John Breaux

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Landrieu in offering legislation to establish the Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana. The Mississippi River has provided for the commerce, transportation, and nourishment that has sustained Louisianians for over 300 years. Over time, communities have adapted to the unique environment that exists near the River. Today marks a milestone in the effort to preserve one of the last remaining tracts in the lower Mississippi Valley that is still influenced by the natural dynamics of the great River. The area known as Cat Island is the southernmost unleveed portion of the Mississippi River. It is actually a peninsula of bottomland hardwood forest adjacent to the River and located thirty miles north of our state capital at Baton Rouge. It supports one of the highest densities of virgin bald cypress trees in the entire Mississippi River Valley, including the nation's champion cypress tree, which is 17 feet wide and 53 feet in circumference. By designating this area as a National Wildlife Refuge, we aim to protect the habitat of several declining species of forest songbirds, thousands of wintering waterfowl, and breeding ground for Wood Ducks. The area also supports high populations of deer, squirrel, turkey, and furbearers such as bobcat and mink. The Cat Island Project represents a collaborative effort among several entities who have remained committed to its conservation. The Nature Conservancy spearheaded the effort, marshaled public support from Louisianians of all stripes, and worked diligently to secure the necessary funding for the initial acquisition of land from commercial and private landowners in the area. In fact, the Migratory Bird Commission provided the seed money to begin the acquisition process. Senator Landrieu and I have worked hard to find appropriate sources of federal funding to contribute to the cause, and we are delighted that the President has included $4 million for the Cat Island Project in his budget request for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We have enjoyed the support of officials from the Department of the Interior as well. Assistant Secretary David Hayes visited the site of the planned refuge along with Senator Landrieu and me in February. As I said, this project is the result of the good faith, dedication and continued cooperation of many players. I express my sincere gratitude and congratulations to all who have been involved. The final piece in the completion of this project is the designation of the land as a National Wildlife Refuge. I am proud to offer legislation that will ensure the conservation of wild Louisiana for future generations to experience.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. I thank the Senator from Nevada for yielding me 5 minutes. It is interesting to hear discussion and debate in the Congress on the question of prescription drugs for seniors and the Medicare program. There is no one in this Congress I know who is going to come to the floor of the Senate and say: I am opposed to giving seniors prescription drugs. That is not the issue. I think there is almost unanimous agreement by everyone in the Congress that prescription drugs today are as important as a hospital bed was in 1965 when the Medicare program was first established. In that period of time, Members of Congress said: We have to pay for seniors' hospital stays, and we have to pay for their doctors' treatment. But at that time, prescription drugs was not that big of a deal in the sense of being something that helped people, in fact, stay out of hospitals and be cured of what ailed them in medical terms. Today, it is quite different. Today, prescription drugs keep people out of hospitals as well as cure them from diseases that formerly were thought to be incurable. The question today is not whether Medicare, which serves almost 40 million seniors, should cover prescription drugs. The answer is, of course, it should. The question is, How do we go about doing it and when do we do it? That is what the subject of this debate is all about. There are some on the Democratic side who make the point with the Robb amendment today that we should add prescription drugs to Medicare before we do tax cuts that are excessive. Excessive tax cuts? What is excessive? One hundred fifty billion over 10 years? How about $25 billion over 10 years? Is that excessive? The point made by many of my Democratic colleagues is, do prescription drugs before you do excessive tax cuts. On the other hand, Republican colleagues take the approach, let's do prescription drugs but make sure we do reform of the program at the same time. In other words, don't put the cart before the horse, as so many of my Republican colleagues have said. I share the concern that just adding prescription drugs to a program that last year spent $7 billion more than we took in is certainly not helping the solvency of the Medicare plan. Does it make people feel good about adding prescription drugs? Yes? But does it do anything to fix a program that spent $7 billion more than it took in? It doesn't do that at all. In fact, it makes it more difficult for the program to provide the benefits that are necessary for our seniors. The latest analysis by the Medicare trustees says the program is OK until the year 2023. Tell that to the nursing homes. Tell them it is all right that they are being cut and put into bankruptcy and put out of business. Tell the rural hospitals of America the program is in great shape, when many of them, in fact, do not get enough money to stay open and treat the Medicare patients we are talking about. Tell the home nursing facilities that are going bankrupt and being put out of business: The program is fine; don't worry. The truth is, the trustees looked only at Part A. They did not look at Part B, which is growing at almost 40 percent annually and is expected to increase even further. It is absolutely clear that we make a serious mistake if we do one without the other. As Senator Moynihan, ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee said: Medicare reform is the price you must pay for adding prescription drugs to the program. That makes a lot of sense. If we do the dessert before we do the spinach, no one is going to be around to eat the spinach. We are all going to issue a press release and say: We added prescription drugs; isn't that a great thing? It is the right thing to do, if we do it in the context of reforming the program and taking it out of the 1960s and bringing it into the 21st century. Some say: Just add more money to the program and we will fix it. I have drawn the analogy that it is like adding more gasoline to a 1965 automobile. It is still going to run like an old car. The fundamental problem we have is to reform the program, the delivery system. We cannot continue to micromanage Medicare with 133,000 pages of regulations, three times more than the IRS, where every time someone wants to do something differently, they have to come to Washington and get an act of Congress to add a treatment or to subtract a treatment. I conclude by saying, yes, I am for prescription drugs. Yes, we agree on the amount that needs to be spent. But, yes, we should also do it in the context of reforming the program.