Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Kristine Svinicki of my staff, a congressional fellow, be allowed access to the floor for the duration of debate on the nuclear waste legislation.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I inquire where we are. Are we in morning business?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise this morning to talk about education. It appears that we will spend most of our time this week talking about the importance of our public education system to America's children and to our Nation's future. Long ago, the United States recognized the value of an educational system that is available and accessible to everyone. We knew the tremendous sophistication of a democracy or a representative republic, and that to sustain it we would have to have a well-educated populace-- not only to understand it and to believe in it but to further it. That was part of the genesis of the public school system in our country, along with the tremendous value to our citizenry, to be able to say they were educated. That was our goal. As we start a debate on the Educational Opportunities Act this week, that will continue to be the ultimate goal of the Republicans--the assurance of a strong, growing, reliable, and capable public school system to provide the very best education and the very best educational system to all of our citizens and to all of their children. Though it appears this is the number one issue in the minds of the American people--and everywhere you poll, you find education is--I am saddened that at least here on the floor this week it will become a decidedly partisan issue. Accusations will fly from the Democrats' side; they will claim that the Clinton-Gore administration has done its job in the promotion of its policies, and that they care more about children than we do. But I think the debate this week, if listened to, will become very clear. Every Senator, either Democrat or Republican, should have the same goal in mind, and that is to provide to our children the very best education possible. The very foundation for that is our public education system. What this debate this week is really about, though, if you listen closely is a difference in philosophies about how we get to the best system in the world. Or how do we improve what is already good and make it better? The Democrats are going to tell you they want more of your tax dollars to stay in Washington to pay for another Federal bureaucrat to do another study, to construct a one-size-fits-all national policy, or to ensure that only 65 cents out of every dollar actually gets to the classroom in America. That is what this debate is going to be about, in part. They will defend the status quo in an ever-increasing Washington, DC, involvement in our children's education. They will defend the increasingly intrusive Federal involvement in State and local educational systems. We, at the Federal level, have always believed the responsibility of educating was at the State level. That is why every State has a department of education or an educational system. It has only been in the last few years that we have increasingly begun to put more Federal dollars into the public school system. Even as we have done that by the billions of dollars over the last decade, still only about 7.5 cents to 8 cents out of every Federal dollar are spent in the classroom. So even with our increased involvement, we still historically have erred on the side of the local community and the State government to be the primary providers of public education. The same system I talk about now, is the system in which the Clinton- Gore regime has denied many students the basic education they deserve by stifling some of our creativity. Republicans say it is time for a change, and we are taking action. This week, on the floor of the Senate, we will be considering S. 2, the Educational Opportunity Act, which does just that. It offers a fundamental change in the way the Federal Government involves itself in public education. Republicans say it is time to put decisions back in the hands of parents and back in the hands of teachers. Our bill includes provisions that give States and school districts more flexibility in how they spend their Federal tax dollars. If you go to a principal's office or superintendent's office today and ask what the Federal tax dollar means to them, while they say it is important, they will say: Look around you; 45 to 50 percent of our staff is here to fill out the Federal forms to get the 7.5 cents out of every dollar we get. That is part of the bureaucracy that has been allowed to build, that the Clinton-Gore administration has aggressively perpetuated over the last eight years. Republicans say every school is different and has different needs, and Washington, DC, should not decide how to spend the money in Midvale, Idaho. I happened to pick Midvale because that is the small rural school from which I graduated. While I graduated 37 years ago, and there were only 10 in my high school graduating class, there aren't many more than that today. In fact, the public school I grew up in has fewer students in the whole school than in one grade level at one Washington, DC, school. It is a small, rural school. That school does not need money to reduce its class sizes. That school needs money to connect itself to the Internet or to buy books, to improve its library, to improve the ability of students to research in a much broader arena than modern technology allows today. We don't need more teachers, and we don't need smaller class sizes. Yet that is the single loudest mantra you have heard coming from the lips of Al Gore or Bill Clinton. Our bill doesn't do that. Our bill allows school districts with fewer than 600 students to combine funds to improve student