock at (202) 224- 5684 or Jonathan Black at (202) 224-6722. Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I would like to advise you that the hearing scheduled before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, for Tuesday, May 20, 2008, at 10 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building regarding the Territorial Energy Assessment as updated pursuant to EPACT 05 has been postponed. For further information, please contact Allen Stayman at (202) 224- 7865 or Rosemarie Calabro at (202) 224-5039.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that the hearing scheduled before Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, for Tuesday, May 13, 2008, at 9:45 a.m., will be held in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. committee on indian affairs

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I believe there is 30 minutes reserved for me to speak. I ask that when I have 2 minutes remaining, the Chair advise me of that, please.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, the pending business that will be before the Senate is S. 2284. That is a bill to reauthorize the Federal law governing flood insurance. Our next scheduled vote, as my colleague from Alabama just pointed out, does not relate to that bill. Our next scheduled vote does, in fact, not relate to the subject of flood insurance at all. The next vote will be on an amendment which the Republican leader has filed, allegedly to deal with the high price of oil and the high price of gasoline at the pump. I will oppose that amendment tomorrow when the vote is cast, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. The high price of oil and gasoline and diesel that are refined from that oil is creating a very substantial economic burden on the American consumer and on the U.S. economy. At the close of business Friday, the price of oil stood at about $126 per barrel on world markets. The average price of gasoline in this country was around $4 per gallon. This reflects a dramatic increase over prices a year ago. The increased cost is difficult for many Americans to avoid because many Americans commute to work or they otherwise need to travel substantial distances where there is no ready alternative to the use of their private vehicles. To the extent Congress and the administration can take action to reduce the burden of this increased cost, we should do so. Unfortunately, the amendment of the Republican leader is not a credible proposal for reducing that burden. We should be honest with the American people about this so-called debate on high gas prices. This is an election-year effort. This is election-year politics in its classic form. It is Washington finger-pointing. Unfortunately, it is very little else. Let's be clear. The President set the tone for the debate. On April 29, 2 weeks ago, the President went to the Rose Garden to express his concern about the price of gas and to blame the Congress for it. While he was there in the Rose Garden, he also took the occasion to blame the Congress for the rise in food prices. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there has been no effort by the President to sit down with the leaders of Congress and to work out a consensus on constructive actions that might actually help, either with the high price of gas or with the high price of food. The amendment of the Republican leader, which will come up for a vote tomorrow, continues with this same old ``blame the other guy'' approach. Let's talk about the facts of why oil and gas prices are so high. In my view, there are supply and demand factors in world oil markets that explain some of what we have seen, and some of those factors are outside our control--at least in the short term. The simple fact is that the market for oil is a global market. The price of oil is reflected on that market. The United States is the largest purchaser of oil in that market. China is rapidly gaining on us in that regard. We are not even close to being the largest producer of oil for that market. In fact, we import about 60 percent of the oil we consume. If we want to affect the price of oil either by reducing world demand or increasing our supply, our ability to do so is limited. By far the most significant step we can take to reduce demand in the short and medium term is to improve vehicle fuel efficiency in our cars and our trucks. Last fall, we did just that. Many of us believed the increase in required miles per gallon was too modest, but it was a substantial improvement over what had prevailed for the three previous decades. We need to look at other ways to reduce demand for oil in the short and the medium and the long term. On the supply side, our ability to affect world prices is even more limited. That is simply because of our limited reserves. We have about 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. Also because most experts believe that U.S. production in the coming years will do well to maintain its current level. We can affect that production somewhat by adopting enlightened policies, but its impact on world markets and consequently on the world price of oil will be limited. When we look at issues that we in the U.S. Government can most directly and immediately affect, I would cite two. We can reduce the incentives for speculation in the oil market--that is No. 1--and second, we can strengthen the dollar by showing some commitment to getting our own fiscal house in order. Let me comment briefly on each of these issues. The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which I am privileged to chair, has held several hearings on oil and gasoline prices and markets this year. Other committees in the House of Representatives had similar hearings. Current high prices are a result of several factors. One of them is certainly the tight global supply-demand balance. One thing stands out from all the testimony both the Senate and House has heard: A key factor pushing oil prices into the triple digits in recent months is a dysfunctional energy market. Here is what a senior vice president of a major oil company said at one of these hearings on the House side: When you look at the fundamentals of our business, Congressman, the supply/demand fundamentals, our assessment