John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I know Senate procedure can be confusing, but by the vote that was just held, we have said we are not leaving, we are not giving up, and we intend to fight to help bring down the price of gasoline at the pump. People may ask: How in the world can Congress do that? Well, the reality is, Congress has been the problem when it comes to accessing the American sources of oil we have right here at home. The consequence has been that we send $700 billion a year to foreign countries for the oil we consume here in America because we are so unwise and so stubborn and so opposed, for some reason, to developing those natural resources right here in America. That is what this vote meant, that we are not going to quit and we are going to stay on this issue until we can convince the people responsible for setting the agenda here in the Senate to provide us an opportunity to vote on additional supply as we consider a comprehensive approach which includes conservation, renewable fuels, and clean energy alternatives. The fact is, we know we are not going to be able to deal with the high price of gasoline at the pump until we increase American supply--until we find more and we use less right here at home. It is important to talk about responsibility. None of us here in the Senate can control what the majority leader, the Democratic leader of his caucus, does. Only he has the power to allow a full debate and an amendment process that will allow Democrats and Republicans a vote on additional supply. I know Congress is held in low esteem. All you have to do is look at a public opinion poll. But it is important for the American people to know that it is not necessarily Congress as a whole. It is the leadership that actually has the power and the authority to allow something to happen. We are here imploring the majority leader, the leader of the Democratic caucus, to allow us a vote on provisions in this bill which we believe will have a dramatic impact on the price of gasoline at the pump. Right now, we have, in effect, a moratorium on 85 percent of the domestic natural resources here in America, whether it is the submerged lands in the Outer Continental Shelf along the coastlines or the oil shale out West or the oil up in the Arctic. We not only have a moratorium, or a ban passed by Congress for the last 30 years prohibiting the production of those natural resources, but we have a political blockade. And the people who have imposed that political blockade are the Democratic majority leader, Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party for President, Barack Obama. They have the power to allow an opportunity for the American people to get some relief at the pump, but they are the ones who are blocking it through this political blockade. We know there are at least 44 Republicans who agreed to a bill we call the Gas Price Reduction Act. We are looking for about 10 or 11 or 12 Democrats to join us in saying: Yes, we can, Because all we hear on the other side of the aisle is no, we can't. Yes, we can. We can tear down these walls that prohibit domestic energy production here in America and I hope Barack Obama, if he thinks it is important enough to go to Berlin yesterday and talk about tearing down walls, will come back here to the Senate and say let's tear down this wall. If he does so, and the Democratic leadership follows suit, we can open up America's vast national resources to production. We can acknowledge the existence of the laws of supply and demand, and the American people will get the relief they want and so desperately need. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Well, I am delighted to try to answer that question, as well, because I think the Senator's question demonstrates--I am not complaining; I am not criticizing. You know we are not oil and gas experts, but I have had a little bit of exposure. Let me try to answer that. There is not a big lake of oil under the surface of the land that is available to anybody who can punch a hole in the earth and then suck it out with a straw. So I do not think the analogy is apt. These oil companies in America are owned by shareholders. They are not interested in drilling dry holes. They are interested in drilling where there is actually going to be some oil that can be produced. The more opportunity they have, the more lands available to them, the greater, they believe and I believe, they can maximize the likelihood that they will actually find oil. This is not to help the oil companies, this is to help us quit sending 700 billion a year of American dollars to foreign countries for oil while we have more of it at home, if you believe the experts, about 3 million barrels a day.

Mr. CORNYN. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I appreciate the question and the opportunity to try to answer that. Let me do the best I can. I think there is the illusion here in Washington that every acre of land that is available for exploration is going to produce oil. As a matter of fact, in Texas--I am not unfamiliar with the term ``dry hole.'' As a matter of fact, this is a very complex enterprise, where you do seismic testing to try to figure out where oil is likely to be. Sometimes you are wrong and it costs millions, even sometimes billions of dollars to invest to try to produce that oil. What the oil companies try to do is figure out where their chances are best so they start there. But the more land--including the submerged lands in the Outer Continental Shelf--that is available to them that now Congress has put out of bounds, I think the better the chances are they will be able to find it. As a matter of fact, there are experts--I am not an expert, but I read what the experts say--who believe there are vast quantities of oil and gas available in the Outer Continental Shelf that are not available now on the lands to which they have access.

Mr. CORNYN. I will be happy to.

Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Senator from Tennessee for his good work and good words on this important issue. I agree with him that it is a serious problem and it calls for serious answers. We need a response by the Senate when it comes to energy, when it comes to our dependency on imported oil. As T. Boone Pickens has pointed out in his crusade to try to help people understand where we are on this, he said we send $700 billion of American money to foreign countries to pay for the oil we import. That is because we are not producing enough here at home, because we are not conserving, and we are not far enough down the road in terms of coming up with alternative sources of energy. What is Congress's role in all this? We have done some things. I think we ought to give credit where credit is due. We have passed a corporate fuel efficiency standard for automobiles. We have passed tax benefits and subsidies for things such as solar power and wind energy. We have encouraged the production of biofuels such as ethanol, although we are finding sometimes that the unintended consequences of using food for fuel creates problems in and of itself. Suffice it to say, this is a serious problem and Congress has, in many respects, acted I think appropriately to address some parts of the problem. Unfortunately, like so much of politics these days, this sometimes degrades into a name- calling contest. I am going to try my best not to engage in that. But I do want to respond to the accusation that was made earlier that somehow this is attributable to the current administration's tenure in office. As you can see from this chart, the price of gasoline back when President Bush was sworn into office in January 2001 was $1.49 a gallon. It has grown over time to when the Democrats took control of the Congress, in January of 2007, to $2.33 a gallon. Then of course it has spiked since that time to now on the order of $4.06 a gallon on average, more than $4 a gallon. It has gone from January 2001 to today to more than $4 a gallon. While our friends who are in charge of the agenda and the floor schedule of the Congress, the Democrats who were put in a majority status, have been here, we have seen it spike to the figures of today. That is not to say it is directly attributable to them, but I would say it is unfair to suggest that because President Bush has been in office since January 2001, he is the only one responsible. The fact is, it is our responsibility too. It is the majority leader's responsibility, I submit, to give us an opportunity to come up with serious answers to a serious problem and not play the same old broken game of politics and ``gotcha'' that turns people off so much when it comes to the Congress. It is no secret why the approval rating of the Congress is at historic lows. There is no secret to that. It is because people look at what is happening here in Washington, DC, and they say: They are not listening or they may be listening, but they are playing political games rather than trying to solve real problems on a bipartisan basis. I know there is plenty of fault to go around, but why can't we work together to try to solve the most pressing issue for working families in America today, and that is the high cost of gasoline and energy? We know there is a bill on the floor that deals with one part of the problem. This has to do with the so-called speculation. Last month, Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in America and perhaps one of the richest in the world, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, said: It is not speculation that is the problem, it is supply and demand. T. Boone Pickens, whom I mentioned a moment ago--who is spending $50 million of his own money--met with Republicans today, met with Democrats yesterday, to explain why he is spending so much of his own money to elevate the profile of this issue so it will be something Congress cannot run away from and neither can the Presidential candidates but is something they will have to address and solve. He said focusing solely on speculation is a waste of time. Why would Congress deal with a bill that only addresses speculation? I would say I am not sure. What I am willing to do is certainly consider and probably support a bill that would be supported on the Democratic side that would provide for greater transparency of the commodity futures markets and would provide more resources to make sure we have more cops on the beat, so to speak, to police the commodity futures trading that goes on and to make sure that is not the problem or, if it is part of the problem, as the majority leader said yesterday--he stood here on the floor of the Senate and said he thought it was 20 percent of the problem in terms of the price of oil. I don't know if T. Boone Pickens is right; I don't know if Warren Buffett is right; I don't know whether the majority leader is right. Let's say the majority leader is right and it is 20 percent of the problem. Why in the world would we leave the other 80 percent off the table? Why would we settle for a 20-percent solution when we could have a 100-percent solution, in trying to address this important domestic issue? We have come up with a lot of ideas. We have said we need to explore and produce more American oil so we have to buy less from overseas. We have been told no, we cannot do that. We have been told no, we can't produce more nuclear power to help generate more electricity. No, we can't investigate the possibility that we could use the coal we have here for new technology that would allow us to use that coal to make aviation fuel--as the U.S. Air Force is currently testing, a synthetic fuel made with coal-to-liquid technology. Again--I don't think this is unfair and I think this is exactly what we keep hearing--it seems that the answer from the other side of the aisle is: No new energy. They want to investigate. They want to litigate. They want to raise taxes. But when it comes to new energy sources, they say no. The one law that Congress of course cannot repeal or suspend, even here in Washington, DC, is the law of supply and demand. We know from the experts that there is rising demand in countries such as China and India, with more than a billion people each. They are buying cars, they are consuming more energy. They have watched us and they have seen that America consumes about 25 percent of the oil in the world, even