achievement. Republicans believe it is wrong to let even one child slip through the cracks, be it an urban crack or a rural countryside crack. That is why our bill gives schools and teachers increased authority to meet the needs of the disadvantaged students while requiring accountability. Republicans believe our children deserve the best qualified teachers available. Our bill helps school districts hire and retain the best qualified teachers and empower those teachers to continue to learn and improve so they can increasingly become better educators. Republicans believe schools should be among the most safe places in the United States. Our bill strengthens the Safe and Drug Free School Program. Why should our schools not be a sanctuary and a haven in which all students can feel safety and trust? I think they will not learn well unless they see their schools in that light. Republicans recognize the value of speaking multiple languages and the importance of being fluent in English. Our bill gives a helping hand to those whose first language is not English. Republicans recognize the presence of the Federal Government is a drain on the local infrastructure. Our bill fortifies programs designed to meet part of the Federal Government's responsibility to local communities. Republicans believe we have a special commitment to native students, whether they are in the lower 48 or Alaska or Hawaii. Our bill gives these students a helping hand to help them compete in our modern world. Again, the real debate this week is not who cares most about educating our children. It is a fundamental, philosophical debate about the best ways to allow our children to achieve. It talks about the stark contrast of a large Federal bureaucracy and new Federal ideas being thrust upon the States and local communities because Washington knows every child, and Washington knows better. I am afraid Democrats are going to continue to preach about the failed policies of the Clinton-Gore administration by keeping tax dollars within the beltway, saying that is the way you educate a child in Midvale, Idaho. This week we will say enough is enough. It will be a debate about a different approach: returning the money to the local school districts and to the States and empowering them to make those choices. Let's get that hard-earned tax dollar out of the beltway, out of the hands of the bureaucrat, and into the hands of the well-meaning teachers and parents. Let's tie the money to the child so the parent and the child can seek out and find the very best education that child deserves. Those are the differences I think will be a part of the baseline of the debate this week on the floor of the Senate. I hope America listens, because we need the best public school system in the world. It is a good one, but it is not the best. To make something good better or best is to empower people at local levels to make decisions for their children--the kinds of decisions that parents instinctively know, but bureaucrats in Washington somehow have never understood. I yield the floor.

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, May 10, 2000, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The purpose of this hearing is to conduct oversight on the United States Forest Service's proposed revisions to the regulations governing National Forest Planning. This hearing was originally scheduled for April 13, 2000 at 2:30. 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 or Bill Eby at (202) 224-6170.

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 Thursday, May 4, 2000 at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The purpose of this hearing is to conduct oversight on the United States Forest Service's use of current and proposed stewardship contracting procedures, including authorities under section 347 of the FY 1999 omnibus appropriations act, and whether these procedures assist or could be improved to assist forest management activities to meet goals of ecosystem management, restoration, and employment opportunities on public lands. 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. committee on energy and natural resources

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, at the end of the day, we are going to be adjourning for the Easter recess, or at least that is what is anticipated at this time. This Easter recess is going to be a special time for me because I am going home to Idaho to see a new grandbaby I have not yet seen, except by pictures that have been transmitted through the Internet. His grandmother has already been out there to hold him in her arms. Both Suzanne and I are extremely excited that our son Mike and his wife Stephanie have provided us with a beautiful new grandbaby called Aidan Michael Craig. We have already enjoyed the excitement of grandmother and grandfatherhood, and now we have one more extension of that. This coming week, I am going to have that unique privilege that only comes with being a grandparent; that is, to hold that grandbaby in your arms. This Easter recess is a special time for me. I wanted to share with all of my colleagues in the Senate that it will be a joyous time for both me and my wife Suzanne.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I, too, thank the Senator from Louisiana for her leadership on this issue. We are fortunate enough to work together on this marvelous issue of adoption, chairing the adoption coalition here on the Senate side. Both Senator Landrieu and I this week have helped host two delightful young ladies who are on the hill, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA, both adopted, both coming from adoptive families. They were in my office this morning speaking about the wonderful families they were allowed to be a part of who have granted them all of this charm and talent that can only come from a loving environment, that has allowed them to become national leaders, as they now are, as Miss USA and Miss Teen USA. I say thank you to the Senator for her leadership on this issue. It is critically important to America and America's families.