Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I am told that Senator Murray, the ranking member of this appropriations subcommittee, is delayed but apparently has landed and is on her way to the Senate. It would be, I am sure, her intention to offer an opening statement.

Mr. DORGAN. If it is all right with the chairman of the subcommittee to speak in morning business for 10 minutes, with the understanding if Senator Murray arrives during that time I will be happy to relinquish the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this morning I and a number of other Senators held a policy committee hearing on the issue of FEMA and some of the expenditures dealing with Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath of the devastation of the gulf coast of our country. Some of what we learned is enormously distressing. I will share some of it with my colleagues, including some ideas about what we ought to be doing about it. One of the people who came to Capitol Hill this morning was a man named Paul Mullinaux, a truck driver who owns his own tractor and trailer and lives in Florida. He was contracted by FEMA to haul ice to the victims of Hurricane Katrina and for the devastation on the gulf coast. Mr. Mullinaux is a person who, when asked to perform this service--obviously he was paid for it, but with his refrigeration truck and with an opportunity, he went to New York City and picked up a load of ice in his 18-wheeler and his refrigerated trailer. That load of ice was for delivery to Carthage, MO. He wasn't sure why it was to be delivered to Missouri, but it was. He took his 18-wheeler to Carthage, MO. When he arrived at Carthage, MO, they told him that what he needed to do was to go to Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. So he had driven his 18-wheeler with a load of ice from New York City to Carthage, MO. Then he was told, go to Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. He got in his truck and went to Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. When he got to Alabama, he told us this morning, he spent 12 days sitting on the Maxwell Air Force Base tarmac with apparently hundreds of other trucks and a load of ice. He said other trucks were loaded with ice, they were loaded with blankets, they were loaded with all kinds of things that evacuees would have needed, the victims of the hurricane would have needed. For 12 days he and his truck, with his motor running for the refrigeration to keep the ice cold, sat there. Finally, at the end of 12 days he was told he was to take his truckload of ice to Idaho. Remember, this is a truck driver contracted by FEMA to pick up a load of ice in New York and take it to the gulf coast to try to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. He got the ice in New York, went to Missouri, then was told to go to Alabama. He went to Alabama, sat there 12 days and then was told, by the way, now you should take this ice to Idaho and put it in storage. Mr. Mullinaux told them, I wasn't aware there was a hurricane in Idaho and I don't intend to drive to Idaho with this ice. At that point, they talked about calling the National Guard to escort him off the military base because he had a bad attitude. I would have had a bad attitude sitting there 12 days with a refrigeration truck running with a load of ice that was supposed to go to hurricane victims. At the end of 12 days, he refused to go to Idaho, so they sent him--and he said they sent many other trucks--to Massachusetts to offload the ice in a warehouse where it is now being stored. Think of this. The Federal Government, through FEMA, paid $15,000 to a trucker to pick up a load of ice in New York to help hurricane victims and they told him to go to Missouri. He went to Missouri. They then told him to go to Alabama. He went to Alabama. They then told him to wait for 12 days. He sat on the base in Alabama for 12 days and then they told him to take the ice to Idaho, to put it in storage. When he refused, they said, well, then, take it to Massachusetts. He took it to Massachusetts and it is now in storage. From New York, to Missouri, to Alabama, to Massachusetts. In effect, the American taxpayer has paid this one trucker $15,000 to haul ice from New York to Massachusetts to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina. It is unbelievable and staggering incompetence that FEMA is paying this kind of money. But it was not only Paul Mullinaux; it was not just him. It was hundreds and hundreds of other truckers with exactly the same experience. Loaded with blankets, loaded with ice, loaded with the things the victims needed, sitting in an airbase, being paid $800, $900 a day per truck while victims waited. Incidentally, Paul Mullinaux said they had a small television in that truck of theirs sitting on the tarmac of the military base along with hundreds of other truckers, and they were seeing on the nightly news the victims who were begging and pleading for the things they needed to keep them warm, to give them sustenance, food, ice, good water, blankets, clothing. And they were all on trucks, sitting there, day after day after day after day after day, and, finally, never delivered. The question is, when you hear this sort of staggering incompetence, who is in charge? Who is accountable? Harry Truman used to have a little sign on his desk that said ``The buck stops here.'' Where does the buck stop with this? Is anybody accountable? FEMA? It used to be an agency we were enormously proud of. Regrettably, many of the top positions in that agency were filled with cronies who had no information, no experience, no capability with respect to disaster preparedness or disaster response. And this is but one small story of Paul Mullinaux, a trucker who came here to tell his story, furious as a taxpayer about what has happened. Al Knight and Mike Moran came, Knight Enterprises. They were hired by a subsidiary of Halliburton to do some work down in the Gulf of Mexico to try to deal with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. They went out as a result of an oral contract and hired 75 skilled, experienced electricians to do a job. It wasn't very long before the subcontractor with Halliburton said, don't worry about that; your electricians will not be on the job very long. We are bringing in new people. Guess what. They did bring in new people. My guess is a fair number of them were undocumented workers. They say almost none of them spoke English. They say their electricians were trying to work beside them and these were not skilled electricians. In many cases, they didn't know what they were doing. Why were they there? Why were they there to replace Louisiana workers who wanted the jobs to help get back on their feet, people who were victimized by Hurricane Katrina and Rita? Why were others brought in from out of state to take those jobs? Money. Just money. Because the President said, by the way, with respect to reconstruction in the Gulf of Mexico, in Louisiana and related States, Mississippi and so on, we will get rid of the Davis-Bacon requirement. What is Davis-Bacon? It says the Federal Government, when it does work in your region, is going to pay the prevailing wage. They will not come in and hire a bunch of fly-by-night operators in order to drop the wages to dirt-poor levels. We will, as a Federal Government, pay prevailing, regional wages, when we do contracting in a region. But when the President said, by the way, Davis-Bacon does not work, does not count, with respect to reconstruction in Louisiana, Mississippi, and elsewhere, he opened the door for these firms to hire a bunch of workers for dollars a day with no benefits, and put them up in conditions--by the way, this picture was taken last weekend. Those are some of the workers who are brought in to take jobs that days ago belonged to the people of Louisiana. Workers who got hit by these hurricanes were anxious to get these jobs to try to get back on their feet. No more. The jobs now belong the these folks who live in these conditions--the exploitation of workers in this country. That is what happens when you get rid of the Davis-Bacon requirement of paying the prevailing wage--bring somebody in and exploit them. And, oh, by the way, one of the witnesses this morning said he saw jobs advertised by companies to do the reconstruction that claimed their workers can have free meals at the Red Cross. What does that mean, ``free meals at the Red Cross''? That means you don't have to pay them much. You can underpay them. You can have them live like this, as shown in this picture. You can exploit them. And, oh, by the way, we can get free meals for you at the Red Cross. What a shame this is. The fact is, there is a right way and a wrong way to do reconstruction in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, and that is to not devastate the local prevailing wage. It is to reach out and hire the people in that region who have been victimized by these natural disasters. It is not to waste money. There is such prevailing waste here, it is almost unbelievable. Ms. Sheila Crowley testified this morning. She has a Ph.D. She is president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. There is $11 million being spent each day to put people in hotels who are displaced because of Hurricane Katrina. Think of that. So $11 million tonight is what the estimate is for hotel rooms. Now, why are we still paying for these hotel rooms? Because the administration decided they did not want to use a voucher program. They do not like vouchers. A voucher program would have been to say to a person displaced: Here is a voucher. Go find yourself an apartment. It would have used existing housing stock. It would have made a great deal of sense and very quickly put people in housing. But the administration does not like vouchers, so the people who run these programs have been prevented from doing that. Let me come back for a moment to the testimony by Paul Mullinaux. I have asked FEMA if we can find some accountability in FEMA. Who is it that decided we should have a truck pick up ice in New York and deliver it to Massachusetts for the purpose of helping victims of