though we represent a small fraction of the population. They look at that and they say maybe that is the reason for their great prosperity. I think there is something to that. We are having more and more competition globally for this scarce commodity. What is our answer on this side of the aisle? We say we need to find more and we need to use less. Find more, use less. I heard the Senator from Tennessee bemoan the fact that the majority leader has said he will not allow a full debate and amendments to this legislation. I think it is absolutely critical that we allow full debate and amendments that would be likely to actually solve the problem, rather than go through what is a patently political exercise so somebody or another can check off the box and say: OK, we have been there, done that. Now we can go home on August recess. I believe we ought to stay here. Rather than go on recess in August, I believe we ought to stay here until we actually come up with a commonsense solution to this problem. Some have said OK, if we start drilling today in the Outer Continental Shelf, it is going to take years for that oil to come on line. I wish we had thought better about that 10 years ago, when President Clinton vetoed production from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Congress had authorized, which would have produced 1 million additional barrels of oil 10 years ago. That would be flowing today if President Clinton had not vetoed that bill. The fact is, oil is a globally traded commodity. That is where we get back to the speculation question. Actually, the market is a pretty rational process. For everybody selling a contract for future delivery of oil, there is somebody who is willing to buy it. That is how the market works, a willing seller and a willing buyer. If Congress were to do the rational thing, the sensible thing, the thing that would actually have a positive impact by pushing gas prices downward, we would say we are open to producing more American energy, perhaps as many as 3 million additional barrels of oil a day here in America, which is 3 million barrels less than we have to purchase from abroad. That would give us some time. It would also send a message to the commodity futures markets that in the future there is going to be additional supply that is going to come on line. That would help bring down the price of oil because 70 percent of the price of gasoline is related to the price of oil. I think that would have a dramatic impact on the price of gasoline at the pump and would provide the American people some relief at a time when they need some financial relief. It would give us some time so we could do the research and use good old-fashioned American ingenuity to come up with alternatives, things such as in 2010, when many of the big automobile companies are going to introduce plug-in hybrid automobiles that you can actually plug into the wall socket in your home and charge the battery you can use then to commute to work or, if you believe what Boone Pickens has suggested, he said if Government would mandate that all new Government cars and trucks run on natural gas, that would relieve a lot of the pressure on gasoline and oil prices and bring down the price of gasoline by 38 percent.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, who is very knowledgable on this subject. I do say to him that I do believe that I and others on this side of the aisle will vote to invoke cloture on the speculation provision. But I do have some questions about it. First of all, I asked the majority leader how much of the problem of the high price of oil was caused by speculation. He said some people say 20 percent. I cited to him Warren Buffett, a multibillionaire, somebody who knows a lot about financing, and he said he thought it was supply and demand. T. Boone Pickens, one of my constituents, who has made a lot of waves here recently, talking about the importance of wind energy and talking about the importance of natural gas, said that focusing on speculation is a waste of time. Now, I do not know whether it is a waste of time or whether it is 20 percent. But I would ask the majority leader, why are we only going to focus--assuming you are right and speculation is 20 percent of the problem--why are we only going to focus on a 20-percent solution? Why not focus on the 80 percent he is leaving on the table by not talking about supply and demand? Of course, while Congress continues to not do things that might have an impact, we have seen, since January 4, 2007--since the Democratic majority took power--the price of gasoline, which was $2.33 a gallon, today has dropped just a little bit, dropped a nickel, to $4.06 a gallon. Here is what Warren Buffet, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire- Hathaway, told us: It's not speculation, it is supply and demand. I am not saying this, but let's say somebody would say he is wrong and Senator Reid is right, it is 20 percent. How come we are not talking about that remaining 80 percent? That, frankly, is what our side of the aisle would like to talk about. We would like to talk about a 100-percent solution, assuming that is humanly possible. I was in Texas this weekend. Yesterday I hosted a press conference at the Flying J truckstop on I-35 in Waco, TX. I must tell you, all I hear from my constituents back home is how the high price of gasoline is not only pinching their budget but making it harder for them to get by. I also went to the North Texas Food Bank in Dallas. Of course I talked to a lot of the volunteers and other staff there who are doing great work providing food for people who are hungry. What they are telling me is that the high price of fuel is increasing the cost of food. Using ethanol, using corn for fuel, is causing additional pressure on food prices. We are finding that not only are people suffering more at the pump when they go to fill up their tank, actually they are finding it harder to put food on the table, putting more and more pressure on charitable organizations such as the North Texas Food Bank. Try as we might, there is one law that we simply can no longer refuse to acknowledge, and that is the law of supply and demand. We know world demand is going up because rising economies such as China and India, countries of more than 1 billion people each, want more of what we have. They want to be able to buy cars, they want to be able to drive those cars, they