Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I thank Senators Mikulski and Bond for their graciousness. I know they are anxious to move their bill forward. I also thank them and Senator Daschle and Senator Lott for receiving an agreement with me, whereby I could offer these very important amendments to this appropriations bill. (The remarks of Mrs. Boxer are located in today's Record under ``Morning Business.'') Amendment No. 4308

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed 2 minutes of additional time to talk about the situation in the Middle East.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent for 30 more seconds.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I want to respond to my colleagues directly on a number of points that they made. These two riders should be deleted. It is bad process. I think that has been spoken to a number of times. And it is really bad policy. I think that has been spoken to as well. I say to my dearest friend, Senator Mikulski, who has worked so hard on this bill--and it means everything to her--how much I support her bill but for these riders. I want to tell her how I feel. I do not think that all wisdom resides in Washington. I think I am quoting the Republican candidate for President. I do think these 21 groups are phenomenal. I do trust them. The National Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club--maybe they do not always agree with every one of us, but they spend their lives on these issues. I do respect them. And I do think that they can. I am really glad it looks as if they are going to count these votes as an important vote on their scorecard. But I do want to say if CEQ were in the room and some others from the administration--I know it to be fact, and it is true --I just do not happen to agree with them. I will tell you who was not in the room, who was not even given the courtesy of a phone call, Senator Max Baucus, who is the ranking member on Environment and Public Works. I will tell you who else was not in the room, Senator Moynihan, who supports my dredging amendment. I think a phone call from the administration, if you will, to those folks would have been in order to find out how we feel about these anti-environmented riders. So we are very disappointed. I say to my friend, Senator Craig, who has left the floor, he calls it ``silly science'' to talk about a lower standard for arsenic. Here is the silly science. I have to tell you, taxpayers pay the National Academy of Sciences to produce this study on arsenic in drinking water. This isn't silly science. This is what they said: This outdated standard does not achieve EPA's goal for public health protection and, therefore, requires revision as promptly as possible. So what did we do? We did the opposite. We delayed the date. The Senator mentioned a water district in California. That is why we have a waiver in the Safe Drinking Water Act, for those small communities, a waiver so they will not have hardship. That is why we have a State revolving fund which, by the way, is funded in this bill. It needs more attention. It needs more help. But I have to say, again--and call me as old-fashioned as you want; maybe it is because when I was a kid I saw ``Arsenic and Old Lace''-- but I can tell you right now, the science is clear. It is not silly; it is not foolish. This is very dangerous. We have to do something about it. To say this is a rush to judgment when we have been having hearings on the standard since the 1980s, we all know what it is about. It is about a delay. It is the hope that the new administration may not be as tough.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, on Friday the Senate passed H.R. 2389, the ``Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 1999.'' I have paid close attention to the bill because it has significant implications for the State of California. H.R. 2389 is important to my State because it provides substantial and desperately-needed revenue to rural counties to be used for schools, roads, and other beneficial purposes. The bill also, however, creates unprecedented opportunities for local stakeholders to play a role in decision-making on Federal lands. It is this latter feature of the bill that has the potential to have a negative impact on the health of our forests. I am deeply disappointed at the version of the bill that was just passed. For months I worked closely with my Senate colleagues to negotiate a compromise proposal that included safeguards to help ensure that the bill would not lead to increased exploitation of our federal timber resources. This earlier version of the bill (S. 1608), which passed the Senate by unanimous consent, benefitted greatly from changes that clarified the appropriate role of local communities in Federal land management decisions and directed local projects funded under this bill towards environmentally beneficial activities rather than commodity production. Unfortunately, many improvements that I fought for in the Senate-passed bill have either been discarded or weakened in H.R. 2389. I pledge to monitor closely implementation of this Act to see if it results in local projects that involve unsustainable logging, salvage, and other types of environmentally damaging activities. I hope this does not materialize, but if it does, I will seek to make improvements to the Act.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, thank you very much. I thank my friend from Vermont for all his hard work. I thank my friend, Senator Wellstone. I thank Senator Brownback. I thank Senator Biden and Senator Hatch. We have a very important bill before us. I think the Trafficking Victims Protection Act sort of stands on its own. I would love to have seen that come on its own because it is a landmark piece of legislation. I felt the same way about the Violence Against Women Act. That is a landmark piece of legislation. Unfortunately, I think we have issues and pieces of legislation that shouldn't be in here. But that is the way it goes. How you would ever get to the point where you would put an issue that deals with sales of wine on the Internet is beyond me. I don't think people really get what we do here when we take these issues and blend them together. But let's call it the way it is. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act and the Violence Against Women Act are so important that Members are willing to say, even if they didn't agree with all the appendages, they are willing to go along with them. I am going to make some comments about each piece that is in this legislation. The Violence Against Women Act is very near and dear to my heart because in 1990 I was over in the House, where I served very proudly for about 10 years, and Senator Biden came to me and said: Would you be willing to offer the Violence Against Women Act in the House? He had authored it in the Senate. I was extremely pleased to agree. The whole issue of domestic violence in our country up until that time was never discussed. It was swept under the rug. Even though we knew it was brutalizing women and children, we didn't have the courage to act. In those early years, it was very hard to get attention paid to violence against women. I was able in the House to get through just a couple of pieces of that legislation. But it wasn't until I came to the Senate with Senator Biden that we really orchestrated tremendous support for the bill. In 1994, we got it through as part of the Crime Act. It has proven itself. In this particular reauthorization, we will provide $3.3 billion in funding over the next 5 years to protect victims of domestic abuse and violence. We have made tremendous progress. We have seen a reduction of about 21 percent in domestic violence. But still to this day, we have a national crisis that shatters the lives of millions of women across the country and tears at the very fabric of our society. Reauthorizing these programs sends a much needed message to those who even think about lifting a hand to a spouse or think about lifting a hand to an innocent child that we will not stand silently by and that we in fact will protect those victims of domestic violence. We know that nationwide nearly one in every three adult women experiences at least one physical assault by an intimate partner. We know for a fact that domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women age 15 to 44, with nearly one-third of women who are murdered being murdered by a husband or a boyfriend. Although domestic violence affects both men and women, the overwhelming majority of domestic violence victims happen to be women. That is why a majority of the services authorized under the Violence Against Women Act focus on the unique circumstances of women in abusive relationships. Again, we have made progress. Since 1994, when the bill passed and President Clinton signed it into law, there has been a 21-percent decrease in intimate partner violence and we have increased battered women's shelters by 60 percent. I remember in those years when we were battling for this bill, we originally pointed out that there were more shelters for animals than there were for battered women. I am proud to say today we have seen an increase in the number of shelters so we can in fact address the critical needs of victimized women and their children, many of whom have absolutely no place to go and therefore sometimes they are forced to stay in these abusive relationships. Where are they going to go? They will go out on the street if they don't have a loving family to go home to. It is a tragic situation indeed. The bill ensures that we will be funding a continued increase in these shelters. But we also want to stop the violence before it gets to that. We have STOP grants that provide moneys for rape prevention, and education grants, and a 24-hour national domestic violence hotline which is so important. Women in these circumstances need to have a reassuring voice. They believe sometimes that no one cares about them; they are all alone. If they can dial that hotline and get professional help, it makes all the difference in the world. This bill will strengthen law enforcement efforts to reduce domestic violence by requiring the enforcement of other States' protection orders as a condition of funding for some of the grants. In other words, if you have a batterer who tries to escape prosecution by going across State lines, we address this issue. This is very important. I want to talk about the children. We talk about battered women, but we know--this is an incredible fact as we look at the causes of violence in society, and we are right to look everywhere in the society--we need to understand if a young boy sees his father beat his mother, that child is twice as likely to abuse his own wife than the son of a nonviolent parent. If a child, particularly a young boy, sees a father beat a mother, he is twice as likely to abuse his own spouse. We know 10 million children every year are exposed to domestic violence. More alarming even than that is the fact that 50 percent to 70 percent of those men who abuse their female partners also abuse their children. It becomes a way of life and a way of communicating for which we should have zero tolerance. These abused children are at high risk for violent, delinquent behavior. The National Institute for Justice reports that being abused as a child increases a child's likelihood of arrest as a juvenile by 53 percent. We know even when they are young they are more apt to be arrested and get in trouble. We know when they are adult and they marry they are more likely to abuse a spouse. When we talk about the Violence Against Women Act, we are not talking only about women. We are also talking about the children. If there is anything we can do in this hallowed hall of the Senate, it is to protect children. We have the Safe Havens for Children Pilot Program; we have victims of child abuse programs funded; we have rural domestic violence and child abuse enforcement grants. This package also includes training for judges and court personnel. We also, for the first time, look at battered immigrants, which is a very important issue, because we sometimes have people coming here who don't understand their rights. They need to understand their rights, that their bodies don't belong to anyone else, and they have a right to cry out if they are abused. There are many other programs reauthorized by the Violence Against Women Act, such as those to combat sexual assault and rape, transitional housing, and civil, legal assistance. Again, a lot of these folks don't understand their legal rights. We provide grants to counsel them. We include protection for older and disabled women. It is hard to even imagine an older woman in our society or a disabled person being victimized. Is there no rule that would say to every human being that there has to be respect? Unfortunately, in some cases, these rules don't penetrate. So we have to get tough and make sure that we prevent this. However, if it happens, we will crack down. Again, I thank Senator Joe Biden for his work. It is very important. Also, a judgeship that is being held up is the nomination of Bonnie Campbell to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. One might ask what it has to do with the Violence Against Women Act. The fact is, Bonnie Campbell has been the first and only Director of the Violence Against Women Office in the Department of Justice, and her