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I made remarks earlier about the intent to offer this amendment. I will not repeat the arguments in favor of it. I will only summarize by saying the Senate Commerce Committee had a complete and full hearing. The distinguished chairman of the subcommittee is on the floor today. We had the privilege of hearing NASA Administrator Dan Goldin testify on this amendment, saying it would save as much as 10 times the cost of a launch vehicle and improve the reliability of those by a factor of 10. We are hearing from big launch companies and also small launch companies that are interested in this industry, and trying to improve it. We had testimony from people in the finance business who speak to the difficulty of getting adequate financing in the private sector because of the questionable nature of the launch vehicle industry and testifying to the fact that a loan guarantee program would be very helpful. The final point is that when you talk about bringing satellite broadcast signals to rural America, you cannot just talk about the ``big ball'' that, in fact, is the satellite. You also have to talk about how you get the satellite into orbit around the country. Thirty- seven percent of the cost of bringing that broadcast signal to rural America involves the cost of the launch vehicle. Currently, the United States relies on China, France, Ukraine, and other countries that are not market-based countries but, rather, are countries in which their industry is financed 100 percent by the government. Our companies cannot compete unless we have a level playing field. Therefore, the concept of providing a loan guarantee program of a definitive amount of money we know will cost $250 million. That is the money authorized. It would have to go through the Appropriations Committee to get the appropriations, but it could not be any more than $250 million to create a loan guarantee where they could go to the private sector and get a loan from the banks. Having a percentage of it guaranteed by the Federal Government is good, sound economic policy. It is good broadcast industry policy. It is a policy this country should embrace. In areas where we have done it before, as in shipbuilding, it has worked very successfully. I suggest this amendment is very relevant because the bill itself is clear that the Loan Guarantee Program ``is for the acquisition, improvement, enhancement, construction, deployment and launch''-- emphasizing launch--``rehabilitation or the means from which local TV broadcast signals will be delivered to an unserved area or underserved area.'' It is clearly relevant, and both amendments are an effort to try to help through loan programs the delivering of broadcast signals to rural America. This is not a germaneness question. It is a relevancy question. If this is not relevant, I don't know what would be relevant on an amendment on the floor of the Senate. Mr. President, I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BREAUX. Is it in order to ask unanimous consent to temporarily set aside that amendment in order to offer an amendment?

Mr. BREAUX. I am asking to set aside the pending amendment to offer my amendment. Is that appropriate?

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily set aside in order to offer my amendment.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, what is the current business before the Senate?

Mr. BREAUX. The yeas and nays have not been ordered?

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, what is the pending business before the Senate?

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, because an amendment is pending, rather than ask it be set aside to offer another amendment, I will make a few comments about something I intend to do. I am glad the distinguished chairman of the Banking Committee is here, so he has a chance to listen to some of the comments and maybe have a dialog on what I am attempting to do. First, I congratulate the chairman of the Banking Committee and the Senator from South Dakota and all those on the Banking Committee who have worked so hard to bring this legislation to the floor. It truly addresses a very important need for rural America, and that is the guarantee that people in rural America are not going to be treated as second-class citizens when it comes to their access to the information age. This legislation addresses a problem of allowing companies that provide satellite television and broadcast signals getting into rural parts of America and providing them the same type of quality information services that someone in the city of Washington, DC, or any of the large metropolitan areas of our country are already receiving because that is where the people happen to live. The people in rural Texas or in rural South Dakota or the people in rural Louisiana are no less important than people in the large cities of America. Without this legislation, it is very clear that people in these areas will not have access to this information because, in many cases, it is not economically feasible to spend large sums of money to provide information to sparsely populated areas of our country. That is unfortunate, but that is recognizing the way things are. The purpose of the legislation, as I understand it, is to lower the overall cost of bringing satellite and television broadcast to rural America, something that has almost unanimous agreement and is in the national interest. Without this legislation, people in rural areas would simply not have the same advantages as we do in urban areas. Clearly, this is very important. One of my concerns, I say to the distinguished managers of the bill, is that when you look at what it costs to bring broadcast signals to rural America, it is not only a question of building satellites for rural areas and moving into these areas. That represents about 45 percent of the cost of the actual satellite. But getting the satellite, obviously, launched into space represents about 37 percent of the total cost of bringing broadcast signals, through satellites, to any part of this country. I think you have to agree that a significant cost associated with all of what we are trying to do today is actually launching the satellite into space in order to bring the broadcast signals to all parts of the United States. Forty-five percent is the actual satellite cost; insurance is 12 percent; the ground costs are another 6 percent. But a very significant portion of the cost of bringing a satellite into working condition is the cost of launching it. More than one-third, as I have said, of the cost of the satellite is expended when the