want the prosperity that comes with access to energy that we in America have had pretty much to ourselves for a long time. It is important for Congress to realize the one power we do have, frankly, is the power to lift the moratorium on the 85 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf where we know there are vast supplies of oil and natural gas. For every barrel of oil that we produce in America, that is one barrel less we have to buy from the Middle East, including OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which includes countries such as Iran, or from countries such as Venezuela, from Hugo Chavez, someone who obviously does not wish us well. We know there are ways to come up with new sources. Unfortunately, every time we bring up new energy sources to try to bring down the price of oil by producing more supply at home we are told we cannot do that; that is, offshore exploration was blocked, oil shale was blocked, which reportedly accounts for about 2 million additional barrels of oil that we can produce in America, in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. ANWR, a 2,000-acre postage stamp in a huge expanse of land in the Arctic that could produce as many as 1 million barrels of oil a day, that is blocked. It does not just stop there. We say we need to do something about rising electricity costs as well, so why can't we build some nuclear powerplants? We have been told we cannot do that either; that is blocked. Why can't we figure a way to use the coal we have in America? We have been called the Saudi Arabia of coal. The problem is, coal is dirty. But we have the technology, we have the know-how, I believe, using good old-fashioned American ingenuity and our world class institutions of higher education to do the research, to learn how to use it cleanly. Clean coal research and technology--that has been blocked as well. Increasingly, it sounds as though either we are engaged in a nonsolution, if you believe Mr. Buffet--and the majority leader is going to confine us simply to a speculation provision--or, at best, according to the majority leader's own words, we are only going to be dealing with 20 percent of the problem. I think we ought to deal with 100 percent of the problem. Unfortunately, it seems as though every time we bring up the issue of more domestic supply, our friends on the other side of the aisle, who control the floor and control the agenda by virtue of their being in the majority, have simply said: No. No. Unfortunately, no new energy continues to mean higher prices for the American consumer. On this side of the aisle we have introduced a bill that has the support of 46 Republicans. We skinnied it down to try to eliminate controversial issues, and we said: Let's look at the speculation component. Let's look at greater transparency. Let's look at putting more cops on the beat, more human resources to make sure we supervise and we analyze and we make sure we police the commodity futures market for abuses. But we don't just stop there. We don't stop with a 20- percent solution. We provide a comprehensive solution by saying yes to domestic oil supply, using what God has given us in this country in a way that will allow us to be less dependent on imported oil from the Middle East. As we continue to do that--and this is the other component of the gas price reduction bill I am referring to, that has 46 cosponsors--we say let's continue to do the research on renewable and alternative fuels because one day it may well be that we are all driving battery-powered cars that we literally plug into the wall socket at night to charge those batteries. That is what the major car companies are going to be introducing into the marketplace in 2010. As we continue to do research in wind energy or solar to generate electricity, we continue to do research into how to use coal to transform it into liquid so we can turn it into aviation fuel. Believe it or not, that is what the U.S. Air Force is doing right now. It is flying some of its most sophisticated airplanes using synthetic fuel made from coal, coal to liquid. The challenge we have, of course, is to try to make sure we can sequester the carbon dioxide produced from that. I don't know why every time we try to find more and we try to talk about the importance of conservation that our Democratic friends, including the majority leader, just simply say no. Why they would offer either a nonsolution or a 20-percent solution, depending on whether you want to believe T. Boone Pickens or you want to believe the majority leader--T. Boone Pickens, who said just addressing speculation is a waste of time; Warren Buffet, who said it is not speculation but supply and demand that is the problem. But let's say the majority leader is right, and both of them are wrong. At best we have a 20-percent solution. I think America needs better than that. The strange thing about it is I don't know why we would resist going onto this bill and offering amendments that would provide a 100-percent solution to America's energy problems. Find more and use less is the formula we would like to see enacted in this legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, will the distinguished majority leader yield for one question?

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would respond briefly and say to the distinguished majority leader, I have been listening. I have been on the floor literally every day talking about this issue. But I will say what surprised me about the 20-percent figure is that Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, said it is not speculation that is driving up the price of oil, it is supply and demand. So that is why I was asking for a citation because it is the first time I have heard it. I do not think I am the only one, and I have been listening.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would ask the distinguished majority leader, I am informed he had stated in his earlier remarks that 20 percent of the problem we have with high oil prices now is the result of speculation. I was wondering if the distinguished majority leader would--that is the first time I had heard that figure. I wonder if he could provide a citation or some place----

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, reserving the right to object, our side thinks it is imperative that we move to lower gas prices, so I object to the unanimous-consent request.