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 1:30 p.m. today the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 481, S. 2323, under the following limitations: 1 hour for debate on the bill, equally divided between the majority and minority leaders or their designees. I further ask consent that no amendments or motions be in order to the bill, and that following the use or yielding back of time, the bill be read a third time and, finally, the Senate then proceed to a vote on the passage of the bill, with no intervening action or debate, at a time to be determined by the majority leader.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, this couple are about the same ages as my own children. I say to everyone of my generation, they are a lot like all of our children and we want to see them succeed. They are like many young couples ready to start a new life together, as we have seen generation after generation. They originally planned their wedding date for late this autumn this year, but then friends actually started asking them, ``What about taxes?'' So they did an interesting thing; they sat down and computed their marriage penalty. Guess what. They found out their combined incomes together as a married couple would cause them to have to pay out of their pockets an additional $1,400 more than they are currently paying as single people working on our two staffs. We are talking about average earners. In fact, the marriage penalty for our young Idaho-Minnesota couple is just about exactly the average- sized marriage penalty American couples are paying across the country, about $1,400. That could be the cost of a honeymoon or a wedding gown or part of a college education, if properly saved and invested for children who might come as a result of this union. It is critically important we deal with this issue. Yes, they have delayed their wedding only a few weeks, but I asked my friend from Minnesota, does the Federal Government have any business forcing any kind of a decision such as this on families and couples?

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I will be brief. I see our colleague from Illinois on the floor. I stepped back to do this colloquy with my colleague from Minnesota. I ask the Senator from Minnesota, hasn't the marriage penalty earned a special contempt in our eyes from a firsthand experience involving our two offices?

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I do not think either my colleague from Minnesota or I could ever put romance in the Tax Code. But I hope we can stop the Tax Code from punishing folks such as the two young folks on our staffs we have talked about who are having to change their plans by postponing a wedding date by more than a month, contrary to their hearts, but because of the dictates of a heartless tax code.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to a period of morning business, with Members permitted to speak up to 10 minutes each, until the hour of 1:30 p.m. today, with time to be equally divided between the two leaders.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, for the last number of minutes I have listened with great interest to the comments of my good friend from Alaska describing the energy crisis in which our Nation now finds itself. I use the word ``crisis'' with some reservation because my guess is most Americans don't think we are in a crisis. They have good jobs, they probably got raises this year, they feel their jobs are secure, they have plenty of spendable income, and while they may be paying 30 or 40 cents or even 50 cents a gallon more for gas this year than last year, at least the gas is still there and the pump does not say ``no fuel available,'' they don't sense a crisis. I traveled home to my State of Idaho this weekend. I drove in out to Dulles Airport. I got on a Boeing 777 that burns tens of thousands of gallons of fuel in the course of a day and I paid $70 or $80 more for each one of my tickets because of the cost of jet fuel. As I traveled across the country I found the airports full, of Americans and foreign travelers. Yet no sense of urgency or crisis did they appear to feel. When I got home to my home State of Idaho and began to travel across the northern end of the State, I saw that spring is breaking out very quickly in the marvelous wheat belt of northern Idaho that spreads into Washington and Oregon over to Pendleton and Wala Wala. It is a highly productive area that oftentimes yields 100 to 110 bushels of wheat per acre annually without benefit of irrigation. What was out on those rolling wheat fields this weekend? Large 4- wheel-drive tractors, oftentimes pulling 40- and 50-foot spreads of harrows and springtooths, beginning to till the soil, all of them with a 250- or 400-horse diesel engine under the hood of that tractor, burning hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel each day. This year those farmers will be paying another 50 or 60 cents a gallon for that fuel. Yet this is just the beginning of the growing season in our Nation. We are now tilling and planting. We will spend the summer cultivating and spraying to protect our crops from weeds and insects. Then in the fall, huge combines will roll out on the fields, once again driven by diesel fuel--a source of energy that has historically been so abundant in our country and so relatively inexpensive. Today, a river conservation group announced that some rivers in our country are endangered because they have been dammed. In the past America has placed large dams across