actual satellite is launched into space. Clearly, it would further our goal of lowering the cost of bringing these services to rural America if we could also lower the cost of transportation, which is a very significant cost throughout our country. Launch costs, obviously, are a very significant component of the overall satellite costs, but I think they can be reduced. That is why I take the floor this afternoon to make a suggestion. The authors of the legislation, again, who are to be commended for their vision, have clearly indicated that launch costs were on their mind when they crafted the bill. I was looking at the legislation, and clearly the legislation, on page 30 of the actual bill that is pending before the Senate, talks about the type of loans this bill envisions. It says: . . . a loan may not be guaranteed under this Act unless-- It spells out what the ``unless'' is. But what it actually says is that, in other words, it will be allowed if it does the following. In other words, a loan can be guaranteed under the legislation pending before the Senate if: the loan is made to finance the acquisition, improvement, enhancement, construction, deployment, launch, or rehabilitation of the means by which local television broadcast signals will be delivered to an unserved area or underserved area . . . Therefore, the bill, as it is currently pending before the Senate, talks about trying to make loans available to cover a number of things, one of which specifically mentioned in the bill is the launch of satellites designed to bring broadcast signals to rural parts of America. As I tried to point out initially, 37 percent of the whole cost of this project is in the launching of the satellite. Obviously, without the launching of the satellite into space, you, in fact, are not going to ever complete the rest of the project. I think it is very relevant, when the bill talks about a loan guarantee program, that the launch is listed as one of the means by which broadcast signals are ultimately brought to all parts of America. I think, for that portion of the industry that launches the satellites into space, the loan guarantee is very important. An interesting thing that I would point out is, when you are in the launch satellite business, when you are in the business of building a spaceship to, in fact, launch a vehicle, you have been competing against other countries where their governments do it. You are competing against industries that are totally financed by their respective governments because it has been in their national interest to do so. In the past, that is also what we have done in this country through the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, where NASA has used the shuttle to launch the satellites into space, and the taxpayer has been paying for the cost of those vehicles. But, clearly, NASA is getting out of the business. We are trying to say to the private sector: We want you to move into this business. We want you to build the launch vehicles. We want to create a new industry in the private sector, get the Government out of the business of launching broadcast satellites, and let the private sector do it. But one of the disadvantages our private sector has is that they are competing against other countries that are involved in doing this, and they cannot compete on a level playing field. What we are suggesting is that we help the U.S. industries become involved in this in a competitive fashion, which I think is very important. U.S. companies that are having to compete against other countries are not able to compete on a level playing field. Therefore, when the country of China or the country of France--highly subsidized by their Governments--is trying to sell their launch vehicles to the United States, obviously, they can do it at a price that makes our companies not able to compete. I think the authors of the bill are right on target. Some might say: The Government should not be in the business of loan guarantees. It is not a function of our Government. The exact opposite is true. Historically, the U.S. Government has sought to assist the private sector by saying, we are going to help--we are not going to monopolize it; we are not going to do it, but we are going to help the private sector do it. One way we can help certain activities that are important to our country is by loan guarantee programs. I point out, for the commercial shipbuilding industry--very important to my State and to the State of the Senator from Texas, as well as all the States along the coast that have the shipbuilding industry--we have had a title 11 shipbuilding guarantee program, in which companies have been able to go into the private market, borrow money from the private sector, from private banks, from private insurance companies, and having a certain portion of that loan guaranteed by the Federal Government. It allows them to get a better interest rate and allows them to get financing for something that may not be able to be financed otherwise. Where we have tried it before, in the area of shipbuilding, it has worked very well. It has worked at a profit to the U.S. Government because the loans have been paid back. The Government has made money. The work was done. The ships were built. The Loan Guarantee Program was an integral portion of it. Currently, when you look at whether financial assistance is available in this area in the private sector, without any help from the Government, it is interesting to see what the comments are from those in the financial markets. We have had hearings on this legislation before the Senate Commerce Committee. One of the companies that does the bulk of financing these launch vehicles is Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. When they testified before the Senate Commerce Committee, as the largest group of investment bankers in the country, they talked about the problem of being hampered by the inability to find the necessary private financing for these types of ventures, particularly when they are, in fact, competing against other countries that are government-financed 100 percent. They pointed out in their testimony that in some cases the cost of the launch vehicles, and the insurance that goes with it, almost equals the entire cost of the satellite itself. So if we want to help bring broadcast signals to rural areas, we cannot just look at the satellite itself that needs to be constructed, you also need to look at the vehicles that would be built in order to launch those satellites into the sky. It was really interesting, colleagues, that last week we had the head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, before our committee. Dan Goldin was testifying. I asked him a question about this concept. He said the provision was very innovative. He said this provision: . . . would help small and big rocket companies to overcome critical barriers so that we have technology that will allow us to improve the reliability ten times and cut