Jeff Bingaman

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Seventeen and a half?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I yield 12 minutes to the Senator from California.

Mr. BINGAMAN. First, I thank the Senator from California for her strong support for my amendment. Particularly because of her role in the development of the legislation in the Judiciary Committee, she pointed out very well the reasons this amendment is meritorious. I hope people, even some Members on the Judiciary Committee with Senator Feinstein, will look at this favorably and consider it an improvement to the bill. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Alexander from Tennessee be added as a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. BINGAMAN. May I ask my colleague, is it his intent that I should close my argument now and then we would have a vote?

Mr. BINGAMAN. I know we have one other Senator who has indicated a desire to speak in favor of the amendment. Let me point out to my colleagues that both myself and Senator Alexander are Members who voted against the Dorgan amendment that was just tabled. I cannot speak for Senator Alexander, but from my perspective, I am persuaded that there is value in having a viable guest worker program. I support that part of the legislation. My concern is with the magnitude of it, particularly since it is a new program. For us to start it at 325,000 per year and then have an automatic escalator in the law and have no sunset on it at all, so that we all understand that this is permanent law, unless Congress comes back and changes the law 10 years from now, we will still be taking the previous year's total and be able to increase it by 20 percent. That gets to a point where American workers are going to have a very legitimate complaint. I favor allowing an opportunity for people to come here and take jobs that Americans don't want. But I do not favor allowing people to come here to bid down the price of labor to such a point that Americans are unwilling to take jobs for the very meager salaries that employers are able to pay. It is a straightforward amendment. I hope my colleagues will support it. I know we do have one more speaker. I believe the Senator from California would like 2 minutes. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from California.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for that concise answer. Let me say that I have great respect for the chairman and his efforts to put together a bill that he believes makes sense. As he says, it accommodates the market. That is an interesting concept, accommodating the market. The amendment I am offering, along with Senator Feinstein and Senator Alexander, is an amendment that would say that we need to go at this in a prudent fashion and limit the number of people who are going to be able to come into the country and apply through this new program that we are defining for the first time in law as part of this bill. Some of the arguments I have heard in favor of the guest worker program relate to the workers themselves, the workers who are trying to get into this country to make a better life for themselves. I have empathy for those workers as well. But, quite frankly, there is a virtually unlimited supply of people who would like to come here and work and improve their life by doing so. We need to make judgments about how large a group we are going to allow in each year. That is why I am proposing the amendment. As far as employers are concerned, there are a lot of employers who, given the option of signing a contract to bring in workers from another country who they know will be in many respects less likely to complain about working conditions, less likely to raise any concerns about their employment situation, would find that attractive. And accordingly, you could see a great demand by some employers to go ahead and meet their employment needs through this device. As I said before, I favor a guest worker program. It makes sense to have a guest worker program. But I think it also makes sense for us to do it in a more reasonable way than the bill currently calls for and not to build in some kind of automatic escalator that will occur regardless of what we determine the impact is going to be on American workers. I think we can come back and raise the cap again if we decide in 2 years or 5 years, or whatever, that we want to do that. But we should not build into this legislation an automatic escalator that will make it extremely likely that the number of workers will substantially increase in coming years by virtue of this legal provision that we put in the law. Mr. President, I urge the support of my amendment, and I hope my colleagues will see this as a way to improve the legislation rather than an undermining provision of the legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Let me conclude by saying that there are many reasons why people should vote against this reconciliation bill. It is bad fiscal policy. It is bad priorities as far as what extensions we ought to be focused on at this time, if we can afford extensions. It also has in it some of these provisions that are bad policy and egregious in the effect they have. I hope my colleagues will reject the bill when it does come to final vote. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I thank my colleague, Senator Baucus, for his leadership and for yielding me time to make a few points. I know my colleague from Connecticut is here, ready to make some additional points. I will try to be brief. I wanted to point out some of the reasons why I am strongly opposed to this reconciliation bill. I don't think it is responsible for us go forward with debt financing of another tax cut for the wealthiest while, as I see it, we are ignoring the need to reduce the deficit. We are ignoring many of the country's other needs. We are not following through on earlier efforts we made to create an energy plan for the country. I want to focus on that since I have been involved in some of the legislation that put that plan in place. A few weeks ago, the majority held a press conference announcing a variety of initiatives to deal with our energy problems. One of them, of course, was to have a $100 check that would be sent to each taxpayer. The public reaction was pretty swift. It was pretty clear that the public thought this was a gimmick. They thought this was irresponsible, particularly given the size of the deficit. The majority essentially decided, then, that that was not a part of their energy plan with which they wanted to proceed. Now they are bringing to the floor a tax bill which does virtually nothing for most of these people who previously were in line to get the $100 tax rebate. The question is probably coming back to some of these people now that if we can afford to give the kind of tax relief that is provided for in this bill to those who are better off, those who are wealthier, maybe we should go ahead and send $100 to everyone, sort of as a consolation prize, so that they, too, can participate in this tax- cutting effort. We ought to think of this in the context of what we have been doing in the last few weeks around here. It is estimated that in my State of New Mexico, there are about 18 percent who will, in fact, receive any benefit at all from the reconciliation bill before the Senate. If we look specifically at the bottom 60 percent of working New Mexico families, their average tax cut is $15. In contrast, the top 5 percent in my State would get 64 percent of the tax cut. This is at a time when the price of gasoline is very high, the price of educating a family's children is very high, and when the price of health care is extremely high. Obviously, there is a ring of unfairness about the allocation of these tax benefits which strikes everybody. I wanted to talk a minute about the provisions related to energy. An important part of the Energy bill we passed last year was to provide tax incentives that would move us away from dependence on foreign oil. We passed a variety of those. Let me put up a chart that lists a few. Of course, there was an R&D tax credit which has already expired. There was an electricity from alternative fuels tax credit. There was a home energy efficiency tax credit, where you would get a credit if you wanted to put a solar heating system on your house, for example. There was a credit for fuel cells for microturbines, an electric car tax credit, clean renewable energy bonds, a hybrid vehicle credit. We put a lot of those in the law. Unfortunately, because of the fiscal situation of the country, we said: They are going to expire at the end of 2007. That date is approaching. Frankly, the way we wrote it, we said: You cannot get the tax credit we are writing into law unless you have put your project, you have built it and put it into service prior to the expiration of the tax credit. Well, the expiration of the tax credit is about 18 to 19 months away. A lot of people are beginning to say: Wait a minute. Let's hold off on any additional investment in alternative energy. We can't proceed with the wind farm, the solar power installation because these tax credits are going away. We ought to be addressing that. Instead, we are saying: Let's add a couple years, out to 2011, to the tax provisions that assist the most wealthy. That is misplaced priorities. It is important that the Congress try to follow through on what we did last year. We have a very short attention span in the Congress. Two weeks ago, everyone was holding press conferences about how we are going to solve our energy problems. Here we are now, using up any ability we have to extend the tax credits that were part of the solution to our energy problem down the road. We need to think about that, and I hope we will. Let me talk about one other issue that I believe is so egregious, it needs to be focused on before the vote on this conference report. This came to my attention, quite frankly, when I was getting a cup of coffee this morning. I said good morning to one of the people who works in one of our offices here, a friend of mine. And she said: Good morning. Another beautiful day in the land of make believe. I thought, that sounds right. And I started questioning, as I was going back to my office, exactly why we all agree that this is the land of make believe, this Congress, this Capitol Hill is the land of make believe. Then it became clear to me when I focused on this provision. Under current rules in the Senate, we can't consider this bill as a reconciliation bill under special procedures, if it, in fact, would make the deficit worse outside the budget window. That means after 2010, outside the 5-year period. It is clear to everyone who is willing to look at it that this bill does add to the deficit after 2010. But the folks who put this bill together have found a very ingenious offset which they claim will allow them to extend these tax cuts for the wealthiest without, in fact, adding to that deficit outside the budget window. You ask: What is that ingenious offset? The ingenious offset is a provision that allows couples with incomes over $160,000 to convert their individual retirement accounts from regular conventional accounts into Roth IRAs and pay whatever tax is due in accomplishing that which would be some tax. Of course, once they have made that conversion from the IRA to the Roth IRA, then they have paid any tax that is due, and any future earnings on those funds is protected from any future obligation. That is why, when we wrote the Roth IRA into law, we made provision and said: We are only going to give this kind of a tax benefit to people whose incomes are not too high. If a couple has over $160,000 in income, they are not eligible for a Roth IRA. That was what we determined. We said: Of course, you can't convert a regular IRA into a Roth IRA if your income is too high. In this bill we are saying that is no longer the case. In this bill we are saying: If you are Bill Gates or Warren Buffett or whoever you are, if you have a regular IRA, you are welcome to and encouraged to convert it into a Roth IRA, pay whatever tax is due. And then, of course, from then on there is no tax due. Why would we stick this in? This is another tax break for the wealthiest. Why would we stick this in? We stick it in because it results in some additional revenue coming into the Federal treasury over the first 3 years that it is in effect. So while people are making these conversions and paying the tax they have to to make those conversions, the Treasury is earning money. And we can use that money to offset the large deficit increase that otherwise would be occurring after this budgetary window, so to speak. Of course, after the Federal Treasury receives that revenue for 3 years, it starts losing revenue because of this very provision. As our Vice President would say: It loses revenue big time after that. So we will lose $4.5 billion in revenue over the 10-year period and substantially more in the future after that. So who benefits from this offset provision that was put into this conference report? I will tell you who benefits from it: 99.4 percent of the benefit goes to the top quintile of income.