nomination is being held up because of partisan politics in the Senate. Here is a woman who paved the way for the Violence Against Women Act, ensuring it was successful, and she is a perfect person to be a judge. She was the attorney general in Iowa for many years. Her achievements and qualifications are obvious. If we really care about the Violence Against Women Act, and I believe we do, then I believe we will have an overwhelming vote, hopefully a unanimous vote. Then we ought to look at one of the people who has made this act such a success. What a wonderful tribute it would be to the women of America to make Bonnie Campbell a judge. I join with Senator Harkin on this because I know he has been quite distressed that such an excellent nominee has had a hearing, but her nomination has not come out of committee. We know of no one who is opposed to Bonnie Campbell. I think it would be a fitting tribute to the women of America to bring her nomination quickly to the floor. I appreciate the work of Senator Wellstone and Senator Brownback on the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. We know that some of these victims have been subjected to the most horrific lives, including rape, sexual abuse, torture, starvation, and imprisonment. The selling of naive and desperate women into sexual bondage has become one of the fastest growing criminal enterprises in the global economy. It is hard to understand how this could happen. But when people are in a strange land and are frightened, they look to others to protect them when they really want to hurt and harm them. This legislation authorizes $94 million over 2 years to stop this abhorrent practice. At the beginning of my remarks, I talked about sometimes attaching bills to other bills that make no sense. I am sad to say this has the alcoholic beverage sales attached to it. I am very sorry for the small wineries in my State. I tried to protect them. I will have some kind of a colloquy with Senator Hatch on this. Half of our 900 wineries in California are run by families. They don't have big, elaborate distributors; they don't have a big distribution. Because of this they will need to sell their product on the Internet. I have nothing against the way wine is distributed, but the new technologies will make it possible for our many wine sellers to sell directly to consumers without the need to go through a middleman or middle person. I think it is sad that we have attached this because these very small family-owned wineries may well suffer. I am going to be working with my colleagues. I know Senator Leahy is quite sympathetic to this. We want to make sure there are no negative impacts from this legislation. We think there will be. But we are going to follow this very closely. The excuse given is, we will stop kids from buying on the Internet. That is a legitimate point. But we recommended a solution dealing directly with preventing underage drinking, and it was not accepted. In my heart of hearts, I believe this is a special interest piece of legislation to protect the distributors. It doesn't do anything to protect young people from buying liquor. I think it is a sad day for our small wineries that are trying hard to survive in California. In conclusion, I again thank Senator Leahy for this time. It is a wonderful day. We finally got this Violence Against Women Act reauthorized. We are going to put an end, hopefully, to the sex trafficking. It is a good day for the Senate. I only hope we will heed the words of Senator Kennedy now and get on with education, get on with prescription drugs, and get on with the real Patients' Bill of Rights. Let's do our work. We can do our work. The American people want us to do it. The way the procedure is going now, we have no chance to offer amendments on education or health care. It is a shame. I yield my time.

Mrs. BOXER. Between 10 and 15 minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. I thank my friend for his comments on all fronts. Regarding his last comment, he is so right. When I first learned there was a move to attach this bill to the Violence Against Women Act, I was absolutely stunned. People have to watch what we do here. They understand, unfortunately, that the special interests still have a lot of influence. This is one case where they had too much influence. As my friend knows, we tried to work this so we could address the issue of juveniles buying liquor from the Internet, which everyone agrees is a terrible thing. This hurts our small wineries--let's call it the way it is--in favor of the big distributors. But on the Bonnie Campbell point, I particularly want to say to my friend how much I have appreciated his leadership on these judicial nominations. I say today we would not have had even the meager number that we have had without his leadership and his pointing out, over and over again, that women and minorities are getting second-class treatment here. I ask my friend if he would recount, briefly, the study he had quoted many times, showing that women and minorities take about 3 months longer, on average, to get through; just his comments on how it always seems we are here fighting for women or a minority. It does not seem as if we have to fight that hard for the white male.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I have strong misgivings about one part of the conference report we are about to consider. The provisions relating to interstate sales of alcoholic beverages, known as the 21st Amendment Enforcement Act, would dramatically reduce the ability of small wineries in my state to market their products across the country. These wineries are small, independent, often family-owned, operations. They are the ``little guys'' in the winemaking industry. They need to sell their products directly to consumers around the country, and the Internet, especially, holds great promise for their future economic success. Already, some of them have been hurt by state laws banning interstate sales of wine. The Matanzas Greek Winery in Sonoma County estimates that it is turning away around $8,000 a month in direct sales from consumers who had visited the winery and hoped to place orders from their homes in other states. I am very concerned that the 21st Amendment Enforcement Act will make it even more difficult for these ``little guys'' to compete in the wine business. I would like to ask the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Hatch, whether he would consider the impact of this legislation on my small wineries. Would the senator be willing, after the legislation has been on the books for a year or so, the review its impact on small wineries and to work with me to make such amendments as are necessary to take care of them?