would be the price should be somewhere around [$]50 [or $]55 a barrel. There is a disconnect. To me, there are three factors that contribute to that. One is the monetary issue, the weaker dollars we've already talked about. The other is geopolitical political risk. And the third, we believe, is speculation. Other key analysts in the Government and the private sector have made similar statements, although their assumptions about what exact price level was supported by supply and demand fundamentals have differed. But it would be fair to say that key energy analysts are in general agreement that around $30 of the current price of a barrel of oil is a result of market pressures unrelated to supply and demand for physical barrels of oil. This general assessment of a significant cause of high oil and gas prices is broadly shared. One noted energy economist put it this way recently in the Wall Street Journal: Crude futures prices have decoupled from the forces controlling the underlying physical flows of the commodity. In plain English, that means crude oil prices are not connected to supplies. If oil prices are not being driven by supply and demand, then by what are they being driven? We heard some strong testimony on this in our committee from Cambridge Energy Research Associates, the firm headed by Daniel Yergin, who is a leading oil expert, well known to all in this field. Here is what their analyst had to say in early April: Crude oil futures trading activity on the New York Mercantile Exchange--the largest in the world--is currently about 350 percent higher than in 2002. Noncommercial investors have contributed to this increase. . . . New fundamentals--new cost structures and global financial dynamics--are behind the momentum that pushed oil prices to record highs, around $110 a barrel. That was $110 a barrel in early April. If we want to get at the real question why oil today is around $125 a barrel and why gasoline is closing in on $4 a gallon across the country, we will not find the answer in the Republican leader's amendment. We are witnessing a substantial influx in speculative money into energy markets. It is bidding up the price of oil beyond any reasonable level that could be explained by supply and demand. Every consumer can see it at the pump. But do we have any serious effort to regulate that speculation or even to notice it? A Commodity Futures Trading Commission witness told our committee they did not see any evidence that speculation was a factor in oil prices. I thought they were alone in that view because the amendment of the Republican leader seems to agree in that it fails to acknowledge or deal with this significant part of the problem. If we are going to protect consumers, we need to have a Federal Government as an effective overseer to start policing these markets. There is a proposal Senator Reid has introduced that will begin to address the issue. That bill requires the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to start doing the job Congress intends for it to do; that is, to make sure oil trading is done with adequate transparency and to make sure limits on speculation apply across the board. Right now, it is entirely possible for hedge funds or traders to evade the protections put in place for trading oil in the United States. They simply trade U.S. crude oil in foreign markets that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has decided it will not regulate. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission could regulate these so-called dark markets, but it has decided not to. Instead of turning a blind eye to this offshore oil trading, Senator Reid's bill will ensure that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission makes a priority of protecting American energy consumers. The majority leader's approach is aimed at bringing down the price of oil in the near term by having effective regulation of speculation. Some big hedge funds will not like that, but it will help the average consumer. Let me talk for a minute about the second issue which both the Congress and the administration ought to be addressing. If we are going to get commodity markets of all kinds to act in a more rational way, we also need to do something serious about our overall fiscal policy in this country. The United States is borrowing money on world financial markets because we cannot summon the political will to actually pay for the things we want our Government to do. We are fighting a war in Iraq on borrowed money, to the tune of over a half trillion dollars since 2002. A number of us have proposed to strengthen and to extend tax incentives to spur energy production from renewable sources, but those are being opposed by others here in the Senate for the simple reason that we are proposing to pay for those, the extension of those tax provisions, instead of borrowing even more money from overseas to cover their cost. Because of the mismanagement of the economy and our high borrowing overseas, the value of the dollar has fallen dramatically. The price we are paying for international commodities such as oil is rising. That is another major factor driving up the price of oil. We need to face up to it here in the Senate. If Senators want to lower high oil prices, getting our budget house in order will do much more to strengthen the dollar and to lower gasoline prices--and sooner than any of the new drilling called for in the amendment of the Republican leader. I have covered two of the most important things we can do to address high oil and gas prices; that is, curbing oil market speculation and, secondly, getting our budget and fiscal policy in order. Now, let me turn more specifically to the Republican leader's proposal. The amendment is a grab bag of energy-related provisions which have little connection either to the current or future price of oil or gasoline. Although the amendment contains various other disconnected proposals, the main thrust of the amendment is to increase the amount of Federal land available for leasing for oil and gas exploration and production in the areas proposed for leasing: First, the Outer Continental Shelf off the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts of the country. And, second, a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The