Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I thank the Chair. I trust that our colleagues are on the Senate floor. I see them. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 925

Mr. CRAIG. I ask unanimous consent the Wyden amendment be withdrawn.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I would like to inquire of the Senator from Washington, does section 1270 predetermine or in any way prejudice the manner in which FERC employs its jurisdiction in matters currently pending before the Commission?

Mr. CRAIG. How does the technical amendment adopted today further clarify the committee and Congress's intent in regard to section 1270 of the underlying legislation?

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, before I yield the floor, let me extend a very special thanks to all who have participated in the crafting and the final work product that we now have before us, a national energy policy for our country. A good many have contributed and most assuredly the chairman of the committee, Pete Domenici, and the ranking member, Senator Bingaman, have done an excellent job, in a very bipartisan way, to bring us to where we are at this moment. Let me also extend a special thanks to the staff of the committee who have expended extraordinary time and hours to get us to this point. I thank my personal staff for a near 5-year effort, as we have worked over a long period of time to winnow out, shape, and bring before us what I think I can say is a very fine work product. I am anxious to see its final passage, which will occur on Tuesday, and a conference with the House. I hope we can have this bill on the President's desk sooner, rather than later. The American people deserve a national energy policy that allows this country to get back into the production of energy of all of the types that have been addressed in this legislation. I thank all of my colleagues for their work effort, and I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I hope Senators today will oppose the Feinstein-Snowe amendment for a very clear reason. In 1974, when the Senator from California refers to this port act, we did not have a lot of the law in place that we now have today. This is not a closed-door process. Using the Natural Gas Act allows FERC to do all it needs to do to protect the public--public hearings, public involvement. If we are going to let NIMBYism at the State level destroy the ability of this country to build the kind of natural gas infrastructure we need today, that we do not have today that is driving the chemical industries offshore, that are shooting our prices up, then allow NIMBYism to exist within the law. I am a State rights person.

Mr. CRAIG. I will not yield. This is a closing statement. We have Senators who need to have the vote and get to their committees. I am a State rights advocate, but I also recognize the Constitution and the interstate commerce clause and what we have to do to facilitate this. I ask Senators to vote to table the Feinstein amendment.

Mr. CRAIG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me thank my colleagues, Senators McCain and Lieberman, for bringing this debate to the Senate floor. Let me say to my colleague from Delaware, he has made a very compelling statement for sustaining the status quo. America and America's industries have awakened to the marketplace, and they are recognizing and moving this country toward cleaner energy and cleaner industry faster than any command and control Federal regulation could bring us there. Last year, a 2.3-percent reduction in greenhouse gases; this year a projected 3 percent, and all within the economy and all within the initiative of boards of directors and city councils and urban areas. Why? Because there is a belief that it is necessary and important for us to drive down the emission of greenhouse gases without the Federal Government stepping in and taking away the very value of a free market and beginning to command and control a market and shape it in what could be, if not done well or on the wrong science, a distorted market false way. What we passed yesterday was very clear--incentivize, bring in new technology. The Hagel-Pryor amendment that was agreed to by a bipartisan majority is consistent with where this administration and where our initiatives have been going now for well over a decade. We are beginning to see the results. We haven't created a huge Federal bureaucracy. We haven't created a carbon czar. We haven't picked winners and losers. We have allowed the DuPonts and the other major companies of this country to recognize the value. We have even incentivized them to some extent. But more importantly, America recognizes that if we use our markets and our technology, we can be much cleaner than we are without commanding and controlling and creating a Federal bureaucracy that just might get it wrong. Here is what happens when you blend politics and bureaucracy. Let me make this point because Senator Lieberman was on the floor yesterday making the point. I want to broaden what he said. It is important for us to understand the politics of the business we are in. The politics of the business is now the G8. We have the President going to the G8. The chairman of the G8 is Tony Blair. Tony Blair wants to get in favor with the political greens of Europe because he got out of favor with them in Iraq, and he is making climate change his initiative. But he is also over in Brussels bidding for more credit because he can't get his country there without shutting down the economy because the technology is not yet there to get Great Britain there. That is the politics across this issue and the politics across Europe. My colleague, Joe Lieberman, did something, and it is not a criticism at all. On the joint science academies' statement of a month ago, I noticed two very big polluters, India and China, are signatories of this national academy document. They are burning coal. They are going to burn a lot more and they don't plan to do anything about it. But they are concerned. Here is the lead paragraph: There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world's climate. However, there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring. And then they go on. I took issue with that and I called and wrote to the chairman of our academy because they were a signatory. I said: What is wrong here? Why are you changing your course and direction? Bruce Alberts wrote back to me. I ask unanimous consent that these letters be printed in the Record.

