John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. I appreciate the Senator from New Hampshire addressing that issue. I have always been amazed that those who say we ought to do something to help poor people who need help with their heating oil are the same folks who seem to be the most resistant to opening America's reserves of natural resources which would have the effect of bringing down oil prices for everybody. It seems to me that would be one of the most commonsense things we could do.

Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, we are going to have a vote on the motion to proceed to the Defense authorization bill. The distinguished occupant of the chair, myself, and Senator Martinez all sit on the Armed Services Committee. We know how important this legislation is. I have every confidence that we will ultimately--at least I sure hope--get to and pass a Defense authorization bill. I will point out that for the last 2 weeks, we have had a series of attempts by the majority to get us off the single most important issue facing the country today, and that is high energy prices, particularly high gasoline prices. My expectation is that this attempt, which will now make this No. 7 instead of 6, will fail as well because on this side of the aisle we believe we should not leave here, we should not adjourn for the August recess without addressing this pressing issue. It touches everybody in the country, rich or poor, regardless of circumstances in life. It is also driving up the price of food and threatening inflation which is going to threaten our economy regardless of what we do on housing and the subprime mortgage crisis. I ask the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire if he has some thoughts about what we ought to be doing between now and the time we adjourn for the August recess.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Martinez, the Senator from Florida, Senator Gregg, the Senator from New Hampshire, and I be allowed to engage in a colloquy.

Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Chair.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I rise today with a heavy heart for the loss of one of Texas' strongest, most influential women, Anne Armstrong. More importantly, I rise today to honor and commemorate her incredible service to Texas and the Nation as a whole. To understand what kind of a woman Anne Armstrong was, you first need to understand where she came from. A valedictorian graduate of Vassar in 1949, Anne's career started out, not in politics, but on a ranch in southern Texas' Kenedy County with her husband Tobin. Although she was born in Louisiana, Anne quickly took to Texas life, and enjoyed working on one of Texas' historic ranches, settled in the 19th century. Owning a ranch taught Anne to be tough when necessary, and always polite. She also learned how to talk politics with her husband and his friends, and quickly proved to have a sharp insight into the issues facing our country. Although her family always came first, Anne's passion for politics led her to become the Kenedy County Republican Party chair. From there she took off, serving next as Texas Republican Party chair, and eventually as the first woman ever to cochair the Republican National Committee. One year later Anne made history again when she became the first woman ever to deliver a keynote address to a national party convention. But Anne's service was never about the notoriety, it was about improving the government of America. In a time when a woman in politics was almost unheard of, Anne Armstrong forced herself into the game, and proved that she belonged there. She became the first ever woman to hold a Presidential Cabinet Position, serving as an adviser to Nixon and to Ford. When President Ford joked at her swearing-in that his wife was ``always needling'' him to appoint women to higher positions, Anne quickly retorted ``I have the feeling Abigail Adams would have been just as excited as Betty Ford and I.'' In her role Anne worked to further advance the roles of women in America. She established the White House Office of Women's Programs, an office dedicated to recruiting and assisting females in obtaining political appointments and high level government employment. Her work, as well as her example, helped lay the groundwork for countless women who have followed her. I know that my colleague, Senator Hutchison, attributes much of her success to Anne's example and mentorship. After serving in the White House, Anne again made history as the first female Ambassador to the United Kingdom. During that time, Anne Armstrong nearly became the first woman on a Presidential ticket, as she was considered by President Ford for the vice presidency. In what would be her last national position, Anne served at the request of President Reagan on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. She served as the first and only female chair to that board, and served under both Presidents Reagan and Bush. Utimately, Anne Armstrong was an adviser to four different presidents, a mentor to many of today's prominent politicians, and a beloved friend to all who had the pleasure of working with her. In 1987, recognizing her distinguished service, President Reagan awarded Anne with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. But as passionately as Anne Armstrong worked in politics, nothing could take priority over her family. After serving in national politics for roughly 20 years, Anne returned home to her ranch and her family in Kenedy County. Even after such a remarkable career in politics, Anne Armstrong could not resist the call to serve her community. When she passed away on Wednesday, Anne Armstrong was still serving as the county commissioner. At the age of 80, battling cancer, Anne Armstrong continued to serve her beloved community, her home of Texas. Whether as a mother, a wife, a rancher or a politician, Anne Armstrong's commitment and dedication was unmatched. Without a doubt, Texas, and the Nation as a whole, is richer for her service. Anne's legacy is survived by her 5 children and 13 grandchildren--as well as the countless others whose lives she touched. That is why I have come today to introduce a resolution honoring the life and service of a pioneer of women in politics, and a great Texan, Mrs. Anne Armstrong.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Are you aware or would you have any reason to disagree with the experts who say that synthetic fuels such as coal to liquids are competitive with $70 to $80-a-barrel oil, plus an additional 10 percent that would be needed to figure out how to capture and divert the carbon dioxide that would be produced by the process? Do you have any reason to disagree with the experts on that?