some rivers and put large turbines in the dams to generate electricity. In a relatively cavalier way, this group said that my river, my Snake River of Idaho, is the most endangered. Why? Because of dams. They want the dams removed. Yet those dams produce hundreds of thousands of kilowatts a year to light the cities of Portland and Seattle, Boise and many other cities and towns. And somehow, all in the name of the environment, they cavalierly suggest we start taking down relatively modern structures that produce large amounts of inexpensive electricity without burning fossil fuels. The reason I draw these verbal pictures today is that no one senses a crisis. This administration, for the last 8 years, has not proposed a single policy initiative that would produce 1 gallon more domestic crude oil for our Nation. In fact, the Clinton/Gore administration has done quite the opposite. They, through punitive environmental policies, have suggested continually that we close more and more federal land to any further oil and gas exploration and production. They have even proposed to take down some of the hydro dams I have talked about, once again all in the name of the environment. Now, the Clinton/Gore administration has an energy policy of sorts. They have talked a lot about solar and biomass which is not a bad idea as long as we don't kid ourselves into believing they will solve all of our problems. They have also talked about developing more powerful wind energy technology to produce more power--not a bad idea either. But the myth of that kind of technology is that to replace the dams on the lower Snake River with photovoltaic cells or windmills, the entire State of Idaho would have to be covered with solar cells just to offset the difference. My guess is there would be a Vice President who would reject such an idea because the result would be unsightly. It would destroy the vistas that are so beautiful in my State right now. It would be uncomely to the American environmental eye. And I would agree with him. But I would not agree with this Vice President, when he stands and says that he will not tolerate drilling offshore California, offshore Florida, offshore our East coast, or in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Clinton/Gore administration has an energy policy of sorts and the Vice President's desire to take down dams, prevent new oil and gas exploration, and instead cover my State of Idaho, or Arizona, or California, with solar cells and wind farms is its hallmark. The reason I mention these frustrations I have, and I think some Americans share, is that for a good long while now we have not had a consistent energy policy for our country that is a combination of all these things: Research for new technology, conservation so we use less and gain more from it, while at the same time producing as much of our own fossil fuel resources as possible. In just a decade or so, we have increased our electrical generation by some 200 percent by the use of coal, but we have reduced the sulfur oxide emissions from coal during that same time by over 20 percent. Through technology, we are using more fossil fuels more efficiently and more cleanly and more of our electricity is generated with such fuels. That is the way you do it. You do not take those kinds of sources off line; you say those are the sources that can generate the abundance of power that drives our industries and heats and cools our homes. So let's be wiser and smarter with our technology than just saying to a certain political interest, I am with you, we will just take that all out of production and off line, because it does not fit somebody's environmental agenda. Among all the things the rivers conservation group said today, about taking dams out on the Snake River, there is something they did not say. They did not say the removal of those dams would destroy the barge traffic on the Snake-Columbia River system. All of the grain and timber and paper and coal that now travels the river in barges would have to move in 18-wheel trucks over the highways of the Pacific Northwest. Tens of thousands more trucks would have to be employed to haul the freight and replace the slack water transportation system that would be destroyed were the dams removed. Is that an environmentally sound thing to do, to employ thousands and thousands more trucks, burning hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel a day? I think not. But, of course, that is not a headline. That does not make the kind of press they thought they could make by their release today, all in the name of the environment, all in the name of saving fish. We will probably debate, on this floor in the next decade, the removal of dams, whether in my State or somewhere else, as it relates to energy policy and protection of the environment and valuable fish. I hope at that time the American people can be given all the facts. I think, when given all the facts and when allowed to view all the alternatives of technology and retrofitting dams, Americans will understand that abundant, inexpensive hydro power energy, can be had along with a clean environment and strong salmon runs. They will also understand the extent to which farmers and ranchers need abundant, relatively inexpensive supplies of energy to produce the food and fiber our Nation needs. Those commodities were being planted in the soils of north Idaho this weekend by the large 4-wheel-drive diesel tractors pulling 50-foot spreads of equipment I talked about at the beginning of my statement. They had to use energy to accomplish it. I will also discuss legislation, with which we will deal in the near future, to alleviate some of the concerns about energy policy in the short term and the cost to the consumer while Congress struggles to develop a long-term policy