Mr. CRAIG. The Senator from Arizona suggested I am impugning the motives of Tony Blair. If I am, I apologize for that. I have submitted for the record the statements of the Royal Academy of Science and the statements of the National Academy of Sciences, and I will let them speak for themselves. I know the politics in Europe probably as well as my colleague from Arizona. I know it is a very green politics, attempting to force this President and this Government to ratify Kyoto and the Kyoto protocol. We have said no to that. Tony Blair has put unmitigated pressure on this President. He has even lobbied us individually on it, suggesting we ought to get this President to change his mind. The Senate spoke yesterday. The Senate has not changed its mind. We support our President. The timing, as the Senator from Arizona knows, of this was uniquely special in light of a July 8--I believe it is July 8--conference of the economic powers. So I would imply there is a lot of politics in this. I will take out of that conversation the personality of Tony Blair, although he personally lobbied me and other Senators.

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield for a moment? Mr. President, will the Senator from----

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Mexico for yielding. I do not stand up and speak against the Senator from Tennessee and the work he has done in this area lightly. I understand the process. I also understand that energy infrastructure is always sensitive. It is never quite near where you want it to be, and it is always where you do not want it to be. The Senator from New Mexico has spoken very clearly on this issue. There will be no windmills built off Cape Cod. Why? Because it is being killed by the people of Massachusetts in the processes that are available now. There will be no windmills near Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon or in scenic areas today. Why? Because the process recognizes it now. Whether it is local or whether it is national, try to get a windmill farm sited on Federal properties and you will find it nearly impossible anywhere because the moment one is suggested, the land either becomes precious because of antiquities or unique because it has some kind of holiness to a native group. That has gone on and on. No one today in the wind farm business approaches siting windmills without caution. They already look for the very places where the wind is able to flow. What we are suggesting with this amendment is not here, not there, not over here, and certainly not in my backyard, and if it gets close to my backyard, whoa, stop, back up, and let's look at it. That is what is being said by this legislation. Yet this Nation, through the underlying bill, is rushing to get more energy of all kinds, except step back, take a deep breath and say: Not here, please, or not over there. Caution is abounding. More wind farms are not being sited today by opposition of the public than are being sited. The Senator from Kansas talks about the tall grass prairie. There is a major battle going on in Kansas to stop it now, and it appears it will succeed. I stood on the floor of the Senate the other day and spoke of public group after public group that is opposing siting, and they are using State law, as appropriate in this instance, to stop siting. So I do not believe this legislation is necessary. Here we are encouraging the business of clean energy. Both the Senator from Tennessee and I are very interested in clean energy. I even agree with him that we may be overpromoting wind, but now we are standing up another tripwire and saying: No, there are going to have to be all kinds of new qualifications. If you are a private property owner and you are within a 20-mile zone of this particular scenic area that is prescribed in this legislation, forget your private property rights--gone. And yet in most areas, that is the only place they are getting sited today. Look at the wind troughs on the national maps and where they are on the Rocky Mountain front. Nearly every area is scenic, and if it is not scenic now, if this legislation passes, it will rapidly become scenic for the very simple reason that once they see these 320-foot, tip-to- tip windmills--they are awfully hard to site anyway--but we are creating and standing up a new Federal requirement and Federal restriction over a State process that appears at this moment to be quite thorough. That is why I oppose it. I think it is unnecessary. We are in the business of advancing the cause of energy of all kinds--clean coal, wind, photovoltaic, nuclear. We are even improving the existence of current hydro. We are doing all of those things, and we are asking our States to be partners. But here the heavy hand of Government--the Federal Government--comes in. I think it is inappropriate. I do not think it is necessary. I think the process is working quite well now. In a State such as mine where wind farms are being looked at now, our companies are approaching it very carefully and, in many instances--and it is nearly only Federal land on which you can get them sited--it is almost impossible to site on Federal land. Why? Because of the Environmental Policy Act, because of all the processes and safeguards we have already put in place. Therefore, I do believe this legislation is unnecessary. I think it is overkill. I do not think we need to do it. We already have a very thorough, open, public process between our Federal Government as it relates to the National Environmental Policy Act, and State governments as it relates to their zoning requirements and/or the regulatory process they put siting through, through the utilities commission. I think that is adequate and necessary.