Katrina down in Louisiana and Mississippi? Who decided to do that? Who authorized the payment of $15,000 for that truck and hundreds of other trucks just like it full of materials that victims needed, full of food and supplies and clothing and ice that victims needed? Will we find the answer to that? Will we find some accountability somewhere? I hope so because as we produce additional money for reconstruction and as we provide additional money to FEMA, the question is, Is this money being spent in a manner that meets any commonsense test at all? The fact is, this does not meet any test at all, that I am aware of, of efficiency or of effectiveness. Someone, some group of people is completely brain dead when it comes to managing the resources that belong to the taxpayers of this country. I would like to find out who. This country deserves better. America deserves better than this. We can do better as a country. Let me just finally say this: We had a FEMA that was extraordinary. I know that because in my State we had a city of nearly 50,000 people that was nearly completely evacuated because of a flood. I watched FEMA up close. They were extraordinary: professional, sharp, on the mark, on the ball, doing the right things. Now FEMA is a joke. I am sure there are wonderful people still working at FEMA. But I see people inside FEMA, who are career people, who say what has happened inside is to hollow out this great organization. You put people at the top who have no experience at all in this area--just hire a couple cronies, friends, and say, ``Go do this,'' with no experience in disaster preparation or disaster preparedness--and this is what you get. I hope we can find some accountability. I hope we can put some new people in charge, in place, to be responsible for this country and to its taxpayers. We are going to spend billions more dollars out of this Chamber. I have watched it with respect to reconstruction in Iraq, and I am now watching it with respect to reconstruction in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. In both cases, it appears to me that massive amounts of money are being wasted. There is substantial waste, fraud, and abuse. Instead of yawning at that problem, this Congress ought to be furious. We ought to make sure we put a stop to it right now.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, because we are at this point postcloture, I want to speak on a subject unrelated to the bill. I ask unanimous consent to do that.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to speak about the price of oil and gasoline. I know there are a lot of discussions around this country about many issues of public interest. The American people are concerned and interested about a lot of challenges we face. We have the biggest budget deficit in the history of this country. I know people say it is getting better. The fact is, it is not. They show a little smaller budget deficit by using the Social Security surpluses to make it look smaller. We also have the largest trade deficit in the history of the country. The trade deficit and the budget deficit combined are over $1 trillion this year. We have challenges there. We have challenges in Iraq dealing with foreign policy. We have our men and women wearing America's uniform in harm's way. Our hearts go out to them and our prayers are with them. We have a lot of issues. The gulf coast was hit by a devastating natural disaster, by Hurricane Katrina followed by Hurricane Rita. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost their homes. Many of them have lost everything, living still today in shelters with a bleak prospect ahead. And our country is coming together to try to say to them, You are not alone. We face some challenges. Let me speak about one other challenge; that is, the challenge of the people who drive up to the gas pump this afternoon and buy 15, 16, or 18 gallons of gas, put it in their tanks, and discover it costs over $50. There are a whole lot of families in this country who cannot afford that. While people drive to the gas pump and put in 15 or 18 gallons and have a $50 bill to pay, the major integrated oil companies in the country have reaped the highest profits in their history. These major integrated oil companies are bigger, stronger, more powerful and muscular than they have ever been. Thanks to megamergers that have occurred in recent years, all these oil companies fell in love with each other, started dating, got hitched, and now, instead of two companies, it is one company. It is ExxonMobil. It used to be Exxon and Mobil, but it is now ExxonMobil. The list goes on. So we have bigger, stronger, and more powerful companies that have more impact in the marketplace, and they are more profitable than ever in their history. Let me use a few statistics. In January of last year, the average price of oil was $34.5 a barrel in this country. At that rate, the major integrated oil companies made the largest profits in their history--Exxon earned $25 billion. What did they do with it? Nearly $10 billion went to buy back their stock another story I will talk about in a moment. At $34.5 a barrel, the integrated oil companies had the highest profits in their history. Add $30 a barrel to that. Then ask yourself, What are the profits going to be this year? You have the answer. Profits are windfall, excess profits far above anything justified. We use 21 million barrels of oil a day in this country. The world uses 84 million barrels of oil every single day. We use a fourth of it. Think about that. We use a fourth of the oil pumped out of the ground every day in this country. Sixty percent of it we buy from other countries, and 40 percent we produce in this country. People say--well, those who support the oil industry; there are plenty of them here--it is fine for them to be making $60 or $65 or $70 a barrel. That gives them a chance to invest in more production and refineries. Let me show you what was printed in Business Week in June of last year entitled ``Why Isn't Big Oil Drilling More?'' Rather than developing new fields, oil giants have preferred to buy rivals--``drilling for oil on Wall Street.'' There ain't no oil on Wall Street. Wall Street is about big finance, high finance, buying and selling. There is no oil. ``Why Isn't Big Oil Drilling More?'' Oil has been over $20 a barrel almost continuously since mid-1999. That should have been ample incentive for companies to open new fields, since new projects are designed to be profitable with prices as low as the mid-teens. Nevertheless, drilling has lagged. This is Business Week. This isn't some liberal rag. This is Business Week, a conservative business journal. Far from raising money to pursue opportunities, oil companies are paying down debt, buying back shares, and hoarding cash. While the American people pull up to the gas pumps to pay $50 for gas, where it is going? Is it going into the ground to look for more oil or build refineries? No, it is not. The pain of the person at the gas pump is the gain of the treasury of the major integrated oil companies. It is a fat treasury on the one hand and enormous pain on the other. Katrina and Rita hit this country, and we have people here who say that is what is causing this angst about the price of gasoline and oil. Not true. The fact is, oil was in the mid-60s a barrel before Hurricane Katrina was bearing down on the gulf coast. The price of oil was well above $60 a barrel. This isn't about the hurricane. Others of my colleagues say this is a free market in oil. I was on one television program--I think a CNBC segment--and the moderator, a real thoughtful gentleman he was, said: You are a socialist because you want to take the windfall profits that exist and tax them and use that money to give a rebate to consumers. This is socialism, he said. I was tempted to say: Grow up. But he was a television commentator, so I didn't do that. But the point is, there is no free market in oil. There is no free market. Some OPEC oil officials that sit around the table and make decisions about supply and price to some extent can influence it. Then what you have are the now giant integrated oil companies that have been made larger by blockbuster mergers in recent years. In addition to that, you have the futures market which is supposed to provide liquidity for trading which has become an unbelievable bazaar of speculation. So those are the elements that tell me there is no free market here. You have a market in which the price of a gallon of gasoline is delivered. In fact, nobody ever sees it. It shows up at the gasoline pumps, you pump it into the tank of your car, and the money goes from your wallet. There are a lot of hard-working families in this country and low-income people who can't afford it--from their wallet into the treasury of the major integrated oil companies. Then the question is, Why isn't big oil drilling more? I made a proposition. I introduced a piece of legislation, along with my colleague, Senator Dodd, and others, to say anything above $40 a barrel--incidentally, $40 a barrel is the price at which the oil companies had the largest profits in their history by far--if you are not using it to drill for more oil or build more refineries, you get hit with a 50-percent excise tax on those windfall profits, and all of that money is used to give rebates to consumers. It is not money for the Federal Treasury. It takes the money back from the oil companies that are soaking people at the gas pump and returns it to consumers. There is a huge cry about that--interfering with the market, we are told. Let me refer to this article from the New York Times. This is February of this year. This goes back 8 months or so. . . . the worlds 10 biggest oil companies earned more than $100 billion in 2004, a windfall greater than the economic output of Malaysia. . . .Their sales are expected to exceed $1 trillion for 2004, which is more than Canada's gross domestic product. Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, earned more than $25 billion last year and spent $9.95 billion to buy back its own stock; Royal Dutch/Shell Group . . . pledged to hand out at least $10 billion as dividends to shareholders this year. Last year, the largest integrated oil companies spent 24 percent of their cash on dividends, 12 percent on share buy- backs, and 12 percent on paring debt . . . As a share of exploration and production expenses, spending on exploration has declined over the last decade, and now accounts for 20 percent of the total. There was an interesting piece in a newspaper just days ago. Most people know what AAA is, the American Automobile Association--headline: Finger-pointing Begins After Gas Prices Jump 24 Cents in 24 Hours; Exxon Dealers-- These are the gas station dealers-- --Say They Are Chafing Under Higher Prices Decreed From Atop. A growing chorus of Exxon dealers in the Washington metro area are raising their voices and accusing the world's largest oil company, Exxon Mobil, of profiting from the exorbitant prices at the pump in the wake of Hurricane Katrina . . . In candid conversations with AAA Mid-Atlantic, a handful of local dealers accused the oil giant of raising their wholesale price to service stations by 24 cents in a 24-hour period. The disgruntled dealers say the steep price increases put them on the horns of a dilemma . . . By raising their prices, they risk losing their loyal customer base, which has taken them years to build. By raising their voices against Exxon Mobil's practices, they risk losing their contracts. Question: What is happening here? What is going on? It is really an interesting dilemma. The inclination, I suspect, of most people here in the Congress is to do nothing. Go to ``parade rest'' is the most comfortable position for politicians. It has always been and perhaps always will be. But we not only see prices at the gas pumps coming from the price of a barrel of oil, now $30 above last year's prices and record profits, we are now heading into a winter season where folks from my home State, the State of North Dakota, folks from the home State of the Presiding Officer, the State of Minnesota, and others will be paying 70 percent more for natural gas. We had a vote yesterday on the low-income home heating assistance program. We lost that vote. We will come back and have it again. We will eventually have that vote. We don't have a choice. Low-income folks have to heat their homes, and heating a home in winter is not a luxury. But this is not just about them. What about the other folks, the folks who are in the middle-income ranges who are still trying to figure out how to make ends meet? How do we buy school clothes for our kids and pay for gas for our car and pay our mortgage, buy the groceries each week, and do all the things we need to do for our family, and then pay a 70-percent increase in the cost of heating our homes for winter? What about those people? Does anybody here care, or are we just content to thumb our suspenders and light our cigar under the glare of klieg lights? God bless the free market. Let it all go. What utter, sheer nonsense. There is no free market in oil. I know people with suits that cost a whole lot more than mine are going to be cranky about this statement. There is no free market. They will say: Of course there is a free spot market. There are people trading right now as you speak, Senator Dorgan. There are people trading back and forth, and of course there is a market. Totally absurd. There are the OPEC ministers, there are the larger and more powerful through blockbuster mergers integrated oil companies, and then there is rampant speculation in the futures market. They are combined to make a pretty interesting dance, but there is no free market. There is substantial pain in this country at the price of gasoline, substantial pain that will occur this winter with a 70-percent increase in natural gas prices, a 40-percent increase in home heating fuel prices, and people are going to ask the question, Why is this happening? Who is on my side? Why do we have a circumstance where the biggest in this country, the largest economic enterprises, make record profits and smile all the way to the bank while all the rest of the folks are bearing the pain? I have often spoken about the Texas Playboys, a band from the 1930s that had the refrain in their song, ``Little bees suck the blossom, but the big bee gets the honey. The little guy picks the cotton, and the big guy gets the money.'' If ever those lyrics meant something, it means something now in this circumstance with respect to the pain and the gain in this energy policy. So I introduced a piece of legislation. It is very simple. It says that at oil prices above $40 a barrel, if the windfall profits accrued from those prices are not being used to explore for more oil and natural gas and if they are not being used to build refineries and add capacity, then they shall be taxed at 50 percent, and all of the proceeds will be used to provide rebates to American consumers. It is a form of revenue sharing from the oil companies that are experiencing windfall profits to the folks who are pulling up to the gas pumps and the folks who are going to try to pay a heating bill that is exorbitant. I don't have any idea whether this Senate will act on this legislation. It is more likely the Senate will do what it usually does in areas of controversy: it will stand with those who have the most economic clout. The question of whose side are you on, regrettably, at least in recent years, the Senate has demonstrated that it is not on your side. It is not on the side of the little guy, that is for sure. We can pretend and act as if we have our hands over our eyes for some months and say it just didn't work out that we could do anything, really. So the market system works. If it costs $50 to fill your tank, that is the way the market is. God bless you. See you tomorrow. Good luck, by the way. Or when you find the 70-percent increase in your home heating fuel and it is 30 below zero and the wind is blowing 40 miles per hour--and yes, it does in some parts of our country--and you are cranking up the furnace to make sure there is enough heat in the house for you, the family, and the kids, so you can go to bed and not freeze, and those who say this is just the free market, good for you, God bless you, keep that furnace high, but you have to make it a priority to pay the heating bill. It is not our fault the heating bill is so high. Congress decided not to do anything. By the way, now it is December and the Congress is not in session anymore, and it is, you know, good luck to you. God bless you. Go back and forth to the post office and visit a little bit about how high the prices are, but nobody is going to help you much. I don't believe we are a country that can do without oil. We produce oil in my State. I support the oil industry in many areas. I believe we ought to produce more in this country. I believe we are dangerously addicted to foreign oil. It is unusual, to say the least, that one- fourth of the world's oil is consumed in this country every day. We share this globe with 6.5 billion people, and in this country alone we have a claim on one-fourth of all the oil that is consumed. It is a peculiar thing that somehow given how this planet is put together, there is this little area halfway around the world covered with sand where most of the oil deposits exist, and the largest deposits are in countries called Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq. That is a curious and strange thing and one that is also dangerous for us. We have become so dependent on that supply of oil--and now I am not talking about the price and windfall profits of domestic companies; I am talking about the dangerous addiction we have to foreign oil. If we do not as a country decide we will try to find a way to break this addiction--I am not suggesting we will not always dig and drill--but if our energy policy is just digging and drilling, that is a ``yesterday forever'' policy and it is one that is destined for failure. We have to become independent in terms of our energy needs, particularly of those troubled countries in the Middle East. I find it fascinating we have such a relationship with the Saudis. The Saudis have the largest reserves of oil in the world. Under their sands exist the world's largest oil reserves. Because of that, even our foreign policy is altered. I have spoken in the Senate many times about the 28 redacted pages in the 2002 December report about the September 11 terrorist attack in this country. Fifteen of the 19 terrorists were Saudi citizens. The combined Intelligence Committees of the House and the Senate did this first investigation of September 11. They sent it to the White House. The White House published the book, but 28 pages were redacted. What were they? Twenty-eight pages, according to published reports and according to my colleague Senator Graham, in his book, had to do with the Saudis. Why? Because all that we do with the Saudis, all we do with them in foreign policy, even with respect to this issue of terrorist attacks, has to do with our incredible dependence on Saudi oil and on Middle East oil. This is dangerous for our country. We have to remove ourselves from that, remove that addiction. How do we do that? There is a wide range of things. We passed energy legislation in this Congress. It is not great, but it is not bad. I voted for it. It moves us in the right direction. That is the immediate term. In the short term, we are confronted with this unusual price for a barrel of oil which converts to an unusual price for a gallon of gasoline. Every American driving up to the gas pump today understands the shock value of having to pay these prices. Every American trying to heat their home this winter will understand the same shock value. They will and should ask the question, Is anybody doing anything about this, or is this an appropriate form of a new market system we do not understand? The answer is, the Congress should do something about it. Again, let me say there are all kinds of reasons and excuses and especially distortions that are moved around on these subjects. Let me give an example of one. We have people who say, look, the reason we did not have more oil flowing, which would relate to supply and demand, with the