Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Would that preclude then offering the amendment again later? We can either do it now or we can do it later, if he wants to raise a technical point, if I have to wait for one more intervening person and offer it again.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Well, big surprise, the Bush Federal Trade Commission finds out there is no price gouging in the oil industry. No, none whatsoever. The oil men in the White House and the vice president, the oil man, their political appointees at the Federal Trade Commission finds no price gouging. The American people aren't going to believe this. Now, let's just take one little example with Katrina. I live on the west coast of the United States; none of our oil refined products come from the southeastern United States, yet on Labor Day weekend in Oregon the prices were identical and they had gone up by 60 cents a gallon in one day. Now, isn't that interesting. Now, how does that work? That is not price gouging? That is market- based? So they were going to build a pipeline that day and start shipping it to the southeast, or they were going to truck it across the country? Come on. Totally separated markets. Unbelievable increase in profits. $100 million a day for ExxonMobil, the most profitable day in the history of the world, and there was no price gouging going on. Now, there is one commissioner who has a shred of integrity left, Commissioner John Leibowitz. He issued a sharp statement. He said a handful of refiners more than doubled operating margins in ways not attributable to increased costs after the hurricanes. Sounds like price gouging to me. No, the entire Commission determined that the firm's conduct in response to hurricane-induced reductions was consistent with competition, adding that the Bush-appointed Federal Trade Commission doesn't back proposals to create Federal price gouging laws. There is no price gouging. So then why wouldn't we create price gouging laws? If there isn't any, there hasn't been any, we could prevent it in the future. Or maybe there really was a little teeny bit of price gouging and the Bush appointees don't want us to be able to prosecute that in the future. I think we could substitute the word consistent with business as usual. This is not a competitive market. There is collusion. It is organized. It has been going on for more than a decade when the American Petroleum Institute suggested to Big Oil that they shut down refineries to squeeze down capacity so that they could drive up refinery margins. And, guess what. On average they are up 255 percent in 5 years. Now, this is competition according to the Bush-appointed Federal Trade Commission. The rest of us might call it collusion, market manipulation, and price gouging. The American people are seeing it. Now, if we took two simple steps. They say, oh, there is nothing Congress could do anyway, don't worry about it. That is what the President says. Yeah, there are a couple things we could do. The experts say that 75 percent of the crude oil market is unregulated. It is traded in ways that would be illegal if it was controlled by the Commodities Future Trading Commission, like all other commodities and a quarter of the oil market. Traders swap back and forth, back and forth, back and forth just to drive up the price, no intention of actually taking a contract or taking delivery. They say we could squeeze 20 to 25 percent out of today's cost at the pump if we just regulated that market with the same rules as any other traded commodity and part of the oil market today. Well, that would take us from $3.20 down to $2.56 a gallon. Not bad. I think the American people and American businesses would think that was pretty good. And then we have the collusion to shut the refineries. Now, if we just took the refineries back to their previous margins, that was the historic margin that they got per gallon, that would knock another 50 cents a gallon off. But let's say we have got to give them an inducement to reopen the refineries that they shut, or build new ones because they tore down the ones that they shut to restrict the market to drive up the price. So with a little windfall profits tax that says these are windfall profits unless and until you invest in production and refining capacity; and if you do that, then you won't have to pay this confiscatory tax, that would take us down to somewhere around $2.26 a gallon. Now, that would be quite a gift for the American economy, American consumers, people who live in the rural parts of my district who have to commute long distances to work. But the Republican Congress is silent and complicit with the oil men at the White House who have manipulated the Federal Trade Commission into trying to fool the American consumers and say, oh, that wasn't price gouging, that was a market at work. Yeah. Give me a break.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, we heard some interesting debate on the floor today. There are those who allege, well, if only, if only we opened up our most sensitive coastal areas, areas that are critical, for instance, for our fisheries, that we could drill our way out of this crisis. We could drill our way out of high prices for oil and gas. But as one gentleman from the Republican side pointed out, actually, that is far from the truth, because even if additional significant finds are made, they would be sold into a market which does not reflect the costs of the production of the oil or its origins. It is essentially a market controlled by OPEC, the cartel mostly based in the Middle East, that is violating international trade laws by colluding to restrict supply and drive up the price of crude oil. And the Bush administration, who are great fans of free trade, the World Trade Organization, and rules-based trade, refuses to file a complaint against OPEC. I guess they are scared of OPEC and their clout. But the point is, even if these finds were made, for instance, today it costs about 28 bucks on average for a barrel of Texas crude. But guess what? It sells for $70 a barrel. Now, where does that other $42 go, one wonders. Well, it goes, in good part, to speculators. It turns out that the trade in crude oil in the United States of America, only a quarter of that market is regulated and controlled by the government under the rules for commodities, Commodities Futures Trading Commission. The rest of it is traded off the books. There is a lot of self-dealing going on, trades that would be illegal. One dealer sits next to another dealer and says trade, $5. Trade you back, $5. Trade you back, $5; trade you back $5, and suddenly we have jacked up the price to $70 a barrel. Experts say that if we merely took the step, totally within the authority of this administration and the Congress to bring crude oil under the regulation of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, we would see an immediate 20 to 25 percent drop. That is not free-market oil. And then, if we took on OPEC and filed trade complaints against OPEC, we could further drive down the price. Yes, there is a long-term problem with the availability of oil. Yes, we need to wean ourselves and become more energy efficient. But in the short-term, we don't need to allow the American consumers to be price gouged by the likes of ExxonMobil. Oh, they are not price gouging. They only made $100 million a day last year. And they handed their retiring CEO a $400 million pension. That is 4 days of gouging at the pump for ExxonMobil. That was no big skin off their backs. $400 million extracted from American consumers unfairly. Price gouging. So if we were to regulate the markets and, secondarily, tax the windfall profits. Now some say, oh, we tried that in the Carter administration. It won't work. No, we say, okay, we are going to tax your windfall profits unless you invest that money in new refinery capacity, unless you invest that in new production. Unless you invest it in alternate fuels, we will tax the heck out of it. We are not going to allow you to give 400 million bucks to your retiring CEO or the next retiring CEO. We are not going to allow you to price gouge consumers and buy back your stock to drive up the value of the stock options of all the people sitting on the board of directors. But if you put it to productive uses, then it won't be taxed away from you. So we could take those two steps and provide some immediate price relief to the American people. And then we need to begin investing in alternate fuels. You know, it would be nice if instead of buying our oil from the Mid East and that incredibly volatile region, supporting many countries who are, you know, working with the terrorists against the United States of America with our dollars, if we became energy efficient like Brazil did. They had a vision 30 years ago. They decided they were not going to import oil anymore. It took them 30 years. Tell me we can't do that in the United States of America; that we can't move it toward biofuels and alternative fuels and more efficient and alternative technology. Now, the President has talked about it, which is nice. It is a change. It is a big change. He is talking about it. But his budget doesn't contain any money to get us there. If you invested the same amount of money into energy independence and efficiency that the President has proposed, if JFK had invested the same amount in getting us to the Moon, we wouldn't have gotten to the Moon yet. So he isn't following up on his rhetoric; might have something to do with his history with the oil industry and Dick Cheney's history with the oil industry and every other member of the administration's history with the oil industry. We can become energy independent and efficient and have a greater future for the American people.