Mr. CRAIG. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, he said they had not changed their course and direction and they didn't agree with the Royal Academy's statement. They thought it was misleading. That is not what they said, not what they believe. It is not what they intended. Then the head of the National Academy of Sciences wrote a letter to the Royal Academy. The Royal Academy basically said stuff it, it is our interpretation of what you said and we have a right for our own interpretation. No, the Royal Academy does not have a right to reinterpret the profound work of the National Academy of Sciences, the Hathaway study, the 1992 documentation that brought us to the scientific level we are today. The reason we are having this gamesmanship in the National Academy of Sciences is because this is ripe politics. It is not substantive science. While there are those of us who believe there are strong indicators that this world is getting warmer, we are not so sure about the science yet. But we are sure--and that is why this legislation we are adding this amendment to, or attempting to add the McCain-Lieberman amendment to, is all about ``clean'' and all about new technology that is less emitting, has less greenhouse gas in it, and recognizes the importance that our country lead in this direction. I spoke about that yesterday. I spoke about the intensity indicator as it relates to units of production instead of the false game of capping, because that is where you show how much carbon you are using to produce an element or an indices and a unit of economic growth. That is what this all ought to be about. The Hagel-Pryor amendment is about that. I am not going to slip into what some would call the false argument of the economy. But there is a profound argument to be made if you decide you are going to cap and control carbon in our country and distort the market and don't drive us toward new technologies of gasification and all of those things that reduce carbon in the atmosphere. Let me tell you where it is. A few years ago, when we were debating against Kyoto and we said it would cause a recession here and cost nearly 3 million jobs, it was laughed at by some at that time. I am sorry, you were wrong and a few of us were right. Here are the facts to prove it. The chart speaks for itself. In the industrial sector of our economy, during the depth of the last recession we have just come out of, we lost about 2.5, 2.6, or 2.7 million jobs in that sector of our economy. It drove them down to 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, we hit the targets of the Kyoto protocol by a recession that took away 2.9 million jobs. Now, we have continued to grow some in transportation, residential, and commercial. But in the industrial sector, where the blue-collar American works, we drove them out of their jobs by the economy's inaction; whereas, if we had accepted the Kyoto protocol, accepted McCain-Lieberman in principle, we would have had to have the rules and regulations to accomplish 1990 levels, and that would have been the consequence. Now there is a strong, legitimate, economic argument that has to be made. Unless you let the economy work its will, and you incentivize the economy to do exactly what it is doing, to do what the Senator from Delaware talked about, energy being used by industry in a way that is cleaner, every time you create a new job in this country, that job is a cleaner job. Why? Because it is employment from new technologies, and that economic unit of production is less carbon intensive, and those are the realities of where we are. We expressed that very clearly yesterday in the Hagel-Pryor amendment. It is all about science, about new technologies, about creating partnerships with our foreign neighbors. It is not command and control and penalize. We want Third World nations to step up and to grow and to improve the economy and, therefore, the livelihood of their country for their own people. You don't do that by controlling them. That is why China would not step into this. That is why India would not step into it at the time of Kyoto and the protocol itself. Now they may be playing political games in this national academy joint statement of a month ago, but are they doing it substantively at home on the ground? China is going to burn a lot more coal in the future and, in large part, the way we can help them is to help ourselves by incentivizing the use of gasification and bringing that technology online, and doing so not with commanding and controlling but encouraging, incentivizing. De Tocqueville was right, that regulations could kill the great American experiment. Regulations are the antithesis of freedom and freedom in the marketplace, so incentivizing is doing for us exactly what we want done on climate change today, changing the character of how we do it and the character of the energies we use and the cleanliness of it. It is beginning to recognize if you are for climate change, you have to be for nuclear electric generation and a combination of a lot of other things. I hope our colleagues will oppose McCain-Lieberman. Command and control will not get us where we want to get without costing us jobs and building a big Federal bureaucracy to regulate the system. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I will not take a great deal of time, but I want to visit this issue in the context that it has just been presented by our colleague from Massachusetts. First, I think it is awfully important to understand a couple of things that just have transpired that the Senator referenced as it relates to these National Academies of Science. On the surface, when one reads that and sees that the G8 academies are all standing together, including ours, one would say, wow, that is a powerful statement. What I am terribly afraid has happened is that good academicians and scientists have in some way been co-opted and in this case possibly politicized. Let me explain what I am talking about. It is terribly frustrating for me--and I trust it is for the Senator from Massachusetts--to see a group of scientists say one thing at one time and something else a little later. After that statement came out, I asked Bruce Alberts, the president of our National Academy of Sciences, what was meant by this statement. In his reply to me, here is what he said: The press release is not an accurate characterization of the eleven academies' statement, and it is not an accurate characterization of our 1992 report. I have enclosed a copy of the letter that I sent yesterday to Dr. May, President of the Royal Society [who is pushing this initiative right now because, obviously, Prime Minister Blair is the chairman of the G8,] expressing my displeasure with their press release. Here is what President May said in return to our own president of our own National Academy of Sciences: We've read what you said and we've read what you've written and we've chosen to interpret it differently. Stop and think about that. Are scientists at the National Academy of Sciences, who we rely on, who we think have done credible work and are advancing the issue and building the science on climate change from the 1992 report to the path forward and beyond, recognizing there is an increase in temperature and saying there may be a direct relationship between that temperature rise and greenhouse gases? No, the collective academies jump to a different conclusion. And then the Royal Academy suggests that, well, we just do not interpret it the way you interpret your own work. It is one scientist saying: We know better what you have said than what you have said. Here is exactly what Dr. Robert May, head of the Royal Academy, said: Given the very clear recommendations that your 1992 report contains for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, I fail to see how you could make the accusation that our press release misrepresents its contents. Already there is a fight within the academies. Why? Because it was such a unique time to advance the political cause of climate change. But what is the reality? Getting back to 1990 levels. Great Britain isn't there and can't get there now, and they are having to ask for greater credits. Italy, in Buenos Aires this winter, told me that because they had shut down a nuclear reactor, they were no longer 3 percent toward compliance, they were 12 percent away. Japan, at the time they ratified Kyoto, I believe was like 5 percent or 6 percent away from meeting 1990 standards. Now they are 13 or 14 percent away. If you are growing the economy under current technology, you can't get where you want to get. It has been suggested that our President does nothing. Our President has done more to advance the cause of international cooperation than any President to date. We have just seen the Global Earth Observation System first in 1993 and another advancing in the United States generating international support to link thousands of individual technologies and assets together. There is a comprehensive global system coming together. That is nothing? Our Nation is spending $5 billion on new technology, more than all of the rest of the world combined on climate change, and we are sharing that technology with the world. That is nothing? No, no, no, the record is quite different. And the record is accurate. There is a great deal going on out there. There is about $11 billion tied to this bill that is all about clean. All of this clean technology we are about to advance and cause to happen is transparent and transferrable and available for the world to have. What is lacking in all of this? Why so much ado today about climate change? It is the politics that drive, not the science, and not the technology. When we were in Buenos Aires, I actually had nations who have ratified come up to us and say: We know we cannot meet the standards. We know we cannot get to 1990. But if you could just be with us politically, it is so important. I said: Why should we be for something that cannot get to? Why not join us in these cooperative efforts? Why not work with us in the new technology? Why do we have to have an international political statement to do something when we are already doing it? That is what it is all about. I am not going to work at disputing any of the science. It is advancing, and we are getting to know a great deal more. The bill now attempting to be amended with a sense-of-the- Senate resolution is a bill that is the cleanest thing we have ever done for climate change. We advance more technology, we bring about more science than ever before. And we share it with the rest of the world. What has happened is quite simple: The great groundswell of politics that grew out of the original Buenos Aires that took us to Kyoto, that tried to divide the world, failed. The environmental movement that first drove this failed. Why did they fail? Because they first said: World, turn your lights