underlying assumption on the proposal is that our lack of supply is a result of our refusal to permit exploration and drilling on Federal lands, that changing the law to permit drilling in these two specific areas will solve the problem. Well, what about that basic assumption? Is our ability to produce oil and gas domestically being held back because of our unwillingness to lease the Outer Continental Shelf off the east coast and the Outer Continental Shelf off the west coast and the area known as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? Well, let's look at the facts. What is happening on the supply side for oil production in the United States? Last year, we saw the amount of crude oil produced in the United States remain constant, instead of falling. That may not sound like a big achievement, but it is an improvement on previous trends. It is no doubt a reaction to higher prices, but it also reflects bipartisan support to increase production on Federal lands in places where it is appropriate. I have three charts that illustrate the general trend of what has been going on, and all of these relate to onshore oil and gas drilling and production. This is acreage of new national oil and gas leases in millions of acres. Last year, we leased 4.6 million acres of Federal land for oil and gas production onshore in the United States. That is the column on the right. That is in places such as my State of New Mexico and Wyoming and Colorado. That is almost double the 2.6 million acres we put up for leasing in the year 2000. So the trend is for leasing of more acres of Federal land for oil and gas production onshore. And, of course, these figures do not include all the leasing we did last year in the Outer Continental Shelf. Let me show another chart. This chart is approvals of applications for permits to drill, APDs. In the business they are referred to as APDs. Last year, we approved 7,124 permits to drill oil and gas wells on Federal land. Again, this is all onshore. That is the right-hand column. That is more than double the number approved in 2000. This is partly due to the direct funding stream we put in place for this process as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Now, let me show you one other chart. This one relates to drilling activity initiated on Federal lands. As a result of the increased number of drilling permits, and that was the previous chart, we had actual drillings start last year on 5,243 new wells, both oil and gas wells. That is approaching a doubling of the number that were drilled in 2000, which was 2,861. So these are three charts that make the case for what has been happening onshore. Similar positive trends are underway in the Gulf of Mexico, although the overall results today are more modest. According to the latest report by the Minerals Management Service, total production of oil in the Gulf of Mexico was up slightly in 2007 to 1.3 million barrels per day. That is an increase of about 10,000 barrels per day of oil over 2006 levels. We have gone from drilling 134 deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico in 2006 to 142 new deepwater wells last year. There were also eight announced deepwater discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico in 2007. We are certainly not in decline in oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, but the increase in activity painted by these statistics is not overwhelming either. So there is still much more we could be doing to support domestic production of oil and gas. The most effective strategy we could pursue, I believe, is something that is not in the Republican leader's amendment. To understand where our greatest opportunity for making progress on increased domestic production lies, we need to focus on a significant problem in the management of oil and gas on Federal lands, including in the Outer Continental Shelf. Simply put, all the policy emphasis has been on having more lease sales, but not enough emphasis has been placed on encouraging diligent development of Federal lands once they are leased. While it is generally true that leases must be produced within certain time parameters, Federal agencies have substantial discretion in managing those provisions. I am concerned we may not be following the correct policies to bring about production in the most timely fashion. I have asked the Government Accountability Office to examine this topic. Let me illustrate my concern with the following charts. Here, first, with regards to onshore production. This pie chart on the left shows all the leased acreage on Federal land for oil and gas development onshore in the lower 48 States. As you see, about three-quarters of all of this in red, three- quarters of the Federal land we have leased onshore is not currently being produced. Of the over 45.5 million acres of land that have been leased, oil companies are sitting on 31 million acres on which no production is occurring. A similar story can be told in terms of the Outer Continental Shelf. This is the chart on the right. This is offshore. Of a total of 41 million acres that have been leased offshore, 33 million of that 41 million are not being produced. The Republican leader's amendment proposes to open the entire Atlantic and Pacific coast to leasing and development. Although the amendment speaks to petitions from Governors to lease in specific areas, the way the amendment is written, the Secretary can open for leasing even areas where no such request is pending, by including them in the next so- called 5-year-plan from the Minerals Management Service. Here is a map of all the leases in the Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico. To get an idea of what we are talking about, the blue squares represent areas that have producing leases. As we can see, there are many of those. The much more numerous yellow squares represent leased blocks where nothing is happening. The red blocks, which are also scattered around, represent new areas that have been added through recent lease sales. For all the increases in drilling activity I have mentioned earlier in the talk, you will see we still have a great many areas where no exploration or production is ongoing, even though those areas have