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, first I commend my colleague, Senator Kennedy, for his leadership on this very important issue and all the many other issues on which he provides great leadership in the Senate. I rise today to oppose this Senate bill, 1955. I believe it is well intentioned. I have the greatest respect for Senator Enzi and the role he is playing as chairman of the Committee on Health and Education, on which I am privileged to serve. However, I also believe this particular proposal, S. 1955, is flawed and has many potential unintended consequences which could have a devastating impact on millions of Americans who currently have health insurance coverage. It is for that reason that I am a strong supporter of the alternative to which Senator Kennedy referred; that is, the alternative Senators Durbin and Lincoln have put together which I will speak about in more detail in a minute. I also suggest an alternative proposal that would bridge the gap between these two approaches and would build on the bipartisanship we clearly need in order to make any progress on health care issues in the remaining weeks of this Congress, which are diminishing rapidly, as all are well aware. First and foremost, we need to keep in mind the important tenet that is referred to often when we talk about health care; that is, first, do no harm. That is what physicians are taught when they go to medical school. Clearly, that is something we should be taught when we come to the Senate. One of the most significant concerns I have with this legislation that is pending in the Senate is that the language contains sweeping preemptions of literally hundreds of State insurance laws, not just for association plans or for the self-employed or even just for small businesses, but the legislation as presented to us preempts those State laws for large businesses as well. Consequently, for the millions of people who currently have insurance coverage and count on consumer protections and benefits--including coverage of cancer screenings, diabetes treatment and supplies, immunizations, well-baby care, prenatal care or whatever benefits and protections their States require be included in insurance policies-- that security is wiped out by S. 1955. In short, the bill literally puts at risk the health security of millions of Americans by preempting longstanding State insurance laws to impose an untried, untested proposal throughout the country. While I certainly do not disagree with the idea that there may be insurance laws and mandates that States have enacted that are not needed, I do think most often the mandates and the provisions that are adopted at the State level are adopted in response to real needs those State legislatures have perceived and real crises that have been pointed out in those States. As such, by preempting those consumer protections, there are real national goals that we all share that would be undermined. For example, we have a national goal to improve immunization rates among children. So why should we backtrack and potentially undermine what the States have done to ensure that insurance plans offered in the individual States provide for coverage of a full set of immunizations for their children? While a number of Senators have come to the Senate floor condemning various State mandates, who really thinks we should not be covering cancer screenings, as an example, and treatment and prevention or diabetes education and supplies? Some will argue that the benevolent insurance industry would never fail to cover these items. But, in fact, there are insurance products for sale in this country in some States--for example, in Ohio--that do not cover diabetes supplies and education, precisely because there is no requirement they do it. State insurance laws, including mandates or laws regarding market conduct of insurance plans, were passed because of real problems that were perceived in the insurance market. Consequently, it makes little sense to preempt literally hundreds of State laws overnight and to put all hope that insurers would have to offer businesses a plan offered to State employees in one of the five most populated States. That is what is touted as the guarantee of consumer protections. As the bill now reads, if a plan fails to offer certain protections, and it is being offered to employees in one of these five most populated States by that State, then that is a minimum that is acceptable throughout the country with regard to all insurance plans. I do not see why the people of New Mexico or the people of any other State should be at the mercy of what one of the Governors of these large States decides to offer to that State's employees. The five Governors are certainly respected public servants--Governor Schwarzenegger, Governor Bush, Governor Perry, Governor Pataki, and Governor Blagojevich--that is a mouthful, Madam President--but I do not see why any of those Governors should be able to lessen the protections that we provide to consumers in New Mexico. If Governor Bush passes a barebones package in Florida, do all of the people of my State of New Mexico have to fear losing health benefits? That would be the effect of the pending legislation. In fact, for rural States, a package in the five most populated States is very likely to fail to recognize the special challenges we have in rural communities. Let me give you one example. In New Mexico, we have a mandate for access to psychologists. If you sell a health insurance policy in New Mexico, you have to cover access to psychologists. This was passed in response to the fact that our State leads the Nation in the number of suicides per capita. Also, there are very few psychiatrists who are located in areas outside of Albuquerque and Santa Fe, which is our more urban part of the State. So our State leaders, in part due to the leadership of my colleague, Senator Domenici, have been making great strides with respect to mental health coverage and benefits in New Mexico. But that could be undermined by this pending legislation. Literally overnight, our State mandates could be preempted and replaced with the allowance that insurance companies could provide whatever benefits they desire or that any plan offered by the five most populous States in the country to their employees would be adequate in New Mexico. I would note that even though 42 States have requirements that insurance plans offer access to psychologists, Florida does not, and may not, in their State employees' plan. Therefore, any insurer could adopt that plan and hundreds of thousands of people would lose access to mental health professionals in a State such as mine, New Mexico. This is one example of real regional or local issues that I believe are not adequately addressed in this bill. Another simple but important example of a problem with the legislation is that most States require insurance plans to cover newborns and adopted children and adult disabled children. This bill would undermine such requirements. Why should the Senate undermine this critical coverage of some of our Nation's most vulnerable children? Fundamentally, we should not be encouraging underinsurance and benefit insecurity among most Americans as part of a bill that is intended to increase health coverage among small businesses, but, unfortunately, that is the unintended consequence of S. 1955. It is why literally hundreds of national and State-based organizations have come out in opposition to S. 1955, including the Nation's State health insurance commissioners and 41 of our States' attorneys general. All of these groups and individuals are opposing S. 1955 precisely because the legislation contains numerous provisions that, as the attorneys general write, ``erode state oversight of health insurance plans and eliminate important consumer protections.'' While some organizations have literally tried to claim that the attorneys general did not know what they were doing by taking the position they have taken, I was an attorney general of my State, and I can assure you those attorneys general knew exactly what they were doing when 41 of them joined together in a letter of opposition to S. 1955. They surely know a lot more about the laws of their States and the consequences of eroding insurance laws than some of the groups that are attempting to criticize them in this debate. But even if you do not believe the attorneys general, the bill's text reads clearly it will ``supercede any and all state laws'' applicable to small business health plans as well as State laws regulating all other types of health insurance plans, not small business health plans, in six key areas: No. 1, mandated benefits; No. 2, rating requirements; No. 3, internal appeals; No. 4, rate and form filing; No. 5, market conduct reviews; and, No. 6, prompt payment of claims. So in all of those six areas, this legislation would override whatever the States have previously done. So what are the consequences? As the attorneys general write: The point is that history has shown that eliminating state regulation of insurers has had extremely negative consequences for consumers, and there is no reason to exempt any insurer from the important consumer protections afforded by state regulation. The sweeping nature of preemption of State laws and oversight is fairly breathtaking in this legislation. It is surprising to see how many of our colleagues, who are typically advocates for States rights, have embraced this legislation. It culminates with a provision in which insurance companies are afforded the right to sue States in Federal court. The legislation, first of all, overturns and preempts this longstanding State authority over State insurance matters. Secondly, it imposes a new Federal system upon the States. Third, it declares States as nonadopted States if they do not conform their laws to the newly imposed Federal system. And, finally, it allows insurers to sue States in Federal court if they do not like the way the States are administering the federally imposed law. Somewhere, it seems to me, the goal of the legislation has been lost. The stated goal was to give small businesses greater health insurance purchasing power and to reduce administrative costs in the purchase of health insurance. However, there are, in my opinion, far better approaches to achieving that goal than to gut State oversight of health insurance plans and to eliminate these important consumer protections. For instance, eliminating the guarantee of coverage of insulin makes any insurance product meaningless to someone who has diabetes. As a result, I am a supporter--I know Senator Kennedy indicated his strong support--and I also strongly support the legislation introduced by Senators Durbin and Lincoln precisely because it would address the affordability problems for businesses in the small group insurance market by giving them the ability to access a large purchasing pool which would be modeled on the successful Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, FEHBP. It would do so without eroding any of the consumer protections afforded people in State insurance laws and oversight. Under this Durbin-Lincoln bill, small businesses would be allowed to band together in a large purchasing pool that would reduce premiums, reduce administrative costs, and give every small business and their employees a wide choice of plans. The amendment harnesses the power of market competition to bring down health care costs by using a proven negotiator that provides Federal employees across the Nation with access to affordable health care. Let me make it very clear that we are not in any way affecting the health care coverage of Federal workers with this proposal, this Durbin-Lincoln proposal. Small businesses and their employees who choose to participate and buy their health care through this purchasing pool would be buying their health care through a separate pool-- separate from Federal workers--but still a very large pool of small businesses around the country with 100 or fewer employees. Last year, there were 249 private health insurance plans that participated and competed for the business of the FEHBP enrollees. This system would also benefit small employers. It would do so without undermining the benefits and coverage of large employers or the consumer protections that are afforded everyone under our State insurance laws. What people fundamentally want from their insurance policy is something that is truly there when it is needed. Unfortunately, S. 1955 preempts that security and creates more unintended harm than good through an untested and unproven model of State preemption. In sharp contrast, this alternative that Senators Durbin and Lincoln--and I am proud to be a cosponsor--are proposing achieves the goals of helping small business in the underlying bill through a proven mechanism that each and every one of us and our staffs benefit from without upsetting the security that the health insurance marketplace provides to millions of Americans around the country. There is also another alternative that I think is most promising for some type of health care reform in the reasonably near future in this Congress. This is bipartisan legislation that I was proud to join Senator Voinovich in introducing yesterday. This legislation, entitled the Health Partnership Act, is intended to move beyond the political gridlock we have in Washington on health care reform. I think that gridlock is, unfortunately, highlighted by the very debate we are having in the Senate this week. Instead, the proposal Senator Voinovich and I have introduced sets us on a path toward finding solutions to affordable quality health care for all Americans by creating partnerships between the Federal Government and State and local governments and private payers and health care providers to implement some different and promising approaches to health care. In contrast to preempting State laws and solutions, the Health Partnership Act, which Senator Voinovich and I introduced yesterday, would provide for Federal funding and support to State reform efforts such as that recently enacted in the State of Massachusetts to reduce the number of uninsured, to reduce cost, and to improve the quality of health care. A Federalist approach to health reform, in sharp contrast to state preemption, would encourage a broad array of reform options that would be closely evaluated to see what is working and what is not. Justice Brandeis is famous for his statement in 1932: It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country. The Health Partnership Act encourages this type of State-based innovation through a partnership rather than through preemption. This would help the entire Nation to better address both the policy and the politics of health care reform. As the debate before us underscores, there is not a consensus at the Federal level on any one approach. Instead of preempting State laws and innovation, we should be encouraging States to adopt a variety of approaches that may help us all better understand what does work and what does not. Rather than fighting to a standstill over whether the Enzi bill or the Durbin bill is the best approach, I would argue that the best solution would be to have a few States experiment with a model based on Senator Enzi's bill, if they chose to do so; other States experiment with a model based on the Durbin-Lincoln approach, if they chose to do so; and other States adopt alternative reforms such as those that have recently been passed by Massachusetts, Maine, New Mexico, New York, Illinois, Oregon, and Montana. This would also include encouraging reforms in local areas such as the three-share initiatives in a number of communities. If given the opportunity--and there is still uncertainty about whether I will have that opportunity--I plan to offer an amendment that would give the States the choice between being covered by the Enzi model or being covered by the Durbin-Lincoln model for their small businesses. Therefore, the amendment would add the Durbin-Lincoln language to the Enzi bill with additional language that gives States the choice of deciding which approach to take. If the proponents of S. 1955 are so confident that their approach is the best, let's let the States choose for themselves.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I ask unanimous consent that I be given an additional minute.