Mr. CORNYN. I object.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, after the last election in 2006, the Democrats gained control of both the House and Senate. With that victory comes responsibility; that is, to manage the agenda in a way that addresses America's most urgent priorities. Unfortunately, we have seen a record that does not reflect well and, perhaps, is one reason why poll numbers for the Congress are at a historic low. The American people, according to the latest Rasmussen and Gallup Polls I have seen, have given Congress the lowest ratings since polling began. One might ask, why is that? It is something we should all be concerned about. First, we know it took 145 days until we finally passed a reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Thanks to the good work of Senators Rockefeller and Bond on a bipartisan basis, they came up with a good bill. Unfortunately, we dawdled for 145 days on our ability to gather intelligence by listening to communications between foreign terror subjects. We waited for 145 days to finally get that done. Thankfully, we finally did. The rest of the record is not as good as even that. For 604 days, the Colombia Free Trade Agreement has been left pending. In Texas, we sell $2.3 billion worth of agricultural goods and manufactured goods to Colombia each year. It bears a tariff because Congress has refused to take up, principally because of the Speaker of the House, Ms. Pelosi, the Colombian Free Trade Agreement that would remove those barriers to American goods being sold in Colombia. Unfortunately, it is not a two-way street, because Colombian goods bear no tariff coming into the United States. This is an example of the congressional inaction shooting American agriculture and the manufacturing sector in the foot when it comes to their ability to compete in a global economy, due to mismanagement of the agenda. For 749 days, judicial nominees have been waiting for an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. I disagree with the distinguished majority leader. Judges do matter. People need access to courts. We might as well put a padlock on the front door of the courthouse if we are not going to confirm well-qualified judicial nominees to serve. Whether it is victims of crime who need access to the courts or a small businessman or woman who has a civil dispute they need resolved in a court of law, those people are being denied access to justice because we are not confirming enough judges nominated by the President. Finally, it has been 815 days since Speaker Pelosi, before she ran for her current position, said Democrats, if elected and given the responsibility and the privilege of serving as leaders of the Congress, would come up with a commonsense plan to relieve prices of gasoline at the pump. Back when she assumed control of the House and when Democrats assumed control of the Senate, gasoline was $2.33 a gallon. Today it is $4.11, and we are still waiting for that commonsense plan to relieve the pain at the pump. It is no secret the price of energy is driving up the price of all sorts of commodities, including food. I recently was at a food bank in Houston where they said the demand for their services to provide food to people who can't otherwise provide for themselves has gone through the roof because the cost of food has gone up, along with the cost of gasoline and energy. We want to try to work with our colleagues on the other side. I hope we can on this Energy bill the majority leader has brought to the floor. But it only addresses a narrow aspect of the problem, speculation on the commodities futures market. We need a comprehensive bill to deal with the law of supply and demand and to acknowledge that Congress has been part of the problem and not part of the solution by imposing moratoria on development of oil and gas reserves on the Outer Continental Shelf for 27 years. Last year, when Congress put a ban on development of the oil shale in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah, Congress became part of the problem and not part of the solution, when it comes to producing more oil domestically and relying less on imported oil from the Middle East. I have been fascinated by the Presidential campaigns, the slogans the different parties have adopted. I know we have seen Senator Obama say ``Yes, we can'' and talk about change. But unfortunately, the answer from our friends on the other side of the aisle, when it comes to a commonsense energy policy, when it comes to bringing down the price of oil by producing more American supply, seems to be: No, we can't. We would love to work with our friends on the other side of the aisle to say, yes, we can address the needs of the American people and help relieve some of the pain they are suffering at the pump. But every time we bring up an energy proposal, whether it is on nuclear energy, clean coal, offshore exploration, oil shale or ANWR, it seems we get an answer of no. The so-called energy bills our friends on the other side of the aisle have proposed do not produce one drop of additional energy or one kilowatt of additional electricity. How can you call that an energy policy? The new energy produced as a result of our friends on the other side saying no, instead of yes, to bipartisan efforts to solve the problems has been no new energy produced. Our friend, Senator Menendez from New Jersey, said we need to talk less and act more. I would agree with that. We need to talk less and act more. Unfortunately, what we have received so far is a lot of talk and no action. We need action to help bring down the price of gasoline at the pump. Republicans believe we need a comprehensive policy that conserves energy and eliminates waste. Recently, I was in Tyler, TX, at a Brookshire Grocery, where they have modified their tractor-trailer rigs to use less diesel and modified the speed at which they drive. They are reducing consumption of the skyrocketing prices of diesel. We can conserve and use less, but we also need to find more. It makes no sense, as some have suggested, that we ought to sue OPEC to get them to open the spigot even wider so we can send more money overseas to the Middle East and to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. That makes no sense whatsoever, to pass higher tax burdens on those people who produce domestic energy. We tried that back in the 1980s during the Carter Presidency. All it did was drive down domestic production and drive up foreign imports. Eventually, as we all know, higher taxes get passed on to the consumer. That is not an answer. We believe the answer to our energy problems is to find more and use less. As we travel this bridge to a clean energy future, we know we need more renewable fuels--wind energy, solar--to develop electricity. Yes, we need biofuels, but we have to work through the problem of using food for fuel that has contributed to higher food prices. We need a balanced energy policy. We implore the distinguished majority leader not to try to check the box to try to say we have done something, when, in fact, we have done nothing to address high prices at the pump, and to work with us to allow us to increase supply of domestic energy. We could produce as many as 3 million additional barrels of oil a day from American sources, if Congress would simply get out of the way, lift the moratoria, and allow that exploration and production to begin. If we did that, it would send an important signal to the commodities futures markets that Congress is not going to stand in the way and that more supply will be available in the future. I believe it would have a dramatic impact and a dramatic reduction on the price of future contracts for oil, much as we saw the President's announcement that he was lifting the executive moratorium on offshore exploration seemed to have a dramatic impact in one day, lowering the price of oil by about $8. We ask, as respectfully and earnestly as we know how, the majority leader not to make this another political exercise but to work with us to try to create a real solution. It would reflect well on all of us, Republicans and Democrats, and we would see our basement-level popularity ratings go up. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to split our time equally between myself, the Senator from Georgia, and the Senator from Missouri.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Reserving the right to object, I understand the distinguished majority leader and the distinguished Republican leader are going to be discussing a process by which amendments might be allowed to this important piece of legislation. Therefore, pending resolution of that, I object.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. I object.