Mr. CORNYN. I say to the Republican leader, this is not just an energy issue, this is a national security issue. Let me ask the leader, since he comes from a State that produces significant amounts of coal, whether these figures given to me by my staff are accurate. It has been reported to me that the Air Force uses about 2.6 billion gallons of jet fuel a year at a total cost of about $8 billion. That is $8 billion the United States appropriates and goes to the Department of Defense and the Air Force to buy jet fuel. It is estimated that for every $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil, the Air Force--and we can see in parentheses the U.S. taxpayer--spends an additional $600 million in fuel costs. Do those figures I have cited sound approximately correct?

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I say to the distinguished Republican leader, it sounded as though we were almost going to get to vote. The Senator from Colorado spoke so passionately about the importance of using coal. Of course, the big concern we have is coal can pollute. But the Senator is no doubt aware of a remarkable technology that has actually been around a long time that can take coal and convert it to synthetic fuel that the Air Force is now using to fly airplanes. Isn't it a fact that in terms of transportation fuels, talking about gasoline and diesel and aviation fuel, that represents one of the biggest challenges from an energy standpoint to this country and that actually coal-to-liquid technology, such as the leader described, represents one of the great opportunities for becoming less dependent on imported oil from the Middle East?

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, there is a lot about the tax extenders package that I support. The State and local sales tax deduction--Texas doesn't have an income tax, thank goodness. I don't believe we ever will. We do have a sales tax, and we would hope to be treated in a nondiscriminatory way by the Federal Government in providing a deduction for sales tax. We have had the ability to do that, which has expired, but it saves over $1 billion for Texans in tax relief each year. Of course, I support the research and development tax incentives, the temporary AMT, or alternative minimum tax, relief, as well as the other renewable energy tax incentives, including those for solar and wind. However, I do not understand the insistence of the majority leader of filing repetitive motions to proceed to something other than an energy bill that would actually generate more American production of oil and gas here at home and cause us to rely less on imported sources. Why there is this repeated insistence time and time again with these repetitive votes to take us off of the only bill that has been offered--the only legislation that has been offered that would actually increase American energy resources and require us to rely less on imported oil is beyond me. As I said, I support the renewable energy provisions that would continue to encourage the production of solar and wind power. I believe that conservation is a very important part of what we need to do as well. My colleagues have seen this chart before. We have said that what we need to do is find more and use less. Yet the majority leader has consistently, so far, refused to allow us the opportunity to introduce amendments and to have debate and votes on something that would actually have an impact on the price of gasoline at the pump. We think we need a balanced and comprehensive approach to deal with this problem. Since the majority leader became the majority leader--on January 4, 2007, the price of gas was $2.33 a gallon. It has been as high as $4.11 a gallon. Now, thank goodness, the average price is $3.93 a gallon. The fact is, we have a supply problem and we have a demand problem. The supply problem is that for some reason, for the last 30 years or so, Congress has placed 85 percent of our domestic oil and gas reserves out of bounds. We passed annual bans in the form of a moratorium on appropriations riders that prevent the production of oil and gas that we know is there in the Outer Continental Shelf or the submerged lands along the coastlines of the United States, as well as up in Alaska where we know there are huge volumes of gas and oil. And there is a pipeline conveniently close by that could actually deliver that for use in the lower 48 States. We know there are as much as 2 million additional barrels of oil a day out in Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado in the form of oil shale, which now the technology exists to be able to produce that. Can you imagine how much different things would be if, instead of importing those 3 million barrels of oil a day from