Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Wednesday, May 17, 2000, at 9:30 a.m. on global warming.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 17, for purposes of conducting a Full Committee business meeting which is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. The purpose of this business meeting is to consider pending calendar business.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Water and Power of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 17 at 2:30 p.m. to conduct an oversight hearing. The subcommittee will receive testimony on the operation, by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, of the Flathead Irrigation Project in Montana.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on International Economic Policy, Export and Trade Promotion of the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 17, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a hearing.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Clean Air, Wetlands, Private Property, and Nuclear Safety be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 17, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a Clean Air Act Reauthorization hearing to receive testimony on an incentive-based utility emissions reduction approach in the Clean Air Act.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Rules and Administration be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 17, 2000, at 9:30 a.m., to receive testimony on legislative remedies, including S. 1816, the Hagel-Kerrey- Abraham-Landrieu campaign finance reform bill.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, May 17, 2000, at 10:00 a.m., in SD226.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, Jay 17, 2000, for an Open Executive Session to mark up legislation extending permanent Normal Trading Relations to China.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 17, 2000 at 2:00 p.m. to conduct a hearing on S. 1148, to provide for the Yankton Sioux Tribe and the Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska certain benefits of the Missouri River Pick-Sloan Project and S. 1658, to authorize the construction of a Reconciliation Place in Fort Pierre, South Dakota. The hearing will be held in the Committee room, 485 Russell Senate Building.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, May 17, 2000 at 2:00 p.m. to conduct an oversight hearing on Implementation of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act (P.L. 101-644). The hearing will take place in room 562, Dirksen Senate Building.

Mr. CRAIG

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

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

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I wanted to respond to the senior Senator from New Mexico and his colleagues who have just spoken. All of us have watched with great concern as this fire has caused such devastation in the mountains of New Mexico and around Los Alamos. I chair the Subcommittee on Forestry and Public Lands. For the last decade we have known as a country that our forests are rapidly growing unhealthy, largely because we have not managed them as skillfully as we should. In areas that are natural and left to be natural, we understand not touching them. But where we have forests in what we call urban interface today, where houses are built amongst the trees, there ought to be an aggressive effort to keep fuel loading down and to disperse trees in such a way as to disallow these kinds of crises from developing. It is happening now in New Mexico because of a major error on the part of a Federal agency. We literally have millions and millions of acres of forested public lands around this country in an unsatisfactory condition, as in the mountains of the great State of New Mexico, and one spark, one lightning strike, or one human match could cost millions of dollars, lose thousands of homes, and the land that it touches, it destroys for a generation. Oftentimes much greater environmental damage is done trying to put out these fires than an organized manner of managing the land, to control fuel loading, and those types of things that are now evident in New Mexico. We will work with the Senators from New Mexico. Those hearings will be timely. There should be a report out by this Thursday that will give us some indication of cause. The Senator from New Mexico is absolutely right: There should be extensive hearings on how and why it happened. Are there other areas where this could happen across these United States? I thank the Senator for his comments.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to extend that for 1 minute.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, is there a unanimous consent agreement?

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, starting at what time?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, this is an important day in the Senate. I think it is important for us to let Americans know there is a group of their national leaders who are focused on developing a national energy policy for this country. You have heard the majority leader of the Senate speak for just a few moments. He touched on some very critical questions that I think Americans are asking when they go to the gas pump and they find, as they have found for the last good many months, that their energy costs are going up dramatically. But high oil prices are doing more than raise the price of gasoline. With spikes in electrical production during this last heat spell on the east coast, we are going to find that when the power bill gets to that consumer, his or her power bill has gone up substantially. As a result of sustained high oil prices, several weeks ago the majority leader convened a task force in the Senate, led by Senator Frank Murkowski, who is chairman of the full Energy and Natural Resources Committee. I, as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, served with that task force and today our work product has been introduced. But this is a work product that resulted not by just a group of us coming together to decide what was a better idea, it is a product of a good many hearings held by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to explore the effects of the cost of energy now and in the future on the American consumer. As a result of that, S. 2557 