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Senator for his interest and concern, and for his commitment to review the impact of the 21st Amendment Enforcement Act on small wineries in the future.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I appreciate the assistant Democratic leader yielding me time because I want to talk briefly about the Violence Against Women Act, and then I am going to make a unanimous consent request, of which I believe the other side has been made aware. The Violence Against Women Act, a landmark law that was passed in 1994, has now expired. We have to reauthorize it. It is crucial. It has expired. Is this an important and worthy act? Yes, it is. Both sides of the aisle agree. We have seen a 21-percent reduction in violence against women. We have seen shelters for battered women and their families built. They have gone up from 1,200 to about 2,000. We see doctors trained to recognize domestic abuse and police men and women trained to recognize domestic abuse. So we are seeing, in the figures, a decrease in the violence. But we cannot allow this law to die. The point is, it passed the House overwhelmingly. It is a clean bill. But there are political games going on over here. People want to attach all kinds of different things to the Violence Against Women Act. It can stand alone on its own two feet. Senator Biden wrote that act a long time ago. When I was in the House, he asked me to carry it. He has been joined by Senator Hatch. They have worked together now on this new reauthorization. The last point I want to make before making my unanimous consent request is this: It may be called the Violence Against Women Act, but this act directly attacks the problem of children in these homes. We have to realize that children under the age of 12 live in approximately 4 out of 10 homes that experience domestic violence. We look at Hollywood--and we are critical of what they are doing in terms of the R-rated films shown to kids--but the fact is, there is only one reliable predictor of future violence. If a male child sees one parent beat another parent, he is twice as likely to abuse his own wife as the son of nonviolent parents.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank my friend for setting the record straight and for doing such a good job because we do have to remember where we were when the Clinton-Gore administration took office. In my State, there was suffering; there was no hope; people's dreams were set aside; the economy was in the tank; and there was double-digit unemployment. Today we are in the midst of the greatest economic recovery ever. It dates back to the vote Al Gore cast because he was the deciding vote on that budget. The Republicans predicted gloom and doom, deficits and debt, unemployment and the rest. Let's face it; they were wrong. We do not want to go back to those days of high deficits. Violence Against Women Act

Mrs. BOXER. In essence, the authorization has definitely expired. My friend is right. That is why I make this request in a most urgent fashion.

Mrs. BOXER. Yes. The Violence Against Women Act reauthorization has expired. We can't permit this to continue any longer. The House acted, and well over 400 Members voted to reauthorize it.

Mrs. BOXER. Yes. I would call on the Governor to intercede with our friends on the other side. He was asked about the Violence Against Women Act on the campaign trail. He was unaware of it. He said he had not heard of it, although Texas has received about $75 million, and they have built battered women shelters. Then when he studied it, he said he supported it, for which I am very grateful. But this is a golden moment for him. Since we have passed the bill, I want to say to my friend from Nevada, intimate-partner violence has decreased by 21 percent. Again, we have seen the number of battered women shelters increase by 60 percent. Before there were more animal shelters than there were for women and children. So we should act. I hope my friends will reconsider.

Mrs. BOXER. Will my friend yield me 3 minutes?

Mrs. BOXER. Yes.

Mrs. BOXER. I am very disappointed this morning that we haven't been able to do at least one good thing for the women and children of this country, and that is to pass the House bill, the Violence Against Women Act, to get it done.

Mrs. BOXER. We have a situation where we know if a child sees violence in the home, that child is very likely to repeat that violence. We have to protect these children by stopping the violence. Unanimous-Consent Request--H.R. 1248 At this time, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 834, H. 1248, an act to prevent violence against women, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mrs. BOXER. I thank Senator Reid, once more, for yielding me some time. I understand the Republican side of the aisle wants to attach different pieces of legislation to the Violence Against Women Act, and that is what is slowing it down. I know they want to see this act go forward. But I have to say to them, there is an easy way to do it. I am very disappointed we had this objection this morning. We had a beautiful prayer--a beautiful prayer--given by Senator Leahy's brother- in-law. If you heard what he said, he prayed that we in the Senate could work to do good works--to do good works. I know that is what we all strive to do every single day we get up in the morning. But it seems to me that good work such as the Violence Against Women Act is easy to do. We do not have to use it as a train to which we attach different pieces of legislation. I see Senator Wellstone on the floor. He has worked so hard in the area of the trafficking of women worldwide. Yes, we have no objection if we marry these two, if you will, pieces of legislation together because they make sense. One is talking about violence at home; one is talking about taking girls and putting them into sex trafficking. And it is a sin upon the world that this happens. We agreed to do this. It could have been done in a minute. We do not need to come on the floor and have a long period of time to discuss this. I am sure the Senator would agree; we could have a few comments.