countries such as Saudi Arabia and organizations like OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and people such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela--can you imagine what it would be like if we actually produced 3 million more barrels of oil in the United States so we didn't have to import that from abroad? I don't know anybody who has done a better job of capturing the public's imagination on that than my constituent, T. Boone Pickens. He has been an oilman all his life, but now he is perhaps the most visible and forceful advocate for wind energy and for natural gas to use to power cars. His main focus is because he wants to reduce the $700 billion of American money we send each year abroad to pay for oil and import that into this country. He has a plan that he thinks can bring that down by about 38 percent. We all know that, at best, additional supply is a partial answer. That is why we say we need to find more and use less. Conservation is an important part of this, as are things such as biofuels. We know we have challenges dealing with corn ethanol because, frankly, using food for fuel has backfired on us somewhat, causing food prices to go up, and feed for livestock, which has caused grave hardship in my State, which is a huge cattle producer, as well as a poultry producer. It has caused the price of food to go up, so we need to continue to research the use of cellulosic ethanol, which doesn't compete with the food supply for our energy sources. So far, we have been met with a brick wall from the majority leader when it comes to our attempt to try to find more American oil, as we transition to a clean energy future. What I mean by that is one where we are going to be less and less reliant on oil for our transportation needs, our aviation needs. Let me mention a couple of examples on the horizon that are very exciting. In 2010, most of the major car manufacturers are going to be producing plug-in hybrid cars, which actually will be running on batteries. You can plug it into the wall socket at night and charge the battery, and it will go 40 or more miles a day before plugging it back in at night. Obviously, that will displace the internal combustion engine and avoid the need to provide oil and gasoline for transportation needs. It is going to take some time to transition as we research things such as hydrogen fuel cells and other alternatives for our basic transportation needs. I think that holds great promise in the future, as does additional research in things such as coal-to-liquids technology. We have in this country about a 300-year supply of coal. We know that coal has a problem because of pollution. But we have the ingenuity and expertise to be able to use coal--to find a way to use it in a way that will not only provide things such as aviation fuel and transportation fuel, but I believe we can come up with a way to sequester the carbon dioxide byproduct of coal-to-liquids technology in a way that will allow us to displace oil, gas, diesel, and regular aviation fuel from our demand side. As a matter of fact, the coal-to-liquids technology has existed a long time. Adolf Hitler, back in World War II, when he was worried about getting cut off his supply of oil and gas that was necessary to fuel the Third Reich, developed a coal-to-liquids technology. Today, the Air Force is using coal to liquids to power B-1 bombers and B-52 bombers for aviation fuel. So we know we can rely on good, old- fashioned American research and technology and ingenuity to come up with a way to deal with this problem. We are not going to get it done until the majority leader allows us the opportunity to debate and vote on this important imperative to develop more American energy here at home. It is not enough to rely on solar and wind. Those are important, but it is not a complete answer. We need--I believe we should insist, and we are--a right to vote on some production in the Outer Continental Shelf, in the oil shale out West, and up in the Arctic. Frankly, I don't understand the reluctance on the part of the majority leader to allow that vote to go forward. I am encouraged by some indications that there are some negotiations. I hope they are successful. I don't think we should leave here this week for a month- long recess until we have dealt with the single most important problem facing the American people today and our economy, which is high gasoline and high diesel prices. We can have an immediate impact on the futures markets where those contracts for the future delivery of oil and gas are sold if we will act and say that Congress will be part of the solution and not continue to be part of the problem. Mr. President, may I inquire how much time remains on this side?