has been introduced today. That is better known as the National Energy Security Act for 2000. The legislation is designed to do a number of things, but its overall objective is to reduce our dependence on imported crude oil below 50 percent. Crude oil and gas prices shot up earlier this year. At the time we were importing about 55 percent of our crude oil needs. Now, according to the latest Energy Information Administration figures, U.S. dependency on foreign crude oil as of May 5, is just over 60 percent. We are getting about 9.2 million-barrels-a-day from somewhere else in the world. The U.S. is now importing about a million barrels a day more than we were importing in January of 1999. In addition, the U.S. is importing more finished petroleum products. That is a rather new phenomenon. We have seen the tearing down of many of our refineries during the last good number of years for failure to retrofit to meet Clean Air Act requirements because there was no cost incentive to do so. In fact, there has not been a major refinery permitted in the U.S. since 1975. Now we are importing more finished product. In January of 1999, our daily import level of motor gasoline, for example, was about 441,000 barrels per day. During the week ending May 5, according to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. imported an average of 562,000 barrels a day of motor gasoline. In other words, if the average consumer were looking at a chart graphed along with these increases we have just talked about, the price of gasoline would be going up and so is our reliance on imports. We are no longer the masters of our own destiny. We no longer control the future of energy in this country. That is a sad day for Americans, when that reality is in front of us. It is something I think this country has to deal with. The Energy Information Administration estimates our dependency on imports could rise to more than 65 percent by the year 2020. At the rate we are going, my guess is we will be there long before that. For the last nearly 8 years, the Clinton-Gore administration has refused to develop an effective national energy policy. The administration has published national energy plans and, I will be blunt, I do not think they are worth the paper on which they are printed. Here is exactly why. Their plans pay only lip service to the need to increase domestic oil and gas production. They have consistently underfunded research into more efficient and clean use of coal for electric generation. Yet the U.S. has an abundance of coal that we ought to be using in an effective and environmentally sound way. They have underfunded research into how we can improve the efficiency and safety of our nuclear generating stations. And they have refused to recognize hydropower as a renewable resource. The Presiding Officer and I come from an area of the country where hydropower is king. Many of our rivers are dammed to produce an abundance of electrical energy, and our electrical energy costs to consumers are the lowest in the Nation, while our environment is generally very clean. Yet as the chairman of the Energy Committee said just a few moments ago, this administration has, as a policy, not recognized hydroelectricity as a renewable resource. Quite the opposite: It proposes that we ought to start removing dams from our rivers for environmental reasons and without regard for existing economic uses. Instead of strong producing policies for our country and incentives for producers to produce more energy, the Clinton-Gore administration has focused its attention on solar energy and wind power and energy from biomass, and demanded significant increases in Federal money to encourage more use of these resources. There is nothing wrong with supporting renewables. I support renewables. I think most in the U.S. Congress do. We have been subsidizing solar and wind now for more than 25 years, but they meet only about 3 percent of our total energy demand. I think renewables, including hydropower, must play a role in meeting the needs of the U.S., but the real solution lies in boosting oil and natural gas production and finding cleaner, more efficient ways to use coal. That is where our research dollar ought to be going because that is the only way we will be able to meet the demands of the marketplace. The bill Senator Lott has just introduced is the product of several months of discussion and analysis that I have already outlined. The committee was chaired by Senator Frank Murkowski. Let me take just a few more minutes and explain a the major steps the bill takes to improve our energy future. The bill would require the Secretary to report annually on progress toward limiting our dependence on foreign oil down to no greater than 50-percent. The Secretary must lay out legislative and administrative steps to meet that goal and recommend alternatives for reducing crude oil imports. To increase our use of natural gas, the bill creates an interagency working group to design a policy and strategy for greater use of natural gas. The bill extends authority to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and prevents drawdown of the reserve until the President and the Secretary of Defense agree that a drawdown will not threaten our national security. Our bill contains a title to protect consumers and low-income families, and to encourage energy efficiency. It expands eligibility for residential weatherization programs, creates a program to educate consumers to help them avoid seasonal price fluctuations, and also establishes a heating oil reserve to help the Northeast deal with shortages and severe price fluctuations. Our bill also contains a title addressing increased use of other domestic energy sources like coal and more efficient use of our nuclear and hydro resources. It also requires the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to report on how costs for relicensing hydroelectric facilities can be lowered. The bill also authorizes a Federal oil and gas leasing program for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, one of the remaining great potential sources of crude oil in this country, with estimated yields of well over 16 billion barrels, the kind of production that could come in at about 1.5 million barrels a day and do that for nearly 20 years or more. Despite that potential the Clinton-Gore