been leased. We recently have added even more leased areas to this map. Here is a second map of the oil-and-gas-producing regions on the North Slope of Alaska. In the middle is the private and State land, the tan-colored area. This small area to the right over here is area 1002, the 1002 area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge which the Republican leader's amendment would open to leasing. The large area on the left, this yellow area, is the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. This area was specifically set aside to be exploited for oil and gas development. The National Petroleum Reserve- Alaska totals 23.5 million acres, most of which can be developed and drilled. The mean estimate of oil resources in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is 9.3 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil. That is significantly more oil than is estimated to be contained in the national portion of the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge. To date, 3.8 million acres of this NPRA have been leased. That is twice the size of the portion of the Arctic Refuge that is being talked about in the Republican leader's amendment. Here is a slightly more detailed version of that chart that shows where those leased areas are. You can see that a large portion of the leased areas--those are the areas in red--is on the eastern side of the Petroleum Reserve, very close to the Alpine field which is tied into the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. So the infrastructure to take oil from the Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, on the North Slope of Alaska to the lower 48 is very close at hand. So with all those favorable factors in place, you would wonder how many production wells do we have operating on the 3.8 million acres of the Petroleum Reserve that we have leased? And the answer is zero. Zero current production from these leases should be a substantial cause for concern. It illustrates a basic problem with our domestic production of oil and gas. It is not that we have not leased Federal land for exploration and production. We have leased large tracts of Federal land. We are leasing more all the time. Oil and gas companies certainly benefit by having these leases on their books and claiming the potential oil as part of their reserves. But we need to get these oil and gas resources out of the reserves column and into the production column. What does the Republican leader's amendment do about any of this? Absolutely nothing. He is calling for more leases in areas that are much more remote from oil and gas transmission infrastructure than the acreage we have already leased. It would take a decade or more for those resources to come into production at the very best. Why should we expect oil and gas companies to rush into new areas to begin production when they are sitting on literally millions and millions of acres of existing leases without doing any production on those? The fact is, having a lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will not do a single thing to bring down gasoline prices anytime soon. Opening offshore areas such as off the east coast and off the west coast, where there is no infrastructure, is also a very ineffective response to the prices that consumers are seeing today. These are not real solutions to what is wrong in energy markets today. If we are serious about doing something to boost domestic production, we need to focus on better management of Federal leases. Let me describe two concrete suggestions in that regard. First, we might consider imposing a production incentive fee on all the Federal acres that are under lease, a fee that would increase over time but which would be cancelled by royalty payments. That would provide a disincentive for sitting on leases for purposes of inflating a company's reserve estimates. Second, we enacted some specific provisions in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that reduced pressure on the leaseholders in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, in terms of their responsibilities to develop the oil resources there. We changed the law to allow oil companies with a lease in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to hold it for 30 years or more, without producing. I opposed those changes to the law but was unable to prevail on that point. Provisions that allow for decades of additional delay in developing oil on Federal lands that are dedicated for production of oil make no sense when that oil is selling at $126 a barrel. If anyone in this Chamber wants to advocate for oil production in Alaska or anywhere on Federal land, then the threshold test is whether they are willing to change the incentive structure that currently rewards delay and inaction. That dysfunctional incentive structure was put in place in the law we passed in 2005. If we are not willing to take action to bring the 3.8 million acres already leased in Alaska into production, then there isn't much credibility to the argument that somehow one more lease sale up there will greatly add to energy security. There is another area in which the Republican leader's amendment misses the mark on promoting domestic oil and gas production. His amendment leaves out the one place offshore where it would be easiest and fastest to get additional production, and that is in the Gulf of Mexico. His amendment opens the entire Atlantic and Pacific coastlines for new oil and gas production but leaves in place the oil and gas moratoria in the Gulf of Mexico. That is out of touch with reality. The Gulf of Mexico is the first place we should be looking to for expanded production, not the one place we should leave off the list. Let me put up this chart. When we last debated offshore oil and gas production in this Chamber in 2006, we made what I consider to be a very bad bargain. We put off limits--that is the yellow area on the chart--10 times the amount of natural gas that we opened to exploration and drilling. We made available for lease 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico while putting off limits 22 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. We also put new areas of the Gulf of Mexico under moratorium for the first