to increase energy production in our country. I do support legislation that will give us a temporary Federal tax holiday from energy taxes of the kind thrust upon this country by the Clinton-Gore administration several years ago when they argued it was necessary to tax fuel consumption to reduce the deficit structure and the debt structure of our country. I did not support the tax then, and several years later I was one of those who changed the tax from going into the general fund to reduce the deficit to going into the trust funds of transportation, because up until this President came to town, we had never taxed the American people at the gas pump to fund the general fund expenditures of our Government. We had taxed them only to put it in the transportation trust funds that build the roads, bridges, and infrastructure all of us expect and enjoy and the infrastructure on which our economy runs-- goods and services that traffic across America on a daily basis. One way to give some short-term relief to the American consumer, as these energy prices have gone up, is to reduce for a short term the 4.3-cent-a-gallon gas tax; take it off the pump; take it away from the consumer and allow that tax to stay in the consumer's pocket. The reason is, what does it mean with the current runup in fuel prices? Matt Lauer said the other day on the ``Today'' show: The energy crisis may be over in the short term. Meaning the Secretary had been to the Middle East, he begged and cajoled the producers in the Middle East to turn the valve on a little bit. Then as the spokesperson for energy policy in this country, the Secretary announced to the American people that gas prices were going to come down some maybe. The ``some maybe'' is that maybe they will come down a little bit, but they are still going to be 40 to 50 cents a gallon higher than they were a year ago. There is some belief in the marketplace, depending on whom you study and whom you believe and who has the right information, that the supply the OPEC nations promised may not be as large as promised and, therefore, by late summer we could see an average of $2 prices across this country. We are going to have to wait and watch for that one. None of us know what the price of gas will be in July or August, but it is going to be a lot higher than it was a year ago. It will, in many ways, determine how the American consumer utilizes his or her free time this year as they think about a vacation, whether it is in the family car, the van, or the SUV, or whether it is booking airline tickets to travel across this country. In all instances, the cost of that leisure time Americans so enjoy will be substantially more expensive than it was a year ago. I am talking about leisure time. I am not talking about the weekly commute, the daily commute. I am not talking about the goods and services that traffic on America's trucks across our Nation on a daily basis or the food we buy at the local supermarket, all having been transported by trucks that are paying substantially more for fuel. How much more are truckers now paying and how much will they have to pass through to the consumer as these prices go up? Diesel fuel costs exceeded $2.10 a gallon in the Northeast this spring. That is a doubling of cost in about a year. The average nationwide was about $1.50 a gallon. To the driver of an 18-wheeler freight truck that traffics America's highways hauling our goods and services, it will mean an additional $150 to $200 to fill his or her tank on a daily basis or a 24-hour transportation period. If they are to stay alive as a business, they have to pass that cost directly through to the consumer: a little here on food prices; a little there on the cost of a piece of carpet; a little somewhere else on any of the goods and services that ultimately the American consumer buys. Of course, that is the same cost the American farmer is experiencing when he or she cannot pass it on, because they cannot set the price of the commodity they will be selling this fall by an extra 10 cents or 15 cents a hundredweight to offset the cost of the diesel fuel and all of the petrochemicals they will use this year in the production of America's food sources. To the consumer--that is you and me--who is commuting to work or considering a family vacation, another 60, 70, or 80 cents a gallon could well mean another $10.50 a tankful every time we pull into the service station. Did they put that in the family budget in January? Did they really plan to pay $300 or $400 more this year, including their trips and all of their other expenses? I do not think so. I do not think anyone considered that. Yet that is what one ought to have considered if they have a true and honest budget. That is why, when recently polled, the American people are beginning to figure out that maybe a 4.3-cent-a-gallon tax reduction for the short term is a good idea to offset at least some of these new costs in energy. Eighty percent of them said the Congress of the United States ought to reduce that tax, at least for the short term, to help compensate for this runup in energy prices we have seen. I am talking about short-term policy. It does not produce a gallon more of domestic crude oil. It does not in any way provide the reliable sources our country has grown to expect over time in a nation that has experienced relatively inexpensive energy. Many of our conservation and environmental friends are saying we ought to be paying as much as Europe pays or as much as the rest of the world pays. That is another $1, $2 a gallon, in some instances, and, therefore, we would rely less upon our vehicles and change our lifestyles. Some day we might have to do that, but all of those costs would have to be spread across an economy, and the general cost of living in this country will go up