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I have been a long time supporter of CARA--the Conservation and Reinvestment Act. The concept behind CARA was a visionary one--to take revenues generated from the extraction of offshore oil and gas resources and reinvest them permanently and automatically in our nation's invaluable wildlife, coastal, and public land resources. The CARA proposal that was developed in a cooperative, bipartisan way by the Senate Energy Committee offered an opportunity for this Congress to make an historic contribution to conservation and to truly leave behind a legacy that we could be proud of and from which our children would benefit. Instead, we are faced with a situation in which this overwhelmingly popular bill will never be considered on the Senate floor. The House passed its version of CARA back in May by an overwhelming vote of 315 to 102; it was a vote that brought in supporters from across the political spectrum and around the country. More recently, a letter signed by 63 Senators was sent to the Senate leadership requesting that CARA be brought to the floor. Yet the Republican leadership has refused to let this bill move forward. I ask my colleagues, what does it take to get a vote around here? How can we say that we are doing the people's business, if a bill that is as broadly supported as CARA cannot even be voted upon? We have now been presented with a package in the Interior appropriations bill that purports to fulfill the goals of CARA. I am tremendously disappointed to say that this package does very little to accomplish the goals of CARA. CARA would have provided nearly $45 billion to important conservation programs over the next 15 years. The Interior proposal provides roughly $6 billion and only makes those funds available for the next 6 years. But far more disappointing than the discrepancy in funding levels is the fact that the Interior proposal does little to guarantee that these funds will actually be made available each year for specific conservation purposes. Instead, the Interior proposal will force important and beneficial programs like Urban Parks and Recreation to battle against other important programs like the Historic Preservation program for funding each year. What made CARA remarkable was the fact that it would have provided the Urban Parks program, or state fish and wildlife agencies, or endangered species recovery efforts, with a predictable and reliable amount of funding. This feature would have ensured that important conservation efforts would NOT be subject to the uncertainties of the annual appropriations cycle, but instead could be certain that funding would be available over the long term. And as a result, these conservation programs could have finally planned and implemented ambitious, long-term conservation efforts. The Interior appropriations proposal fails to provide this sort of certainty. I will vote for the Interior appropriations bill. The bill funds many important programs that I care about and in making a nod to CARA it will provide some increased funding for things like the state's portion of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. I am also pleased that the most egregious anti-environmental riders that appeared in earlier versions of this bill have been removed. However, I hope nobody will interpret my vote for this bill as a sign of support for what I view as a hijacking of CARA. I remain deeply disturbed that a bill that had the potential to do as much good as CARA will never see the light of day.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, firefighters from across the Nation who died in the line of duty will be remembered during the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend on October 7th and 8th at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland. As in years past, the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and the Federal Emergency Management Agency will sponsor the nation's tribute to these valiant public servants. The 106 firefighters to be honored this year include seven Californians. On behalf of the people of my state, I want to remember each of them in turn: Matthew Eric Black, 20, a volunteer with the Lakeport Fire Protection District, died on June 23, 1999 when he accidentally came in contact with a downed power line during operations at a grass fire. His older brother is also a firefighter. Stephen Joseph Masto, 28, a career firefighter with the Santa Barbara Fire Department, died on August 28, 1999 of heatstroke while working as an EMT at a wildland fire. He received the Outstanding Cadet Award at Rio Hondo Fire Academy and received a service award as a volunteer at Upland Fire Department. Tom Moore, 38, a career firefighter with the Manteca Fire Department, died on June 16, 1999 after suffering severe trauma in a training tower fall. He had served with the department for over 14 years and was a well-known fire service instructor specializing in heavy/confined space rescue and hazardous materials. Karen J. Savage, 44, a volunteer firefighter/EMT with Hawkins Bar Volunteer Fire Department in Burnt Ranch, died on October 16, 1999 from injuries sustained in a vehicle accident at the scene of a wildland fire. Martin Michael Stiles, 40, a California Department of Corrections inmate assigned to the Los Angeles County Fire Department Strike Team, died on July 18, 1999 of injuries from a fall while working at a wildland fire in Ventura County, California. A San Diego native, he was dedicated to wildland firefighting and loved the outdoors. Tracy Dolan Toomey, 52, a 27-year veteran firefighter with the Oakland Fire Department, died on January 10, 1999 in the collapse of a burning building. A Vietnam veteran, he was an avid welder and a member of the California Artistic Blacksmith's Association. Edward E. Luttig, 54, a member of the Sacramento Fire Department, died on September 10, 1990 from injuries sustained 23 years earlier while searching for survivors in an apartment fire. Sacramento firefighters donated their time and money to support Mr. Luttig and his family during those 23 years. His name is being added to the Memorial at the request of his friends and former colleagues. These fallen heroes paid the ultimate price for their devotion to public service and safety. They are an inspiration to us all, as are the men and women who continue to protect Americans from fire and other emergencies.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. It is my understanding I now have 30 minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Presiding Officer. This was a chance for me to explain my vociferous opposition to the substitute offered by Senator Murkowski and to talk about an energy policy. I appreciate your patience, Mr. President, and I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. I am pleased to come to the floor today to try to shed a little light, if not a little heat, on an issue that was raised by the Senator from Alaska, Mr. Murkowski, when he asked unanimous consent that we take up H.R. 2884, but substitute his amendment to that bill, and pass it. The unanimous consent request was made by the majority leader on behalf of Senator Murkowski. He came to the floor with a very eloquent discussion of why he believed it was important. I am one of the Senators--there is more than one--who objects to this bill. I think it is very important to state clearly on the record why. First, H.R. 2884 as it came over from the House does exactly the right thing. It reauthorizes the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and it sets up a home heating oil reserve. That is very important for the people of this country, particularly the people in the Northeast. We could pass that in 1 minute flat by unanimous consent request. No one has any problem. What is the problem, my friends? Senator Murkowski has essentially added to that bill a whole new body of law concerning royalty payments by the oil companies, which they owe the taxpayers of the United States of America. It deals with the ability of the oil companies to pay, not in cash--which is essentially the