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Well, Dean Salwasser does support the thrust of the legislation, but he also supports my amendment as a perfecting amendment, and I read previously from joint testimony of Dr. Salwasser, Dean Salwasser, Dr. Franklin, and Dr. Johnson. That is the key here, is I believe that there is a reason, unlike some of the others, as the chairman pointed out, I did support the Healthy Forest Restoration Act. The Healthy Forest Restoration Act was used for much of the post-Katrina recovery with little or no controversy, and I believe that these tools can be valuable. But we also have to relate back to the forests themselves. As the experts said in their testimony, and I asked them, how could you establish a list of peer-reviewed, preapproved practices? They said, you can't unless you were considering site-specific, class- specific application. You can't possibly do that. There is no generic way of doing that. So my amendment would, I believe, further the objectives of the authors of the bill and remove some uncertainty, because it is not clear from their testimony how you are ever going to get together this list. And if the alternative to the list is to go to the CEQ, the Chief of the Forest Service said he didn't want to go there. He used HFRA instead, which is another proposal I put forward, which is why not just use, since we are all familiar with, there is still some controversy, but I think very little, attached to HFRA and its application, why not apply HFRA procedures to the problems in postcatastrophic events? But that was not deemed to be adequate for some reason, and now we have an entirely new construct which I believe has some need for perfecting amendments. And that is why I am offering my amendment, and I would recommend it to my colleagues. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I agree with much of what I have heard. Unfortunately, I do not believe that the bill gets us in that direction. As I said earlier, giving unbridled discretion to political appointees may sit well with this administration and some supporters in the industry, but it does not bode well for long-term management of the forests. So I looked at this and said, well, there is a way to fix that, and that would be to say in areas that are designated for timber management, you can use the expedited procedure since that is the plan objective, and in areas that are not intended for that, you would use normal procedures, which does not preclude salvage. It just means a little bit more evaluation of the work until such a time as you had anticipated catastrophic events and amended the forest plans. Now, the Forest Service objects that it would take time, would have to involve the public to amend the forest plans, but the thing is the experts, the scientists, say that is the only way to get there. They say you cannot have a peer-reviewed list of preapproved practices that are not site-specific and are not specific to the management goals of the forest. In fact, the dean of the Oregon College of Forestry Hal Salwasser, Jerry Franklin and Norman Johnson, from Oregon State, said here, ``Management objectives for the area in question are the primary consideration in any decision regarding postfire logging, reforestation, or any other activities.'' He said that ``those goals, together with information on the forest type, or plan association group, postevent conditions in disturbed areas, and future climate trends will largely determine what actions, if any, are appropriate. If management plan direction is not clear,'' and it is not, most plans do not have a salvage provision in them, ``for appropriate actions following large disturbance events, plan revisions should provide such clarity. Major disturbances should not be the basis for de facto changes in land allocations or management objectives,'' which is what this bill does. So the preeminent scientist invited by the chairman to a hearing confirmed that. I am offering what I think would be a perfecting amendment. It would open up millions of acres to expedited procedures. It would allow the Forest Service to then amend their plan so in the future they could apply with certainty preapproved practices, not with discretion, and greatly expedite future salvage under those conditions. In the meantime they could use regular procedures, and I pointed out earlier, on the Biscuit fire, that could have yielded 175 million boardfeet, but, because of political intervention, yielded about 75 million boardfeet of harvest. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Chairman, are there problems with the current process? Yes. For the most part, they are political. In the case of the Biscuit fire, the professional managers developed a plan that would have yielded somewhere around 175 million boardfeet of salvage. The administration, in an election year, said that is not enough, we want a lot more. They pulled that plan. They came back with another plan, much bigger numbers, but they haven't even harvested half of the original proposal, which was virtually noncontroversial. So in response, unfortunately, instead of prescribing a professional management in the future that is site specific, that mandates things, we are providing even more discretion to political appointees with this legislation. As I said to some folks from the timber industry in my district, you may think it is a great bill with Mark Ray down there and George Bush at the White House. But what if the Clintons come back? They said, ``Oh my God, that would be horrible.'' So if you give total discretion to salvage or not salvage, if you fill the bill with mays and mays and mays, which it does, for instance, the point was made as I came to the floor, I have been involved in other committee work, that they are mandating science. Well, actually, no; on page 14 it says ``may,'' the Secretary may conduct one or more catastrophic event research projects. The bill is rife with discretion for political appointees. We need professional management and certainty. This bill won't get us there.