administration opposes going there to explore for oil. The amount of additional domestic production would, if added to today's domestic production, reduce our 60-percent dependency below the 50-percent mark that our legislation seeks. I think 50 percent is a responsible goal, not only one demanded by the public but demanded by the Congress and that should be supported by this administration and future administrations. The bill also contains provisions to streamline and reduce the costs associated with gas and oil leasing on Federal lands to enhance domestic production and to encourage small oil producers to keep low- volume wells operating during harsh economic times. Finally, we have included in the legislation tax credits for wind and biomass energy and electrical production from steel-making facilities and tax incentives for residential solar use. In other words, we want to encourage all kinds of energy. We do not want to pick and choose and decide that some do not fit our policy or our lifestyle. What this public wants is a market basket full of reasonable energy sources at reasonable costs. It is to our benefit, it is to our economy's benefit, and it is to the world's benefit that we drive these technologies as well as conventional forms of energy production. What is the policy of the Clinton-Gore Administration? My colleagues have seen it in action. We saw our Secretary of Energy walking around the Middle East with a tin cup: Oh, sheik, oh, sheik, if you are from the Middle East or if you are from Venezuela or if you are from Mexico, please, turn on your valves and give us a little oil. Please, please, it may hurt our lifestyle. How sad it is that our great country has been reduced to that kind of policy. The legislation Senators Lott and Murkowski have introduced today can help us regain control of our energy destiny from the Middle East and OPEC. The news today reported there is a huge new discovery of oil in the Caspian Sea which is years away from production, and if it comes online, it will be in a politically unstable place in the world over which we have little or no control. Does the average consumer going to the gas pump every day want to have to turn to the East and ask a sheik to turn on a valve so that he or she can get to work at a reasonable cost? I doubt that, and that is what this legislation is about. That is why Senator Murkowski, Senator Lott, I, and others have joined together to offer up this legislation as a national energy policy for this country, not only to direct this Congress, but to direct this administration and future administrations to an achievable goal of reducing foreign crude oil imports below the 50-percent level and recognizing the great creativity in this country to produce energy in abundance, at low cost, and through a variety of resources. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Is that propounded as a unanimous-consent request or simply the Senator----

Mr. CRAIG. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. CRAIG. I object.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will take place on Wednesday, June 7, 2000 at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on S. 2300, a bill to amend the Mineral Leasing Act to increase the maximum acreage of Federal leases for coal that may be held by an entity in any 1 State; S. 2069, a bill to permit the conveyance of certain land in Powell, Wyoming; and S. 1331, a bill to give Lincoln County, Nevada, the right to purchase at fair market value certain public land in the county. Those who wish to submit written statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510. For further information, please call Kathleen Elder or Mike Menge (202) 224-6170.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to address once again the education of our children. This week we have been debating S. 2, the Educational Opportunities Act. More importantly, we have been debating a difference in philosophy between Democrats and Republicans. The Democrats have stood before us and proclaimed that Republicans want to weaken the Federal stranglehold on our education system. The Democrats have stood before us and accused us of wanting to turn power from the beltway to parents and teachers. Well, Mr. President, I plead guilty. In fact, let us examine exactly what Republicans want to do. We want to reduce overhead costs to put more money into the classroom, make States and local districts more accountable, and provide greater flexibility for teachers and parents to make the decisions which affect their children. Anyone who has itemized taxes, applied for an FAH loan, been in the military, or just dealt with the Federal Government knows how stifling the paperwork can be. People all across this country make a fine living helping people deal with Federal bureaucracy. So, it is easy to imagine how a school district can devote half of its administrative staff to administer the 7 percent of its budget that comes from the Federal Government. Just imagine how much paperwork you have to do to send money to the Federal Government. Now imagine how much that would increase if they were giving you money--and then imagine if you were receiving millions of dollars a year. It is easy to see how money and staff can be siphoned off to administer Federal funds--money and staff that could go to teaching our children. Our bill reduces Federal paperwork in order to put more money into the classroom. Every student knows that grades--a measure of your accomplishment-- are important. Every day parents and teachers hold them accountable for their grades. These same students may find it surprising that school districts and States are not held accountable for their achievements with the billions of Federal tax dollars they receive. Our bill says enough is enough. It is time to hold States accountable for student achievement. Our bill offers an opportunity for 15 willing States to consolidate up to 12 Federal grant programs and free themselves from Federal redtape. However, the States must use that flexibility to boost student achievement--which they will be held accountable for. A noble concept. The pillar of our public school system is to allow everyone free and open access to a high quality education. And, generally, it works. Unfortunately, there are schools out there that are denying our students