out. Third World, stay where you are. And the world collectively, nation by nation, has said: Can't go there. Just can't go there. We cannot deny our people a livelihood, opportunity, clean water, and pollution control. We cannot deny them management of their waste. We need energy. How do we get there? Got to be clean. And it is getting clearer and cleaner and cleaner. Last year, we reduced our greenhouse gases by 2.3 percent. This year, it may be 3 or greater. We don't know yet. We are saying to the rest of the world: Come with us. We will share with you our technology. We will do all the right things. We are developing bilaterals. This administration has moved very rapidly, working hand and glove with other nations of the world to take to them our technology, to share with them the cooperative nature and spirit that we enter into these kind of relationships. What is missing is the politics. We have not politically committed this country the way some would like, as the rest of the world went, as Russia finally was the final ratifier; and now they all turn and say: Well, we said it politically, but we cannot get there. What do we do now? That is what the G8 is all about. That is what the debate is about. Let's get on with the business of advancing clean air technologies. Let's get on with the business of doing what we are doing. In this case, the political statements have little value compared to the great work that is in this marvelous piece of energy legislation called this comprehensive act.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Elizabeth Jane Fisher of Boise, ID. She has been named as one of eight national finalists for the Richard T. Farrell Teacher of Merit Award. Ms. Fisher is being recognized for her ability to develop and use creative methods to make history interesting for her students. As a teacher at Riverstone Community School in Boise, she helps to cultivate exciting discoveries about the past. Her countless hours devoted to the Idaho National History Day have helped to promote an educationally stimulating experience for her dedicated students. She is committed to helping students develop their interests in history and recognize their achievements. I am heartened by the fact that there are educators who devote much time and effort to shaping the minds of our young people. Teachers educate the future leaders of our country. I am happy to recognize one such teacher who truly is making a difference. Again, let me commend Elizabeth Fisher for this accomplishment. I wish her all the best as she continues her efforts in educating the children of Idaho.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me say how proud I am to speak in behalf of and in favor of the climate change amendment we have just heard thoroughly explained by Senator Hagel and to thank him and Senator Pryor for joining in a bipartisan way to provide for us the underpinnings of a path forward on the issue of climate change and to meet both this Nation's and the global needs that are obvious when we talk about climate change and, in that context, economic progress. In addition, this legislation will provide a sound basis for productive engagements with our friends and allies in sharing a need to cooperatively work literally around the globe on this issue. If we are talking about climate change, we are not talking about it only in the United States. It is literally the climate of the world we are talking about and a concern about those elements that are introduced by man into the environment that make the change or could make the change. An essential element in this legislation is an active engagement of developing countries. My views on this point are not new, but I do believe they are worth repeating as we begin this important debate on national energy policy and as we step into the arena of climate change. Our policy must recognize the legitimate needs of our bilateral trading partners to use their resources and meet their needs for their people. For too long, the climate policy debate has been about fixing and assigning blame and inflicting pain. This is most harmful. It is counterproductive. When the climate change community said to the world, save the world by turning out your lights and turning off your economies, the world in large part said: Wait a moment. We don't think we can do that. We have to look at this issue differently. Our best technological advances, our research activities, all are focusing on how we become cleaner. And as we become cleaner, we immediately provide and send that technology to the world, and we meet their needs while they grow and develop and provide for their own people. Senator Hagel, Senator Pryor, and those of us who support this amendment have made it clear that there are important issues we ought to be about when we talk about climate change. Above all, this legislation is a true acknowledgment that climate variability and change is a top priority of the United States and of all nations, and we have not shirked from that. There can be an honest debate about whether the United States should do more or whether too much reliance is being placed on voluntary initiatives. But to claim that the United States is not acting seriously reflects at best a lack of knowledge or at worst political posturing. An objective review of government and private sector programs to reduce increases in greenhouse gases now and in the future would have to conclude that the United States