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the Chair. Well, when we first heard about widespread wiretapping by the administration without legal authority under the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, the President said not to worry, just a handful of individuals, and only when they are communicating with people outside the U.S. Well, maybe not a handful. Maybe a few hundred. No, maybe 10,000 or thousands. Oops. Now it actually turns out that they are monitoring and have asked for the records of the phone calls of hundreds of millions of Americans. Over a trillion phone call records, we are told. They say they need this to protect America. What are they going to do with this mountain of data? They are going to apply a complicated mathematical algorithm to it and they are going to find some terrorists. Thus far they have raided two takeout services and one call center. That is what they have yielded from this. How about good old-fashioned intelligence with humans and police work? Let's look at the bungling that led up to 9/11. Actually the new nominee who headed the NSA who has perhaps perjured himself about these billions of monitored records, he had in his hands a communication from al Qaeda on 9/11, actually on 9/10, saying, tomorrow is zero hour. But the NSA didn't bother to translate that until after 9/11. Then we had the FBI. Now, Agent Samit said he had a communication about Moussaoui from French intelligence in August after he had been arrested by the FBI saying he was very dangerous, indoctrinated in radical Islamic fundamentalism, completely devoted to radical fundamentalism and Osama bin Laden. But his superiors didn't think that was enough to give him a warrant to open Moussaoui's computer and perhaps stop 9/11. That's why we need to monitor the phone calls of billions of phone calls made by Americans, because of the incompetence of the people running these agencies. Now, Agent Samit sent a letter to FBI headquarters accusing Moussaoui of plotting international terrorism and air piracy. This is August. August, before 9/11. Then Agent Rowley came forward and also gave us the same information. Agent Samit also asked for help from the FBI's London, Paris and Oklahoma City offices, FBI headquarters, CIA counterterrorism center, Secret Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Federal Aviation Administration, an intelligence agency not identified but presumed to be the National Security Agency headed by General Hayden who failed to translate the warning before 9/11. But we need to monitor the phone calls of law-abiding Americans, billions of them. What a wild goose chase. They want to cover up the extraordinary incompetence that allowed these stumblebums to launch a devastating attack on America by saying they are doing something now by monitoring billions of phone calls. This is absolutely outrageous. Let's go back a little further. There were two other guys involved, Nawafal Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar. Now, they were tracked to the planning meeting, pretty good work, by the CIA over in Southeast Asia. That's good. Unfortunately, they didn't have listening devices, they didn't have agents go through them, they didn't know what they were planning, but they knew they were bad guys planning something. Then they lost track of them. Where did they go? Well, they traveled legally to the United States of America with visas issued by the Bush State Department, they lived openly in San Diego with listed phone numbers, but they were never visited or monitored by the FBI or anybody else, even though the CIA knew these were bad guys. But what are we going to do in response to this incompetence? Well, we'll give the people involved gold medals and great retirements. Mr. Tenet, who was heading the CIA, he got a gold medal for freedom from the President. No one has ever taken the fall for this incompetence. Now, instead, they are trying to divert us and say, what we're going to do is monitor all the telephone conversations of all Americans and apply a mathematical algorithm. So the next time we have a terrorist in hand, we won't open his computer, either, because we'll be watching the algorithms and the phone calls of law-abiding Americans. What unbelievable incompetence on the part of this administration, in addition to law-breaking. The American people are not well served by this. We need to clean up this mess and truly protect America.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say a few words about a compromise amendment that my colleagues and I in the Oregon delegation negotiated with the leadership of the House Armed Services Committee. Our amendment requires the Army to send a report to Congress within 60 days of enactment of this bill regarding the Chinook helicopter Reset program. The Reset program repairs and restores helicopters to their pre-combat deployment condition. The report requires the Army to explain its plan to reset all active duty and reserve component helicopters, including the timeline and cost for doing so. The reason my colleagues and I offered our original amendment is because of a dangerous situation facing the Oregon National Guard. The Oregon National Guard is authorized to have six Chinook helicopters. One was destroyed on a mission. One is too old and will be turned in to the Pentagon. The other four need to go through reset after being deployed to combat zones. Timely repairs and rehabilitation are essential to ensuring the Oregon National Guard has the equipment necessary for responding to public safety threats, including forest fires, as well as other state emergencies, homeland defense, and proficiency training. Unfortunately, timely repairs are not happening today. Due to the influx of aircraft returning from overseas and in need of repair, the Army depots that generally perform this work are overstretched. As I understand it, the average time to get a helicopter repaired and returned to a unit is six months or longer. I haven't seen the speech yet, but I've been told that Major General Pillsbury of the Army Materiel Command recently gave a speech at a conference lamenting how far behind the Army is on the Chinook RESET program. According to a letter from the Army in March 2006, the Oregon National Guard will not get its helicopters back until November 2006. During the interim period, the Oregon National Guard will have to do without, which puts Oregon residents at-risk. That is not acceptable. Congress, the Army and the National Guard Bureau must find a solution to this problem. One logical solution is for the Army to allow the Oregon National Guard to contract with a local private sector helicopter maintenance provider in order to help alleviate the backlog that would otherwise keep its Chinooks grounded for the next several months. One company in Oregon, Columbia Helicopters, believes it could get two Chinooks through the reset process by July, several months sooner than the Army. Such private sector involvement in the reset program is not unprecedented. Last year, the Army awarded Boeing a $40 million-plus contract to refurbish Apache helicopters under the reset program. And, Columbia Helicopters has already done this type of work for the Nevada National Guard, which had some discretionary money it spent on getting its helicopters repaired. Letters in support of this public-private concept have been sent to the Army since February from myself, the Oregon National Guard, the Nevada National Guard, Governor Kulongoski of Oregon, Governor Kenny Guinn of Nevada, Senators Smith, Wyden, Ensign and Reid, and Reps. Hooley, Wu and Walden. Yet, the Army has not taken any action to expedite the reset of the Oregon helicopters. Our amendment today puts the Army on notice that Congress is interested in this issue and is concerned about growing repair burden and backlog. Congress needs to ensure accountability by the Army for timely repairs. This amendment is a first step. I will continue to work with my colleagues in Oregon and on the committee to try to get the Army to step up and ensure the National Guard is adequately equipped and able to carry out its missions year-round.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, with little notice or fanfare, a modest tax benefit for families who are struggling to help their kids get a higher education expired this year. It was what is called an above-the-line deduction, up to $4,000 towards tuition could become an above-the-line deduction. Now for a family with $40,000, $50,000 income, that would be worth about 1,000 bucks off their taxes, not insignificant when they are straining on that income to try and help their child get an education, get ahead, realize the American dream. But the Republican majority, being the fiscal conservatives they are, said it was too expensive. We could not afford to renew this modest tax benefit for middle income families to give them a little help with tuition for their kids. Now, well and good. When you see their budget that they have pulled from the floor for the third time in 3 weeks, they are going to pass a budget, probably next week, that will have America borrowing $1.4 billion a day, a lot of it from foreign sources. It will have a lot of us borrowing from this year's Social Security surplus, $193 billion, and spending it on other things other than Social Security, in part to give tax cuts to wealthy Americans. Also buried in their budget is the fifth increase in the debt limit in 5 years. Fiscal conservatives that they are, they are hiding it in the middle of their budget because they don't want people to see it, another $600 billion increase in the debt limit to nearly $10 trillion. That is quite an achievement. Nearly doubling the national debt in 5 years is something that they