the basic education they need. And, students who can't afford private education, are stuck in the schools where they live. That should not be the case. Our bill says that if a school that generally reaches disadvantaged students is designated as failing for 2 years, the district would be required to offer any child enrolled in the failing school the option to transfer to a higher performing public school. If a school continues to fail for another 2 years, the district would also have to cover the students' transportation costs. If all public schools within a district were identified as failing, then the district would be directed to form a cooperative agreement with another district to allow students to transfer. And, finally, students attending these schools who either have been a victim of a violent crime on school grounds or whose school has been designated unsafe may also transfer to another public school. This puts many decisions about a students education in the hands of their parents, forces schools to be accountable for their achievement, and allows all students access to a quality education. Mr. President, as I close today I want to ask every parent out there one question. Do you know better than a Federal bureaucrat in Washington what is best for your child? If the answer is yes, you should support our bill. I also want to ask every school administrator and teacher out there one question. Do you know better than a Federal bureaucrat in Washington what is best for your students? If the answer is yes, you should support our bill. After all, it is all about increased accountability, greater local and parental control, and more money in the classroom.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will take place on Tuesday, May 16, 2000, at 3 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The purpose of this hearing is to conduct general oversight on the U.S. Forest Service's proposed transportation policy. Those who wish to submit written statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510. For further information, please call Mark Rey (202) 224-2878. subcommittee on water and power

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thought it was important for my colleague, the senior Senator from the State of Washington, to make those statements because, as we are here today on the floor talking about nuclear waste, I must tell my colleague from the State of Nevada it is an important issue. I am sorry he and his colleagues haven't gained traction on the issue of guns, but America is wise to that. Try as you may, second amendment rights prevail in our country. What we are here to talk about today is the absence of this administration's energy policy. Now, brownouts and blackouts and escalating fuel prices seem to take second or third place on the list of priorities about which the Senator from Nevada would like to talk. I think the American consumer and that elderly person whose air- conditioning may go out this summer at the peak of a heat spell would say this issue is a mighty important issue for this Senate to be considering. So as it relates to priorities, while I am going to say that some of what the Senator from Nevada suggested is important for the Senate to address, but this issue is among them in priority. But, of course, my colleagues on the other side have been running for cover for months because they know that Bill Clinton has no energy strategy, never has had one, and doesn't propose one. He simply runs around Nevada sticking his head in the sand and talking about the politics of the issue instead of the substance of the issue. Well, the veto we are here to attempt to override today is the fundamental difference between politics and substance. You heard the Senator from Alaska, Mr. Murkowski, in great detail talking about the practicality of needing a national nuclear waste policy implemented in this country to be able to sustain our nuclear energy as we now have it, but, most importantly, to move forward into the future. For a few moments today, let me talk about where we get our electricity. Somehow, it just comes when you throw on a switch. The bulbs light up, the heater turns on, the air-conditioner turns on, and we don't stop to think about the long-term strategy and policy that this country has been engaged in for decades to assure that the light does come on, that the air-conditioner does turn on, and that we have abundant energy. Sixty percent of our electricity comes from coal. Given the concern of the other side about climate change, we aren't building new coal plants, we are not pushing forward on the technology of clean coal--the kind of technology that we ought to be pushing and giving priority to. The Clinton-Gore administration wants to make this situation dramatically worse by tying our hands and tying U.S. power companies to a Kyoto treaty, while allowing our economic competitors in developing nations to pollute at will. Shame on you, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, for that kind of silly environmental policy. Climate change is a serious issue, but it isn't addressed in a helpful manner when you walk away from the negotiating table with an agreement that lets China and India and other major developing nations pollute at will, penalizing our economy, and doing so by trying to develop an anti-fossil-fuel bias in this country, along with the anti-nuclear-energy bias on which the President based his veto. We get 20 percent of our electricity from nuclear power. That is why we are having this debate today. We have to sustain at least 20 percent of our energy base coming from nuclear if we are ever going to have clean air and gain the standards in the nonattainment areas that we want to set. Any right-thinking scientist and right-thinking politician today knows that fact. They can't argue otherwise. We won't get to the clean air levels this country wants without at least a 20-percent blend in our energy base coming from nuclear. We have about 10 percent of our electricity coming from hydropower, and the Presiding Officer and I know how silly this has become in the Pacific Northwest. We have a President, a Vice President, and a Secretary of the Interior who want to take dams down--all in the name of what? Environmental radicals who want to roll back to a history of a century ago and try to reestablish