way they pay now--but in kind. It would encourage, by many of the provisions in it, the payment of these royalty payments in kind. In other words, Uncle Sam would become the proud owner of natural gas, Uncle Sam would become the proud owner of oil. And, by the way, Uncle Sam would then have to in some cases market that product. I don't think we are good at becoming a new Price Club. I really don't. My friend from Alaska says: But the Government wants to do it, they want to do it. They came to us; they asked us; they want to do it. Show me one bureaucrat in Government who doesn't want more power, more authority, more jobs, and I will show you a rare bureaucrat. The royalty payments that come into this Federal Government go to the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Let me be clear what a royalty payment is. When you find oil on Federal land offshore and onshore, you must pay a percentage of that to the taxpayers. It is like rent. You are using the taxpayers' land, the offshore areas, and you have to pay a certain amount of rent based on the value of the oil or gas you recover. This is an area that has been fraught with complication and difficulty. I frankly have found myself on the side of the consumers who have said they have been shortchanged by the oil companies. I believe that those of us who fought for 3 long years for a fair royalty payment did the right thing. Why do I say that? Because under the old system there have been lawsuits and almost in every case--I do not even know of any case where we did not prevail on behalf of the taxpayers. I hear today that the Federal Government has collected, because there have been some recent settlements, almost a half a billion dollars of payment from the oil companies. Do you know why? Because they have been cheating the taxpayers out of the royalty payments that they were supposed to make based on the fair market value. One of the ways they have cheated the taxpayers is to undervalue the oil. If you are in beginners math, you know a percentage of a smaller number will yield yet a smaller number. So they did not do the proper math. They didn't show what the oil was worth. They undervalued the oil and then they took a percentage of the undervalued oil and gave it to the taxpayers and we were shorted a half billion dollars--maybe more. That is just the recent settlement. So after 3 years of fighting--and, believe me, I had to stand on my feet and fight long and hard, and so did a lot of my colleagues, and I thank them--we were able to make sure that a fair way of determining the fair market value of that oil was put in place. In the middle of all this comes the payment-in-kind program. In other words, instead of paying cash, we say to the oil and gas companies we are going to try an experiment. We are going to try a pilot program. We are going to allow you to pay your royalties in kind. That is like if you owed the Government your income taxes and said: Uncle Sam, I'm short. Will you take the payment in, say, my mother's antique chest? That's worth about $1,000 and that's what I owe. By the way, we do this with no other commodity. We have checked the records. We say to them something we say to no one else who owes the Federal Government: You can pay your dues, your royalty payments, in kind. I have a lot of problems with that. A lot of my colleagues think it is just great. But, again, it is my experience that we do not do too well in the business world in government. We are better off doing our work here, getting that straight. Now we are going to expand. It is going to be Uncle Sam's Oil Company; Uncle Sam's Gas Company: Drive in and fill her up. Of course I am exaggerating; it will not be exactly that. What we will do is market the product and sell it and probably pay the oil companies to do all that marketing for us so they will get back plenty of money. We will wind up paying them to market their product. This is a very confusing matter. So what happens? Without one hearing in the Energy Committee, we have before us a substitute bill that I have objected to and others have objected to that would essentially say, regardless of all the work, Senator Boxer, that you and many of your colleagues went through to get a fair royalty payment, we are going to come around in the backdoor when nobody is looking and we are going to put in a new way to figure out how to pay royalties. We are going to expand this payment-in-kind program even before we have held one hearing on whether it even works. The pilot programs are going to be completed very soon, in about 3 or 4 months, at least one of them. Another one will be done next year. What is the rush to pass a 5-year authorization on royalty payments in kind? What is the rush? Is that the way to govern? Is that the way to legislate? No other industry in America gets this chance. I say, if you read the substitute offered by my good friend, Senator Murkowski, you are going to find a few things in there that are going to raise your eyebrows. In the very first draft, they set up another definition of ``fair market value.'' I protested. They dropped it. Now it just says the royalty in kind has to be paid in a fair market value, but it doesn't define it. It doesn't do what the rule does for the in-cash payments. So now you have two conflicting ways, one way that is clearly defined if you pay in cash and one way that is open to interpretation, fair market value--whatever that means--for the payment in kind. Do you know what I see? Again, you don't have to be an expert in economics. I was an economics major, but that was so many years ago I don't pretend to be an expert. But if I say to you, ``fair market value,'' you are going to say, ``I think that is a willing buyer and a willing seller.'' If I ask Sarah here, who has worked so hard on this, she is going to say: I think that is a little risky because the seller might be a subsidiary of the buyer. That is not arm's length. It has to be an arm's length agreement. Somebody else might say: Forget that. Let's just go to the published newspaper in terms of what the oil is selling for on that date. Frankly, that is the one I like. That is the one we use in the definition when you pay royalty in cash. The first problem is you are setting up a whole conflict here. I will tell you, those guys with those sharp pencils who are in the oil company, they are going to go for payment in kind because there is not any real definition. They are going to give us less oil and less value than we would get. So then you say to my friend, Senator Murkowski, let's at least put in this legislation a statement that says: Under no circumstances should we get less than we would get if it was payment in cash because, again, this money goes to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is our conservation fund. We buy lands with it. We fix up parks with it. And the State share--because States get a share of the royalty payment--that goes to the California classrooms. Are they going to send oil to the California classrooms? Are they going to send natural gas? So we said: Look, we have to work out these problems with the States. In any