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, reserving the right to object, the ranking member, Senator Specter, wishes a block of time for Senators to speak. He would agree if the distinguished majority leader would agree to modify his unanimous-consent request. Senator Specter would agree to debate from noon to 3:00 today with the votes to follow.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I want to talk as well about high gasoline prices. I agree with my colleagues that this is the No. 1 issue of the day when it comes to domestic policy. Frankly, as we talk about the housing crisis, the subprime mortgage crisis, hopefully, our economy will work through this difficulty with the collective efforts of the White House and Congress. But, frankly, I am worried the most that unless Congress acts to lift the moratorium on the Outer Continental Shelf, the oil shale, and other sources of oil here at home, then it will be high gasoline and high energy prices that will plunge our Nation into a recession. As bad as people feel the economy is going right now, I believe it can only get worse, unless Congress acts responsibly to deal with the causes of high gas prices. It is within our grasp to have a positive impact and bring down the price of gasoline at the pump. I think it is important for the American people to understand that the consequences of the last election in 2006 meant that the Democrats--our friends on the other side of the aisle--are in charge. As the Senator from Tennessee mentioned, it is Senator Reid, the Senator from Nevada, the majority leader, who controls floor time. We cannot bring things up on the floor of the Senate unless he says it is OK. What we are doing here today is imploring him to get to work--to allow us to get to work on the Nation's business when it comes to bringing down the price of gas at the pump. There is some good news: After 145 days of delay and going dark listening to foreign terrorists, because we hadn't reauthorized the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, we were able to get a bipartisan compromise and pass that legislation. Here, again, this is where the majority party, the Democrats, control the agenda and, frankly, we are seeing unnecessary delays that were causing harm not only to our intelligence gathering, but also it has been 603 days since the Colombia Free Trade Agreement has been stalled. This is an example where my State sells $2.3 billion of produce from our farmers and manufactured goods to Colombia. They bear a tariff that would be removed if that trade agreement were to go through, which would create additional markets and help create jobs and improve the economy not only in Texas but across the country. If we can persuade Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid to allow this thing to go through, we can see a boost in our economy as a result of that free trade agreement. Then, of course, there is the matter of judicial nominees who have been blocked because of the unwillingness of the majority leader to allow them to have a vote on the Senate floor. It has been 748 days. I am here to talk about this last figure, and that is the 814 days since Speaker Pelosi said, in anticipation of the 2006 election: If Democrats get elected and if I become speaker, we are going to have a commonsense plan to bring down the price of gasoline at the pump. That was when gasoline prices were $2.33 a gallon. We thought gas prices were high then. What are they today? They are an average of $4.11 a gallon. We are still waiting for that plan. So we are here to ask, in the most respectful way we know how, for the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, who controls the floor of the Senate, to bring a bill to the floor that will allow us to deal with this national economic crisis and provide some relief to the hard- working families in Texas and across the Nation who need some help. We know that high energy prices not only impact the quality of life and the economic welfare of hard-working people in my State and across the country, it has a ripple effect on the price of food and other commodities, which is driving up inflation and threatening our economy. So we need some action. I was somewhat amused to hear the distinguished Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Menendez, come to the floor yesterday and talk about the need to ``act more and talk less.'' Act more and talk less. I agree with the slogan, but I wish the majority leader and our friends on the other side of the aisle, who are in control of the agenda of the Senate, would take their own advice: Act more, talk less. We know what is necessary in order to deal with the energy crisis in this country. Here is what we have encountered: Nothing but obstruction. The Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Domenici, is our leader on energy issues. He is the ranking member, and former chairman, of the Senate Committee on Energy. He has been an unparalleled advocate of the expansion of nuclear power to generate electricity in this country. What happens when we ask our friends on the other side of the aisle to work with us to try to expand the availability of cheap electricity through nuclear power in a safe way? It is blocked. What are we told, regarding our 300-year supply of coal in this country, that we want to invest money in clean coal technology and to use that energy in a way that protects the environment but generates electricity to be used by the American people? We are told, ``no, you cannot do that either'' by the majority party. When it comes to offshore exploration, taking advantage of the God-given natural resources America has been blessed with, we are told, ``no, you cannot do that either,'' even though it is within the power of the Congress to lift the ban that was imposed by the Congress, which would allow us to explore and produce oil from the submerged lands around our shoreline. The President lifted the executive ban a couple of days ago. So the only barrier to the production of more of America's natural resources here at home in the submerged lands off our coastline is the Congress. Our friends on the other side of the aisle are in charge, and we are imploring them to work with us to