could write home about, but they don't want the people at home to know. So I can understand their concerns. But, wait a minute, oh, no. We just passed a bill to give $70 billion in tax breaks to wealthy investors. Now, where is that money going to come from? Oh, well, they say tax breaks pay for themselves, especially when you give the money to rich people. This particular piece of work extends a tax break that wasn't going to expire until 2008. The college tuition deduction has already expired. Middle income families can't get it next year, but wealthy investors were worried that starting in 2009 or 2010 they might have to pay the same percentage of their investment earnings, their unearned income, as people who work for a living. The Republicans said that would just destroy the economy of America. Those investors are the heart blood of our country, not the people who work and build the country; no, they have got to pay higher rates of taxes, but the people who can invest for a living. What does their $70 billion tax break do? Well, someone who earns $5.3 million, $82,000 tax relief. They really need it too at $5.3 million, hard making ends meet. You know, their Hummer, 3 bucks a gallon of gas for their Hummer too. Well, maybe it is a limousine driven by a chauffeur, but who knows. How about the retired CEO of ExxonMobil, $400 million, that is what he got, just retired. Well, this bill gives him an extra $2 million off his tax bill. It was going to be hard for him to maintain his lifestyle in retirement with only $400 million in retirement. So the Republicans feel that working people should borrow $2 million to give to him an additional little tax benefit. But for a family earning a good income, 75,000 bucks, it is worth $110 a year. So the family that earns $75,000 is going to get up to $110 tax benefit under this. But the retired CEO of ExxonMobil is going to get $2 million, and the family who earns wages and salary at $75,000 is going to pay to retire the debt, because we are borrowing the money to give to the wealthy investors. How stupid do they think the American people are? How profligate and shameless the Republicans are to do this sort of thing. Help the families who are trying to have their kids get it. That is the next generation of earners. You cannot even extend them a modest tax benefit, but you can shower money on the wealthiest among us, those who need it least. It is time for new priorities in this Congress. It is time for fiscal responsibility. It is time to give a little bit of a helping hand to middle income and working America and let the rich help carry their fair share of the load.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, it is a big day inside the Beltway here, the long-anticipated Republican tax cuts are here, the fifth of the Bush Presidency. You would think with huge deficits maybe they would reconsider; but no, they are plowing ahead. Tonight, rivers of champagne will flow in corporate board rooms across America. Under this bill, we will borrow $70 billion and immediately give $50 billion of it to wealthy investors. We will borrow $70 billion and give $50 billion to wealthy investors in big tax breaks to those who clip coupons off dividend-paying stocks and capital gains. A person who earns $40,000 a year, they might get a $20 break under this bill. But those who earn $5 million, $82,000 off their tax bill. It is a great country. Yet Republicans couldn't find room in this bill for a tuition tax deduction. They had to bump that out. You know, these are tough times, people have to sacrifice; not the people in the board rooms and not the wealthy investors, but middle class America who want their kids to get an education. They couldn't fit it in the bill. They are discriminating against wages and salary earners and favoring the investors with lower tax breaks. They are borrowing money and handing the bill to people who work for wages and salaries. I don't think that it is that they really hate wage and salary earners, they just favor the wealthy who fund their campaigns.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Well, it is going to be a big week for America and a big week for Republicans in the House. The long-delayed budget is going to be adopted. It is estimated that if this budget is adopted, the deficit will be about $500 billion next year. That means they are going to borrow more than $1.4 billion a day to run the government. But don't worry, some of it is off the books. They are borrowing all of the Social Security surplus, $193 billion, which is supposed to go to pay for future benefits in the trust fund but they are going to borrow and spend that. So they are going to really say, oh, the deficit is only $300 billion, that's all we're borrowing from China and Japan and other foreign investors. But we are also borrowing and spending all the Social Security trust fund. So a $500 billion, half a trillion dollar deficit, borrowing $1.4 billion a day, the party of fiscal responsibility and small government. In the meantime, they are cutting programs important to the middle class. Student financial aid. Hey, those kids have got to pay higher interest on their loans and their parents, too, because we're in trouble financially. At the same time, this week they are going to pass a $70 billion extension of tax cuts which favor investors over workers. Why do the Republicans hate people who work for wages and salaries so much? That is a question that begs answering around here. Because investors who can clip coupons off their stocks pay a lower rate of taxes to the Federal Government than a policeman, a fireman or a teacher. And that is the way the Republicans say it should be. Those who are lucky enough to inherit or otherwise able to invest for a living, they shouldn't pay taxes like those suckers who work for salary and wages. What contempt they are showing for the people of America. They are not only cutting the programs essential to them, borrowing in their name, handing them the bill, now they are borrowing money to give to rich investors which the middle class will have to pay for, because in the Republicans' world only the middle class pays taxes. The tax cuts they are proposing this week to extend will give an average cut of $20 to the middle fifth of taxpayers, those who average $36,000 a year. But for the lucky winners, the top 1 percent, average income $5.3 million, they will save $82,415. Or if you could put it another way, the person who earns $36,000 will be obligated and their kids will be obligated to borrow $82,415 to give to that wealthy investor because we don't have a surplus to give taxes away to those folks. They say, Oh, don't worry. These tax cuts pay for themselves. Oh, okay. If that is true, why on page 121, buried almost indecipherably in their budget, 151 pages long, page 121, the Republicans for the fifth time in 5 years are increasing the debt limit of the United States without discussion on the floor of the House or a vote? They are going to increase it by $653 billion. Let's see. If the tax cuts pay for themselves, why would they have to increase the debt limit of the United States for the fifth time in 5 years in a stealth fashion like this? That is underhanded. When President Bush took office, we had a borrowing limit of $5.95 trillion, $6 trillion. When their budget passes this week, it is going to be $9.62 trillion. Not bad. Up 60 percent in 5 years. The party of small government and fiscal responsibility has indebted the United States, increased the debt by more than 60 percent in 5 short years. They have amassed more foreign debt than all of the administrations that preceded them since the beginning of the Republic. So we are not only borrowing against our future, borrowing against Social Security, handing a bill to the middle class, we are also indebting the country to foreign holders of debt, particularly China, Japan and others. What a great vision they have for America. The wealthy will live on their estates behind big walls with private security. They will send their kids to private schools in private limousines, they will ride their private jets to private resorts, and then the rest of us can mow their lawns and carry their golf clubs and wait on their tables. And there won't be much left for the rest of us. They can't afford a decent bill for homeland security. They can't afford money for cops, police, fire, public education, but we can afford more tax cuts for the wealthiest among us because the investors are the important people to the Republicans. They are also their big contributors.