Mr. BINGAMAN. From monitoring the various reform approaches that are taking place around the country, it is far more likely that we might learn from those efforts to actually find a mutual solution to the problem than to continue to have needless health care debates on the Senate floor. Just as States passed expansions of coverage for children prior to Federal enactment of the State Children's Health Insurance Act, we should once again let the States lead the way to reform. When the passions of this week die down and there appears to be nothing left standing, I hope people will take a serious look at the bipartisan legislation Senator Voinovich and I, Senators Akaka and DeWine have introduced. It is supported by groups such as the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, the National Association of Community Health Centers, and numerous other national and community-based organizations. As speaker after speaker has noted, it is well past the appropriate time to act. I hope we can act and actually legislate in this area during this Congress. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. I am pleased to announce today the introduction of bipartisan legislation with Senator Voinovich entitled the ``Health Partnership Act of 2006'' with additional bipartisan support from Senators DeWine and Akaka. The ``Health Partnership Act'' is intended to move beyond the political gridlock in Washington, D.C., and set us on a path toward finding solutions to affordable, quality health care for all Americans by creating partnerships between the federal government, state and local governments, private payers, and health care providers to implement different and promising approaches to health care. Federal funding and support would be committed to states to reduce the number of uninsured, reduce costs, and improve the quality of health care for all Americans. Should a state decline to apply or if a unique need exists, local governments also would be authorized to apply for a federal grant for such purposes. States, local governments, and tribes and tribal governments would be able to submit applications to the federal government for funding to implement a state health care expansion and improvement program to a bipartisan ``State Health Innovation Commission.'' Based on funding available through the federal budget process, the Commission would approve a variety of reform options and innovative approaches. This federalist approach to health reform would encourage a broad array of reform options that would be closely monitored to see what is working and what is not. As Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote in 1932, ``It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.'' Our bipartisan legislation, the ``Health Partnership Act,'' encourages this type of state-based innovation and will help the nation better address both the policy and the politics of health care reform. We do not have consensus at the federal level on anyone approach and so encouraging states to adopt a variety of approaches will help us all better understand what may or may not work. And, it is well past the time when we need action to be taking place to address the growing and related problems of the uninsured and increasing health care costs. In fact, spending on health care in our country has now reached $2 trillion annually, and yet, the number of uninsured has increased to 46 million people, which is six million more than in 2000. The consequences are staggering, as uninsured citizens get about half the medical care they need compared to those with health insurance and, according to the Institute of Medicine, about 18,000 unnecessary deaths occur each year in the United States because of lack of health Insurance. While gridlock absent a solution continues to permeate Washington, DC, a number of states and local governments are moving ahead with health reform. The premise on which this bill is based is that the federal government should provide support for such efforts rather than constantly undermining them. The ``Health Partnership Act'' would provide such support, as it authorizes grants to states, groups of states, local governments, and Indian tribes and organizations to carry out any of a broad range of strategies to reach the goals of reducing the number of uninsured, reducing costs, and improving the quality of care. As usual, state and local governments are not waiting around for federal action. This is exactly what was happening in the early 1990s as states such as New Mexico, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Florida, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Maryland, Tennessee, Vermont, and Washington led the way to expanding coverage to children through the enactment of a variety of health reforms. Some of these programs worked better than others and the federal government responded in 1997 with passage of the ``State Children's Health Insurance Program'' or SCHIP. This legislation received broad bipartisan support and was built upon the experience of the state expansions. SCHIP continues to be a state-based model that covers millions of children and continues to have broad- based bipartisan support across this nation. So, why not use that successful model and build upon it? In fact, state and local governments are already taking up that challenge and the federal government should, through the enactment of the ``Health Partnership Act,'' do what it can to be helpful with those efforts. For example-- On November 15, 2005, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich signed into law the ``Covering All Kids Health Insurance Act'' which, beginning in July 2006, will attempt to make insurance coverage available to all uninsured children. In Massachusetts, Governor Mitt Romney recently signed into law legislation that requires all Bay State residents to have health insurance. Virtually everyone interested in solutions to our nation's health care problems are looking at the Massachusetts ``experiment'' as a possible solution. Other states, including New Mexico, Maine, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and New York have enacted other health reforms that have had mixed success. All of these efforts are very important to add to our knowledge base, which can then lead to the formation of a possible national solution to our uninsured and affordability crisis. We can learn from each and every one of these efforts, whether successful or failed. Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis said it well by noting that state-based reforms, such as that passed in Massachusetts, are very good news. As she notes, ``First, any substantive effort to expand access to coverage is worthwhile, given the growing number of uninsured in this country and the large body of evidence showing the dangerous health implications of lacking coverage.'' She adds, ``But something more important is at work here, While we urgently need a national solution so that all Americans have insurance, it doesn't appear that we'll be getting one at the federal level any time soon. So what Massachusetts has done potentially holds lessons for every state.'' I would add that it holds lessons for the federal government as well and not just for the mechanics of implementing health reform policy but also to the politics of health reform. As she concludes, ``One particularly cogent lesson is the manner in which the measure was crafted--via a civil process that successfully brought together numerous players from across the political business, health care delivery, and policy sectors.'' Mr. President, Senator Voinovich and I have worked together for many months now on this legislation via a process much like that described by Karen Davis. The legislation stems from past legislative efforts by senators such as Bob Graham, Mark Hatfield, and Paul Wellstone, but also from work across ideological lines by Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institute and Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation. The legislation also received much advice and support from Dr. Tim Garson who, as Dean of the University of Virginia, brought a much needed provider perspective which is reflected in support for the legislation from the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians, the American College of Cardiology, American Gastroenterological Association, the Visiting Nurses Association, the National Association of Community Health Centers, and from state-based health providers such as the New Mexico Medical Society and Ohio Association of Community Health Centers. And the legislation also received much comment and support from consumer-based groups advocating for national health reform, including that by Dr. Ken Frisof and UHCAN, which is the Universal Health Care Action Network, Bill Vaughan at Consumers Union, and from numerous health care advocates in New Mexico, including Community Action New Mexico, Health Action New Mexico, Health Care for All Campaign of New Mexico, New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, New Mexico Health Choices Initiative, New Mexico POZ Coalition, New Mexico Public Health Association, New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, New Mexico Progressive Alliance for Community Empowerment, and the Health Security for New Mexicans Campaign, which includes 115 organizations based in the State. Support from all stakeholders in our nation's health care system has been sought and I would like to thank the many organizations from New Mexico for their support and input to this legislation. There is great urgency in New Mexico because our State, like all of those along the U.S.-Mexico border, faces a severe health care crisis. In fact, New Mexico ranks second only to Texas in the percentage of its citizens who are uninsured. New Mexico is also the only state in the country with less than half of its population having private health insurance coverage. A rather shocking statistic, which also continues to worsen, is that one out of every three Hispanic citizens are uninsured. In fact, less than 43 percent of the Hispanic population now has employer-based coverage nationwide, which is in sharp comparison to the 68 percent of non-Hispanic whites who have employer-based coverage. The State has also enacted its own health reform plan called the State Coverage Initiative, or SCI in July 2005. SCI is a public/private partnership that is intended to expand employer-sponsored insurance and was developed in part with grant funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. As of May 1, there were just over 4,500 people covered by this initiative and there are efforts to expand this effort to cover over 20,000 individuals. With federal support for my State, the hope would be to further expand coverage to as many New Mexicans as possible. It is also important to note that the legislation encourages reforms at both the state and local levels of government. Senator Voinovich, as former Mayor of Cleveland, suggested language that would capture community-based efforts as well. Illinois, Georgia, Michigan, and Oregon have all initiated efforts at the local level for reform, including what is known as the ``three-share'' programs in Illinois and Michigan. These initiatives have employers, employees, and the community each pick up about one-third of the cost of the program. Jeaneane Smith, deputy administrator in the Office of Oregon Health Policy and Research was quoted in a recent Academy Health publication saying, ``In recent years it has become apparent that there is a need to consider both state- and community-level approaches to improved access. We want to learn how best to support communities as they play an integral part in addressing the gaps in coverage.'' Our hope is to spawn as much creative innovation as possible. Brookings Institute Senior Health Fellow Henry Aaron and Heritage Foundation Vice President Stuart Butler wrote a Health Affairs article in March 2004 that lays out the foundation for this legislative effort. They argue that while we remain unable to reconcile how best to expand coverage at the federal level, we can agree to support states in their efforts to try widely differing solutions to health coverage, cost containment, and quality improvement. As they write, ``This approach offers both a way to improve knowledge about how to reform health care and a practical way to initiate a process of reform. Such a pluralist approach respects the real, abiding differences in politics, preferences, traditions, and institutions across the nation. It also implies a willingness to accept differences over an extended period in order to make progress. And it recognizes that permitting wide diversity can foster consensus by revealing the strengths and exposing the weaknesses of rival approaches.'' The most important message that I hope this bill carries is that we must stop having the perfect be the enemy of the good. This proposal is certainly not perfect but we hope it makes a very important contribution to addressing our nation's health care crisis. In addition to Dr. Garson, Mr. Aaron, Mr. Butler, and Dr. Frisof, I would like to express my appreciation to Dan Hawkins at the National Association of Community Health Centers, Bill Vaughan at Consumers Union, and both Jack Meyer and Stan Dorn at ESRI for their counsel and guidance on health reform and this legislation. I would also like to commend the American College of Physicians, or ACP, for their outstanding leadership on the issue of the uninsured and for their willingness to support a variety of efforts to expand health coverage. ACP has been a longstanding advocate for expanding health coverage and has authored landmark reports on the important role that health insurance has in reducing people's morbidity and mortality. In fact, to cite the conclusion of one of those studies, ``Lack of insurance contributes to the endangerment of the health of each uninsured American as well as the collective health of the nation.'' And finally, I would also thank the many people at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on their forethought and knowledge on all the issues confronting the uninsured. Their efforts to