time, including portions of the lease sale 181 area that were closest to the existing oil and gas infrastructure. The area now under current law is off limits until 2022 because of that provision we passed into law in 2006. The portion of the lease sale 181 area we put under moratorium for the first time contains a half billion barrels of oil and 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The available infrastructure to take it to market is already there. The interest by industry in these resources is intense. This weekend I was reading the current edition of Barron's, the Dow- Jones business and financial weekly. There is a column in there by Jim McTague where he quotes President Bush's former economic adviser, Al Hubbard, as saying: If the other 49 states realized what Florida is doing to them, they'd be up in arms. McTague goes on to lament the fact that President Bush does not support revoking the lease sale moratoria on the outer continental shelf that were first imposed by his father in the early 1990s. He then states: Bush, during the 2000 presidential contest, promised his brother Jeb, Florida's governor at the time, that he'd maintain the drilling ban. So there you have it. If we are really serious about increasing domestic production and repealing existing moratoria, the place to start is here in the gulf. The Republican leader's amendment leaves that out, much to its detriment. I have additional comments that I do not have time to go through. There is one area where I very much compliment the minority leader, and that is including in his amendment the proposal to suspend the filling of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for the remainder of this year. Senator Dorgan has been pushing this legislation for many months. I have been glad to be a cosponsor. I know Senator Domenici recently indicated he now supports this position. This is a proposal that is in Majority Leader Reid's proposal. It is proposed legislation. It is also in the Republican leader's amendment. I congratulate him for that. Right after we vote on the Republican leader's amendment, the large comprehensive amendment I have been talking about, the vote right after that will be on the proposal to suspend the filling of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I hope will get a strong bipartisan vote. Clearly, it would be a step in the right direction. It is something we should do. I hope we can at least include that positive action before the Congress has to turn to other business tomorrow as it plans to, when we get back to discussing the flood insurance. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that an oversight hearing has been scheduled. The hearing will be held on Thursday, June 5, 2008, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony regarding off- highway vehicle management on public lands. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send it to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510-6150, or by e-mail to rachel_pasternack@energy.senate .gov. For further information, please contact Rachel Pasternack at (202) 224-0883 or Scott Miller at 202-224-5488. Committee on indian affairs

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that an oversight hearing has been scheduled before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will be held on Thursday, May 15, 2008, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The purpose of this oversight hearing is to receive testimony on development of oil shale resources. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send it to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510-6150, or by e-mail to Gina_Weinstock@energy.Senate.gov. For further information, please contact Patty Beneke at 202-224-5451 or Gina Weinstock at 202-224-5684. Committee on Energy and Natural Resources The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources will hold a business meeting on Wednesday, May 7, at 9:45 a.m., in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to consider pending bills on its shortlist of Agenda items. For further information, please contact Sam Fowler at (202) 224-7571 or Rosemarie Calabro at (202) 224-5039.

Mr. BINGAMAN

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

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 15 minutes.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I wish to take a few minutes to discuss what has become a very tortured topic for the entire country; that is, the prices for oil and gasoline and diesel. I would like to respond, first, to the President's misstatements about Congress's role in this situation. These are misstatements he made on Tuesday at his press conference. Then I would like to talk about what I believe are some of the real causes of the energy situation and what constructive steps we can take to address those causes. First, with regard to the President's statements, on Tuesday he suggested the Congress is to blame for the current price situation Americans are seeing when they go to fill up at the gas pump. He cited three reasons to conclude that. First of all, he was blaming Congress for preventing oil companies from exploring for oil and gas in the United States. Second, he was blaming Congress for blocking efforts to build more refineries in the United States. Third, he was blaming Congress for blocking increases in the U.S. nuclear electricity production capacity. Frankly, I think the President's comments are disappointing in several regards. First, of course, they are very partisan. But second, the charges the President made are simply not borne out by the facts. On exploration and production of natural gas in this country, Congress has taken significant steps on a bipartisan basis to enhance oil and gas production. Through enacting the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006, Congress made available 4.74 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 1.26 billion barrels of oil off the Florida Panhandle. Ironically, Congress was required to pass that law because of steps that were taken early in the Bush administration. In her first year in office, in 2001, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton cut the size of the scheduled Outer Continental Shelf lease sale