ourselves without the kind of very clean power that our hydro base provides for us. It is not a large base; it is 10 percent of our base, though. Again, it is part of that 10 percent, 60 percent, 20 percent that has built the stability of an integrated power system for our country over the years that has brought us the best electrical service of any nation in the history of the world. What we are talking about today is sustaining that capability. We are not talking about tearing dams down. We are talking about finding a safe repository for nuclear waste so we can complete the cycle of nuclear energy and allow it to go forward. We get a small percentage of our electricity from solar and wind and biomass. Let me be perfectly clear about my support for these technologies because I do support them and I am willing to continue to allow taxpayer dollars to go into the investment of the technology as it relates to solar and wind and biomass. I am also willing to invest in fuel cells and fusion energy and other kinds of new technology that may someday supplant the kind of technology about which we are talking. But let's have a reality check because if the Senator from Nevada is going to talk about the importance, or the lack thereof, of what we debate today, let's talk about this President and this administration's energy budget and where they want to spend money. They want to spend a lot of money on wind. They have even said that it is their goal to have 5 percent of our electricity generated by wind by the year 2020. It just so happens that the States of Nevada and Idaho have a little wind. It doesn't all come from politicians. It is kind of natural, and it flows through the Rocky Mountains out of Canada. It is the way Mother Nature created the natural environment which creates a wind opportunity out there. But let me talk to you for a moment about a recent report in analyzing the 5 percent wind blend by the year 2020 that this President wants. If you calculate what is needed to meet the goal of 5 percent of our electricity coming from wind energy that would require 133,000 windmills. The current wind turbines generate about 750 kilowatts of electricity each. Some of these 750 kilowatt wind turbines have been installed in Iowa. They are impressive and huge in size. They are on towers 213 feet tall. In addition to that, they have blades with a sweep of 164 feet in diameter. What is something comparable in height? Well, that is about the height of the Capitol dome in the building in which we are standing today. Can't you just see all of those spread across the State of Nevada and Idaho? What are the environmentalists going to say again about vistas, visions, and horizons? You know and I know what they are going to say-- ``no windmills.'' But that is what this administration wants to talk about because they have this illusion that somehow that is environmentally sensitive. Have you ever caught an eagle in a 164-foot blade? It is referred to as ``avian mortality''--eagles, condors, flying into the turbines and being killed. Yes. Those machines aren't very environmentally sensitive, and they make a great sound across the countryside. They are probably the loudest producer of electricity of any technology we have today. One-hundred and thirty-plus thousand windmills is the answer to no nuclear waste policy? I don't think so. I don't think America thinks so. When they are faced with those realities, I think they will turn on this administration and say, Why aren't you being responsible? Why create a problem when you can solve a problem with a single location in a permanent, deep, geologic repository that is environmentally safe and sound for all under the most stringent of laws and the best technology available? That is what we are talking about. That is a right and responsible choice for the American people to contemplate and for this Senate to debate. There is going to be debate on guns. There is going to be debate on health care. There is going to be debate on prescription drugs. But, in my opinion, a well founded, well orchestrated energy policy for this country is every bit as valuable and important for us to be involved in as any one of those issues. A veto override that this President offered and gave, in my opinion, is not an environmental vote. Voting for a sound and sane policy for nuclear waste is the No. 1 environmental vote all of us will be making. Let's not try to hide it and walk away from it. Let's deal with it up front and in a way that is right and responsible to recognize. As I thought about what I would say here today that might convince my colleagues to vote for a Presidential override, because for some it is a tough vote and it is a partisan vote, tragically enough, good national energy policy has in this instance become an issue of politics. There is a letter from J.V. Parrish of Energy Northwest based in Richland, WA. He writes about the importance of this legislation. I found his words compelling. I want to read them to you. He says: Because the Federal Government has not had an effective program to receive spent fuel from this country's commercial power reactors, most of these reactors will have to spend several millions of dollars of ratepayer dollars to provide temporary storage. My own company will spend in excess of $25 million. This is money that could be better spent by the households and businesses in the region on things that would improve their futures. What is he talking about? He is talking about utility companies having to charge their ratepayers more because this administration failed to be responsible in their energy policy. I think as time goes on we will find a lot of other things in which our President failed to be responsible, and history will record him differently. I hope the absence of a nuclear waste policy is one of them because that is the way it deserves to be remembered. All I would say to President Clinton is: In vetoing this bill, you have failed, once again, to do the right thing for the country but my colleagues and I don't have to be a party to your failure. I encourage my colleagues to vote to override the President's mistake and override this veto. Mr. President, I yield my time.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, before I proceed, let me yield 2 minutes to my good friend from Washington for a comment.