supply- demand curve, if you have more supply going in against a fixed demand or an increasing demand, a greater supply means lower price. The reason we do not have that is because of the eggheaded environmentalists, they would claim. They have prevented oil companies from building refineries, so shame on them, that is the problem today. We do not have enough refineries. We hear that in the Senate and the House and all political debate, over and over. It is a branding technique, the notion if you say it often enough, people will start believing it: 150 refineries have been closed in the past 25 years and no new refineries have been sited in the same period. The fact is most of the evidence points to the oil companies themselves as making the decisions about closing refineries. They have decided to shut down existing refineries and decrease output as a business matter. They do that following big mergers and also restructuring. The big integrated oil companies control a majority of the Nation's refined oil and gas products. In many cases, they control this process from the point of pulling oil from the ground to pumping it into your gas tank. The fact is, there is an interesting amount of evidence about this issue of refineries. We had an Energy Committee hearing about this. We had three experts who knew about all this. Why are there not more refineries being built? Because the margins are not higher, is why. That is from the experts. It has nothing do with environmentalists. The margins are not higher. So when oil companies restructure and merge, they close refineries because they want to. The fact is there is a wealth of information about this refinery issue that suggests this is not about environmentalists; it is about the oil companies deciding in their own interests how much refining capacity they want and what kind of margins they want from refining. My point is very simple. We have a serious problem in this country with an energy crisis. It is not getting better. We have a dislocation, terrible pain, for a lot of working folks, a lot of low-income people, not just to drive their cars but also to heat their homes as we approach this winter. And they will ask the question, and should, is anyone going to care about this? Will somebody do something about it? Will someone be on our side and stand for us? We will have some people say this is the free market and if you do not like it, tough luck, we do not intend to intervene in a free market. Then there are others, such as me, who say that is nonsense, this is not a free market, this is not fair competition. A free market economy is about competition. Easy entry, easy exit, competition around price. There is no free market here. We have OPEC, oil companies, and rampant speculation. They have created a distortion of so-called market prices. The American people deserve a Senate that will stand in at times when oil prices reach $60 and $70 a barrel and we have profits that represent the biggest profits in the history of corporate America. The American people deserve a Senate that will stand up and say, We are on your side and we will do something about it when the market system does not work. America can do better. The fact is we can do better on energy policy. We can do better on policy I just described. We owe it to people to intervene in circumstances where we must intervene. The Senate should make it a priority to consider this kind of legislation. We have meandered our way through this year. There has been no discernible pattern, no discernible journey that makes much sense to me. But in this Congress we have wandered around, place to place. We did not pass our appropriations bills, intervened in a whole range of issues, including the Terri Schiavo case. I could go on and on and on. We intervened in all the other issues. The key things most people are concerned about in their daily lives, that they talk about at the supper table when they sit around and have something to eat together--this is one of those key issues. What is the price of energy? Can we afford it? If not, what do we do? The proposal I have offered with some of my colleagues for a windfall profits recapture would not injure any major integrated oil company under any set of circumstances because they would not have to pay it. They would choose not to pay it if, in fact, they are using their windfall profit to explore for more oil and build more refineries; and if not, they would choose to repay part of that profit in a form of rebate back to their consumers. My hope remains in these coming days as the Congress lurches toward the end of this year, that Congress and the Senate, particularly, will find time to do what is the bull's eye, the agenda the American people want, to deal with things that affect them every day in a very significant way. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Last Friday I was in the Senate briefly and indicated we were introducing legislation that repeals the law that was passed in the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina that took the limitation on the credit cards carried by Federal employees from $2,500 to $250,000. That is right, the bill that responded with emergency funding for Katrina also included a provision that increased the limit on Federal credit cards that are carried by some 300,000 Federal workers, increased the top limit from $2,500 per purchase for $250,000 per purchase. When I discovered that, I thought, that is not right, that cannot be believable. It, in fact, was. I discovered the White House had requested that increase in the limit on Federal credit cards be provided. In fact, the person who came down to brief the Congress on that was Mr. Safavian, top procurement officer at the Office of Management and Budget, who was arrested 2 weeks later by the FBI and now has been indicted. But all this happened some weeks ago. The credit card limit went from $2,500 to $250,000 on the credit card that is carried by a Federal worker, and there are 390,000 or so around. I introduced with my colleague Senator Wyden a bill that would restore it back to the $2,500 limit. My point was, this is nuts. It is goofy to put a $250,000 limit on a credit card. It is unbelievable. I pointed out the Inspector General's reports and also the GAO reports about abuse of credit cards by some Federal employees. One Federal employee put breast enlargements for his girlfriend on a Federal credit card. Buying liquor, trips, guns, unbelievable expenditures in the abuse found by the GAO, and we will increase the top limit on the credit cards to $250,000? I introduced that legislation and I am pleased to say on Monday of this week the Office of Management and Budget and the White House announced they support the legislation to take this back to $2,500. So it is actually $2,500 plus an emergency $15,000 post September 11, that happened after September 11, which is what we would take this back to. The White House has said they want to rescind the $250,000 and take it back to $2,500. That is the legislation I have introduced with my colleague Senator Wyden. My hope is at the first opportunity, given the support of the White House, that I can offer this as an amendment, perhaps not to this bill, because I think we are limited in amendments and we are probably on auto pilot with respect to the amendments. The very next piece of legislation, it would be my intention to offer that. As I said, that will have the support of the White House. Without it, of course, the law still exists. It was put in law at the request of the White House to take the top limit from $2,500 to $250,000. I want to take it back. The White House says they want it back. So let's decide here in the Senate to put it on a bill and get it to conference and get this sort of thing done. Let me also say to OMB and the White House, I appreciate their candor and their willingness to do the right thing. Everyone understood what was requested was a mistake. It should not have been requested. The decision now is to change the law and to make it where it ought to be, a $2,500 limit on the credit cards. Yes, we have to respond in a significant way to Hurricane Katrina. Sometimes that might encourage somebody or require somebody in certain circumstances to have a larger purchase, but there are plenty of ways to accommodate that without risking the waste, fraud, and abuse that will go with having credit cards with $250,000 limits. Our legislation is pending. I make the point I appreciate the administration deciding to do a U-turn on this policy. We will offer this legislation in the Senate as soon as we are eligible to offer it on perhaps the next piece of legislation brought to the floor. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Dorgan and Mr. Wyden pertaining to the introduction of S. 1805 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, Senator Wyden and I are introducing legislation today to change a provision in law that was attendant to the emergency supplemental passed recently dealing with hurricane Katrina. That provision in law increased the amount of money that would be available to be spent on a Government credit card from $2,500 to $250,000. That is right--$250,000 for purchases on a Government credit card. Here is what a Government credit card looks like. There are about 390,000--somewhere in that neighborhood--390,000 Government credit cards in the country. I have three GAO reports that describe substantial abuse and misuse of these Government credit cards. The proposal that passed this Congress attendant to the hurricane emergency relief says that on these credit cards, the limit will go from $2,500 to $250,000. Let me describe for a moment what the GAO found in various investigations. What has been charged to a Government credit card? Hiring prostitutes, gambling, breast-enlargement surgery--yes, it was for a girlfriend of somebody who had a Government credit card--cigars, mounting a deer head, jewelry, wine, and the list goes on. Now the limit goes to $250,000. We aim to take it back to $2,500. It will still have the emergency capabilities that existed since 9/11 which will allow a $15,000 limit under emergencies. We had a hearing at which a professor from GW Law School who is an expert in this area of Government procurement testified. Here is what he said about the $250,000 credit card limit: The potential for abuse is staggering. Everybody knows that: ``The potential for abuse is staggering.'' If you don't believe it, take a look at the GAO reports with respect to the abuse when the limit was $2,500. Now it is $250,000 for a credit card purchase? Who is going to stand up for the interest of the taxpayers? This fellow, Mr. Safavian, was the top contracting officer for purchases of the Federal Government. He just said several weeks ago about the $250,000: This guidance-- That he and OMB would provide-- This guidance helps make sure that adequate management controls are in place to ensure that taxpayers' dollars are spent efficiently and responsibly in support of disaster victims. Meaning the new $250,000 on credit cards will be spent efficiently and responsibly. That is from David Safavian, Director of the Office of Procurement and Policy. The problem is, Mr. Safavian was arrested by the FBI on September 19 and charged with lying to an ethics officer and so on. He is the guy who gave us the assurance that taking the credit card from $2,500 to $250,000 will be just fine because there are all these limits in place and it will be spent wisely and efficiently. Yes, and the Moon is made of green cheese. Who is going to believe this, especially when we have the GAO reports that show past abuses with even the $2,500 limit, which includes the hiring of prostitutes on Government credit cards? It includes breast- enlargement surgery on Government credit cards. When on Earth will people wake up and start thinking? So Senator Wyden and myself are today introducing legislation to say, How about let's sober up and think through this the right way on behalf of the American taxpayers. We want to help hurricane victims, no question about that. But I do not want people walking around with credit cards that have a $250,000 limit that say U.S. Government on them, in a way that the GAO says puts us at risk and in a way that Government procurement experts tell us is very dangerous for the American taxpayer. I am pleased to do this with my colleague, Senator Wyden. For the past several years, Senator Wyden and I have taken a look at a whole range of wasteful issues. I might just say that Senator Wyden and I, a while back, found deep in the bowels of the Pentagon there was a plan to create what was called a futures market for terrorism. I think they were preparing to spend another $8 million on it. And, yes, they were going to actually have a futures market for terrorism so that people could make wagers buying futures contracts on things such as how many American soldiers will be killed in the next year, will the King of Jordan be assassinated within the next year. One could actually wager and make money by betting on those kinds of things. Senator Wyden and I blew that wide open. The next day, both Secretary Rumsfeld and the President said they did not know it was going on. They shut it down and it is all over. In my judgment, that was unbelievably stupid as a public policy, whoever allowed that to happen. It is now shut down. A lot of bad things happen in circumstances where no one is watching. In this case, with credit cards that have a $250,000 limit, there is something fundamentally wrong with that. I do not know who put that in the emergency supplemental. It should not have been there. But it was there. We aim to repeal it on behalf of the American taxpayer.

Mr. DORGAN. I would be happy to yield to my friend from Oregon.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, in answer to the Senator's request, he is asking that of perhaps 390,000 credit cards that exist in the possession of Federal workers, do we know how many have this $250,000 limit? We do not have the foggiest idea. The Senator indicated we want to help people who are dealing with the hurricane. Our interest is not in pulling the rug out from under people who are working and trying to respond to the devastation of these hurricanes, but I am not interested in paving the way for additional waste, fraud, and abuse with the misuse of Federal credit cards. Yes, there are thousands of dedicated public servants who will use these responsibly, but increasing the limit from $2,500 to $250,000, in my judgment, is fundamentally irresponsible, and we aim to take it back with this amendment and aim to offer this amendment to the next supplemental that deals with this hurricane. I will yield the floor so my colleague from Oregon can have the floor, and I would like to propound a question at some point later when he finishes his statement.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I conclude by pointing out that, yes, others have described their concern about the $250,000, and some have talked about a $50,000 limit and other approaches. Senator Wyden and I say that we ought to go back to the old limit, $2,500 per credit card per transaction. That is why we introduced this legislation and hope that our colleagues will agree. Again, this is what the credit card looks like. There are nearly 400,000 that are possessed by Federal workers. We do not allege that these are not dedicated public servants. We do allege that at least in some instances, according to three GAO reports, there have been massive abuses. These are just a few. I put up another chart about them: Liquor, gambling, mounting a deer head, cigars, ski clothes and diamond rings, not to mention hiring prostitutes and breast enlargements--all put on Government credit cards. Does that make a person look and pay attention? Of course. Should that be happening? Of course not. The $250,000 limit on the credit card, this is what Professor Yukins said, who is an expert in these areas: [T]he Administration has announced various protective measures. . . . It appears, however, that those additional protections will not address the core problem with the new procurement exceptions: Under the new law, agencies will be able to spend billions of relief dollars without any of the competition, transparency or other legal rules that normally protect our procurement system. I ask my colleagues how this got into the supplemental bill, taking it from a $2,500 to a $250,000 limit on a Federal Government credit card. How did that happen? When one looks at that they say: Wait a second, we are going to increase the limit on a credit card from $2,500 to $250,000? What on Earth are you thinking about? Well, it came from the White House. The White House made the specific request, believing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina people were going to need emergency capabilities to do these kinds of purchases. So the White House said they wanted an increase to $250,000. The person they sent down to brief staff in the Senate of how this would work and why it is necessary was Mr. David Safavian. He was the head of all procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget in the White House. What did he tell us publicly and what did he tell the American people? ``This guidance''--guidance about procurement with the $250,000 limit on a credit card: This guidance helps make sure that adequate management controls are in place to ensure that taxpayers' dollars are spent efficiently and responsibly in support of disaster victims. That was said 2 weeks before Mr. Safavian's arrest by the FBI for lying. This is the person who came to brief the Senate staff about why the $250,000 limit on credit cards was necessary. It not only is not necessary, it is terribly unwise. In my judgment, unless changed, from this we will see a dramatic amount of waste, fraud, and abuse. There is a right way and a wrong way to do things. I guarantee this proposal to increase credit card limits for Federal employees to $250,000 is the wrong way. Senator Wyden and I are going to do everything we can to see if we cannot in more sober moments persuade everyone here that we ought to go back to the previous limits and that we ought to enforce them the right way. The GAO's reports say that even with the $2,500 limits, there are serious problems with the use of these Federal credit cards. That is our proposal. I want to thank my colleague from Oregon with whom I have worked on a number of occasions on many areas of Federal waste. Yes, this is a big old government, a big bureaucracy. There are wonderful people who work in it, and it does wonderful things. There are also areas of waste that make me furious. Senator Wyden and I have worked on that in a number of areas, in a number of ways, and I hope we can continue to do that. This is a preventive way to try to restore that $2,500 as a limit on Federal credit cards. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, Senator Wyden and I are introducing legislation today to change a provision in law that was attendant to the emergency supplemental passed recently dealing with hurricane Katrina. That provision in law increased the amount of money that would be available to be spent on a Government credit card from $2,500 to $250,000. That is right--$250,000 for purchases on a Government credit card. Here is what a Government credit card looks like. There are about 390,000--somewhere in that neighborhood--390,000 Government credit cards in the country. I have three GAO reports that describe substantial abuse and misuse of these Government credit cards. The proposal that passed this Congress attendant to the hurricane emergency relief says that on these credit cards, the limit will go from $2,500 to $250,000. Let me describe for a moment what the GAO found in various investigations. What has been charged to a Government credit card? Hiring prostitutes, gambling, breast-enlargement surgery--yes, it was for a girlfriend of somebody who had a Government credit card--cigars, mounting a deer head, jewelry, wine, and the list goes on. Now the limit goes to $250,000. We aim to take it back to $2,500. It will still have the emergency capabilities that existed since 9/11 which will allow a $15,000 limit under emergencies. We had a hearing at which a professor from GW Law School who is an expert in this area of Government procurement testified. Here is what he said about the $250,000 credit card limit: The potential for abuse is staggering. Everybody knows that: ``The potential for abuse is staggering.'' If you don't believe it, take a look at the GAO reports with respect to the abuse when the limit was $2,500. Now it is $250,000 for a credit card purchase? Who is going to stand up for the interest of the taxpayers? This fellow, Mr. Safavian, was the top contracting officer for purchases of the Federal Government. He just said several weeks ago about the $250,000: This guidance-- That he and OMB would provide-- This guidance helps make sure that adequate management controls are in place to ensure that taxpayers' dollars are spent efficiently and responsibly in support of disaster victims. Meaning the new $250,000 on credit cards will be spent efficiently and responsibly. That is from David Safavian, Director of the Office of Procurement and Policy. The problem is, Mr. Safavian was arrested by the FBI on September 19 and charged with lying to an ethics officer and so on. He is the guy who gave us the assurance that taking the credit card from $2,500 to $250,000 will be just fine because there are all these limits in place and it will be spent wisely and efficiently. Yes, and the Moon is made of green cheese. Who is going to believe this, especially when we have the GAO reports that show past abuses with even the $2,500 limit, which includes the hiring of prostitutes on Government credit cards? It includes breast- enlargement surgery on Government credit cards. When on Earth will people wake up and start thinking? So Senator Wyden and myself are today introducing legislation to say, How about let's sober up and think through this the right way on behalf of the American taxpayers. We want to help hurricane victims, no question about that. But I do not want people walking around with credit cards that have a $250,000 limit that say U.S. Government on them, in a way that the GAO says puts us at risk and in a way that Government procurement experts tell us is very dangerous for the American taxpayer. I am pleased to do this with my colleague, Senator Wyden. For the past several years, Senator Wyden and I have taken a look at a whole range of wasteful issues. I might just say that Senator Wyden and I, a while back, found deep in the bowels of the Pentagon there was a plan to create what was called a futures market for terrorism. I think they were preparing to spend another $8 million on it. And, yes, they were going to actually have a futures market for terrorism so that people could make wagers buying futures contracts on things such as how many American soldiers will be killed in the next year, will the King of Jordan be assassinated within the next year. One could actually wager and make money by betting on those kinds of things. Senator Wyden and I blew that wide open. The next day, both Secretary Rumsfeld and the President said they did not know it was going on. They shut it down and it is all over. In my judgment, that was unbelievably stupid as a public policy, whoever allowed that to happen. It is now shut down. A lot of bad things happen in circumstances where no one is watching. In this case, with credit cards that have a $250,000 limit, there is something fundamentally wrong with that. I do not know who put that in the emergency supplemental. It should not have been there. But it was there. We aim to repeal it on behalf of the American taxpayer.

Mr. DORGAN. I would be happy to yield to my friend from Oregon.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, in answer to the Senator's request, he is asking that of perhaps 390,000 credit cards that exist in the possession of Federal workers, do we know how many have this $250,000 limit? We do not have the foggiest idea. The Senator indicated we want to help people who are dealing with the hurricane. Our interest is not in pulling the rug out from under people who are working and trying to respond to the devastation of these hurricanes, but I am not interested in paving the way for additional waste, fraud, and abuse with the misuse of Federal credit cards. Yes, there are thousands of dedicated public servants who will use these responsibly, but increasing the limit from $2,500 to $250,000, in my judgment, is fundamentally irresponsible, and we aim to take it back with this amendment and aim to offer this amendment to the next supplemental that deals with this hurricane. I will yield the floor so my colleague from Oregon can have the floor, and I would like to propound a question at some point later when he finishes his statement.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I conclude by pointing out that, yes, others have described their concern about the $250,000, and some have talked about a $50,000 limit and other approaches. Senator Wyden and I say that we ought to go back to the old limit, $2,500 per credit card per transaction. That is why we introduced this legislation and hope that our colleagues will agree. Again, this is what the credit card looks like. There are nearly 400,000 that are possessed by Federal workers. We do not allege that these are not dedicated public servants. We do allege that at least in some instances, according to three GAO reports, there have been massive abuses. These are just a few. I put up another chart about them: Liquor, gambling, mounting a deer head, cigars, ski clothes and diamond rings, not to mention hiring prostitutes and breast enlargements--all put on Government credit cards. Does that make a person look and pay attention? Of course. Should that be happening? Of course not. The $250,000 limit on the credit card, this is what Professor Yukins said, who is an expert in these areas: [T]he Administration has announced various protective measures. . . . It appears, however, that those additional protections will not address the core problem with the new procurement exceptions: Under the new law, agencies will be able to spend billions of relief dollars without any of the competition, transparency or other legal rules that normally protect our procurement system. I ask my colleagues how this got into the supplemental bill, taking it from a $2,500 to a $250,000 limit on a Federal Government credit card. How did that happen? When one looks at that they say: Wait a second, we are going to increase the limit on a credit card from $2,500 to $250,000? What on Earth are you thinking about? Well, it came from the White House. The White House made the specific request, believing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina people were going to need emergency capabilities to do these kinds of purchases. So the White House said they wanted an increase to $250,000. The person they sent down to brief staff in the Senate of how this would work and why it is necessary was Mr. David Safavian. He was the head of all procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget in the White House. What did he tell us publicly and what did he tell the American people? ``This guidance''--guidance about procurement with the $250,000 limit on a credit card: This guidance helps make sure that adequate management controls are in place to ensure that taxpayers' dollars are spent efficiently and responsibly in support of disaster victims. That was said 2 weeks before Mr. Safavian's arrest by the FBI for lying. This is the person who came to brief the Senate staff about why the $250,000 limit on credit cards was necessary. It not only is not necessary, it is terribly unwise. In my judgment, unless changed, from this we will see a dramatic amount of waste, fraud, and abuse. There is a right way and a wrong way to do things. I guarantee this proposal to increase credit card limits for Federal employees to $250,000 is the wrong way. Senator Wyden and I are going to do everything we can to see if we cannot in more sober moments persuade everyone here that we ought to go back to the previous limits and that we ought to enforce them the right way. The GAO's reports say that even with the $2,500 limits, there are serious problems with the use of these Federal credit cards. That is our proposal. I want to thank my colleague from Oregon with whom I have worked on a number of occasions on many areas of Federal waste. Yes, this is a big old government, a big bureaucracy. There are wonderful people who work in it, and it does wonderful things. There are also areas of waste that make me furious. Senator Wyden and I have worked on that in a number of areas, in a number of ways, and I hope we can continue to do that. This is a preventive way to try to restore that $2,500 as a limit on Federal credit cards. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I introduced a piece of legislation a few weeks ago with my colleagues, Senator Dodd and Senator Boxer, dealing with the issue of a windfall profits tax on the major integrated oil companies in this country. The proceeds of this profits tax would be used to give rebates back to consumers who are now paying extraordinary prices to fill up the tank of their car and will be paying extraordinary prices this winter for things such as natural gas and home heating fuel. Well, this proposal for a windfall profits tax in order to capture some of that windfall or excess profits and move it back to consumers has drawn a fair amount of criticism from, of course, one of the largest and wealthiest industries in our country. I expect that and understand that. An op-ed piece this past weekend by James Glassman is typical of that. James Glassman is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and he wrote an article that said: Look, the free market is working. The markets are working, he says. He is very critical, of course, of the legislation I have introduced. ``The markets are working.'' Well, I decided I would bring this over. This is the James Glassman, by the way, who wrote the book in year 2000, ``Dow 36000.'' He was predicting the Dow Jones Industrial Average was going to go to 36,000. It did not quite work so well. But among the pundits here in Washington, DC, there is no such thing as trying to track back to find out who is right or wrong, you just keep writing. The Dow at 36,000? Yeah? The oil markets are working? Sure they are. Let me show you what is happening with these markets. First, this was in the Washington Post yesterday. It shows there is a 46-percent increase in the price of a gallon of gasoline for the crude oil producer since last September. That is for the producers. It shows a 255-percent increase for refiners over the past year. Incidentally, in most cases these are the same companies. Because of the behemoth mergers of the 1990s, giant oil companies were formed. Many of these are integrated companies that do everything from pulling oil from the ground to putting it in the car. What has happened? Well, let me give you some statistics. The 10 largest oil companies earned revenues last year of over $1 trillion and had net profits of over $100 billion. These are last year's numbers. Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, earned more than $25 billion last year and spent $9.9 billion of it to buy back its stock. In addition, it has kept $18.5 billion in cash. Profits for the largest 10 oil companies jumped more than 30 percent last year over the year before. Now, there is an exception to this, because these profits are going to look minuscule as compared to the profits they are getting this year. The price of oil has gone up another $30 a barrel. It is $30 a barrel above the record profits the major oil companies had last year. So while people drive to the gas pump and pay through the nose, this notion of ``fill 'er up'' no longer just pertains to the gas tank on the car, it pertains to the treasuries of the major oil companies. And are they being filled up. Now, what is happening with all of that money? Well, let me read a BusinessWeek article that says: ``Why Isn't Big Oil Drilling More?'' Interesting. One would expect, as Mr. Glassman argues: Gosh, if the oil companies can just get rich, they'll look for more oil. Everybody wins. Right? BusinessWeek: ``Why Isn't Big Oil Drilling More?'' Well, the answer in the article was: . . . by cutting the number of rivals, mergers have made it easier for them to get away with that reluctance to spend. Far from raising money to pursue opportunities, oil companies are paying down debt, buying back shares, and hoarding cash. Rather than developing new fields, oil giants have preferred to buy rivals--``drilling for oil on Wall Street,'' as they call it. So you have a massive amount of money that is going to the treasuries of the big oil companies. And they are ``drilling for oil on Wall Street.'' Well, I have news for them. There ain't no oil on Wall Street. The megamergers of the 1990s, the creation of these behemoth organizations now have us in a situation where they are getting extraordinarily wealthy with, in my judgment, windfall or excess profits. The American consumer is paying through the nose, and these companies are profiting beyond that which we have ever seen in corporate America. Now, the Federal Trade Commission head says she doubts new laws dealing with profiteering would be effective. It is not surprising to me. The Federal Trade Commission, as a result of a provision I put in the new energy bill that was signed by the President, is required by law to investigate the pricing of oil and gas. But do any of us think this tiger without teeth called the Federal Trade Commission is very interested in doing that? No. And if you wonder, take a look at the writer's article of 22 September 2005. Before they have even taken a hard look at all these things, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission is taking the typical probusiness line. Let me say this: The proposal we have offered for a windfall or excess profits tax, and using it to provide a rebate to consumers, is one that makes a lot of sense. This is not the old windfall profits tax of a couple decades ago. This says: If the excess profits that integrated oil companies are getting for selling a barrel of oil above $40 are being invested back into the ground to develop the nation's energy supply or invested to build refineries, then they will not bear the burden of this recapture. Our proposal is simple: There will be no recapture and no tax if this windfall profit is being used to explore for more oil or to increase refinery capacity. But I read to you the BusinessWeek article describing what they are doing. What are they doing? They are using this extra money to buy back their shares of stock, to pay down their debt, to hoard cash--in Exxon's case, in excess of $15 billion. Of course, that is a ready reserve with which to take a look at new companies to buy. That is the reference to ``drilling for oil on Wall Street.'' Well, I suppose there are many in this Congress, perhaps in this Senate, who share Mr. Glassman's views. After all, he comes from the American Enterprise Institute. They hand out a lot of paper and kill a lot of trees to dispense information here in the Senate about the market system. But there is no free market in oil. What you have with respect to oil are a few OPEC countries in the Middle East whose ministers sit around a big table and talk about production and price. In addition to that, you now have behemoth oil companies that have the capability to exercise much more impact on market prices and supply. In addition to that, you have futures markets which are supposed to provide liquidity but which now are playgrounds for speculators. You have speculators. You have bigger oil companies. You have the OPEC countries. And we have free marketers talking about a free market? What are they smoking? There is no free market here. What is happening is the American consumer is being taken advantage of. They are paying extraordinarily high prices for gasoline. While people go to the gas pump and put 15 gallons of gas in their tank, and pay $50 for it, and people this winter will have a 70-percent increase in natural gas prices for heating their home, we have some of the largest corporations in this country profiting in an unusual, unwarranted way. I say simply this: If these oil companies are using those profits to find more oil, that is one thing. If they are not--and they are not; to wit, the article from BusinessWeek--then, in my judgment, some of that excess or windfall profit ought to be recaptured and sent back to consumers. Let me say, my State produces oil. So I have some people in my State who are a little cranky about what I proposed. I do not aim to hurt the oil industry. If, in fact, there was a free market I would not be here. But it is also true that consumers in my State are bearing the pain. Let me describe my consumers in North Dakota. We drive exactly twice as much per person as New Yorkers do. We use twice as much gasoline per person than the average New Yorker. Why is that the case? Well, in New York, if they are going to see an aunt or an uncle in New Jersey, it is a big trip. You pack an emergency kit. You go get your car serviced. You talk about it for several months and then drive 40 miles to see the relatives. That is a big deal out East. Not in the Midwest, not in the northern Great Plains. Forty miles is nothing. People drive 200 miles one way for a meeting, and then drive 200 miles back in the same day. That is why in our part of the country, in a State such as North Dakota that is 10 times the size of the State of Massachusetts in land mass with 640,000 people spread out over that land mass--we drive twice as much as New Yorkers. What does that mean? Well, when the price of gasoline doubles, it hurts us twice as much as it does those in States where they do not use gasoline as much as we do. So I recognize the oil industry would like to keep all this going: $3, $3.50 a gallon. By the way, this all started before there was any hurricane. I saw on the news last night a sophisticated news report about all this, and it was linking the price of oil to the hurricanes. The fact is, the price of oil was up over $30 a barrel above last year's price--at which point you had record profits in the industry-- long before Hurricane Katrina. So this is not about hurricanes. The question is, will Congress care? Will Congress do something about it? We spend a lot of time on things that do not have much of an impact on the American people. I wonder if for a moment we can spend some time on something that does. There is a tendency around here to treat serious things way too lightly, and then to treat light things way too seriously. This is a serious issue. A whole lot of folks cannot afford to pay this. They cannot pay the cost of $3-a-gallon gasoline or have a 70-percent increase in natural gas prices or have a 40-percent increase in the price of home heating fuel to keep warm in the winter. The question is, does Congress care? Does the Senate care? We will have people come here in blue suits saying: This is a free market. This is not a free market. Again, if this were a free market, I would not be on the floor talking about it. This is a market with clogged arteries, clogged in a manner that is horribly unfair to the average American, and clogged in a way that provides handsome profits, unparalleled profits, to the oil industry. But let me say, once again, lest others misrepresent what we are proposing, if that industry is using these profits to find oil in the ground, or above ground on refineries to process oil, they would not be affected by a windfall profits tax. But if they are not--and they are not, in most cases--then they would bear the burden of a recapture of a portion of these windfall or excess profits, and they would be sent back to the consumers in this country, as a matter of basic fairness. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for a few minutes.