maintain the focus and dialogue on addressing the uninsured has kept the issue alive for many years. I hope we can break the gridlock and urge my colleagues to support this important legislation. I would ask for unanimous consent for a Fact Sheet and copy of the Health Affairs article entitled ``How Federalism Could Spur Bipartisan Action on the Uninsured'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. I am pleased to announce today the introduction of bipartisan legislation with Senator Voinovich entitled the ``Health Partnership Act of 2006'' with additional bipartisan support from Senators DeWine and Akaka. The ``Health Partnership Act'' is intended to move beyond the political gridlock in Washington, D.C., and set us on a path toward finding solutions to affordable, quality health care for all Americans by creating partnerships between the federal government, state and local governments, private payers, and health care providers to implement different and promising approaches to health care. Federal funding and support would be committed to states to reduce the number of uninsured, reduce costs, and improve the quality of health care for all Americans. Should a state decline to apply or if a unique need exists, local governments also would be authorized to apply for a federal grant for such purposes. States, local governments, and tribes and tribal governments would be able to submit applications to the federal government for funding to implement a state health care expansion and improvement program to a bipartisan ``State Health Innovation Commission.'' Based on funding available through the federal budget process, the Commission would approve a variety of reform options and innovative approaches. This federalist approach to health reform would encourage a broad array of reform options that would be closely monitored to see what is working and what is not. As Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote in 1932, ``It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.'' Our bipartisan legislation, the ``Health Partnership Act,'' encourages this type of state-based innovation and will help the nation better address both the policy and the politics of health care reform. We do not have consensus at the federal level on anyone approach and so encouraging states to adopt a variety of approaches will help us all better understand what may or may not work. And, it is well past the time when we need action to be taking place to address the growing and related problems of the uninsured and increasing health care costs. In fact, spending on health care in our country has now reached $2 trillion annually, and yet, the number of uninsured has increased to 46 million people, which is six million more than in 2000. The consequences are staggering, as uninsured citizens get about half the medical care they need compared to those with health insurance and, according to the Institute of Medicine, about 18,000 unnecessary deaths occur each year in the United States because of lack of health Insurance. While gridlock absent a solution continues to permeate Washington, DC, a number of states and local governments are moving ahead with health reform. The premise on which this bill is based is that the federal government should provide support for such efforts rather than constantly undermining them. The ``Health Partnership Act'' would provide such support, as it authorizes grants to states, groups of states, local governments, and Indian tribes and organizations to carry out any of a broad range of strategies to reach the goals of reducing the number of uninsured, reducing costs, and improving the quality of care. As usual, state and local governments are not waiting around for federal action. This is exactly what was happening in the early 1990s as states such as New Mexico, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Florida, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Maryland, Tennessee, Vermont, and Washington led the way to expanding coverage to children through the enactment of a variety of health reforms. Some of these programs worked better than others and the federal government responded in 1997 with passage of the ``State Children's Health Insurance Program'' or SCHIP. This legislation received broad bipartisan support and was built upon the experience of the state expansions. SCHIP continues to be a state-based model that covers millions of children and continues to have broad- based bipartisan support across this nation. So, why not use that successful model and build upon it? In fact, state and local governments are already taking up that challenge and the federal government should, through the enactment of the ``Health Partnership Act,'' do what it can to be helpful with those efforts. For example-- On November 15, 2005, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich signed into law the ``Covering All Kids Health Insurance Act'' which, beginning in July 2006, will attempt to make insurance coverage available to all uninsured children. In Massachusetts, Governor Mitt Romney recently signed into law legislation that requires all Bay State residents to have health insurance. Virtually everyone interested in solutions to our nation's health care problems are looking at the Massachusetts ``experiment'' as a possible solution. Other states, including New Mexico, Maine, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and New York have enacted other health reforms that have had mixed success. All of these efforts are very important to add to our knowledge base, which can then lead to the formation of a possible national solution to our uninsured and affordability crisis. We can learn from each and every one of these efforts, whether successful or failed. Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis said it well by noting that state-based reforms, such as that passed in Massachusetts, are very good news. As she notes, ``First, any substantive effort to expand access to coverage is worthwhile, given the growing number of uninsured in this country and the large body of evidence showing the dangerous health implications of lacking coverage.'' She adds, ``But something more important is at work here, While we urgently need a national solution so that all Americans have insurance, it doesn't appear that we'll be getting one at the federal level any time soon. So what Massachusetts has done potentially holds lessons for every state.'' I would add that it holds lessons for the federal government as well and not just for the mechanics of implementing health reform policy but also to the politics of health reform. As she concludes, ``One particularly cogent lesson is the manner in which the measure was crafted--via a civil process that successfully brought together numerous players from across the political business, health care delivery, and policy sectors.'' Mr. President, Senator Voinovich and I have worked together for many months now on this legislation via a process much like that described by Karen Davis. The legislation stems from past legislative efforts by senators such as Bob Graham, Mark Hatfield, and Paul Wellstone, but also from work across ideological lines by Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institute and Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation. The legislation also received much advice and support from Dr. Tim Garson who, as Dean of the University of Virginia, brought a much needed provider perspective which is reflected in support for the legislation from the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians, the American College of Cardiology, American Gastroenterological Association, the Visiting Nurses Association, the National Association of Community Health Centers, and from state-based health providers such as the New Mexico Medical Society and Ohio Association of Community Health Centers. And the legislation also received much comment and support from consumer-based groups advocating for national health reform, including that by Dr. Ken Frisof and UHCAN, which is the Universal Health Care Action Network, Bill Vaughan at Consumers Union, and from numerous health care advocates in New Mexico, including Community Action New Mexico, Health Action New Mexico, Health Care for All Campaign of New Mexico, New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, New Mexico Health Choices Initiative, New Mexico POZ Coalition, New Mexico Public Health Association, New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, New Mexico Progressive Alliance for Community Empowerment, and the Health Security for New Mexicans Campaign, which includes 115 organizations based in the State. Support from all stakeholders in our nation's health care system has been sought and I would like to thank the many organizations from New Mexico for their support and input to this legislation. There is great urgency in New Mexico because our State, like all of those along the U.S.-Mexico border, faces a severe health care crisis. In fact, New Mexico ranks second only to Texas in the percentage of its citizens who are uninsured. New Mexico is also the only state in the country with less than half of its population having private health insurance coverage. A rather shocking statistic, which also continues to worsen, is that one out of every three Hispanic citizens are uninsured. In fact, less than 43 percent of the Hispanic population now has employer-based coverage nationwide, which is in sharp comparison to the 68 percent of non-Hispanic whites who have employer-based coverage. The State has also enacted its own health reform plan called the State Coverage Initiative, or SCI in July 2005. SCI is a public/private partnership that is intended to expand employer-sponsored insurance and was developed in part with grant funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. As of May 1, there were just over 4,500 people covered by this initiative and there are efforts to expand this effort to cover over 20,000 individuals. With federal support for my State, the hope would be to further expand coverage to as many New Mexicans as possible. It is also important to note that the legislation encourages reforms at both the state and local levels of government. Senator Voinovich, as former Mayor of Cleveland, suggested language that would capture community-based efforts as well. Illinois, Georgia, Michigan, and Oregon have all initiated efforts at the local level for reform, including what is known as the ``three-share'' programs in Illinois and Michigan. These initiatives have employers, employees, and the community each pick up about one-third of the cost of the program. Jeaneane Smith, deputy administrator in the Office of Oregon Health Policy and Research was quoted in a recent Academy Health publication saying, ``In recent years it has become apparent that there is a need to consider both state- and community-level approaches to improved access. We want to learn how best to support communities as they play an integral part in addressing the gaps in coverage.'' Our hope is to spawn as much creative innovation as possible. Brookings Institute Senior Health Fellow Henry Aaron and Heritage Foundation Vice President Stuart Butler wrote a Health Affairs article in March 2004 that lays out the foundation for this legislative effort. They argue that while we remain unable to reconcile how best to expand coverage at the federal level, we can agree to support states in their efforts to try widely differing solutions to health coverage, cost containment, and quality improvement. As they write, ``This approach offers both a way to improve knowledge about how to reform health care and a practical way to initiate a process of reform. Such a pluralist approach respects the real, abiding differences in politics, preferences, traditions, and institutions across the nation. It also implies a willingness to accept differences over an extended period in order to make progress. And it recognizes that permitting wide diversity can foster consensus by revealing the strengths and exposing the weaknesses of rival approaches.'' The most important message that I hope this bill carries is that we must stop having the perfect be the enemy of the good. This proposal is certainly not perfect but we hope it makes a very important contribution to addressing our nation's health care crisis. In addition to Dr. Garson, Mr. Aaron, Mr. Butler, and Dr. Frisof, I would like to express my appreciation to Dan Hawkins at the National Association of Community Health Centers, Bill Vaughan at Consumers Union, and both Jack Meyer and Stan Dorn at ESRI for their counsel and guidance on health reform and this legislation. I would also like to commend the American College of Physicians, or ACP, for their outstanding leadership on the issue of the uninsured and for their willingness to support a variety of efforts to expand health coverage. ACP has been a longstanding advocate for expanding health coverage and has authored landmark reports on the important role that health insurance has in reducing people's morbidity and mortality. In fact, to cite the conclusion of one of those studies, ``Lack of insurance contributes to the endangerment of the health of each uninsured American as well as the collective health of the nation.'' And finally, I would also thank the many people at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on their forethought and knowledge on all the issues confronting the uninsured. Their efforts to maintain the focus and dialogue on addressing the uninsured has kept the issue alive for many years. I hope we can break the gridlock and urge my colleagues to support this important legislation. I would ask for unanimous consent for a Fact Sheet and copy of the Health Affairs article entitled ``How Federalism Could Spur Bipartisan Action on the Uninsured'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President. I rise today to introduce two energy bills: the Enhanced Energy Security Act of 2006; and the Enhanced Energy Security Tax Incentives Act of 2006. All of us know that we face a challenging energy situation in this country in both the short term and the long term. The world market price of