dramatically. Mr. President, you and I, as consumers in this economy, will have to make choices about how we spend our disposable income and how we spend our income for goods and services. We will have to live a different lifestyle than the one we currently have, if our attitude is only to drive up the cost of energy instead of finding conservation sources and alternative sources and maintaining at least a substantial level of production of crude oil from our own domestic sources. Last week, this Senate, by 1 vote, recognized the importance of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a potential producer of 16 billion barrels of crude oil, production that will be done in a fragile area of our country but can be done in an environmentally sound way based on new technologies. We listen to a Department of Energy that says energy dependence on foreign sources will go up to 65 percent by the year 2010 if we continue the same policy, so says Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson. What he did not say is that to be 65-percent dependent upon foreign sources will require an estimated 12,000 more huge oil tanker dockings each year in the United States. Will that be done safely? In most instances, it will. Will there be a risk with thousands and thousands of more of these supertankers on our open oceans? Will there be some kind of environmental problem? You bet there will. In fact, that is the weak link in the whole process. We have a Vice President who says no drilling offshore because of environmental fragility, and yet by saying that, he is advocating thousands of more supertankers on the open ocean. Go back and look at the record over the last decade. We have not had environmental problems with offshore drilling. But every so often, one of these big tankers runs ashore and spills crude into very fragile environmental areas. So, Mr. Vice President, get honest with the American people. Look at a total package of energy policy that produces onshore in safe environmental ways, and that looks at some of the alternatives you are proposing for wind and solar. I do not deny that any of those has certain value. I suggest that our energy basket, as a nation, be full of all kinds of alternatives but at the same time recognize the base: the conventional forms of energy that drives our agriculture, that drives our industry, and that provides us with the kind of lifestyle Americans expect, and ought to expect, from a free, powerful nation such as ours. Let me close with these thoughts because we do not often talk about national security. We talk about ourselves, our personal security, our family's security, our food security. Those are the things I have been talking about for the last 10 or 15 minutes. Those are the things that come to our minds immediately when we think we have to spend more of our income on them. Is the food going to be there? Can we live the lifestyle we have had if energy reasonably available? Here is what Commerce Secretary Daley recently reported to our President. In all honesty, this report was on the President's desk, but he wasn't saying anything about it until Senator Frank Murkowski, the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, stood up and said: Mr. President, you have a report on your desk. You ought to talk about it a little bit. You ought to tell the American people what your own Commerce Secretary is telling you. The President wrote to the Secretary that he concurred with the Secretary's findings and that current policies should aid in dealing with our dependence on imported oil. Secretary Daley said in his report that ``. . . imports of crude oil threaten to impair the national security of this country.'' What does the Secretary mean? He means we are not as stable as we were, as strong as we were. We are dependent upon foreign sources for a lot of our energy. We did not send Secretary Richardson to Houston to talk to the oil producers of Texas or to Anchorage to talk to the oil producers of Alaska. We sent him to the most unstable political area in the world, the Middle East. We begged the sheiks, the producers: Please, please, give us just a little oil. We fought a war for you. We saved you. We saved your palaces. We saved your airplanes and your lifestyles and your limousines. Oh, it cost us 140 American lives, but we saved you. So would you please give us a little oil? Because you are really cramping our lifestyle. What you are doing may damage our economy and put hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work. I do not think Mr. Richardson said it quite like that, but that is what he, in essence, was saying. He was admitting that we are vulnerable. That is why Secretary Daley told the President we are becoming more dependent on foreign sources, our national security is at risk. What did the President say? He said: I accept your recommendation that existing policies to enhance conservation and limit dependency on foreign oil ought to be continued. But not one energy proposal has come forth from this administration, except the current budget which has large increases in solar cell and wind technology budgets and hardly any increases for nuclear or hydro technology, hardly any increase in clean coal technology research that could help the large, coal-fired, electrical-energy-producing plants of our Nation. The President was warned this year by the Secretary of Commerce. In 1995, the President was also warned by the Secretary of Commerce that ``. . . The Nation's growing reliance on imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products threatens the Nation's security because they increase U.S. vulnerability to oil supply interruption.'' That was in 1995. In late 1998, the OPEC nations were scratching their heads. They weren't making any mont with oil prices at $10-a-barrel. So, t decided to reduce production and drive up prices. They did just that. We saw crude oil prices, in less than a year, go from $10 a barrel to $34 a barrel. That is why I am on the floor today. That is why House Members and Senate Members have been talking about energy policy in the last several months. We have known it was coming. We have warned the administration for years. Six months ago, our colleagues from the Northeast warned of a runup in home heating fuel prices and what that would do to their constituents. But has this administration done anything about it? No, not anything of consequence. The Vice President has been outspoken about no new offshore drilling. He has been outspoken about needing higher taxes for fossil fuels so we would become less reliant upon the internal combustion engine. But nowhere has he suggested increased domestic oil and gas production. We will debate this week, and I hope we will pass, a temporary Federal tax holiday that will allow the American consumer just a little relief in a time when our Nation's energy policy has failed the American consume. At the same time Congress will look at both short- term and long-term policy in an attempt to create more stability in price and supply. This is an important issue. We will hear a great deal more about it in days to come if prices at the pump average $2 a gallon at the height of the summer driving season. When I began these comments, I talked about an energy crisis. The scenario I tried to describe over the last several minutes is that there is, in fact, a crisis going on in our country. It is relatively quiet at the moment. But it is a crisis. We aren't producing enough oil and gas. The White House has no will to build an effective energy policy and will not tell the American people truth about its failures in this regard. We need to find ways to increase oil and gas production, to deal boldly with our neighbors in the Middle East on matters of their physical security and our energy security. The administration has not been very firm with our allies. We are there providing security today, yet we have to beg for our energy. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CRAIG

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

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, April 26, 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. 2273, to establish the Black Rock Desert-High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area, and for other purposes; and S. 2048 and H.R. 3605, to establish the San Rafael Western Legacy District in the State of Utah, and for other purposes. Those who wish to submit written statement should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510. For further information, please call Mike Menge or Bill Eby at (202) 224-6170.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, it is a second-degree amendment.

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

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment which I send to the desk.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, all of us are concerned about law enforcement and making sure those who misuse firearms are appropriately prosecuted. The Senator from Illinois and the Senator from New York have that same concern. I choose to get the money from the 920 account and not take it out of tax cuts. I direct it at the hiring of Federal prosecutors. I also direct it to the States for grants in law enforcement because the States continue to put into the background check program those who are legally mental adjudicants. We direct it to law enforcement, which is what the American people say we should do, on the ground where the criminal activity is occurring. The $283 million increases the intensity of effort against gun violence.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I will use that 1 minute yielded to me for purposes of explanation.

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

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I will send a second-degree amendment to the desk to the amendment of the Senator from Illinois. The Senator from New York and I and most of us agree we need more money and effective law enforcement against gun violence. The amendment I will offer uses the same amount of money the Senator from Illinois has proposed. It does not take it out of the tax cut pool; it takes it out of the 902 fund. It directs it to hire Federal prosecutors, U.S. attorneys in Project Exile, puts them on the ground, gives State grants for gun violence reduction, and causes States also to put their mental adjudicant into the background check program. That is exactly what it does. It also does not prohibit this Congress from offering up a reasonable tax cut to the American citizens. I believe it is the kind of legislation we are expecting and want. But it also addresses the very issue my colleagues from Illinois and New York wish to address.

Mr. CRAIG. I now send my second-degree amendment to the desk.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, my amendment to the Johnson amendment is the exact amendment that Senator Johnson put on the budget resolution last year. It increases veterans spending the same amount that the Johnson amendment does, by $500 million a year, but instead of blocking our ability to give tax cuts, as his would do, mine is spread across a 5-year discretionary pattern. American citizens, along with veterans, deserve to be treated equally. We ought to recognize our veterans and do as Senator Johnson has proposed. At the same time, we ought to recognize American families who are now taxed at the highest level in our Nation's history and give them an opportunity for some tax relief. My amendment grants us that option. I urge consideration of the second-degree amendment.