their cost by a factor of ten. This will enable us to have private launch services not involving the Government. This bill makes sense to me. This is the person who is the head of NASA saying that this idea of having a loan guarantee for the launch vehicles is something that makes sense to him, that it would allow us to increase the reliability by 10 times, and that it would allow us to decrease the cost by a factor of 10, which is very significant. Obviously, we should be looking for more reliable launch vehicles. We should be looking at vehicles that cost a lot less. The Government should not be in the business of building the launch vehicles, but we can assist companies--small companies and large companies--by making it easier for them to get adequate private sector financing for these very important ventures. I have not offered an amendment, I say to the distinguished Banking Committee chairman, because there is an amendment pending at the current time, I did want to outline the concept of an amendment I am prepared to offer, and will offer, as to the feasibility of saying that if you are going to have a loan guarantee program for the actual satellite, there is a desperate need for a loan guarantee program for the vehicles that will be required in order to launch the satellites. We have in the past used foreign launch vehicles from France, China, and the Ukraine, using Ukraine launch vehicles because there is not an adequate supply of launch vehicles in this country. Those rockets and launch vehicles have been inadequate. They have been imperfect. They have had failures and at a great expense to the satellite industry in this country. How much better would it be if we were to have a viable, growing private industry in this country that were assisted by a loan guarantee program to enable them to get adequate financing in the private sector in order to launch the satellites for the purpose of bringing broadcast signals to rural areas as well as to urban areas in the country. Due to the fact that an amendment is pending, I will not be able to offer my amendment at this time. I yield the floor until such time as it is appropriate for me to offer an amendment. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I will address my remarks to some of the points the Banking Committee chairman made, if he will give me his attention, regarding some of the concerns he raised in his comments about the amendment I outlined but have not yet offered. On the point the chairman raised, that we do not have a scoring on the amendment, the scoring is very simple. It is $250 million. That is what is authorized. We don't authorize a nickel more or a nickel less. It is not difficult to figure out the scoring and the cost of an amendment that authorizes $250 million. It is $250 million, if that amount is in fact appropriated. He also said we needed to have hearings on this amendment. The Congress has had hearings on the amendment. We had hearings in the Senate Commerce Committee. We had people from industry testify. We had large and small companies testify. We had the head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration testify. We had a sufficient number of people testifying about the pros and cons. He raised the point that we should hear from NASA as to their opinion. I provided the opinion of NASA when I quoted from the statement of the distinguished Administrator of NASA, Dan Goldin, in which he said this amendment could conceivably increase launch vehicle reliability by 10 times and decrease the cost by a factor of 10. So there could not be a clearer statement. He concluded by saying: ``This bill makes sense to me.'' You can't get a clearer statement from NASA as to what they think about the amendment. There could not be a clearer statement about the cost of the amendment other than the fact that we authorize $250 million, not a nickel more, not a dime less but $250 million. So it is very clear. One, we know what the costs are; two, we have in fact had hearings in the Senate on this question; three, we have heard from industry, both large companies and small companies; and finally, we have heard from NASA, which said that it makes a great deal of sense to them, including the fact of reducing the cost of launching vehicles by a factor of 10. I don't know who else we can possibly ask to come before the Congress and address this question. The final point--and I will not prejudge the ruling of the Chair--is on the question of the relevancy. It is clear that the bill before the Senate right now covers the cost of launching satellites to bring broadcast signals to rural America. It is in the bill. The bill clearly says that the loan guarantees are for the acquisition, improvement, enhancement, construction, deployment, and launch of satellites--the means by which local television broadcast signals will be delivered. Well, launching a satellite is absolutely essential and totally relevant to putting satellite broadcast signals into rural America. It could not possibly even be more relevant to the bill before the Senate. The bill itself talks about launching satellites. My amendment provides a loan guarantee to launch satellites. If that is not relevant, I am not sure what would ever be relevant. We are not talking about germaneness. We are talking about relevant to the bill before the Senate, and this is a loan guarantee for launching satellites to bring broadcast signals to rural areas. My amendment creates a loan guarantee program to launch satellites to bring broadcast signals to rural America. It does it through a different department, but obviously it has to be relevant. You don't have to have exactly the same language in an amendment as the bill for it to be relevant. It has to be relevant to what the bill does that is pending before the Senate. I think the question of relevancy is very clear. The fact that we have had hearings in this Congress on this specific amendment, and the fact that we have had NASA testify in favor of this amendment and say it would reduce the cost by 10 times, reduce the liability by a factor of 10, and the fact that we have had industry, both small and large companies, appear before Congress and testify as to their opinions on this means that we have had hearings, we have the support, and it is certainly relevant, and I think it is the right public policy. While I can't offer the amendment at this time because another one is pending, we will do it at the appropriate time. I yield the floor.

Mr. BREAUX. Further parliamentary inquiry: Is not the statement of the Chair relevant to a question on germaneness as opposed to a question of relevancy?

Mr. BREAUX. I will not pursue it. Obviously, I accept the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I take it that the Chair is not in the position to give a reason behind the ruling.

Mr. BREAUX. I inquire of the Chair: Is that not an argument for the question of germaneness as opposed to the question of relevancy?