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I agree with the Senator from Arizona. My understanding is that because of the delays, because the majority leader has basically refused to allow us to go to the energy package we proposed which we believe will actually bring down the price of gasoline at the pump, we find ourselves up against an adjournment on Friday, which I believe the majority leader has addressed, with two very important issues we need to address: lowering gas prices at the pump and then the tax extenders bill. The tax extenders would provide tax credits and support for things such as renewable energy and the like, which I support and which I hope we will pass as well. So I don't know how we can do justice to the media shield bill and give it the kind of debate and the amendment process it deserves in this compressed timetable.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the Senator is correct again. This has been a challenging issue because, frankly, the very nature of communications has changed dramatically. I mentioned the bloggers, which are sort of a new innovation. There is nothing in this bill that would prevent someone--let's say a jihadist or someone let's say from al-Jazeera or those who pretend to promote some of the activities that are directed against our own citizens or against our allies--from posing as a journalist and thus gaining the protection against testifying or cooperating with a grand jury that any average citizen in the country would have to do. So there remain problems we have not been able to work through.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I believe the Senator from Arizona is correct. There was a lot of activity at the Judiciary Committee level to try to improve this bill on a bipartisan basis. I believe his recollection is correct.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator from New York on the so-called media shield bill. Let me address those briefly before I talk for a moment about the extenders, and then what I wish to spend most of my time on is the subject we have been talking about but, frankly, not doing enough about during the last 2 weeks; that is, bringing down the price of gasoline at the pump for the American people. The problem that I continue to have, as the distinguished Presiding Officer knows as a member of the Judiciary Committee, we discussed in the Judiciary Committee whether it is appropriate for the Congress to designate members of the media who would be the beneficiaries of a media shield while saying that there are other people who are engaged in the free flow of public information, such as bloggers, who would not. I remember when William Safire, the distinguished journalist, testified before the Judiciary Committee and someone asked him about bloggers. He said he considers them the new pamphleteers, modern-day pamphleteers. In other words, they could be writing things just as importantly as Thomas Payne might have written at the time of the country's founding, and yet the legislation the Senator from New York talked about would do nothing to provide them the benefits of a media shield, and there would be--in effect, Congress would be deciding who is a legitimate journalist and who is not. I, for one, am not comfortable with the Federal Government in essence licensing journalists and ignoring the new media, which is the source of a lot of information, and treating them in a discriminatory manner. Tax Extenders With regard to the extenders package, there are many, if not most, of us here in this Senate who would love to see the extenders package, or some form of it, passed. Renewable sources of energy such as solar and wind are very important in my State. We are No. 1 in the production of wind energy in Texas. Of course, T. Boone Pickens, one of my constituents, has been up here talking rather visibly about his advocacy of generating more electricity from wind and using natural gas to power vehicles and thus reducing our dependency on imported oil from the Middle East. However, the fact is that I believe we will probably vote against moving off of the energy issue generally because, frankly, we shouldn't be changing the subject at a time when we are very close to being able to have a vote on producing more American energy and relying less on imported energy and oil from the Middle East and abroad. Why it is that our colleagues in the majority are trying so hard--putting up cloture vote after cloture vote--to try to change the subject rather than allowing us to stay focused on and actually do something on bringing down the price of gasoline is, frankly, beyond me.

Mr. CORNYN. I would, Mr. President.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, reserving right to object, this side of the aisle believes we need to dispose of the pending Energy bill to help bring down the price of gas at the pump first, before turning to other matters, so for that reason I object.

Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Chair.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, may I inquire how much more time I have remaining?

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I did read that op-ed piece with great interest myself when it was published in USA Today, and I hope we can make that part of the Record following my remarks.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. May I ask the Senator from Tennessee and the Senator from Arizona one question. We passed a massive housing bill, a $158 billion economic stimulus package, because we are all concerned about the economy. Let's assume we are successful in dealing with those problems. Do you see the rising costs of gasoline and oil and energy as a big--or maybe even a bigger--threat ultimately to the economy, and that it might have the very direct effect of putting us into a bona fide recession?

Mr. CORNYN. I agree, Mr. President, with the Senator from Tennessee. The way I have heard it expressed, it certainly explains my point of view, and I think the facts, as they are, are that we need all of the above. We need to use less, we need to conserve, and we need to find more energy. I ask the Senator from Tennessee: To me, it seems as though the problem sort of boils down to how do we generate more electricity and then how do we come up with ways to power our vehicles and fly airplanes. As the Senator points out, 98 percent, I believe he said, of the energy used for transportation is oil-based at present. The Senator from Tennessee has come up with a very commonsense approach--forward- looking--to try to figure out a way, as the car industry has, to do more using of electricity and to reduce our dependency on oil. It would be helpful to look back at how we got where we are today, not necessarily to point the finger of blame but to point to the fact that it is not likely to get better in the future. I ask the Senator from Tennessee, isn't it true that growing economies, such as China and India, are demanding more and more access to energy which has fueled their economic growth and, in his view, is it likely that is going to reduce anytime soon or just get worse? In other words, is this something that is going to go away--a temporary problem--or is this something that is going to become more and more of a problem as time goes on?