in the area by 75 percent. So with the stroke of a pen, the Secretary of the Interior, in 2001, put off limits over 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and over 1 billion barrels of oil from an area that had been proposed for leasing by the Clinton administration, I would say, with the concurrence of our former colleague, Lawton Chiles, who was then the Governor of Florida. So while, undoubtedly, a politically popular stance for the Bush administration in Florida when this action was taken by Secretary Norton, this was hardly an action that was intended to enhance oil and gas production in the country. In fact, large areas of the Outer Continental Shelf are currently off limits to oil and gas development and production not just because of congressional moratoria but because of Presidential withdrawals that were first put in place, in 1990, by the first President Bush. This current President Bush could exercise real leadership in this area, if he wished to, by eliminating these Presidential withdrawals that were first put in place by his father. We are talking about a significant area. There are some 574 million acres of the OCS, or Outer Continental Shelf, that are unavailable for leasing, and virtually all that is covered by Presidential withdrawals, which could be eliminated by this President with the stroke of a pen. The Arctic Refuge is another issue raised by the President. He failed to mention drilling in the Refuge will do nothing to address the high price of gas people are faced with today. I think everyone who has looked at the issue recognizes that not a single drop of oil would come to the lower continental United States from the Arctic Refuge for at least 10 years. The Energy Information Administration has estimated that production from the Arctic Refuge would, at its peak, reduce our reliance on imports by about 4 percent, from 68 percent to 64 percent. That is the estimate the Energy Information Administration has given, which, of course, is part of our own Department of Energy. Other areas of Federal lands that are much more appropriate for development can and should be drilled. In fact, of the 45.5 million acres of Federal onshore lands currently under lease by industry, there are over 31 million acres of those lands that are not currently being produced. Likewise, there are 33 million acres of Federal Outer Continental Shelf that are under lease; that is, the Government has done what it should do to make these areas available, but they are not being produced. The processing of drilling permits on Federal lands has surged over the past several years. It has more than doubled between 2001 and 2006. At the same time, the administration reported that in five key basins in the Rocky Mountain States, 85 percent of oil resources and 88 percent of natural gas resources are currently available for leasing and for development. Congress has also funded important research and development programs to enhance the best of production. It is simply inaccurate finger pointing to say that Congress is impeding oil and gas development in this country. On refinery capacity, which is the second point the President made in his press conference, refining capacity has increased by about a million barrels per day during President Bush's tenure, from 16.6 million barrels per day in 2001 to 17.5 million barrels per day in 2007 through capacity expansion and existing refineries. There have been no efforts from Congress to try to slow down that expansion. Refiners have been asked whether they would like to build new refineries as opposed to expanding capacity at existing refineries, and those refiners have told us in hearings before our Energy Committee that they would rather expand capacity at existing refineries. We have never heard support from anyone inside the oil industry regarding the President's curious plan to build refineries on former U.S. military bases. As far as I know, no Member of Congress objects to that; it is just that the companies that are in the business of constructing refineries have not decided that it makes good sense for them from an economic point of view. The economics of refining are not very good at the moment, as gasoline prices are not yet fully reflecting the jump in crude oil prices. U.S. refining capacity is at about 85 percent utilization at the current time, as many refiners are losing money on every gallon of gasoline they produce. Clearly, constraining refinery capacity is not our current problem. The third issue the President attacked the Congress about was nuclear energy production. Here again, Congress is not standing in the way of increasing nuclear production capacity. In fact, Congress over the past 3 years has put in place one of the most favorable sets of incentives for nuclear power development anywhere in the world. For example, if a nuclear plant is proposed for licensing and is delayed because of a lack of action by Federal regulators, the proponents of the plant can get Federal payments to compensate for that delay. Now, that was part of the 2005 legislation we passed. No wind power developer can get that kind of a subsidy. No solar power developer can get that kind of a subsidy. We also provided tax incentives for the construction of new nuclear powerplants. So if the Congress passes global warming legislation--I know the administration and the President are opposed to that, but if we do, according to the Energy Information Administration, the most significant impact of that global warming legislation would be to provide a powerful new incentive to promote more nuclear power development in this country. So let me move on from the discussion of the President's charges to a short discussion of what I consider the real causes of current oil prices. I think to understand what is going on here, it is critical to put these oil prices in the broader economic context. The current increase in oil prices is, to a large degree, a symptom of our ailing economy. Oil prices and the value of the U.S. dollar have been very strongly linked over the last year. As the value of the dollar declines, oil prices go up. We have heard recent testimony before our Energy Committee that confirms that investors are seeking protection from inflationary risks