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, let us talk about the energy crisis and the high prices of energy. The oil man in the White House and the Vice President and the Republican majority say it is just market forces at work. Let us talk about the market forces. First off, the crude oil market, unlike every other commodity in America, is virtually unregulated. About 75 percent of the crude oil marketed here is sold off the books, and they are doing trades that would be illegal if it was a regulated market, and of course they do not want to regulate it. One trader will sell to another who will sell back, they sell back, they sell back, they sell back until, guess what, they have raised the price and made a lot of money. Now, unfortunately, someone is going to pay for that. So it is the consumer. In crude oil trading, we have seen a 46 percent increase over 1 year in the margins there. Quite simply, if we just subjected crude oil to the same market controls that are used for all other commodities traded in the United States of America, if we took away this exemption for big oil, then we could drive down the price, it is estimated, 20 to 25 percent immediately at the pump. That would be quite an economic stimulus for this country and do more for the American people than all of George Bush's tax cuts have done for average people, of course, not for the millionaires and billionaires. Then they say, guess what, prices are high because we do not have enough refineries in America. That is interesting. The American Petroleum Institute circulated a memo just about 10 years ago this day saying, hey, guys out there, they mostly are all guys, guess what, there is too much refinery capacity in this country; if you could squeeze down refinery capacity, you could drive up profits. Have they done that? Of the three bucks you are paying for a gallon of gas, the increase in the margin for the refiners has gone up 255 percent in 1 year; and, guess what, there are no new refineries under construction. Now they want to pretend it is those darn environmentalists. Well, no, it was not the environmentalists. Of the 55 refineries closed in America in the last 10 years, they were all closed for economic reasons, mostly oil company mergers. Not a single one was closed for environmental purposes or objections. So they are doing a wonderful thing here. Valero, fastest-growing, biggest energy refiner, who had a very small company just a few years ago, their chief operating officer, when asked about building more refineries, he said, why would we want to do that? It is working quite well the way it is. Artificial shortage of refinery capacity. So perhaps we could impose a windfall profits tax on the likes of ExxonMobil, $36 billion of profit last year, largest corporate profit for anybody in the history of the world in 1 year, $100 million a day of profit. Now they did give away 4 days of profit to their CEO when he retired. He got a $400 million retirement, but they had the rest of that money to spend elsewhere. What did they spend it on? New refinery capacity? No. Exploring for new oil? No. They bought back a bunch of their stock to increase the value of the stock options of the other executives at ExxonMobil. So about a windfall profits tax on money that they make that they do not invest in new refineries, new production capacity or alternative fuels, but the rest of it, it should be taxed at a very high rate to stop their price gouging and excess profit-taking. Now the Republican answer has been that they want to give everybody a $100 rebate. Is that not nice? Well, except we are running a deficit. So they would borrow the money, obligating American taxpayers today and their kids and grandkids because we will pay it off over 30 years. They would borrow the money to give everybody a measly $100 rebate. Because God forbid that we should ask the oil companies to rein in the profiteering and the speculation in crude oil, that we should have them stop creating a false refinery capacity squeeze which has driven up their profits tremendously. But they do want to investigate price gouging. It was in a bill that passed the House last year. Guess who they think is price gouging? These little guys down here, the distributors and retailers. I just met with the independent distributors today. They are getting six cents a gallon. Five years ago, they got six cents a gallon. Five years ago, that was 6 percent. Today that is 2 percent. So it is not the distributors and retailers here, with the exception of some of the company-owned stations, that are making that big profit. It is right up here. It is big oil. It is the artificial refinery shortage that they have created, and it is this profit-sharing and hot money speculation in crude oil. We could take significant steps here to fix it, but, guess what, they get a little too much money from them at campaign time. It ain't going to happen.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Chairman, there have been a lot of acronyms thrown around on the floor this morning, C-TPAT, CSI, TWIC. But there is no real technology based security being applied to containers being shipped to the United States of America. Less than 5 percent are inspected. No one is going to shoot a missile at us, but if they can get ahold of a nuclear weapon they will put it in a container and ship it here. Let's look at the great C-TPAT program they are waxing on about. It is an honor system. You fill out an on-line form and your containers automatically are ranked less of a threat. Now, sometime, 1 to 3 years later, the U.S. might send an inspector by, with prior notice, 1 day to look at your factory. That day you shoo all the al Qaeda people out and say don't come in tomorrow; the U.S. is sending a guy by for 1 day. And then you go back to business. This is an incredibly ridiculous program that does not provide real security. Is there a threat? Well, I think there is a threat because the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security says the goal of this administration and the Republican majority is not to inspect containers before they leave foreign ports. His goal, at home, our goal is to have 100 percent inspection of all containers as they depart a U.S. port headed into our country. The ports are sacrifice zones is what they are telling us here, because they might contain a threat. So we have to inspect them before they go from Seattle inland to somewhere in the Pacific Northwest but not before they get to Seattle. The place to inspect is on the other side of the ocean, and it can be done without disturbing commerce. It has been proven in Hong Kong. They will say it is not technologically feasible. If that is so, then why do we endorse this same technology, these same bureaucracies, for the CSI program and the Megaports program? The Bush administration's bureaucracy says the technologies do work. They say the technologies do not work. They say they will delay cargo. They are being used in Hong Kong. You can drive a truck past at 10 miles per hour. They say, well, no one is reading the data. Why is no one reading the data? Because the U.S. will not assign people to read the data. This is incredible. This loophole-ridden system has to stop. We need real security. You should have allowed an amendment. Why are you afraid to vote on an amendment for 100 percent screening?