crude oil is above $72 per barrel. We have seen gasoline prices above $3 per gallon in many parts of the country. In my home State of New Mexico, these prices are a real hardship to the many New Mexicans who are forced to drive long-distances to work, without the prospect of car pooling or public transportation. The steep rise in the price of gas at the pump is putting a nearly unbearable squeeze on family budgets in New Mexico and all across America. So, we have a major national problem and not much time left in this Congress to make progress on it. The question is, what can we do in the remaining weeks of this Congress that would be bipartisan, that could be signed into law by the President, and that would hold out the prospect of eventually helping to moderate the price of gasoline at the pump? I have thought for some time that the most effective way of approaching the real issues driving the high prices that consumers find unacceptable is through a four-part strategy focusing on 1. increasing consumer protection, 2. increasing supply, 3. increasing efficiency of oil and gas use, and 4. providing incentives for forward-looking energy choices in the market. A fair number of bills have already been introduced that deal with the first two parts of that strategy. What has been lacking is a bipartisan path forward to consensus on increasing energy efficiency and on stimulating forward-looking investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. Today's bills are intended to fill that gap. Each of these two bills is designed to go to a single committee with jurisdiction over most, if not all, of its contents. The first bill, the Enhanced Energy Security Act of 2006, is comprised of provisions that generally fall in the jurisdiction of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The second bill, the Enhanced Energy Security Tax Incentives Act of 2006, is comprised solely of provisions in the jurisdiction of the Senate Finance Committee. Some of the provisions in these two bills have been drawn from other bills, including S. 2025, the Vehicles and Fuels Choices for American Security Act, which was introduced last year by Senators Bayh, Coleman, Lieberman and Brownback along with others. I appreciate their leadership and their support for this effort. What is newsworthy here today is that we are putting a large body of good policy ideas in a form that will facilitate committee action here in the Senate. Relying on the Energy and the Finance committees to do the necessary homework to come up with bipartisan solutions to our energy challenges is the best way for us to make progress in this Congress. Both committees have leaders, in Senators Domenici and Senator Grassley, who demonstrated their commitment to bipartisan engagement on energy issues during the enactment of last year's Energy Policy Act of 2005. I am looking forward to working with both Committee Chairs to move forward with the ideas in these bills on a bipartisan basis. The basic idea behind the first bill, which is coming to the Energy Committee, is that if we want, in the long term, to moderate the prices that consumers are seeing in today's markets from oil and natural gas, we need to focus more strongly on increasing energy efficiency, and particularly increased efficiency of our use of oil and natural gas. That's an area where we were unable to do much in the last Energy bill. But, there is a lot that needs to be done. Among the most important provisions we are taking from S. 2025 and putting in the new bill, is an emphasis on an expanded plan for economy-wide oil savings. The President is to come up with a plan that will cut our oil use, from projected levels, by 2.5 million barrels of oil per day by 2016, 7 million barrels of oil per day by 2026, and 10 million barrels of oil per day by 2031. The new bill, also like S. 2025, includes a number of initiatives designed to reduce our nearly total reliance on petroleum products in the transportation sector. These include: programs that will speed the development of new vehicle technologies such as ``plug-in hybrids'' and the use of advanced light weight materials in vehicles; expanding the authority of the Secretary of Energy to provide loan guarantees and competitive grants to auto manufacturers and parts manufacturers for converting existing facilities or building new facilities for manufacturing fuel-efficient vehicles and vehicle components; increasing the availability of alternative fuels, such as E85, across the country by providing funding for alternative fuel fueling stations; and providing incentives for the production of cellulosic ethanol-- including loan guarantees and a reverse auction for production payments. The new bill will also include a number of provisions aimed at relieving demand and price pressure on natural gas. These include: strengthening the Federal purchase requirement for renewable energy; the 10 percent renewable portfolio standard that has passed the full Senate 3 times in the past 4 years; encouraging States to strengthen their programs on demand-side management; and better educating consumers about energy efficiency measures that they can take. The basic idea behind the second bill, the Enhanced Energy Security Tax Incentives Act of 2006, is to create fiscal incentives that help forward-looking energy technologies to enter the market. As is often the case with technological advancements, many of the energy technology alternatives that are poised to enter the marketplace will not be able to successfully compete without some transitional help. The first set of provisions in the bill extends, through 2010, the various alternative fuel, efficiency and renewable energy tax provisions we passed last year. These existing tax incentives will work best if investors, manufacturers and consumers know that the government is committed and that they can plan for these tax incentives being there for a few years. The tax provisions we are extending include provisions to encourage the purchase of energy efficient housing and office materials, as well as the generation of electricity from alternative sources such as biomass, fuel cells, the wind and the sun. It will be nearly impossible for Congress to create a comprehensive national energy policy if important energy tax incentives such as these are in a perpetual state of uncertainty over the long term. If we extend these tax incentives through 2010 now, we will see a great increase in their usefulness in an industry that needs a few years lead-time to plan and build major energy projects. The second set of provisions in the new tax bill will create new incentives to encourage our country to move towards more fuel efficient vehicles, such as hybrids. It accomplishes this in several ways. First, as the President has suggested, we lift the current cap on the number of vehicles per manufacturer that are eligible for a consumer tax credit. This proposal was also part of the package unveiled last week by Senators Domenici and Frist. Under the bill I will be introducing, this modified version of the tax credit will be also extended until 2010. Next, we create a 35 percent tax credit for manufacturers on the expenses involved in retrofitting or setting up manufacturing facilities to make these fuel efficient vehicles. To encourage businesses with fleets of vehicles, we create a 15 percent tax credit for the purchase of more than 10 fuel efficient vehicles in a year. In order to encourage alternative fueling stations, we expand the current 30 percent tax credit to 50 percent and allow it to be operative until the end of 2010. Finally, we create a 25 percent tax credit for the purchase of qualified idling reduction equipment so that vehicles currently on the road are not running their engines any more than necessary. While this is a rather large expansion of the currently available tax incentives for fuel efficient vehicles, it is what is going to be necessary to get our vehicle policy headed in the right direction. The legislation also contains new provisions to encourage the purchase of fuel efficient technologies for residences and businesses. It creates a 10 percent tax credit for the purchase of energy efficient combined heat and power units as well as provides for three year depreciation on the purchase price for ``smart meters.'' These provisions have broad support in the Senate but were regrettably dropped in last year's conference on the Energy Bill. I think is important that we look at these provisions anew. A question that usually arises when you talk about expanding tax incentives is whether they are going to be paid for. Many of us here in the Senate are worried about the deficit, so the tax bill that I am describing contains several revenue offsets, such as the provisions contained in last year's reconciliation tax bill that get rid of tax benefits in the oil and gas industry that are unnecessary and a waste of taxpayer dollars. This legislation would also close the SUV tax loophole that provides a windfall for the purchasers of inefficient cars at a time when the nation needs to be discouraging this activity. I look forward to working with the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Finance Committee on both these new tax incentives but also on ways of paying for them, so that we are acting in a way that is fiscally responsible. I ask unanimous consent that the text of both bills be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President. I rise today to introduce two energy bills: the Enhanced Energy Security Act of 2006; and the Enhanced Energy Security Tax Incentives Act of 2006. All of us know that we face a challenging energy situation in this country in both the short term and the long term. The world market price of crude oil is above $72 per barrel. We have seen gasoline prices above $3 per gallon in many parts of the country. In my home State of New Mexico, these prices are a real hardship to the many New Mexicans who are forced to drive long-distances to work, without the prospect of car pooling or public transportation. The steep rise in the price of gas at the pump is putting a nearly unbearable squeeze on family budgets in New Mexico and all across America. So, we have a major national problem and not much time left in this Congress to make progress on it. The question is, what can we do in the remaining weeks of this Congress that would be bipartisan, that could be signed into law by the President, and that would hold out the prospect of eventually helping to moderate the price of gasoline at the pump? I have thought for some time that the most effective way of approaching the real issues driving the high prices that consumers find unacceptable is through a four-part strategy focusing on 1. increasing consumer protection, 2. increasing supply, 3. increasing efficiency of oil and gas use, and 4. providing incentives for forward-looking energy choices in the market. A fair number of bills have already been introduced that deal with the first two parts of that strategy. What has been lacking is a bipartisan path forward to consensus on increasing energy efficiency and on stimulating forward-looking investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. Today's bills are intended to fill that gap. Each of these two bills is designed to go to a single committee with jurisdiction over most, if not all, of its contents. The first bill, the Enhanced Energy Security Act of 2006, is comprised of provisions that generally fall in the jurisdiction of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The second bill, the Enhanced Energy Security Tax Incentives Act of 2006, is comprised solely of provisions in the jurisdiction of the Senate Finance Committee. Some of the provisions in these two bills have been drawn from other bills, including S. 2025, the Vehicles and Fuels Choices for American Security Act, which was introduced last year by Senators Bayh, Coleman, Lieberman and Brownback along with others. I appreciate their leadership and their support for this effort. What is newsworthy here today is that we are putting a large body of good policy ideas in a form that will facilitate committee action here in the Senate. Relying on the Energy and the Finance committees to do the necessary homework to come up with bipartisan solutions to our energy challenges is the best way for us to make progress in this Congress. Both committees have leaders, in Senators Domenici and Senator Grassley, who demonstrated their commitment to bipartisan engagement on energy issues during the enactment of last year's Energy Policy Act of 2005. I am looking forward to working with both Committee Chairs to move forward with the ideas in these bills on a bipartisan basis. The basic idea behind the first bill, which is coming to the Energy Committee, is that if we want, in the long term, to moderate the prices that consumers are seeing in today's markets from oil and natural gas, we need to focus more strongly on increasing energy efficiency, and particularly increased efficiency of our use of oil and natural gas. That's an area where we were unable to do much in the last Energy bill. But, there is a lot that needs to be done. Among the most important provisions we are taking from S. 2025 and putting in the new bill, is an emphasis on an expanded plan for economy-wide oil savings. The President is to come up with a plan that will cut our oil use, from projected levels, by 2.5 million barrels of oil per day by 2016, 7 million barrels of oil per day by 2026, and 10 million barrels of oil per day by 2031. The new bill, also like S. 2025, includes a number of initiatives designed to reduce our nearly total reliance on petroleum products in the transportation sector. These include: programs that will speed the development of new vehicle technologies such as ``plug-in hybrids'' and the use of advanced light weight materials in vehicles; expanding the authority of the Secretary of Energy to provide loan guarantees and competitive grants to auto manufacturers and parts manufacturers for converting existing facilities or building new facilities for manufacturing fuel-efficient vehicles and vehicle components; increasing the availability of alternative fuels, such