is doing at least as much, if not more, than countries that are part of the Kyoto Protocol which went into effect last February. The best evidence of this is our domestic rate of improvement in greenhouse gas intensity relative to improvements in other countries. The term I just used--and it is one we ought to all become familiar with because it is the true measurement of this issue, not the politics of the issue, it is in fact the scientific measurement--``greenhouse gas intensities'' is defined in the legislation Senator Hagel has just offered as the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions to economic output. This is a far wiser measure of progress because it compliments rather than conflicts with a nation's goal of growing its economy and meeting the needs of its aspiring citizens. Too much attention has been paid to the mandatory nature of Kyoto, and too little is resulting from it because nations simply can't go there. Most of the countries that ratified Kyoto will not meet the greenhouse gas reduction targets by the deadlines required by Kyoto. So why did they ratify it? Was it the politics of the issue or were they really intent on meeting the goals? We did not ratify it because we knew that it couldn't be done in this country. Yet we are the most technologically advanced country of the world. Why couldn't it be done here? Simple reason: When we stated on the floor some years ago that we would have to take a hit of at least 3 million jobs in our country to dial ourselves down to meet the Kyoto standards, we were right. In fact, at the depths of this last recession we have just come out of, with 2.9 million people unemployed, we met the standards that we were supposed to meet under Kyoto. Most fascinating is the recent news that Great Britain needs more allocation of credits to meet its targets under Kyoto. Imagine this, the most aggressive advocate of Kyoto, the nation best positioned to meet the requirements of the treaty, is now backsliding because they can't hit their targets. They need more relief. At a recent COP-10--that is a climate change conference in Buenos Aires I attended along with many of our colleagues--delegates from a variety of countries came up to us and said very clearly, we need the intensity approach in order to avert harsh, clearly unmanageable, unattainable consequences of Kyoto. Indeed, a conference delegate from Italy informed me and others attending COP-10 that Italy will bow out-- they were early to ratify Kyoto--by 2012 because they couldn't comply with phase 2 of the treaty. Remarkable stuff? No. Real stuff. Now that the politics have died down, in every country except this one, where we still want some degree of political expression--now that the politics have died down in these other countries that have ratified the treaty, they don't know what to do because they can't get there. Let me tell you what they can do. They can follow the guidance and direction of the Hagel-Pryor amendment that I hope will become law. In that law we will engage with them in the use of our technology to advance a cleaner fuel system and systems for the world and not have to ask them to turn their economy down. The United States is currently spending in excess of $5 billion annually on scientific and technological initiatives. That is far more than any other nation in the world. In fact, I believe we are spending more as a nation than all of the other nations combined on the issue of cleaner emissions--therefore, proclimate change, pro-Kyoto. But nobody talks about it because it wasn't one bill. It wasn't one vote. It wasn't a great big press conference. It is a collective initiative on the part of our Government with some of our direction over the course of a decade to become better at what we do and cleaner in how we do it. The Bush administration has entered into more than a dozen bilateral agreements with other countries to improve their energy efficiencies and reduce greenhouse gas growth rates and has received compliments from major industries and worked with them to make improvements in the use and the effective efficiencies of their energy sources. These programs are designed to advance our state of knowledge, accelerate the development and deployment of energy technologies, aid developing nations in using energy more efficiently, and achieve the 18-percent reduction in energy intensity by 2012, as our President laid out. Domestically, the United States continues to make world-leading investments in climate change and climate science technology. The United States has also implemented a wide range of national greenhouse gas control initiatives, carbon sequestration, and international collaborative agreements. Let me cite from a summary of what we have done: The climate change technology program, a $3 billion program; the climate change science program, a $2 billion program; DOE's registry for greenhouse gas reporting, another major program; DOE's climate vision partnership for industry reductions that includes 12 major industry sectors and the Business Roundtable. Here are some examples: Refineries committed to improve energy efficiency by 10 percent between 2002 and 2012. The chemical industry will improve greenhouse gas intensity by 18 percent between 1990 and 2012. Mining sites committed to increase efficiency by 10 percent. That is in that initiative alone. EPA'S climate leaders for individual company reductions: Over 60 major corporate-wide reduction