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, Lee Raymond, $400 million. He was not at ExxonMobil all that long. So it figures out to $135,000 a day in his pension payoff. Now, remember, he can get a huge lump sum because he is an executive. But a worker cannot, because there is different standards that apply. For the execs, if they have funded 60 percent of their liability for their pension plan, big bonuses, $400 million. For a line worker, nah, sorry, you are not at 80 percent. You cannot get it. That is the way it is at ExxonMobil. Let me give another example, what happens when the companies do go belly up. United Airlines. Talking to a flight attendant. She did not meet the cut. She was not age 50, although she had worked at the airline 28 years. So she did not meet the cut for the people to get a more generous accommodation. She is now 49 years old. If she works until age 65, at which point she will have 45 years in with the airline, 45 years, she will get $12,000 a year, $1,000 a month. But those execs who guided United into bankruptcy and then guided United back out of bankruptcy by shedding things like pension obligations get very huge bonuses. Is that not a great world? Now, I just kind of figured it out. For her, you know, she will have worked about 17,000 days. And so if she lives 20 years, at $12,000 a year, she is going to get somewhere around a buck and a half a day pension. Now this guy gets $135,000 a day for the time he put in. Is that fair? I do not think the American people think that is fair. It is not right. It has got to stop. And if you cannot vote for this, shame on you.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman for the time. This is ``let's pretend'' time. Let's pretend this is a fair process when a meaningful amendment that lost only by two votes in committee to screen 100 percent of the containers coming to America is not allowed. Are we afraid of the democratic process here on the floor? Let's pretend that the unverified paperwork certification of shippers, C-TPAT and CIS, are meaningful and provide real security despite the numerous reports we have about their extraordinary failures, including the most recent one where a C-TPAT, CIS-based company and port provided 15 Chinese in a container delivered to the United States of America. That could have been 15 tactical nuclear weapons in that container instead of people attempting to sneak into the United States. Here is how it works: you are a foreign company. You want to ship to the U.S. You go online on your computer. You fill out a form online. You immediately get the score of your products and your shipping reduced to the United States of America. It no longer is as much of a threat because you filled out a form online, whoever you might be; you might be Osama bin Laden in a cave, we don't know. Okay. Well, then we are going to send someone around to certify you are who you said you are and you really have the paperwork plan you told us you have. Unfortunately, we do not have enough people to do that. It will be 1 to 3 years before either a U.S. inspector or a contractor comes by for one day, one time, to make sure you are not a bad guy and you might not ship bad things here. That is quite a system. That is C-TPAT. It is a faith-based honor system. Here it is: they will send us a manifest. Now a manifest says 100 concrete bird baths, but what if it is 99 concrete bird baths and one tactical nuclear weapon? Well, they are in the C-TPAT program; they would not phony up a manifest. Of course, again, you have 6 months to adjust your manifest after your product arrives in the United States because you know everybody says manifests are not accurate. We do not know who the people are, and the manifests are not accurate, but that's the security we have today. The Deputy Secretary of TSA, Mr. Jackson, admits there is a risk. He says, well, they do not want to screen all the containers on the other side of the ocean, even though the technology exists. Despite what the gentlewoman from Florida said, it exists, it works and it does not unduly delay. You can drive by it at 10 miles per hour. He says the vision of the Bush administration is, they are going to screen ultimately, with technology, 100 percent of the containers before they leave United States ports for the interior of the U.S., but they might contain threats. Now, wait a minute. We are going to put them in our ports, but we think they might have threats, but we will inspect them before they go inland? I guess the ports are sacrifice zones. I guess most of our ports are in blue States. No, Florida was a red State. I am not sure why they want to sacrifice those ports in those States. This is extraordinary to me that we are not being allowed this one simple amendment, and let us pretend that they are not under unbelievable pressure from Wal-Mart and other shippers of goods to the United States to not do anything meaningful because it will cost a couple of bucks more per container.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, gas is bumping 3 bucks a gallon in Oregon, I know it is well over $3 a gallon in other parts of the country; and people are saying, oh, it is just market forces, supply and demand. Well, you know, there is no free market in oil: from the production by the OPEC countries, with the cooperation of Mexico and Russia, where they conspire to restrict supply, to the oil companies themselves, who have created a black market, that is, a market where 75 percent of the oil is traded and retraded and retraded, driving up the price for no good reason just to facilitate profits, and then it is delivered to the refineries. We see now that we have a refinery shortage. Well, why do we have a refinery shortage? Actually, that is pretty interesting. Ten years ago, the American Petroleum Institute sent a memo to its members saying, hey, you are not making much money with refineries. If you would facilitate the closing of refineries and squeeze down the availability of refinery capacity, you could increase profits. And then they did. In fact, in the last decade, through mergers and by action of individual corporations, they have closed 55 refineries in America. Now they want to blame the environmentalists and say there isn't enough refinery capacity. Those darn environmentalists. Guess what? Not one of the 55 refineries was closed because of environmental issues. They were closed to increase profits. The industry has become wildly profitable. Back in 2004, the refiners got 27 cents on each gallon of gas we bought. Last year, they got 99 cents on each gallon of gas we bought, four times higher. That has nothing to do with supply and demand. That is extortion of the American consumer. The Valero Company, now the biggest refiner in America, their chief operating officer was asked about building more refineries, and said, why would we want to do that? We are doing very well the way things are. The President claimed it was environmental restrictions, still does, and then he offered to allow any oil company to build a refinery on a closed military base with no environmental restrictions. He had no takers. It is working exactly the way the American Petroleum Institute predicted when they recommended the closing of refineries a decade ago. Now this administration says they are not going to go with the windfall profits tax, despite the fact that Exxon-Mobil last year had the largest profit of any corporation in history, $36 billion in one year, $10 million a day. They were so awash in cash, giving it back, buying stock back, giving out dividends, and $400 million to their CEO, who wasn't there very long. It averaged out to a $135,000 pension a day for the time he worked at that company. But there is no price gouging or profiteering going on here. So the administration says no windfall profits tax. They are going to look at gouging. But they are not going to look into the corporate boardrooms. They are going to go out and look at the corner gas stations, that are getting record low margins as they are squeezed by this noncompetitive industry. It is past time for Congress to take definitive action. First, Congress should subject the trading of oil to the same regulations as any other commodity. Wipe out the black market in oil where they are jacking up the price. Experts say that one simple step, saying oil will be traded like every other commodity, it will be regulated and overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, something the Bush administration doesn't want to do, would drive down the price immediately by 25 cents by squeezing out the speculation. Impose a windfall profits tax on Exxon-Mobil and others unless and except they use some of their obscene profits to build new refining capacity. That could be exempt from the windfall profits tax. Give them a strong incentive to undo this little game they are playing on the American consumers. Make price gouging a Federal crime. Right now you have to prove two companies colluded, not just one set out to price gouge. Change the law. And then OPEC. Remember the President told us he was going to take on OPEC? He was going to jump on OPEC. He was going to do something about their restriction of the supply of oil. We have done nothing. Six of the OPEC countries are in the World Trade Organization. This President is big on free trade and rules-based trade. They are breaking the rules. They are violating all the rules of the WTO. File a complaint. To be fair, I asked the last President, Mr. Clinton, to file a complaint against OPEC. He was as scared as George Bush to file a complaint against OPEC. It is time to take on the international cartel and the price gouging. We need relief for American consumers now. Stop the price gouging, stop the profiteering, and take on this big industry.