as E85, across the country by providing funding for alternative fuel fueling stations; and providing incentives for the production of cellulosic ethanol-- including loan guarantees and a reverse auction for production payments. The new bill will also include a number of provisions aimed at relieving demand and price pressure on natural gas. These include: strengthening the Federal purchase requirement for renewable energy; the 10 percent renewable portfolio standard that has passed the full Senate 3 times in the past 4 years; encouraging States to strengthen their programs on demand-side management; and better educating consumers about energy efficiency measures that they can take. The basic idea behind the second bill, the Enhanced Energy Security Tax Incentives Act of 2006, is to create fiscal incentives that help forward-looking energy technologies to enter the market. As is often the case with technological advancements, many of the energy technology alternatives that are poised to enter the marketplace will not be able to successfully compete without some transitional help. The first set of provisions in the bill extends, through 2010, the various alternative fuel, efficiency and renewable energy tax provisions we passed last year. These existing tax incentives will work best if investors, manufacturers and consumers know that the government is committed and that they can plan for these tax incentives being there for a few years. The tax provisions we are extending include provisions to encourage the purchase of energy efficient housing and office materials, as well as the generation of electricity from alternative sources such as biomass, fuel cells, the wind and the sun. It will be nearly impossible for Congress to create a comprehensive national energy policy if important energy tax incentives such as these are in a perpetual state of uncertainty over the long term. If we extend these tax incentives through 2010 now, we will see a great increase in their usefulness in an industry that needs a few years lead-time to plan and build major energy projects. The second set of provisions in the new tax bill will create new incentives to encourage our country to move towards more fuel efficient vehicles, such as hybrids. It accomplishes this in several ways. First, as the President has suggested, we lift the current cap on the number of vehicles per manufacturer that are eligible for a consumer tax credit. This proposal was also part of the package unveiled last week by Senators Domenici and Frist. Under the bill I will be introducing, this modified version of the tax credit will be also extended until 2010. Next, we create a 35 percent tax credit for manufacturers on the expenses involved in retrofitting or setting up manufacturing facilities to make these fuel efficient vehicles. To encourage businesses with fleets of vehicles, we create a 15 percent tax credit for the purchase of more than 10 fuel efficient vehicles in a year. In order to encourage alternative fueling stations, we expand the current 30 percent tax credit to 50 percent and allow it to be operative until the end of 2010. Finally, we create a 25 percent tax credit for the purchase of qualified idling reduction equipment so that vehicles currently on the road are not running their engines any more than necessary. While this is a rather large expansion of the currently available tax incentives for fuel efficient vehicles, it is what is going to be necessary to get our vehicle policy headed in the right direction. The legislation also contains new provisions to encourage the purchase of fuel efficient technologies for residences and businesses. It creates a 10 percent tax credit for the purchase of energy efficient combined heat and power units as well as provides for three year depreciation on the purchase price for ``smart meters.'' These provisions have broad support in the Senate but were regrettably dropped in last year's conference on the Energy Bill. I think is important that we look at these provisions anew. A question that usually arises when you talk about expanding tax incentives is whether they are going to be paid for. Many of us here in the Senate are worried about the deficit, so the tax bill that I am describing contains several revenue offsets, such as the provisions contained in last year's reconciliation tax bill that get rid of tax benefits in the oil and gas industry that are unnecessary and a waste of taxpayer dollars. This legislation would also close the SUV tax loophole that provides a windfall for the purchasers of inefficient cars at a time when the nation needs to be discouraging this activity. I look forward to working with the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Finance Committee on both these new tax incentives but also on ways of paying for them, so that we are acting in a way that is fiscally responsible. I ask unanimous consent that the text of both bills be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank my colleagues for yielding the time. Mr. President, the challenging situation that our country faces in terms of its energy policy, both its short-term and long-term policies, has been vividly illustrated by the high prices of crude oil and gasoline that we are seeing this spring. The world price for crude oil is above $72 per barrel. We have seen crude oil price records being set in the last few weeks in terms of nominal dollars, even though these prices are still below the inflation-adjusted levels of all prices in the late 1970s and early 1980s. We are also seeing gasoline prices above $3 a gallon in many parts of the country. In my home State, many are forced to drive long distances to work, without the prospect of carpooling or public transportation. This precipitous rise in the price of gas at the pump places a nearly unbearable squeeze on family budgets for too many in my home State and across the Nation. Consumers are confused and angry as to why these prices are occurring now. Their anger is stoked by reports of the high salaries and retirement packages being handed out to executives in the oil and gas industry. There are many reasons energy prices have moved into this price zone that is so unacceptable to most consumers. One factor is that strong global demand for energy has collided with a number of other factors that have reduced supply. One factor is the reduced supply from Iraq. Prior to our invasion, Iraq was producing 2.6 million barrels of oil per day. Now it is producing less, more like 2 million barrels per day. These export levels are far below the potential production from Iraq because its prewar oil output had been diminished by years of sanctions imposed as a means of constraining Saddam Hussein's power and influence. Today, Iraqi oil production is hostage to the internal civil strife and instability in that country. Another nation with significant exports of oil and gas is Nigeria. There, too, domestic civil unrest, particularly in the oil-producing regions where the population believes they have not been given the benefit of that production, has led to less production and greater uncertainty. International tensions over Iran's nuclear ambitions have contributed to further instability and upward pressure on oil prices because Iran is a major oil exporter, and its territory forms part of the Straits of Hormuz through which most of the oil from the Middle East passes in order to reach international markets. Finally, closer to home we still have not fully restored the gas production of the Gulf of Mexico that was lost during last year's hurricanes. Oil production in the Gulf of Mexico is still some 335,000 barrels per day short of the pre-Katrina levels. That is equivalent to over 22 percent of the former daily production in the Gulf of Mexico that is still off line. The cumulative loss of oil production from the Gulf of Mexico since last year's hurricanes is now over 150 million barrels. This constriction of supply has made it difficult to meet the growing demand in the United States and around the world. Our own consumption of oil, particularly in the transportation sector, for the past two decades has been rising with no end in sight. Developing countries, too, are increasingly following energy paths that require substantially increased oil consumption. Their populations are becoming increasingly mobile in privately owned automobiles. In some cases, their electricity generation infrastructures have become more dependent on oil and diesel-fired generation to compensate for uncertainties in the shipment of coal within their borders, and consequently the reliability of coal- fired electric generation. Mr. President, I do not believe, though, that the high price of oil is entirely explained by supply and demand dynamics. Oil and natural gas are increasingly traded as commodities by and among investment firms. This adds strong upward pressure on prices from speculative forces. At a time when other investment vehicles show less attractive returns, the idea of riding the rise in oil prices as an investment portfolio management technique has gained a strong following among investment and hedge funds. We may not have the right balance between allowing such market forces to supply initial investment capital and allowing them to set off speculative frenzies that drive up prices for consumers everywhere. One proposal made in the context of this current supplemental appropriations bill, which we are hoping to finish action on this week in the Senate, is to reduce for a time the Federal tax on gasoline. That is a proposal that has been made at several points in the past when prices rose significantly over a short period of time. A variant of that basic idea is the proposal to give a direct cash payment to taxpayers. In my view, neither is likely to provide immediate or significant relief to consumers. Both are logistically difficult to carry out. The amounts of money that a consumer would see are quite small in contrast to the runup in prices they have been experiencing. Neither proposal is a real solution to the underlying energy problems. We need to get at those real challenges in a more fundamental and realistic way. So the obvious question is, What can we in Congress do in the remaining weeks of this session of Congress that would be bipartisan, that could be signed into law by the President, and that would hold out the prospect of eventually helping to moderate the price of gasoline at the pump? I thought for some time that the most effective way of approaching the real issues that are driving the high prices that consumers find unacceptable today was through a four-part strategy that is focused on, first, increasing consumer protection, and we all talked about that, and I will discuss it in more detail in a minute; second, increasing supply, and there are steps we can take that over the medium and long term will help with that; third, increasing efficiency in the use of oil and gas; fourth, providing incentives for forward-looking energy choices in the market. A strategy along those lines is best undertaken in the Senate by building bipartisan consensus through our normal legislative channels. The current flurry of partisan amendments on this supplemental appropriations bill risks having us make some snap energy policy decision, with implications we likely do not fully appreciate and will perhaps later regret. So let me describe the four-part strategy that I believe is a better path forward for us to consider. The first area on which I will focus is consumer protection. We have a variety of consumer protection measures in law today, but we have not yet convinced most consumers that we have all the tools necessary to address their concern that some of the price rise they are seeing is the result of price gouging. Every time we have an episode where prices suddenly increase, our response seems to be to call for another study of whether any price gouging in general is occurring. It takes a very long time to get such overall studies underway and completed. A good example is the study on price gouging that was called for in the Energy bill signed by the President last August. Here it is almost 9 months later, and we still don't have any report back from the Federal Trade Commission in response to the directive that they do that study. To the extent that price gouging is occurring, it is probably not something that is occurring on a massive industry-wide scale. Thus, it is questionable whether it would be picked up by such a study. It is probably a more episodic phenomenon. So we don't really need more general studies of this subject. What we need, in my view, is to make sure our system of laws is sufficiently robust that persons who engage in price gouging can be successfully prosecuted. States have their individual laws, but we don't have a Federal law that can address price gouging strategies that are interstate in scope. Our first step to protect consumers, then, should be to strengthen our national ability to detect and directly address specific instances of gouging that occur across State lines. There are several bills introduced to fill this gap. One is a bill that Senator Bill Nelson and I have introduced, S. 1744. It is modeled on the price gouging statute of the State of Florida. It is not the only such bill, though. Senator Cantwell introduced a bill addressing price gouging, S. 1735, as has Senator Salazar, S. 1854, and Senator Smith, S. 1743. What is important is that we address ourselves to the task of crafting a statute that fills the gap in potential enforcement that now exists. That is something that the administration has not been willing to do. In testimony before a joint hearing of both the Energy Committee and of the Commerce Committee, the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Deborah Platt Majoras, belittled the need for price gouging prohibitions at the Federal level. She testified that no ``Federal statute makes it illegal to charge prices that are considered to be too high, as long as companies set those prices independently.'' She went on to say that ``the omission of a Federal price gouging law is not . . . inadvertent,'' but ``reflects a sound policy choice. . . .'' In