produce more American energy. We have heard a lot about the oil shale out in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. About 2 million additional barrels of oil a day, we are told, could be produced from that oil shale. But we are told, ``no, you cannot do that.'' That was Congress that imposed that ban last year on developing the oil shale, which could relieve some of that pain at the pump. Then, of course, we know about ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. When Congress actually passed legislation that would allow exploration and production of oil in ANWR, President Clinton vetoed it about 10 years ago. If he hadn't vetoed that legislation, we would have about a million barrels a day on line that would help with supply and would bring down the price. So the new energy policy of our friends on the other side of the aisle seems to be a ``no energy'' policy. It is not ``let's do this instead of that''; it is just ``no new energy.'' Now we are told that the majority leader wants to bring a bill to the floor to focus on speculation in the commodities market. We favor an examination of the commodities futures market, more transparency, and more cops on the beat in order to make sure the American people are being well served by the commodities futures market. But it is not the only problem we need to deal with. We need to deal with the law of supply and demand, which, amazingly, Congress is under the misimpression that it can suspend the law of supply and demand. We know, because we have been told by the world's experts, that we are in competition with growing economies, such as China and India, with more than a billion people each, who are buying cars and using more energy because they want the prosperity that comes along with more energy use. China's GDP is growing at 10 percent a year. It is building about two new coal-powered plants a week in that country. So we know we are in a global competition. You would think that common sense would tell us, from a national security standpoint and from the standpoint of bolstering our economy here at home and producing additional supply, which will give us temporary relief as we transit that bridge Senator Domenici talks about to a clean energy future--we know in the long run we are going to have to get off of an oil-based energy dependency. Frankly, there is not enough of it for us to permanently continue where we are now. That is why alternative sources of energy are important and why it is important that we conserve and, as Senator Alexander said, ``find more, use less.'' I was in Tyler, TX, last week, at Brookshire Groceries, which is a chain there. They were talking about how they had retrofitted their tractor-trailer rigs and tried to find ways to conserve and use less diesel. They told me how they had retrofitted their tractor-trailer rigs to try to conserve and use less diesel. They found, also, that if they drove their trucks at about 62 miles an hour, they could maximize the range that they could travel--the distance--and minimize the consumption of diesel. If I am not mistaken, I think they told me they were able to save roughly 20 percent of their diesel consumption by finding ways to conserve. So we support the concept of using less, but we need to find more at the same time. It makes sense that we produce more here in America. It will create jobs at a time when our economy is flying into a headwind right here in America, all across the country. It will bring some relief to consumers at the pump. We know that 70 percent of the price of gasoline is directly tied to the price of oil. We need to ``act more and talk less,'' I agree. But it is up to the majority leader to allow us to act by bringing an energy bill to the floor. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up my amendment No. 5083 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I think everyone admires the humanitarian intent of this legislation. But the American people have a right to know that their money is going to be spent for the intended purpose--to treat AIDS and HIV in the countries covered--and that it is not wasted. One of the reasons foreign aid gets a bad rap is because people wonder whether it is going to be squandered or used appropriately. The only thing this amendment does is provide an extra set of eyes to make sure every dollar is spent, as Congress intended, on a humanitarian purpose. This is especially important under this particular program because the Congressional Budget Office says that even though this bill authorizes $50 billion for this purpose, only about $35 billion could actually be spent during the 5-year period covered by this bill. What is going to happen to the additional $15 billion? One might ask, are we going to try to jam $15 billion more into the program than can actually be spent effectively and efficiently to accomplish congressional purpose? The extra set of eyes would be welcome. It doesn't substitute for the important oversight work the committee is performing, but when the Office of Management and Budget surveys 1,000 Government programs and finds that almost a quarter of them are not operating the way Congress intended or there is not enough evidence to tell, which I am not sure which is worse, we have to be more diligent than we have been about spending money effectively. As regards the uncertainty of future Congresses and how they might act, that is inherent in the fact that Congress can pass laws, can repeal laws. That is part of what we do, the reason why we have an open process and full and fair debate on issues. No one is suggesting that is going to happen here. I am saying, let's make sure this money is spent for the intended purpose.