case, we can't have less of a payment than we would have if you paid in cash. So we said: Will you put that in the language? ``Under no case will we get less than we would get if we got payment in cash.'' Oh, no, they use the word ``benefits,'' not revenues. The benefits have to be equal or greater. I said: Wait a minute. What does that mean? Well, the Secretary will decide if there is a benefit. Let me tell you I have seen Secretaries of the Interior come and go. I saw one who said: Don't worry about the ozone layer leaving us. Don't worry about a hole in the ozone layer; just wear a hat and put on sunscreen. Don't worry about cancer. That was one Secretary of the Interior. So in this 5-year authorization that never had a hearing, before the pilot programs are through, we are leaving all this up to the Secretary of the Interior, whoever he or she may be. We have seen Secretaries of the Interior who fought on behalf of the environment. We have seen Secretaries of the Interior who fought on behalf of big oil. I am not here to give authority to the Secretary of the Interior to decide when it is in the benefit of the United States to take less than what you would get if you received a payment in cash. I understand from Senator Murkowski's staff that he feels strongly about this and he is not going to back off. He is going to file a cloture motion and all the rest of it. That is fine. We will stay here past the election because I am going to stand on my feet because I don't think the taxpayers ought to be ripped off again. They have been ripped off for years. We finally resolved the situation, and we are now back to square one. Again, I reiterate, the underlying bill that came over from the House is a beautiful bill. It deals with two things which we need to do: We need to fill up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and reauthorize it, and we need a home heating oil reserve. I will say we are told by the administration that they actually can act on this without this legislation, but it certainly would be better to have it. I say to my friend, Senator Murkowski--and I will not do it now in deference to the fact he is not here--I would like to move the underlying H.R. 2884 as it came over here and pass it 5 minutes a side. We can do it if we did not add all this royalty in-kind section to it. The last point I wish to make on this subject is, in the Interior bill that is now before the Senate, we have already taken care of this problem. The Minerals Management Service came to us and said: We need a little help with the pilot program because we really want to make sure we are giving payment in kind every chance. The Minerals Management Service wants to go into the oil business. That is great. They want to be the Price Club of the United States of America. So they want help. OK. We took care of them in this Interior bill. We gave them what they wanted. We allowed them to calculate this royalty in a way that they can subtract the cost of transportation, even subtract the cost of marketing oil. The oil companies get a good deal. Senator Murkowski wants a 5-year authorization without one hearing. He wanted to pass it by unanimous consent, no amendments, nothing. I may sound upset, and it is true, I am upset because I think the consumers get a raw deal. Every time we have a little problem with an energy supply, what do we hear around this place? Drill in ANWR; let the oil companies pay lower royalties, and meanwhile the oil companies are earning the biggest profits they have ever earned, causing Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont to come down here and propose a windfall profits tax on the oil companies. But it is not good enough for them to earn $1 billion and $2 billion in a quarter--in a quarter--to have 100-percent profits and 200-percent profits and 300-percent profits. They have to pay us less in royalties. If you knew what this amount was--it is so minuscule compared to their profits--it would shock you. It is not minuscule to the child who sits in a California classroom. It is not minuscule to the Land and Water Conservation Fund or the Historic Preservation Fund, but yet here we are when we should be doing energy conservation, when we should be having a long-term energy plan, the first thing we do, because the Senator from Alaska attaches it to an important bill, is give a break to the oil companies again with these royalties in kind. Boy, I tell you. Maybe the Senator from Florida will be interested to know this. There is not any other business in America that pays in kind. It would be interesting if you had to pay your IRS bill and you said: I have a few extra things around the house I am going to send in. It is hard to believe we would have an authorization to really expand the payment-in-kind program without one hearing. I am stunned. It is taken care of in the Interior bill. We gave them a narrow bill. We did not mess with the definition of how you are supposed to pay, what you are supposed to pay. We did what the Interior Department wanted. If this is going to a cloture vote, I tell my friends, so be it. I have other friends on this side of the aisle who agree very strongly, and we are going to stand on our feet and it is not going to be pleasant, it is not going to be happy, but we are going to have to do it, and let us shine the light of truth on the whole oil royalty question. They are going to get up and say: Oh, it's the mom and pop little guys. Fine, let's do this for the mom and pop little guys. I will talk to you about that. But do not give the biggest companies--these are multinational corporations making excess profits--another break, and suddenly Uncle Sam goes into the oil business and the gas business. This whole issue of an energy policy is important. It came up in the debates, and what we heard from the two candidates was very different. George W. Bush had one energy policy and one energy policy alone, and that is more development at home. By the way, we have had a lot more oil development here--and I am going to put that information in the Record--since Clinton-Gore came in. But they want to go to a wildlife refuge and drill in a wildlife refuge. The No. 1 goal of environmentalists in this country is to protect that wildlife refuge. They want to drill in it, and you say: Senator Boxer, how much oil is in there? The estimate is about 6 months of oil. Period. End of quote. Forever. Some say if you got every drop out of it, it could go for 2 years, but that is the outside; most people think it is 6 months. To me that is a contradiction in terms. We have to figure out a better way. I will give you a better way. We can save a million barrels of oil a day--a million barrels of oil a day--if we just say the SUVs should get the same mileage as a car. A million barrels of oil a day, and yet when that comes up, people duck for cover around here. How have the President and the Vice President tried to have an energy policy? First of all, since they came in, oil and gas production on onshore Federal lands has increased 60 percent, and offshore oil production is up 65 percent since they came in, while they are