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the time of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, I rise today in reluctant opposition to H.R. 282, the Iran sanction bill. If this bill was only about imposing targeted sanctions against the Iranian regime, or companies and countries who invest in Iran, I could support it. In fact, I voted in favor of the original Iran sanctions bill when it was approved in 1996, and I voted to extend the bill when it came up for renewal in 2001. Unfortunately, the bill on the floor today does not just extend or expand sanctions against Iran and those doing business with that country; it also establishes a U.S. policy in favor of regime change in Iran. Therefore, I am extremely concerned that H.R. 282 is the first step in taking our country down the same misguided path that was taken with Iraq. The Iranian exile groups that would likely benefit from the provisions in this bill to support groups seeking regime change in Iran eerily echo Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. You may recall that Chalabi's INC worked with the Bush administration to mislead Congress and the American people about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction in order to gain support for toppling Saddam Hussein using U.S. forces. It is my hope that as this bill continues through the legislative process, it will be amended to focus on sanctions and diplomacy rather than U.S. sponsored regime change. I believe that sanctions should be targeted at foreign investment in Iran, which would force Iranian leaders to choose between a growing economy and their desire for nuclear weapons. Sanctions could also be targeted at Iran's leaders by freezing their assets and imposing travel bans. Targeted sanctions can ratchet up the pressure on Iran's leaders without harming or alienating the Iranian people.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. If we adopt the Republican budget late tonight or tomorrow, the Republicans will set a new record: 5 consecutive years of the largest deficits in our Nation's history. Two weeks ago, the Republicans in the Senate voted to raise the debt limit in the United States of America to $9 trillion. That is the fourth debt increase in 5 years. This majority and this President Bush have added 65 percent to the debt of the United States in 5 short years. The President has accumulated more foreign debt than the 42 Presidents who preceded him, and this budget is business as usual: borrow money, borrow all of the Social Security trust fund and spend it, in part, on tax breaks for the wealthy. This budget assumes that we will continue to borrow money to fund yet more tax breaks for the wealthiest among us, despite the Internal Revenue data that came out yesterday showing that their tax breaks benefit those making over $10 million a year by $500,000 a year. Should people who work for wages and salaries be forced to pay debt to give tax breaks to people who earn over $10 million a year? They say yes.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, it is budget week here in Washington and on the Republican side of the aisle they are issuing shovels. Now, the shovels here in Washington have two purposes. One is to shovel certain substances to obscure what they are really doing, and the other is to dig the debt hole of the United States of America, the indebtedness of the American people, yet deeper while languishing programs that are important to average folks while the wealthy get more. This budget would reserve substantial funding for tax cuts for the richest among us. It would reserve tax cuts so that we can extend the tax where people who own stock that pays dividends would pay a much lower rate of tax than an American who works for, say, $30,000 a year in wages and salary. It would extend the capital gains tax cuts which again primarily benefit people over $300,000 a year. For someone who earns, 50, $60,000 a year, the average tax break in capital gains is $50 since we exempt people's principal residence. That is where most middle class people have their capital. They do not have a whole lot of other investments. They are kind of struggling to get by. This budget is not going to help. This budget would borrow every penny. We are taxing working people more than we need to collect money for Social Security. The theory is that money is being set aside to pay for the retirement of the baby boom, the coming change in the demographics of the society, the crisis the President talked about in funding Social Security. Well, what are the President and Republicans doing with the $192 billion extra we will collect in Social Security taxes this year only from people who earn $94,000 a year or less? They are going to spend it. They are going to spend part of it on tax cuts for people who earn a heck of a lot more than $94,000 a year. This deficit-producing budget is going to do an incredible disservice to our Nation. It will give us a new record and, of course, there have been many records under the Bush administration, and this will set the record of the five consecutive years of largest deficits in the history of the United States, from the small government folks down there at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Now, true, a lot of it is done in emergency supplementals. They cannot anticipate. This budget, for instance, says, unlike the President who says it will be a future President who decides when and if the United States withdraws from Iraq, the Republican budget, as honest as the day is long, says that we will spend $50 billion next year on Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, that is quite a bit less than half of what we spent this year. So maybe they know something the President does not know and America does not know about the withdrawal timetable, or maybe it is more dishonest bookkeeping where we will have yet another unanticipated expense for the war in Iraq and the ongoing problems of pacifying Afghanistan. So this budget is rife with these sorts of things. The total deficit this year will be $543 billion, including borrowing $192 billion of hard-earned money that is going to pay for supposedly future Social Security retirement. And over 5 years they are going to raise the debt of the United States of America. Again, it has been raised. Four times in the last 5 years, the debt ceiling has been raised. It is a 65 percent increase in the indebtedness of the United States of America. This President has accumulated more foreign debt than the 42 Presidents that preceded him in office. Record after record after record is falling to the Republican leadership and the Republicans in the White House, something that they can be proud of. All so they can feed tax cuts for people who earn over a million bucks a year. That is really a great way to run a country. They are anticipating with this budget, again even with dishonest bookkeeping, that we will be up to $11.3 trillion of debt by 2011. That would be about $27,000 for every American. $27,000 of debt. That would have more than doubled the debt since George Bush took office. Doubling the debt in that short period of time is, again, quite an accomplishment. It took 42 Presidents and more than 200 years to accumulate a significant debt and the President is going to manage to double it in a mere 5 years. So hopefully we can take away the shovels, we can pull aside the veils, we can reveal to America what is going on and we can pass a budget that meets the priorities of the American people, not a privileged few.