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as I was saying, I think we can all agree that providing relief for those afflicted with the AIDS virus is a worthy and noble goal. I appreciate the efforts of the Senator from Indiana, Mr. Lugar, and the Senator from Delaware, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, for their work. I think we all would recognize, though, that it is important not only that Congress provide appropriate oversight for the various programs that we create and the spending that we authorize but that we actually do everything we can to make sure any waste associated with a Government program, particularly one as big as this one, with a $50 billion authorization, that we establish mechanisms that will allow us to review and provide the appropriate oversight, and, if necessary, eliminate inefficient and wasteful programs. My amendment establishes the bipartisan U.S. Authorization and Sunset Commission, which will help improve oversight and eliminate wasteful Government spending in programs reauthorized or established by S. 2731, the PEPFAR bill. Just to be clear, in negotiations with the majority leader, I actually had a sunset commission bill modeled after the sunset commission in my State and a variety of States that has been enormously effective in looking across the Government to reduce waste and inefficient programs. But in our negotiations we agreed this would be narrowly addressed in the PEPFAR Program, which I think is appropriate. But I want to say that I intend to be here at every opportunity pressing this issue because of its importance across the Federal Government in reducing waste and inefficiency. As I said, the sunset commission idea was modeled after the process in my State, which--and I know many other States, but in Texas it was instituted in 1977 and has eliminated, over time, more than 50 State agencies that were no longer serving their stated purpose and saved State taxpayers more than $700 million. The commission consists of four Senators and four Members of the House of Representatives. The CBO and GAO will serve as nonvoting ex officio members. My original intent, as I said, was to make this more broad than just the PEPFAR Program, but perhaps this would be a great sort of pilot program, if you will, to see how it works, as we consider programs and expand it more broadly. The commission will recommend ways to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the PEPFAR Program according to a timeline. While certainly this $50 billion is an awful lot of money, and certainly it is $20 billion over and above what the President actually originally asked for, and as the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office has said, it is probably going to be impossible for the program to spend more than $35 billion within the 5-year budget window, it makes it even more important--the matter of making sure that the money is spent for intended purposes--that it is actually used to treat AIDS and HIV and actually help people get better and not waste it on extraneous matters. Under this amendment, Congress cannot simply ignore the commission's report. The amendment provides expedited procedures that will force Congress to consider and debate the commission's work, similar to the BRAC procedures. This commission will help Congress do the necessary oversight to make sure every taxpayer dollar under PEPFAR is being spent wisely. The commission will focus on unauthorized and ineffective programs, as I said. The simple fact is, within the myriad of programs, funds, and organizations funded by Congress each year, the Office of Management and Budget has done a review of about 1,000 Government programs and concluded that about 25 percent of them were either ineffective or that the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, said there was not sufficient information to make a conclusion one way or another. That is 25 percent of about 1,000 Government programs. So we know there is waste and ineffectiveness of Government programs, and the need for more oversight is there. I think this would basically provide Congress two bites at the apple when it comes to evaluating Federal spending: when it authorizes a program, and, secondly, when it appropriates money for it. Year after year the Congressional Budget Office has found that Congress appropriates billions and billions of dollars of taxpayers' money on programs, despite the fact that their authorization has expired. This means Congress has dropped the ball when it comes to doing the hard work of figuring out whether these programs are working and whether taxpayers' money is being spent efficiently or wastefully. While we all do our best to ensure that proper oversight is given to every program, we simply do not have the tools or the time necessary to monitor and review every program. That is why this sunset commission review is important. It would give these tools, specifically because of the narrowed-down nature of the amendment, to the PEPFAR Program. But I think it is particularly applicable, given the fact that this bill would more than triple the amount of Government spending for this particular program. The commission will be of assistance to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It will not replace their work; instead, it will supplement their work. It will serve as another set of eyeballs, keeping a close eye on the wallets of the taxpayer. Let me be clear, though, in conclusion. This is not a problem only for PEPFAR and this program, it is a problem in every part of our Government. I continue to support the creation of a sunset commission that would review all Government operations--from transportation to scientific research to foreign aid. And my hope is at a later point we will be able to urge its adoption more broadly. Simply put, the purpose of the commission is to ask: Is this program still needed? Is it still serving the intended purpose? Is the money that Congress has appropriated, is it accomplishing the goal that Congress intends? I think, and my hope is, that my colleagues would support this amendment and provide this needed additional oversight that would assist the Congress in making sure that taxpayers' money is being spent as intended to help the worthy humanitarian purposes for which this particular program is intended.

Mr. CORNYN. I will.

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. I will take the first 10 minutes and ask unanimous consent that the Senator from New Mexico be accorded the final 12 minutes of our morning business.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that two law clerks from my staff--Rob Abraham and Ysmael Fonseca--and Jordan LaClair, an intern in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this work period.