her testimony, the Chairman of the FTC suggested that enactment of a Federal price gouging law would not be ``appropriate'' and ``likely will do consumers more harm than good.'' She said that oil companies' ``independent decision to increase price is--and should be--outside the purview of the law.'' President Bush recently made a public statement that ``the Government has a responsibility to make sure that we watch very carefully and investigate possible price gouging'' in the sale of gasoline, and that his administration ``will do just that.'' It is unclear how his public statements that his administration will take action against price gouging squares with the statements of the head of his Federal Trade Commission that it is neither illegal, nor should it be made illegal. Mr. President, there are those who argue that price gouging is not a significant problem. They may be right. But consumers have a right to know that there is a law prohibiting such activity and that it will be enforced to the extent possible by the Federal Government. Another area that Congress should give some priority to in terms of protecting consumers is in the area of preventing speculative frenzies from accelerating prices of crude oil and gasoline to the detriment of consumers and to the detriment of the economy at large. Here we lack basic information that might help us to quantify and address the problem. There are important gaps in publicly available data on how much trading of oil and natural gas is going on, whether it is lending needed capital liquidity to markets or, on the contrary, is distorting those markets in ways that hurt consumers. We need to develop a way to get more transparency into those markets so that we can see if there is any manipulation or gaming of the system occurring. Frankly, we do not know enough at this time to determine whether legislation in this area is required. Last week, I asked the Congressional Research Service to prepare a report analyzing the extent of the problem which I hope can be used then to determine the questions on which we need to focus in determining whether legislation should be passed. The second area I mentioned on which we need to focus our efforts in Congress is to increase supply. This is an area which received a fair amount of attention in last year's Energy bill. Title III of the act last year contained numerous provisions aimed at boosting future supplies of oil and natural gas. Among these provisions was new dedicated funding to speed the processing of oil and gas leases and permits on Federal land, and we are seeing that new direct spending beginning to have an impact on the backload of applications to drill in less controversial areas onshore in the United States. There are still too many applications in the pipeline, but we are making progress on the challenge of approving those in a timely and environmentally responsible way. The Energy Policy Act we passed last year also had provisions to help speed the permitting of new refining capacity. To hear people today talk about this issue of our national capacity to refine oil into gasoline, one would think that nothing has happened in this country in the last 30 years. The President and others are fond of saying that we have not built a new refinery in the United States since 1974. That is technically true, but it is also a highly misleading way to talk about this issue. We have built a great deal of new refining capacity in this country over the past decade. According to the Energy Information Administration in the Department of Energy, in the 7 years from 1996 to 2003, we added 1.4 million barrels per day of new refining capacity at existing refinery sites. That is the same capacity-building equivalent as if we had opened one new medium-size refinery in the United States each of those years from 1996 to 2003. The Energy Information Administration continues to project growth in U.S. refining capacity, and their projections are being validated by actual announcements of new refining expansion projects. Just last week, Shell announced that it would be adding another 325,000 barrels per day of refining capacity at the refinery it jointly owns in Port Arthur, TX. That capacity will be on line in 2010. So when we look at the actual facts on U.S. refining capacity, we see a different picture than the extreme one the President and others have put forth. That is not to say we cannot do an even better job of responsibly increasing refining capacity. For example, the Government should look for ways to bring stakeholders together to cooperate more in the siting of refineries outside the Gulf of Mexico coastal region, but we need to act in Congress on the basis of actual facts and not on the basis of overheated and inaccurate rhetoric. If we want to make further progress in increasing domestic oil supplies-- and we should want to do so--we need to look no further than some of the promising areas in the Gulf of Mexico that were put off limits by the administration when it first came into office back in 2001. The administration took a large tract of potential production, called lease sale 181, and cut it down dramatically from the proportions that had been agreed to by then-President Clinton and then-Governor Lawton Chiles of Florida. With the stroke of a pen, over a billion barrels of oil resources and over 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas were taken off the table. That was a mistake, and I and others decried that at the time and have tried to reverse that decision. This year, we have a bipartisan bill to restore much of that lost productive capacity, thanks to the leadership of Senator Domenici and our Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Our committee recently reported a bipartisan bill sponsored by the chairman, cosponsored by me, to put most of the original lease sale 181 area back on the table for consideration for accelerated action. The vote in the Energy Committee was 16 in favor and only 5 against. The bill is on the Senate calendar now, and it is the kind of constructive, bipartisan approach to our energy challenges we need to be embracing. The third way we should act to moderate the prices we are seeing today in the oil and gas markets, beyond adding to consumer protections, beyond increasing supplies, is we need to focus more strongly on increasing energy efficiency and particularly increasing efficiency in our use of oil and natural gas. Increasing energy efficiency represents the most promising untapped potential for further legislative action by this Congress. Some ways of increasing energy efficiency can help to dampen the demand in the short term and actually have an impact on prices. In thinking about more efficient use of oil, we need to face up to the fact that most of our oil is consumed in the transportation sector. Growth in transportation demand for oil is the single largest factor in the growth of our dependence on imported oil. So improving the efficiency of our use of oil and natural gas--these were the areas, frankly, in which last year's Energy bill turned in its weakest performance. The Senate adopted a number of reasonable proposals to promote more efficient use of oil and natural gas when we passed our version of the bill, but the most significant of those provisions we passed in the Senate had to be dropped in conference because of the strong opposition from our colleagues in the House of Representatives. These Senate- passed provisions included mandating an economywide oil savings target, increasing tire efficiency standards, and implementing a renewable portfolio standard for electricity. Since the passage of last year's Energy bill, there has been continued interest in these proposals, and last year a bipartisan group of Senators, led my Senators Bayh, Brownback, Lieberman, and Coleman, introduced a comprehensive bill, S. 2025, the Vehicles and Fuel Choices for America Security Act. That bill provides a mix of energy policy and energy tax incentive proposals aimed at moving our economy toward both a more efficient use of oil and a more diverse future mix of transportation fuels, including biofuels. I strongly support many of those proposals. I am joining them as a cosponsor of that bill. Because that bill contained both policy and tax provisions, it was referred to the Finance Committee. Yet many of the provisions of this bill are in the jurisdiction of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which ought to review and report those provisions to the full Senate. For that reason, I am joining with a number of those sponsors of S. 2025 to introduce a new bipartisan bill this week that will take those energy policy provisions and put them in a bill that will be referred to the Energy Committee. In this way, we will have a starting point for what I hope will be an effective and bipartisan committee process in the tradition of the bipartisan leadership on energy that our committee enjoyed under Senator Domenici's leadership last year in the passage of the Energy bill. Among the most important provisions of S. 2025 and the new bill will be an emphasis on an expanded plan for economywide oil savings. The President would be required to come forward with a plan to cut our oil use from projected levels by 2.5 million barrels of oil per day by 2016, 7 million barrels of oil per day by 2026, and 10 million barrels of oil per day by 2031. The new bill includes a number of initiatives designed to reduce our total reliance on petroleum products in the transportation sector. I will not elaborate on all of those at this point. The fourth area of focus needed for our energy efforts is to create fiscal incentives that help forward-looking energy technologies to enter the market. As is often the case with technological advancements, many of the energy technology alternatives that are poised to enter the marketplace will not be able to successfully compete without transitional help. In many cases, the problem is simply a matter of cost. Fuel efficient technologies are more expensive in the near term than their less efficient counterparts, even though they provide us with greater energy security in the long term. So lack of market share will also make it difficult for emerging technologies to take hold and, thus, make them more attractive to consumers. For instance, the manufacture and sale of dual-fuel E-85 in gasoline vehicles has been inhibited by the lack of appropriate refueling stations, and, of course, the relatively small market penetration of these cars has inhibited the growth of appropriate fueling infrastructure. One of the main reasons we have not seen better development of more fuel efficient and alternative energy technologies is that the Government, for the most part, has had too simplistic a view of the market and has not given adequate attention to the many barriers to moving advances of research and development into the market itself. The Energy Policy Act took some important first steps to remedy that, but much more can be done. Again, there are a number of sensible proposals for additional tax incentives. Some of those are contained in S. 2025 to which I have referred. Still others are in S. 2571, the Breaking Our Long-Term Dependence Energy Act that Senators Conrad and Dorgan introduced. And later this week, I will be introducing another bill that will take these and other tax incentive proposals that have broad bipartisan support and put them in a form that can easily be acted upon by the Senate Finance Committee. I will not at this time elaborate on all the provisions in that legislation, but suffice it to say that these are proposals which have bipartisan support in other legislation and which I think are very meritorious and deserve our consideration. I have laid out proposals in four areas that I believe are both useful and achievable in the remaining weeks of this Congress: first, increasing consumer protection; second, increasing supplies of energy; third, increasing efficiency in the use of oil and gas; and fourth, providing incentives for forward-looking energy choices in the marketplace. These proposals will best advance if we use a different method of legislating on energy than we have seen in the last week or so. Frankly, trying to legislate on this supplemental appropriations bill seriously about energy is not the right way to proceed. We need to know what we are doing and what various measures will cost and what they will achieve, and we lack the basic information for many of the proposals that are being put forth in the context of this supplemental appropriations bill. The complexity and importance of energy policy is a good reason to ask the relevant committees to give some of these proposals their urgent attention. Each of the bills I have described is designed to go to a single committee with jurisdiction over most, if not all, of its contents. I believe this is the best strategy, if the committees then will do their work on a bipartisan basis. This strategy certainly has worked with respect to one of the bills I mentioned, the bill to open up lease sale 181. The Energy Committee was able to schedule timely hearings and a markup of that proposal, and it is now on the Senate Calendar. I compliment, again, Senator Domenici for his efforts to get that bill to where we can act upon it. Similarly, we have had good bipartisan engagement over the years in our Finance Committee on energy tax incentives, and I look forward to working with Senators Grassley and Baucus on the ideas in the tax incentive bill I mentioned a few minutes ago. Finally, I hope we can see bipartisan progress on marking up price- gouging legislation in the Commerce Committee. It has been several months since the joint hearing on price gouging, and there are legislative proposals awaiting action before that committee. In addition to leadership at the committee level, obviously we will need the leadership of our entire Senate in order to move ahead in the remaining weeks of this Congress. In my view, it makes sense for the leadership of this Senate to structure our work on energy this year around a series of three to four bills that leave the Senate bound for action in the House of Representatives by a single committee. That is much better than trying to pass another Omnibus Energy bill. Let me conclude by pointing out that time is short. As of today, we have 16 weeks before the scheduled adjournment of this Congress. Given that most of our work seems to be done on Tuesdays through Thursdays, that will translate into as few as 48 more full working days, and that is not a great deal of time. By the same token, there appears to be enough time to consider controversial measures which we have been advised are going to be brought to the Senate floor for debate and consideration, such as flag burning, gay marriage, and a variety of other issues which, in my view, do not impact on the day-to-day lives of my constituents nearly to the same extent these energy issues do. I believe our time would be better spent on issues where both progress and bipartisanship are far more likely. With the appropriate attention by the relevant committees, a series of energy proposals could be brought to the Senate floor. I thank my colleagues who have proposed the various bills to which I have referred. I hope that despite the short time remaining in this Congress, we can make some additional progress on finding real energy solutions for our consumers. Our constituents are looking to us for leadership and action on these important issues. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I am glad to, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Native American Meth Enforcement and Treatment Act of 2006. Unfortunately, when Congress passed the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act, tribes were unintentionally left out as eligible applicants in some of the newly-authorized grant programs. The bill I am introducing today, along with Senators Smith, Baucus, Cantwell, Inouye, Johnson, Feinstein, Feingold, Murray, and Salazar, would simply ensure that tribes are able to apply for these funds and give Native American communities the resources they need to fight scourge of methamphetamine use. The recently-enacted Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005 authorized new funding for three grant programs. The Act authorized $99 million in new funding for the COPS Hot Spots program, which helps local law enforcement agencies obtain the tools they need reduce the production, distribution, and use of meth. Funding may also be used to clean up meth labs, support health and environmental agencies, and to purchase equipment and support systems. The Act also authorized $20 million for a Drug-Endangered Children grant program to provide comprehensive services to assist children who live in a home in which meth has been used, manufactured, or sold. Under this program, law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, child protective services, social services, and health care services, work together to ensure that these children get the help they need. In addition, the Combat Meth Act authorized grants to be made to address the use of meth among pregnant and parenting women offenders. The Pregnant and Parenting Offenders program is aimed at facilitating collaboration between the criminal justice, child welfare, and State substance abuse systems in order to reduce the use of drugs by pregnant women and those with dependent children. Although tribes are eligible applicants under the Pregnant and Parenting Offenders program, they were not included as eligible applicants under either the Hot Spots program or the Drug-Endangered Children program. I see no reason why tribes should not be able to access all of these funds. Meth use has had a devastating impact in communities throughout the country, and Indian Country is no exception. Last month there was an article in the Gallup Independent newspaper about a Navajo grandmother, her daughter, and granddaughter, who were all arrested for selling meth. There was also a one-year-old child in the home when police executed the arrest warrant. It is absolutely disheartening to hear about cases such as this, with three generations of a family destroyed by meth. I strongly believe that we need to do everything we can to assist communities as they struggle to deal with the consequences of meth, and ensuring that Native American communities are able to access these funds is an important first step. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this important measure.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Native American Meth Enforcement and Treatment Act of 2006. Unfortunately, when Congress passed the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act, tribes were unintentionally left out as eligible applicants in some of the newly-authorized grant programs. The bill I am introducing today, along with Senators Smith, Baucus, Cantwell, Inouye, Johnson, Feinstein, Feingold, Murray, and Salazar, would simply ensure that tribes are able to apply for these funds and give Native American communities the resources they need to fight scourge of methamphetamine use. The recently-enacted Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005 authorized new funding for three grant programs. The Act authorized $99 million in new funding for the COPS Hot Spots program, which helps local law enforcement agencies obtain the tools they need reduce the production, distribution, and use of meth. Funding may also be used to clean up meth labs, support health and environmental agencies, and to purchase equipment and support systems. The Act also authorized $20 million for a Drug-Endangered Children grant program to provide comprehensive services to assist children who live in a home in which meth has been used, manufactured, or sold. Under this program, law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, child protective services, social services, and health care services, work together to ensure that these children get the help they need. In addition, the Combat Meth Act authorized grants to be made to address the use of meth among pregnant and parenting women offenders. The Pregnant and Parenting Offenders program is aimed at facilitating collaboration between the criminal justice, child welfare, and State substance abuse systems in order to reduce the use of drugs by pregnant women and those with dependent children. Although tribes are eligible applicants under the Pregnant and Parenting Offenders program, they were not included as eligible applicants under either the Hot Spots program or the Drug-Endangered Children program. I see no reason why tribes should not be able to access all of these funds. Meth use has had a devastating impact in communities throughout the country, and Indian Country is no exception. Last month there was an article in the Gallup Independent newspaper about a Navajo grandmother, her daughter, and granddaughter, who were all arrested for selling meth. There was also a one-year-old child in the home when police executed the arrest warrant. It is absolutely disheartening to hear about cases such as this, with three generations of a family destroyed by meth. I strongly believe that we need to do everything we can to assist communities as they struggle to deal with the consequences of meth, and ensuring that Native American communities are able to access these funds is an important first step. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this important measure.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I want to take 5 minutes to talk a little about the energy issues that are affecting us and challenging us as a nation and the high price of gasoline more specifically. I am persuaded that most of the increase in the price of gasoline that we are seeing at the pump is a result of the increase in the price of oil and that most of that increase in the price of oil is a result of supply and demand factors. Not all of it, necessarily, but the majority of the cause is with supply and demand. So the question comes down to what can we be doing to come to grips with this supply and demand situation? To the extent that there is manipulation of the price, what can we do to deal with that? Let me talk about the manipulation first. I strongly support putting in place a Federal statute that prohibits price gouging. Many States have similar statutes, and they have had some success in the enforcement of those statutes. But we have no Federal statute to that effect. We had a hearing. That was a joint hearing between the Energy Committee and the Commerce Committee a couple of months ago. It was in November, so it has been more than a couple of months ago. We had the head of the Federal Trade Commission, Deborah Platt Majoras, there testifying. The Federal Trade Commission is the Federal agency that would be the natural agency to have responsibility for enforcement of a Federal anti-price-gouging statute. She testified: A Federal statute that makes it illegal to charge prices that are considered to be too high as long as companies set those prices independently would be a mistake. The omission of a Federal price gouging law is not inadvertent. It reflects sound policy choices. The clear position of the Federal Trade Commission, as articulated by the Chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission of this administration, is that they do not want a Federal anti-price-gouging statute, they do not believe it would be good policy to have such a statute. They would find it difficult to enforce and therefore they urge Congress not to proceed. I think that is a mistake. I think we should bring an anti-price- gouging statute to the floor, and we should proceed to pass it as soon as possible. So that is on the manipulation issue. What about supply and demand and the effect that is having on the price of gasoline? Clearly, the supply is not what it needs to be to meet demand today. Trying to increase simply over the short term is very difficult. The most likely prospect we have for increasing supply in the next few years is legislation that I have cosponsored along with Senator Domenici to try to open up an area in the gulf coast for drilling. That is lease sale 181. That legislation would open up for development an area that is estimated to contain 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, an area that is estimated to contain 1 billion barrels of oil. That would help. That is not an immediate fix, but over the next few years that could begin to help with the supply situation. What about demand? Frankly, that is the area where we could do the most good. In the Energy bill we passed last year, we did some things to try to reduce demand, to try to encourage additional efficiency, to try to encourage additional conservation, but we did too little, in my view. There is more that can be done, particularly in the transportation sector. This is legislation that I am joining with others on in a bipartisan group to introduce this week which is called the Enhanced Energy Efficiency Act of 2006. This legislation would try to set targets and goals and requirements for the various Federal agencies to adopt, policies to save oil over the next several years--and it would put specific amounts of savings that we would work toward. They could do that through a variety of initiatives, a variety of policy changes and regulatory changes to encourage more fuel-efficient vehicles, to encourage fleet conservation requirements, assistance to State programs to retire fuel-inefficient vehicles, assistance to States to reduce schoolbus idling. There are a variety of provisions in this bill. These are provisions which were included in a bill that Senators Bayh, Brownback, Coleman, and various other Senators introduced earlier in this Congress. I think it was S. 2025. But these are provisions that would be under the jurisdiction of the Energy Committee. These are provisions that I believe would begin the process of looking more seriously at ways we can reduce demand. We could encourage efficiency in our use of energy, and particularly in our use of oil. These are steps that could be taken--that need to be taken. I think we should pass a Federal anti-price-gouging law. We could do that quickly. We can get that to the President for his signature. We can also pass this other legislation. We can pass the legislation that opens lease sale 181 for development. That, again, would help somewhat with the supply situation. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to affect the price of gasoline through legislation in the short term. I think we all need to acknowledge that. But I believe there are steps we can take. I believe there are policies we can adopt. I hope we can work in a bipartisan way to do that. I hope we can come to the aid of the American consumers who are having to pay these very high prices for gasoline at this time. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for their courtesy. When the time comes, I will call up my amendment No. 3210. I gather there is a modification of that amendment at the desk. I ask unanimous consent that it be modified, if that is appropriate at this time.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be modified.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, this amendment establishes a competitive grant program in the Department of Homeland Security to help local law enforcement that is situated along our borders. We see the situation in my State of New Mexico all the time--and have for many years--where local law enforcement agencies very much need assistance in combating border-related criminal activity. That is the smuggling of drugs into the country, the stealing of automobiles, a variety of criminal activity that occurs by virtue of the Federal Government's inability to properly secure our international borders. This is a responsibility that should not be dumped on local law enforcement. The amendment I am offering, along with Senators Domenici and Kyl, would provide for a $50-million-a-year grant program to local law enforcement to assist them with this very substantial burden they have and that should be the responsibility of the Federal Government. I will speak, I gather, for another 60 seconds on this amendment once we get to it, but at this point I see the time for voting is about upon us. Therefore, I yield the floor.