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, members of the public might be surprised to learn that we are defending United States ports against the threat of nuclear weapons for the most part with a faith-based honor system. Here is how it works: there is something called the C-TPAT program. Now, foreign interests, so far 10,000, have indicated interest, file paperwork with the Department of Homeland Security. Now the Department of Homeland Security is a little understaffed. We have to have tax cuts for the rich people. So they do not have enough people to process these things. But once you file that form with them, you are considered to not be a threat because you filled out the paperwork. So far 5,800 have filed. About a third of them have been visited once. One site visit and then you are certified for 3 years. One site visit. So all you do is you get all the terrorists with the AK-47s and the kafias to get off the property for a day and you say, look, good place, security plan, legitimate business, you get the stamp of approval. Now you are no longer considered a high risk in terms of what you might put in a container. What you then have to do is when you want to ship a container to the United States, you have to send the shipping invoice a day in advance before it is put on the ship. So what you do is you say this container contains 200 birdbaths, because, of course, you would not say 199 birdbaths and one small tactical nuclear weapon. You would not do that. But we do not check those containers until they get to the United States of America, and then we check a very small percentage of them here using high technology. Now, today we have the Assistant Secretary, Mr. Jackson, in, who told us what their future plans are. Now, remember we have this threat. Things are coming to the United States of America. We do not really know what they are, on this honor system. We have not inspected those facilities. Even if they had been inspected, they were only inspected one day every three years. They have set a goal here, and he said that their goal is 100 percent inspection of all containers as they depart a U.S. port headed into our country. First I thought that was a misprint. I thought his staff screwed up his testimony here. No, he meant it. He is saying we know that these containers, when they come to the United States, might have a nuclear bomb inside; so their goal is that they will check all those containers with our technology within a very few years before they leave the port to an interior city. He did not really respond when I asked if that meant our ports have become sacrifice zones. They are so uncertain of the faith-based honor system, the C-TPAT system, and what is going on overseas that they want to put in place technology at taxpayer expense, technology to check 100 percent of those containers for nuclear weapons before they go from U.S. ports to inland U.S. cities. When I asked him if maybe we might extend that perimeter overseas and require that all containers be inspected overseas for nuclear weapons, he was saying that would be very difficult, but he actually admitted it might be possible given the technology recently modeled in Hong Kong. But the Republican majority on the committee said no way, we are not going to allow the inspection of those containers overseas. It would slow down those Chinese goods flooding into the United States of America and other things manufactured overseas. It would hurt commerce. There would be trucks lined up for miles back into mainland China with goods on them waiting to come to Wal-Mart here. This is fairly extraordinary to me. The Republican majority and the Republican administration are admitting that there are potential threats in these containers. They have put in place a faith-based honor system, but they are working hard to see that we will check those containers after they have arrived at an American port before they go to another American city. Those of us who live a little bit inland will be thankful for that, but I really do not agree with the philosophy that turns our ports into sacrifice zones. No. We need to check 100 percent of these containers for threats meaningfully with high technology equipment overseas before they come to the United States of America.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, well, Congress is temporarily in Washington between breaks, and I don't know how some Members on the other side of the aisle spent theirs, but along with Representative Hooley and Representative Blumenauer, all of us from Oregon, we spent the day yet going up the length of the Willamette Valley holding meetings in senior centers and other public venues to hear from seniors, senior advocates, people who work with seniors and care about seniors about the experience with the so-called Medicare part D prescription drug benefit. Now, I heard from the other side of the aisle what a stunning success it is. We are protecting the profits of the pharmaceutical industry. They will get an extra $139 billion in profits. We are subsidizing the insurance industry to offer these plans, plans which can be changed on a weekly basis even though seniors can only sign up for one plan a year. Yet as great as they say these things are, about half the seniors in my State and across America who were not mandatorily enrolled are not yet participating in the plans, in part, because in my little State, there are some 46 plans in my district, I guess in Portland a few more, so there are actually a total of 96 variants available to seniors. They describe to us what happens when you go on these sites, these are the advocates, not the seniors. You will get, and there will be a little tiny asterisk by certain drugs, and they have given you some plans that might be good for you because you need a plan that will pay for the drugs your doctor has prescribed. If you hit the little tiny asterisk, then a drop-down window comes out. Most seniors don't know about drop-down windows. The drop-down window says limits may apply. It turns out the limits might be you take 60 of those twice, two a day. The limit might be one a day, but it is not very explicit about that. When you call the 1-800 number, you can't get a human being to get information. So seniors are, for the most part, totally confused. They are having trouble, even when they try to focus in on a plan that might give them help, getting to a point where they can make a choice. Of course, even if they do choose a plan that pays for that plan, that plan can change the drug benefit on a weekly basis, not something that a senior can do. Now, we also heard from a small pharmacist, because of the confusion in the transition for the dual eligibles, her pharmacy, her little pharmacy, had to front $45,000 in prescriptions to seniors and has yet to be reimbursed. The reimbursements are starting to trickle in. She had spent 8 hours the day before trying to reconcile some of those to the actual outlays in the drugs that she had fronted for her seniors. We heard time and time again about problems. My doctor has hired an additional person to try and deal with all the prior approvals required for seniors who have been taking a drug for years, many of these new plans will require all sorts of documentation on why they should get that drug. Many seniors don't know, who have already subscribed, that they are temporarily getting their old drugs until the 1st of April. On the 1st of April, they will fall under their new plan's mandates, and they may not be able to continue taking the drug their doctor has prescribed. Minimally, Congress should revisit this punitive time limit. The time limit, you have to sign up by May 15, or we will penalize you. They say 1 percent per month; but guess what, you can't sign up again until next fall. Any senior who doesn't sign up by May 15 will be penalized 6 percent tax, 6 percent extra for life as a bonus to the already subsidized insurance companies on top of their premium. That is not fair. Congress should undo that arbitrary mandate. That was to try and stampede seniors into plans that they don't understand that they might not want, and that should go. But then perhaps we should do what the head of Walgreens has suggested. He said there are so many plans out there, so many benefits, so many formularies, his pharmacist can't figure it out. Like Congress did 25 years ago, he says Congress should standardize these plans and say, there will be five or 10 plans out there with standard benefits, so everybody can understand what the 10 options are. They can just learn 10 options and then let the private companies compete over price, perhaps without a subsidy from the taxpayers. Or, God forbid, we could actually take on the pharmaceutical industry since the drug prices under these plans are actually on average higher than the prices offered by Costco. What a great deal. The President likes to talk about how these insurance companies, or PBMs, how they have just bargained so hard and driven down the prices. They are only 50 percent higher than the prices that the VA gets through negotiations for our veterans. But the Republicans outlawed, they outlawed, Medicare bargaining lower drug prices on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries. Now, who does that help? They said that was un-American to negotiate lower drug prices. It is not un-American to give huge windfall benefits to the pharmaceutical industry.