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I am pleased to cosponsor with my distinguished colleague, Senator Roth, a bill that will repeal the federal excise on telephone service. This tax is outdated, highly regressive and has lasted entirely too long. The ``tax on talking'' was originally levied as a luxury tax to fund the Spanish-American War. At the time, only a small number of wealthy individuals had access to telephone service. Telephones are no longer luxuries that only the very wealthy can afford. They are basic fixtures in every American household. And with the creation of the Internet, telephone service has become the lifeline of the new economy. This expansion of telephone service and its many uses has revealed the regressive nature of the ``tax on talking.'' Today, it is low-income families who are hit the hardest by this excise tax, since they pay a higher percentage of their income on telephone service than higher income families. Mr. President, with the almost universal subscription to telephone service, the repeal of this telephone tax would provide tax relief to virtually every family in the United States. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this important piece of legislation. It is time we ended over 100 years of Americans paying this regressive and unnecessary tax on telephone service.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I am pleased to cosponsor with my distinguished colleague, Senator Roth, a bill that will repeal the federal excise on telephone service. This tax is outdated, highly regressive and has lasted entirely too long. The ``tax on talking'' was originally levied as a luxury tax to fund the Spanish-American War. At the time, only a small number of wealthy individuals had access to telephone service. Telephones are no longer luxuries that only the very wealthy can afford. They are basic fixtures in every American household. And with the creation of the Internet, telephone service has become the lifeline of the new economy. This expansion of telephone service and its many uses has revealed the regressive nature of the ``tax on talking.'' Today, it is low-income families who are hit the hardest by this excise tax, since they pay a higher percentage of their income on telephone service than higher income families. Mr. President, with the almost universal subscription to telephone service, the repeal of this telephone tax would provide tax relief to virtually every family in the United States. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this important piece of legislation. It is time we ended over 100 years of Americans paying this regressive and unnecessary tax on telephone service.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to Thomas D. Brasher, a native of my home state of Louisiana, who will be retiring at month's end after a thirty-five-year career in law enforcement, including thirty years as a postal inspector with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. At the time of his retirement, he will be sixth in seniority among the nation's 2,115 postal inspectors. Although a native of Alexandria, Louisiana, Mr. Brasher has worked with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in California. Tom Brasher began his law enforcement career in Lafayette, Louisiana, in 1964, when he joined that city's auxiliary police force while attending the University of Southwestern Louisiana. He became a regular officer in 1965 and worked in patrol. He joined the Louisiana State Police in 1966, where he worked until 1970 when he was recruited by the Postal Inspection Service. Mr. Brasher's Inspection Service career was in the San Francisco Division, now the Northern California Division. Except for a four-year stint in San Francisco, he worked his entire career in San Jose. Mr. Brasher was primarily involved in investigating external crimes and was the first External Crimes Prevention Specialist for the division. He covered all of seven states and the Pacific Islands in that assignment. He also had assignments in child pornography, embezzlements, and the monitoring of the design and construction of post offices. He also served as an ad-hoc EEO counselor for a four-division area. His last assignments have been on the San Jose External Crimes Team, the San Francisco Bay Area Violent Crimes Team, the Northern California Workplace Violence Team and a detail to the Postal Service's robbery task force. While Mr. Brasher will retire, his wife, Gay Ann, an award-winning school teacher in San Jose, will continue her teaching career. Together they will continue their travels, which so far have taken them to 94 countries around the world. I know I speak for my Senate colleagues when I wish Tom and Gay Ann Brasher all the best in this new phase of their lives and thank him for thirty years of distinguished service to the United States of America.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I rise today to honor longtime Baton Rouge business and community leader Bill Rainey, site manager of ExxonMobil's Baton Rouge Chemical Plant. Bill is retiring at the end of this month after a 33-year Exxon career that began at the company's Baton Rouge Refinery in 1966. Those of us in government who spent parts of our careers in Baton Rouge recognize Bill Rainey as one of the most tireless community leaders and effective problem solvers in the Louisiana capital. Bill's leadership in the community and direction of ExxonMobil's philanthropic works will be hard to replace and the company's more than 4,000 employees in Baton Rouge will miss his steady hand on the ExxonMobil rudder. A native of Auburn, Alabama, Bill earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Auburn University in 1966 before embarking on his Exxon career. He left Baton Rouge in 1973 for a three-year stint in Exxon USA's Houston headquarters but returned to the Refinery in 1976 to accept the first of many management positions in Baton Rouge. In 1985, he became manager of the Exxon Research and Development Laboratories (ERDL) in Baton Rouge before returning to the Refinery as mechanical manager in 1988. Like many of Exxon's top performers around the world, he was called to Valdez, Alaska in 1989 where he served as operations manager for Exxon's oil spill recovery and cleanup operations. In 1992, he was named manager of the Baton Rouge Refinery, where he served with distinction until moving up Scenic Highway to the adjacent Baton Rouge Chemical Plant as site manager in 1996. While moving up the ranks to ExxonMobil's two top positions in Baton Rouge, Bill also moved up the ranks in almost every industry and charitable organization in which he was involved. He is a member of the board of directors and the executive committee of the Louisiana Chemical Association and has served with distinction as chairman of the board of directors of the Louisiana Chemical Industry Alliance since 1996. While refinery manager he served on the board of directors of the Louisiana MidContinent Oil and Gas Association and provided outstanding leadership to that organization's initiatives and responses to various legislative proposals over the years. One of the organizations that will miss Bill the most is the Capital Area United Way, which he served