associated with the weak dollar and from credit and wider financial markets in which they have lost confidence. As one witness put it, oil has become the new gold, and that is why speculators and others are investing in oil. Higher oil prices in turn weaken our economy, so we are caught in a downward spiral in which a weak economy is resulting in high oil prices, and high oil prices are, in turn, further weakening the economy. So the question is how do we stop this downward spiral. This is a large task. It requires, first and foremost, a return to rational fiscal policy that will restore balance and investor confidence in our markets. That includes an honest accounting of the costs of the war in Iraq, a figure that we now know is going to be in the trillions of dollars. Spending has also been accompanied by the administration's tax policies which have been extremely damaging to the country's long-term fiscal health. Every American family that sits around the kitchen table and tries to balance a budget recognizes the simple fact that spending more than you earn or more than the revenue you can bring in results in, after a period, your creditors eventually coming calling. That is what is happening to the dollar today. Apparently, the stewards of the U.S. economy and this administration have failed to absorb that simple reality. Let me talk a little about policies to reduce oil prices in the short term. There are modest but important measures we can enact to increase our oil supply and reduce our demand. On the supply side, we need to immediately stop removing oil from the market to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It simply makes no sense to be putting $120 per barrel oil underground. According to the most recent Energy Information Administration forecast, oil demand in the United States is expected to decline by 90,000 barrels per day in 2008. This is the kind of signal we need to send to the market in order to see some relief from current prices. However, we are taking 70,000 barrels per day off the market to add to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve which we all recognize is about 97 percent full right now. We are basically wiping out any positive effects from the decrease in demand. This is a policy completely wrongheaded and should be stopped immediately. I compliment all three of the candidates for President for embracing this recommendation that we eliminate the filling or we suspend the filling of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I wish the administration would support that simple measure. On the demand side, we need to decide whether we are ready to get serious about educating consumers to take more responsibility to reduce consumption. We know that 5 miles per hour slower that a person drives will increase our fuel efficiency for that individual by about 7.5 percent. We also know that energy-efficient, properly inflated tires increase fuel efficiency by about 4 percent. Regular car maintenance can increase fuel efficiency by about 2 percent. So Americans individually could use about 10 to 15 percent less gasoline by adopting these commonsense measures. But to see we do that, we will need publicity out there to educate folks on the simple steps they can take to reduce consumption. In the medium term, we need to ensure there is a cop on the beat on the oil markets. There are two key steps we should take to improve Government oversight of the oil markets. First, the Secretary of Energy needs to have a role in overseeing oil markets. It troubles me that the people at the New York Mercantile Exchange on which oil is traded and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission which regulates that exchange seem to be the only people who think that speculators are not influencing oil prices. Here is a quote from the Wall Street Journal on March 21 of 2006. It says: Hedge funds are taking ever-larger bets in a futures market that is smaller than the stock or bond markets, and the funds are using borrowed money to maximize their bets, magnifying the impact on energy market prices. So clearly, the Secretary of Energy and the 500-plus employees he has there in his Energy Information Administration who work every day to analyze energy data, forecast energy supply and demand, and prices should at a minimum provide insight and advice to market regulators at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. Perhaps this could help the Commodities Futures Trading Commission come to understand the role of speculators in that market. Second, we need to shed light on the so-called dark markets. Markets that trade U.S. oil or are located in the United States should be subject to U.S. regulation. It is unacceptable that an exchange that is based in Atlanta, GA and trades U.S. crude oil that is delivered in Oklahoma is regulated in the United Kingdom, not subject to the laws and regulations that we in Congress put in place to govern the U.S. futures market. It is also unacceptable that over-the-counter markets are regulated neither here in the United States nor in the United Kingdom. There is simply no regulatory body that can see these over- the-counter transactions. Let me also say a few words about policies that will not reduce gasoline prices. First, there is a proposal to suspend the tax on gas and diesel. While I can appreciate the temporary public relations success that might accompany this tax suspension, it would come at the expense of fiscal common sense and sound energy policy. I agree that high gasoline and diesel prices are hurting consumers, but additional deficit spending will only help accelerate the downward trajectory of our economy as a whole. This is simply the latest in a long line of proposals that seek to score political points during an election year at the expense of good energy policy. There are three main objections to the proposal. First, it would increase deficit spending by nearly $10 billion while saving motorists about $25 per person. If you do the math, you find that even if all of the savings are passed on to the consumer, which is a very unlikely outcome, the savings per person is negligible. If you assume that the average motorist drives 12,000 miles per year and gets 22 miles per gallon, you can calculate that the amount the average person would save in a 3-month period is $25.50. So adopting the fuel efficiency measures I have discussed earlier, including shaving a few miles per hour off the top highway speed, would be much more effective in reducing the cost of gasoline to the average consumer. Madam President, how much time remains?