goals are in place, including GM, Alcoa, British Petroleum, IBM, Pfizer, and the list goes on and on. We could spend an hour talking about the initiatives that are underway in this country. What I told the chairman of the Energy Committee last night as we discussed the issue of climate change was: Mr. Chairman, we ought to take this whole bill and call it the climate change bill of 2005. Why? Clean coal, wind, solar, nuclear, hydrogen-- all kinds of incentives and new technologies all designed to keep this economy roaring and to keep the economy greener, if you want to say it that way, certainly to keep it cleaner. Remember the term that I used a few moments ago when I talked about the term in the legislation, to dramatically improve our greenhouse gas intensity as it relates to emissions per units of economic output. That is where the Hagel-Pryor bill goes. That is where this Senate ought to be going. But we still have an attitude around here that you have to point fingers and you have to inflict pain because that is the only way you can sell an idea to the American people. That is wrong. We have already proven that if we were to walk the walk and talk the talk of Kyoto, there would be 3 million Americans not working today. How would we deal with that? A wink and a nod and simply say we did it because it makes the world cleaner? I know what my young sons would say who might be out of work as a result of that. They would say: Dad, we are the smartest country in the world. We are the most technologically advanced. We can't figure out a way to do it better? Yes, we can. And we are. The Hagel bill does it. That is why we ought to be supporting it. The key issue is not whether there is any human influence effect on the globe today. Instead the issue is how large any human influence may be as it compares with natural variabilities in our climate; how costly and how effective human intervention may be in reversing, justifying, moderating any form of variability that exists out there; if, in fact, we could possibly do it. What technologies may be required over the near and long term is to determine all that they relate to as it relates to intensity and the climate change issue itself. It is an important issue for the Senate to address. I believe it has been brought to us today in the proper format, not only to drive technologies at home but to embrace other countries around the world. Why in the air high over Ohio today do we find carbon not from the United States but from China? And we do. Gases, carbon-containing gases, high in the atmosphere over the United States today are coming from the largest burner of coal as a nation in the world. And they are outside Kyoto, and we don't do anything about it. The Hagel bill does. It embraces them. It begins to work with them. It begins to recognize that if we are going to clean up the world beyond where it is today, if we did it alone, it would be but a moment of time. We must engage our colleagues from all over the world in a comprehensive fashion that deals with technology, that causes the world to be relatively transparent in all that they do, for the developing nations of the world not to say to them, Just turn your lights out and stay where you are. They won't. They haven't. And now we need to work with them to make sure that in our pursuit of a cleaner world, we allow our technology to embrace their problems along with our problems. That is recognized and understood by the Hagel-Pryor amendment. I am pleased to be a cosponsor of it. I urge my colleagues in the final analysis of this debate, this is the right direction to go. We ought to take it and be happy we are moving in this direction.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Thursday, June 16, 2005, at 2:30 p.m. on the nominations of William Jeffrey, to be Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Ashok Kaveeshwar, to be Administrator of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration, Edmund S. Hawley, to be Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security, and Israel Hernandez, to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Director General of the U.S. Foreign and Commercial Service.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet in open Executive Session during the session on Thursday, June 16, 2005, at 10:30 a.m., to consider an original bill entitled, ``Energy Policy Tax Incentives Act of 2005''.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, June 16, 2005 at 9:30 a.m. to hold a hearing on Stabilization and Reconstruction.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Thursday, June 16, 2005, at 9:30 a.m., in room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct an oversight hearing on Indian Education.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a markup on Thursday, June 16, 2005, at 9:30 a.m., in Senate Dirksen Office Building room 226. The agenda will be provided when it becomes available today. Agenda I. Nominations: Terrence W. Boyle, II, to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit; Rachel Brand, to be an Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy; Alice S. Fisher, to be an Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division. II. Bills: S. 491, Christopher Kangas Fallen Firefighter Apprentice Act [Specter, Leahy] III. Matters: Senate Judiciary Committee Rules.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 16, 2005, at 3 p.m., to hold a confirmation hearing.