as board chair in 1996-97. ExxonMobil's annual combined corporate and employee and annuitant contribution of more than $1 million makes it the largest United Way supporter in the state and says volumes about his leadership of that essential and worthwhile effort. Bill also serves currently as a member of the board of directors of the Greater Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce and the Partnership for Excellence Board of LSU's E.J. Ourso College of Business Administration and as co-chair of Community Action for Children. Among Bill's many awards are the 1998 Alumni Recognition Award for Community Services from the LSU School of Social Work and the 1998 Volunteer CEO of the Year Award from the Volunteer Baton Rouge Corporate Volunteer Council. Probably Bill's most notable accomplishment since arriving in Baton Rouge 33 years ago, though, was discovering his lovely wife, the former Emilie Steffek of Baton Rouge, and with her raising their three sons-- Will, 29; Chase, 27; and Kyle, 25--all of whom make their homes in Baton Rouge. I know that Bill and Emilie will continue to be active in their efforts to help others and I hope to be able to call on Bill from time to time as oil and gas or petrochemical industry issues critical to our state arise. Bill is a frequent visitor to Washington and I know the entire Louisiana delegation joins me in wishing both him and Emilie a long and happy retirement.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I want to express my personal thanks and deep appreciation for adoption of an amendment to the Senate's crop insurance bill which would authorize crop insurance coverage for the 2001 and future rice crops for losses due to drought and saltwater intrusion. The rice language was included in the Chairman's floor amendment which the Senate approved yesterday. I want to thank Senator Lugar and Senator Harkin sincerely for agreeing to the amendment. My sincere appreciation also goes to Senator Kerrey and to Senator Roberts for accepting the provision. Senator Landrieu, Senator Lincoln and I have been working together for several weeks to help our rice growers who have been experiencing a prolonged drought. It has been my privilege to work with Senator Landrieu and Senator Lincoln in addressing the absence of rice crop insurance coverage for the drought and saltwater intrusion perils. Currently, the rice crop insurance policy does not include coverage for losses due to drought and saltwater intrusion. A meeting about the current policy and how to address the absence of coverage was held with our staff, grower representatives and USDA's Risk Management Agency. The willingness to meet and the attention given to the situation at the meeting and subsequent to it by Mr. Ken Ackerman, the RMA's Administrator, and his staff are also sincerely appreciated. To ensure that drought and saltwater intrusion coverage are provided in time for the 2001 rice crop and prior to the USDA policy change deadline, legislation was prepared which is now in the Senate's crop insurance bill. In order for a crop insurance policy change to become effective, it must be adopted by November 30, which is USDA's annual deadline for such changes. With the rice crop insurance language being only in the Senate bill, it is my hope that it will be retained in conference with the House. I take this opportunity to urge the Senate's conferees to keep the rice crop insurance provision in the final conference bill. Insurance coverage for rice crop losses due to drought and saltwater intrusion is an important risk management tool for rice growers to have available to them. Again, I express deep personal appreciation for the Senate approving inclusion of the bill language which Senator Landrieu, Senator Lincoln and I have worked on, which we strongly support and which we submitted for the Senate's consideration. Thank you, Mr. President. noncontiguous units

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, it is hard to pick up a newspaper or turn on a television set or read any kind of political commentary or watch one of the Sunday morning talk shows without having the subject very quickly turn to the high price that we in this country are paying for gasoline. There is a certain amount of deja vu when you look at some of these situations: Here we go again. Many Members remember quite well the problems this country faced in the 1970s when we had the long lines at our gas stations around this country. People were screaming and hollering about the lack of gas for their automobiles and were also complaining about the price of that gas if they were lucky enough to get it. Here we are in the year 2000, and basically the problem is very similar to what it was back in 1973. It is interesting to me to see so many people wringing their hands, struggling to find out exactly what is causing this problem. It is not, indeed, a mystery at all. The problem is one of supply and demand. We are using far more gas and oil in this country than we were in the past decade, than in the past 5 years, in fact, more than we used last year. Yet we are producing substantially less than we are using. During the 1970s oil embargo, many of us, particularly those from oil-producing States, were saying the problem would only get worse unless we did something to become energy self-sufficient. In those days, the 1970s, we were importing about 36 percent of the oil we consumed in the United States. When the OPEC nations just slightly tightened their valves and started producing a little bit less, that 36 percent brought this Nation to its knees and created the long lines at the gas stations. Many of us at that time said it was only going to get worse unless we concentrated on trying to be more energy self-sufficient in this country; we would have to concentrate on making sure we were producing, in an environmentally safe manner, the necessary energy to run this Nation. I wonder what people would say if we imported 50 percent of all the food we needed to feed the citizens of our country. I bet that if we were 50-percent dependent on foreign countries for food in this country, there would be long lines marching in Washington, people clamoring for our Nation to get its act together and become more self- sufficient, producing the food we need. I wonder why it is any different when it comes to producing the energy this country needs. If food is important to our Nation and to our Nation's economy, to our Nation's well-being, to our security, certainly energy, which runs this country, is important to the security of this Nation. Yet in the year 2000 we are not importing 36 percent of the energy we use, as we were in the last major crisis back in the 1970s. Today we are importing 55 percent; 55 percent of all of the energy from oil and gas that we use in this country is coming from other countries. We cannot depend on many of these countries to give us the supply of energy we need in this country. So I question why there is so much difficulty in figuring out why we have this problem. In the last 13 years, our domestic oil production has fallen by 2.7 million barrels a day. In the past 2 years, domestic production has fallen about half a million barrels per day. In the last decade, there has been a 17-percent decline in the domestic production of oil and gas in this country, while at the same time our domestic oil consumption has increased by 14 percent. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that we have a huge problem. We are producing less and less and we are consuming more and more. We are depending more and more on foreign sources for the energy we need to run America. Whether you are a farmer in Louisiana or in Kansas or any other part of the United States, or whether you are a housewife taking the children to school, whether you are a small businessman who is dependent on deliveries, or whether you are an independent trucker anywhere in America, you are starting to feel serious economic pressure because of the dramatic and rapid increase in the price of oil, in the price of gas at the pump. The reason I bring this to my colleagues' attention is not any mystery. I have outlined why I think the problem is as it is. When you become over 50-percent dependent on other countries for something that is so important to your domestic survival and economic security, as we are dependent on oil, our country is facing very difficult times. Some may ask: Senator, that is all fine and good. I understand what you are saying. But is there any oil for us to produce in this country? The answer is: Absolutely. The problem, however, is that so many of our Nation's most valuable energy areas have been arbitrarily shut off from any potential exploration and development by actions of Government, actions by the Congress, actions by the previous President, actions by this President. They have all said: There are certain areas we are not even going to look for oil and gas. We would rather depend on OPEC to be generous and give us all the oil we need at the price we want. In fact, that is not happening. On the chart I have here on the floor, the orange shows the areas in the Outer Continental Shelf around the United States where we have said, by Presidential edict or by acts of Congress: You cannot even look for oil and gas. From Maine to Florida, from Washington State to the Mexican border, we have said we are not going to look or explore or even offer for lease these areas where there are known quantities of oil and gas. The distinguished Senator from Alaska, Mr. Murkowski, talked about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the fact that it has been closed to any kind of production. An interesting fact is, our own Department of the Interior has estimated we have enough oil in that area to replace the amount of oil we are getting from the country of Saudi Arabia. Yet that area has been closed to even looking to see if oil might be there and in recoverable quantities. I remember the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge issue very well. I was in the House of Representatives when Congress made a decision as to how to handle that area, which is located right next to Prudhoe Bay, which arguably has been one of the largest oil deposits anywhere in North America. I remember when we were doing the National Alaskan Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980. We were not sure about what to do with that area because not enough was known at that time, some said, to make a decision on whether or not we should explore for oil in that area. The House of Representatives--and it was also adopted in the Senate-- said: All right, we are going to take this area and set it aside, and we are going to study it. A lot of times, when Congress does not know what to do, it studies something and delays it by having a study. We required the Department, working with industry, to do a study about whether, No. 1, there were resources there, and, No. 2, whether they could be environmentally, safely produced by actions of industry if we allowed them to do it. That was in 1980. In 1987, the studies were completed and the results were in. The Department of the Interior looked at the results of that study and recommended the area be leased for exploration and development. But Congress would not let them do that. The administration would not let them do that. Even though the Department of the Interior, based on the study we required them to do in this area, recommended the area be leased for exploration and development, there has been no exploration. We will not even look to see whether there is any oil in that area for use by the people of this country. Yet the estimate is that there could be as many as 16 billion barrels of oil sitting there. By governmental action, by Presidential order, we are saying we are not even going to look there. Some say: Senator, are you advocating we have oil production in a refuge? I only point out, we have oil production in my State of Louisiana in practically every wildlife refuge. In the congressional district I represented, which is on the coast of Louisiana, we had oil and gas production on every single one of the wildlife refuges. The test is whether it is compatible with the purpose of the refuge. The question is whether they can be done together in an environmentally safe manner. The answer has clearly been shown to be yes, it can, in most circumstances. The wildlife refuge benefits from some of the royalties from that oil and gas production, and the country benefits because we are producing oil where it is found. We can do both at the same time. The Department of the Interior said that in 1987 after this extensive study Congress required. People in Congress said: We will study it because we think the answer will come back no. But when the answer came back, yes, it can be done, Congress said: We are going to say no anyway. If one looks at the map on the chart, they will notice that from Maine, up to the Canadian border, down to the middle of Florida, we have 25 leases. That is it--25 leases. In the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana and Texas, we have over 10,000 leases--oil that is being produced on the Outer Continental Shelf that is being used by everybody in the United States. About 75 percent of our Federal oil comes from off my State and the States of Texas and Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico. Over 10,000 leases are producing oil every day, ensuring economic security for this country. We cannot do it by ourselves. Selfishly, I could say: Look, I hope they do not do it anywhere else. It is great for Louisiana if we have all the production and we get all the benefits, all of the jobs, all of the construction; that is fine for my State. But it is not good national policy to say we are only going to do it off one State. On the other hand, look at the west coast. There are a lot of cars on the west coast. There are a lot of SUVs on the west coast. There are a lot of people hurting who want prices to be lower on the west coast. Yet the entire coastline from Canada to Mexico is off limits. There are only 83 leases from Canada to Mexico, and these are old leases which have been there for years and years. With regard to this orange area on this map, we are saying: No, don't look at it; don't touch it; don't consider it. Are they saying that because we do not need it when we import 55 percent of our oil, or are they saying things have to be done perfectly to proceed and, unless