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this country is reminded virtually every morning that we are at war. This morning we learned that additional Americans--these, I believe, civilian contractors--have been killed in the country of Iraq. I have been listening in recent days to the discussions in the Senate and discussions from President Bush about where we find ourselves and what our obligations are. We not only are at war, we have just experienced the most significant natural disaster in the history of this country along the gulf coast, with a million people displaced from their homes. Yet the discussion in recent days from the President and others is that nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. Our agenda is the same. I went back and pulled out a speech of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a fireside chat on April 28, 1942. I want to read what the discussion was by someone who provided, I thought, great leadership to this country at a time of war. He said: As we here at home contemplate our own duties, our own responsibilities . . . our soldiers and sailors are members of well disciplined units. But they are still and forever individuals--free individuals. They are farmers, and workers, businessmen, professional men, artists, clerks. They are the United States of America. That is why they fight. We too are the United States of America. That is why we must work and sacrifice. It is for them. It is for us. It is for victory. That is from Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The thing is, leadership is not about accounting or numbers. Leadership is calling this country together to say we are all in this together; yes, in a war, and in a response to a devastating hurricane. Yet we continue to hear around this Chamber and at the White House: No, things haven't changed. The agenda is the same. More tax cuts. Repeal the death tax--which, incidentally, doesn't exist. There is no death tax. But it is still a priority. We must repeal the death tax; tax work, exempt investment. Nothing really has changed. The thing is, perhaps the President's agenda hasn't changed, but everything else has changed. Some years ago, 4\1/2\ years ago, we had a robust economy. It was morning in America, as it would have been portrayed in 1984 in the Reagan commercials: ``Morning in America.'' We had budget surpluses, we were told, and things were growing and we had budget surpluses that would last 10 years. So the President, the new President, said let's provide very large tax cuts for a long period, the bulk of which went to the highest income earners in America. Some of us, and I, on this Senate floor, said maybe we should be a little bit conservative. What if something happens? After all, these budget surpluses don't yet exist. They are projections. What if they do not exist? What if they do not materialize? What if something happens in the interim? ``Oh, be happy, don't worry,'' the President and others said. So the Congress passed very large tax cuts, and it was not long before some things happened. We found ourselves in a recession. Then, very shortly we found ourselves victims of a devastating attack by terrorists on 9/ 11/2001. Following that, we found ourselves in a war in Afghanistan, a war in Iraq, and then we saw, instead of budget surpluses, the largest deficits in history begin to grow in this country. Even as that happened, we saw the dependency of this country on foreign oil continue to increase to now over 60 percent and headed toward 69 percent. Following that, of course, a natural disaster unlike any we have seen in this country, with a million people displaced, called Hurricane Katrina. The response from the President? Nothing has really changed with respect to his fiscal policy or his plans. We have spent over $200 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan, all of it borrowed, none of it paid for. It is anticipated we will spend somewhere close to $200 billion with respect to Katrina and the natural disaster, the devastating disaster. The question is, What do we do to pay for that? The President says we can manage that. We can manage that. We send soldiers abroad and ask for their sacrifice, but we ask nothing of the American people at the same time: Be happy. There are legitimate questions being asked about the response to Hurricane Katrina. But in my judgment we face a time when the question is not, Are we doing things right? The question is, Are we doing the right things? Are we on the right track? As I said, it is not about accounting; it is about leadership. It is about asking a country to join in common purpose and asking a country to sacrifice. Sometimes leadership asks people to do things that are not popular at the moment. Franklin Delano Roosevelt lifted a country out of a depression and lifted the spirits of the country in the middle of the Second World War. He did that by being brutally honest with straight talk. He said to the American people: Here is what you must sacrifice. And he said: Sacrifice is a privilege, when in this country, together, we go to war with a need to be victorious over the oppression of the Nazis. So he asked the American people for sacrifice. That is what leadership is about. It is about being honest. It is about straight talk, which we have too little of today. The truth is, this country is off course and we need to put it on course. The truth is, we have made some mistakes, all of us. We started a war in Iraq because we said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It appears there were not. The intelligence community provided this information to us with great certainty, but now it turns out it was wrong. The person who led the Central Intelligence Agency during that period was given the Medal of Freedom after he retired, for reasons I will never understand. But we are where we are. We now must ask more of the American people. In my judgment, we should not just ask of our soldiers for their sacrifice. We are where we are and we must ask the American people for their sacrifice as well. We had the largest tax cuts in the history of this country because we were expected to have 10 years of budget surplus that was unprecedented. It turns out that was not accurate. It turns out things happened that were not anticipated by this President and others, and the result is we now have the highest deficits in history, not the highest surplus in history. But now we are told that the tax cuts were not for the purpose of giving back the surplus. That is what they were designed to do, and that is what we were told they were in 2001, but now we are told the tax cuts are really about stimulating the economy. So nothing ever really changes and now we have a hurricane, a devastating hurricane that hits the gulf coast of this country displacing 1 million people, perhaps costing up to $200 billion. We need to create kind of a Marshall Plan to rebuild and to tell those folks we want to help you. Surely, if this country can reconstruct the country of Iraq, it can decide it is important to reconstruct this country. Any country that commits the billions of dollars we have to reconstruct the country of Iraq can reconstruct the gulf region of the United States of America. But we can't do that saying nothing has changed and our priority remains tax cuts for America's wealthy. Cut spending; we should tighten our belt. I will support spending cuts. I believe all of us ought to tighten our belts. But if belt tightening, as it usually does, means withdrawing health care from poor people and the kind of things that hurt most those who are poorest in this country, that, in my judgment, is not advancing America's cause. Warren Buffett, the second richest man in America and perhaps the world, as far as I know, wrote an op-ed piece and said: By the way, when all these tax cuts proposed by the President are phased in--that is exempting income from investments and taxing work--I will pay a tax rate of one-tenth the tax rate that is paid by the receptionist in my office. So the question is, Are we willing as a country to sacrifice? Have some things changed? Are we willing to change course? Are we willing to take some risks? Is there some leadership, perhaps in the White House, maybe in this Congress? After all, we are in this together. All of us want the same thing for our country. I take no pleasure in criticizing the President's program, nor the President and his actions. But I understand that our future is dependent on making right choices now. It is dependent on our deciding to look truth in the eye and to insist the President do the same and understand things have changed. That requires us to adjust course. It requires us to ask of the American people that we have a common purpose together and work together and join together--yes, to support our soldiers, to support those in the gulf region who are rebuilding, to support those in this country who have no health insurance, to support those in this country who are jobless so we lift America up and make America better. That is our responsibility. That will not happen by a message coming from the White House or from this Congress that nothing has changed, that our responsibility is to continue to press to see if we cannot give higher tax cuts, more tax cuts. At a time when we are borrowing money to fund a war and we are going to borrow money for reconstruction for Iraq, to give more tax cuts for the upper income people in America--why? Because those who do believe that America works when you dump something on top and it filters down--that is called trickle down economics. I had a guy in North Dakota write me some while ago who said: I have been listening to all this trickle down nonsense for a long time and I ain't even damp. The fact is, trickle down does not work. What works in this country is percolate up economics. You give the American people something to work with: A job and opportunity and hope. When America goes to work, America does just fine. But, as I said, you have to look truth in the eye. And when this President says nothing has changed, he is wrong. My hope is that Republicans and Democrats will understand two things: Yes, we need to tighten our belts. Yes, we need to cut some spending. Yes, we need to decide when we are going to have to start paying taxes once again, and that we have a common purpose, and our common purpose ought to be to work together and march together toward a common goal. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

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