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, the second argument I wanted to raise related to this proposed suspension of the gas tax is the idea that it would be reinstated in September when prices might well be as high or higher than they are today would be very difficult and very unlikely to occur, frankly. We are talking about reinstating the gas tax in September. I think that is the proposal the Senator from Arizona has made: Let's suspend the gas tax now, or at Memorial Day, and let's reinstate it on Labor Day. Well, the problem with that is Labor Day is about 2 months before the election. It would not be politically feasible to have a single-day price increase on September 1st of 18.4 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents for diesel. I don't think anybody--any politician in his or her right mind--would vote to impose that kind of a tax increase at that time. Prices could easily be as high or higher on September 1 as they are today. It is simply not possible to me that Congress will then choose to increase the price that consumers pay at the pump. The third argument is that this tax suspension would stimulate demand for motor fuels without increasing supply. In fact, we would see something in the nature of a price increase. The best explanation of this was done by Paul Krugman, a respected economist who writes for the New York Times and teaches at Princeton, in an article he did on April 29. He said in that article, I think the conclusion was, the McCain gas tax plan is a giveaway to oil companies disguised as a gift to consumers. The obvious point he was making is that under the basic rules of economics, the fact that Congress would suspend the gas tax would do nothing to ensure that consumers benefited from the suspension of the gas tax. The whole notion that you are going to see the price of gas at the pump drop 18 cents because Congress says the tax is all of a sudden suspended is not realistic. In conclusion, we as a country and we as a Congress need to get serious about energy policy. It is an election year. While there is always a tendency to take rhetorical stands in the runup to an election, the American people understand that. I think they discount what they hear from Washington as the election date begins to arrive. That is one reason they don't always hold Congress in the highest esteem. Proposals that are mostly feel- good propositions do not fool voters for long--if they fool them at all. That said, there are a number of concrete steps we can take that will help. We should freeze the filling of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve-- suspend that for the time being. We should take some effective actions to bring the oil markets under better control with U.S. laws and regulations. Let's be sure consumers know what they themselves can do to reduce their own demand. I hope that with oil at $110 to $120 per barrel, which it has been for several weeks and which it may well be for several more weeks or months ahead--or even a longer period--I hope we will give this topic the serious attention it deserves. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce by request a bill transmitted by the Administration that would eliminate mandatory royalty relief incentives for the oil and gas industry on the Outer Continental Shelf, OCS, in the Gulf of Mexico. I share the administration's position that these royalty incentives should not apply to future OCS oil and gas lease sales on a mandatory basis. Section 344 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, EPAct, requires the Secretary of the Interior to provide for royalty relief for the production of deep gas from the OCS. Section 345 of EPAct requires the Secretary to extend royalty relief for oil and gas produced from deep water of the OCS. Under these provisions, at certain prices a set quantity of federally-owned oil and gas is allowed to be produced without any royalty payment by industry to the United States. Similar royalty relief language, included in legislation enacted in 1995, has given rise to circumstances that may expose the Treasury to up to an estimated $60 billion in forgone royalty revenues. Neither deep gas nor deep water royalty relief is warranted in this price climate. Last year, the administration requested that these incentives be repealed. The President's proposed budget for fiscal year 2009 renews this request. I hope that my colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a letter of support be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce by request a bill transmitted by the Administration that would eliminate mandatory royalty relief incentives for the oil and gas industry on the Outer Continental Shelf, OCS, in the Gulf of Mexico. I share the administration's position that these royalty incentives should not apply to future OCS oil and gas lease sales on a mandatory basis. Section 344 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, EPAct, requires the Secretary of the Interior to provide for royalty relief for the production of deep gas from the OCS. Section 345 of EPAct requires the Secretary to extend royalty relief for oil and gas produced from deep water of the OCS. Under these provisions, at certain prices a set quantity of federally-owned oil and gas is allowed to be produced without any royalty payment by industry to the United States. Similar royalty relief language, included in legislation enacted in 1995, has given rise to circumstances that may expose the Treasury to up to an estimated $60 billion in forgone royalty revenues. Neither deep gas nor deep water royalty relief is warranted in this price climate. Last year, the administration requested that these incentives be repealed. The President's proposed budget for fiscal year 2009 renews this request. I hope that my colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a letter of support be printed in the Record.