things are done perfectly, we are never going to proceed? It seems to me we have to have a balanced approach to energy development in this country. We cannot continue to send our Secretary of Energy--which is where I understand he is this week--to meet with OPEC hat in hand, saying to these foreign countries, please, please, give us more oil, when at the same time we are not doing nearly enough to develop the legitimate resources in our own country. If we had an aggressive development and production program in our country, we would not be importing 55 percent of the oil we need to run America. Yet when we say we are not going to do anything between Canada and Mexico and between Canada and Florida and we are only going to do it off Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi, that is not a balanced approach to energy development in the United States. Some say: We don't want to have it off our coast because it may pollute the environment; we may have an oil spill from an offshore platform. The truth is, it is far more dangerous to import oil in tankers every day than it is to produce in offshore waters. There was a study done by the National Academy of Sciences--and it is on the minerals management web site--which talks about where oil is coming from that is polluting the waters of the world. Does it come from offshore production? No. Offshore oil and gas development is actually 2 percent of the oil that is found in offshore waters around the world. A little less than 2 percent comes from offshore development. Where does it come from? It is no surprise: Importing oil and moving oil around the oceans of the world in ships. Marine transportation accounts for 45 percent of all the oil that is found in the ocean waters that is not supposed to be there. Municipal and industrial waste and runoff, which comes from when it rains and the rain runs off the streets and works its way ultimately to the oceans of the world, accounts for another 36 percent. Atmospheric fallout is about 9 percent, and natural seepage, which comes up from the ocean floor, is about another 9 percent. But less than 2 percent of the oil that is found in oceans comes from drilling for oil and gas off the coast of the countries where oil can be found. I do not know what the answer is. There is no simple answer. I know the President made some proposals in a radio address this week. I encourage the administration to continue to seek solutions to the problem. I have a suggestion, and one of the suggestions is right from the minerals management office. They have a chart that talks about the undiscovered resources in areas that are currently under moratorium. They make an estimate of how much oil is in areas of the country that we cannot even enter. Their estimate is probably the most accurate in the world. For areas under moratorium--either congressional or Presidential moratorium--they estimate there are 15.2 billion barrels of oil sitting out there in areas where we are saying: Don't even go look. And there is an additional 61.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that could be found in these areas. But you know what. If we don't look, we will never know. It would seem to me that as long as we have these huge areas where we have x'd out any ability to take a look to see what energy is there, we are not on very solid ground when we blame OPEC for the problems we are facing today. With 55 percent of the oil used in the United States being imported, OPEC has the ability, by turning that faucet off just a little bit, to bring this country to its knees. Can you imagine what it would do if they turned a full turn and really reduced it? No nation should ever allow itself--certainly not a nation as strong as the United States--to become dependent on foreign sources for things that are critical to our economic well-being and our national security and, indeed, our survival. Yet over the years we have allowed just that to happen with regard to energy. We would not allow it to happen in the area of food. We would not allow it to happen in the area of planes or tanks or warships or anything else that we depend on for our national security--except in this one area. We have made a conscious decision to say: It is all right to import over half of the energy we use. It is unacceptable. It is bad public policy. It needs to be changed; otherwise, every so often we will be faced with what we are faced with today. In his radio address, the President has made some suggestions which I have noted. One was the creation of an environmentally sound home heating oil reserve for the Northeast. My question is, Where does the oil for that reserve come from? Are we just going to buy it from OPEC at $30 a barrel? That is not going to solve the problem of high energy prices for the Northeast if we are filling up their oil reserve with oil coming from OPEC at $30 a barrel. It would come out of the reserve at the same price. The second suggestion is to immediately reauthorize the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is located in Louisiana and Texas, where we have oil underground. I am all for doing that, but we are going to be putting oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at $30 a barrel because of what OPEC has done to us. Neither one of these two suggestions domestically produce any additional oil. It will continue to be filled with 55 percent of oil coming from foreign sources at $30 a barrel or at whatever price OPEC determines. The President has some other suggestions on promoting energy efficiency. We are all for that. He has some suggestions for tax incentives for energy efficiency. I am for that. He has some suggestions on promoting the use of alternative fuels--I am for that-- and also support for domestic oil production, which I think is very positive. But if you have all of these areas that are roped off, if you will, and you say, ``Don't go here,'' when we know some of these areas have as much as Saudi Arabia exports to us--such as, in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge--I suggest that as long as we have huge areas, thousands of miles of areas where we are saying don't even look for energy, then we are never going to address the heart of the problem, which is a lack of energy self-sufficiency for the United States of America. We cannot ever say we are going to be energy self-sufficient just by producing energy off the coast of one or two States. Certainly, the Congress in the past has accepted the fact that we would let these areas be roped off. I guess the thought is always: Let's produce it somewhere else. That is what we are doing. We are producing it somewhere else. It is called OPEC. Its nations have formed a cartel. They have done very well in controlling the price. They know they can bring this country-- indeed, the world--to its knees simply by turning the valve off just a little bit. They will continue to do that. I hope they open up the spigot just a little bit, but as long as we are importing 55 percent of the energy for the United States of America, they will always have the ability to bring us to our knees. That is something that should be unacceptable for the United States of America. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.