protecting the most vulnerable offshore tracts, off California, off Florida, and other pristine places. We have seen a huge increase there. They worked to bring an additional 3.5 million more barrels per day into the world oil market. They have taken measures to swap 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and this will help the Northeast not have a repeat of last year's home heating oil shortage. We know it was Vice President Gore who pushed for this, frankly, along with a couple of Republicans and Democrats in the Congress, and it seems to be working. We hope it will. They supported alternatives to oil and gas, such as ethanol, a renewable resource made from feedstock such as corn, and increasing ethanol use would help reduce dependence on foreign oil. It would help our farmers by boosting corn prices, and since ethanol can be made from waste, such as rice straw, waste straw, trimmings and trash, the greater use of ethanol can turn an environmental problem into an environmental benefit. In other words, it would take trash and turn it into energy. That is a plus. The other half of the administration's energy policy is to improve energy efficiency. I think it is very important to look at the record here. Having told you that if we go to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, we will only get 6-month's worth of oil, what is the answer? Let's see what the facts show. The administration supported a tax credit to promote alternative sources of energy--solar, biomass, wind, and other sources. The Republican Congress said no. The administration recommended tax credits for electric fuel cell and qualified hybrid vehicles. It was a 5-year package of tax credits. The Republican Congress said no. The administration advocated a tax credit for efficient homes and buildings. The Republican Congress said no. The administration recommended tax incentives for domestic oil and gas industries. The Republican Congress said no. The administration requested $1.7 billion for Federal research and development efforts to promote energy efficiency in buildings, industry, and transportation, and expanded use of renewable energy and distributed power generation systems. And the Republican Congress partially funded that program. The administration requested $1.5 billion for investments in energy R&D for oil, gas, coal, efficiency, renewables, and nuclear energy. What was the answer of the Republican Congress? No. And they introduced legislation to abolish the Department of Energy. That is a great answer. George Bush is saying we have no energy policy, and most of his party said: Do away with the Department of Energy. That was at a time when oil prices were low. They said: We don't need it. That is some policy. It goes on. The administration requested $851 million for energy conservation for the Department of Energy. The request was cut by $35 million. They requested money to continue the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles. That was cut in half by the Republican Congress. They requested $225 million for building technology assistance funding. That was cut. They asked for $85 million to create a new Clean Air Partnership Fund to help States and localities reduce pollution and become more energy efficient. The Republican Congress said no. It goes on. The administration recommended studying increases in the fuel economy of automobiles. We know that 50 percent of the cause of our energy dependence is automobiles. What did this Republican Congress do? It prohibited the administration from even studying the increases in fuel economy standards in a rider to the appropriations bill. So now we have the Republican standard bearer standing up in a debate saying: Where is your energy policy? There were 20 initiatives. I have only mentioned part of those. And they said no to the vast majority of them, and they said, OK, we will give you a little bit for a few. It seems, to me, disingenuous--and that is the nicest way I can say it--to be critical of Vice President Gore, saying he has no energy policy, when every single proposal, except maybe a couple, was turned down with a vengeance. Then, when we have a problem, our friends on the other side come down and say: You see the other side, they care about the environment too much. They will not drill in a wildlife refuge. I say, thank you for mentioning that because if there is anything I want to accomplish here in the short time that any of us has in the scheme of things, it is to protect this magnificent area. I wish we could join hands across party lines on energy. I say to the Presiding Officer, we have worked together in the Committee on Public Works. We have worked, for example, on ways to replace MTBE in a good way. We have worked on ways to make sure that we do not rob the States of their transit funds. I think we can do this. I do not think it is fair, however, for the candidate of the Republican Party to accuse the Vice President, who has proposed numerous ways, both on the production side and on the demand side, to resolve the problem, and say, there is no energy policy, when time after time after time it has been thwarted in this very body and in the House. I remember when I first went into politics--a very long time ago--we had an energy crisis. At that time, we realized our automobiles were simply gas guzzlers. I remember. They used to get 10 miles to the gallon, 12 miles to the gallon. I am definitely showing my age when I admit that. I remember that. And now we are doing better, but we can do better still. I say to you that rather than go into a pristine and beautiful wildlife refuge--which we really owe to our children and our grandchildren and their kids; we owe them the preservation of that area--rather than do that, we could take a few steps here that can really make us so much more energy efficient, that we will be proud to say to our children and our grandchildren that we took a few steps. We did not inconvenience anybody. Our refrigerators do a little bit better on energy use, our dishwashers, and our cars. I say to my own kids, who are at that age when they love those cars--I have a prejudice against those big SUVs because it is hard for me to climb into them. The bottom line is, they are very nice, but we can do better for our Nation and not be dependent on OPEC. Fifty percent of our problem has to do with transportation. So we do not have to say: Oh, my gosh, we have a problem. Drill in a wildlife preserve. Oh, my gosh, we have a problem. Destroy the coast of California; ruin the tourism industry; ruin the fishing industry; risk oil spills. We do not have to go there. We were sent here to find better ways of solving problems. Having an energy policy is important, but it takes two to tango. The Congress cannot do without the President, and the President cannot do without the Congress. The President proposes and Congress disposes. Unfortunately, they disposed of almost every single idea this administration had. We are suffering the consequences. So the issue is brought up at a Presidential debate, when people are pointing at each other, and we right here had a chance to do much better.