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I know there are some who have suggested we ought to demand that Saudi Arabia and OPEC actually open the spigot wider, but it seems to me the Senator from Tennessee is exactly right. The problem is our dependency on imported oil from the Middle East and other countries around the world, when we have oil reserves right here in America that can be developed but that Congress has, in fact, placed out of bounds. About 85 percent of the oil here at home could be produced, if Congress would simply allow it, by lifting the ban or the moratoria on development of that oil in the Outer Continental Shelf and the submerged lands along our coastline, and that could help us. I think Senator Domenici has talked about it as a bridge to a clean energy future, where we have more cars that run on battery electricity and we wean ourselves from our dependency--not only on foreign oil but on oil, period, because with the growing demand globally, the price pressure on that oil is going to get nothing but worse, rather than better. I say to the Senator from Tennessee, I know there has been a lot of commotion on the floor over the last few weeks about whether we stay on this issue or whether we move off it to talk about other issues. I know this side of the aisle has insisted that high energy prices and high gasoline prices is the most pressing domestic issue facing our country today. We have been pretty clear that we are not going to leave, and we are not going to move off this issue to something else and leave this unresolved. I ask the Senator from Tennessee: Is that an approach he agrees with, and does he agree that this is the single most pressing issue facing our country from a domestic standpoint in our economy today?

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the Senator from Tennessee said earlier if we were all to make the decision in 2010 to move to hybrid plug-in vehicles, it would take some time to replace the internal combustion cars in this country. Some said if we were to open up ANWR, the 2000- acre plot of land in a 19 million-acre frozen tundra in Alaska, or if we were to open up the Outer Continental Shelf, it would take years before the oil would flow into the pipeline. I ask the Senator, if Congress were to send a message today that we were going to allow the development of as much as 3 million additional barrels of American oil a day, whether it is from the oil shale out West, or from ANWR, or from the Outer Continental Shelf, what in your view would be the message to the commodities traders who trade oil as a global commodity, and who buy and sell futures contracts for the delivery of oil? In your opinion, would that have a rather immediate impact on the price of oil and, thus, the price of gasoline?

Mr. CORNYN. The Senator knows we tried to find a consensus or common ground we could hopefully agree upon and asked some of our friends on the other side to join us and, rather than talking about the issue, actually try to solve the problem. So we did include, as part of the ``find more, use less'' formulation a title on speculation, where we say there needs to be certainly transparency so we can see what is going on; and to the extent the Commodity Futures Trading Commission needs more cops on the beat, more resources to do their job, then we need to supply those analysts, investigators, and resources to be able to make sure abuses don't occur. I remember when the Senator from Arizona was talking about this. Warren Buffett has been quoted recently as saying that speculation is not the problem. He agrees with the New York Times. He says it is a matter of supply and demand. T. Boone Pickens, my constituent, who has made quite a splash with his energy plans, said if all you are going to do is focus on speculation, that is a waste of time. So we tried to come up with a commonsense approach to this and one that could develop a critical mass of bipartisan support. Until now, the majority leader, who controls the floor in the Senate, has decided not to allow us that opportunity. Yesterday--I agree with the Senator from Tennessee--it looked as though there was a little speck of light in the darkness; a little hope was there that the majority leader would perhaps modify his position. I hope we don't leave here this week without doing something meaningful to bring down the price of gasoline. We are certainly willing to listen to the ideas our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have. I suspect that if they have the opportunity to vote, a number of them would agree with us. Maybe they would have ideas we would agree with, in an effort to build a bipartisan solution. We have to do something and, frankly, Congress has been part of the problem. We need to be part of the solution.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. If I might through the Chair, under the rules of the Senate, I would be entitled to 30 hours of debate postcloture on the motion to proceed.