Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, it does not wash at all for somebody to suggest somehow they have to vote against cloture because they are denied their right. Over in that aisle, on Thursday, we had a discussion--Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, myself, Senator Martinez--and then back and forth in the cloakrooms. We offered amendments back and forth just to get started on the bill. It was not a final list of amendments. It was just a way to try to get started. For all five of the amendments proposed to be offered by the minority, we said: Fine, they have nothing to do with the bill, but that is fine. If you want to offer them, offer them. But don't come to the floor on Monday saying the majority is obstructing your right to offer an amendment, which we said you could offer. How do you explain that contradiction? Again, my point: If this Congress cannot even agree on tourism, how is it going to agree on anything. How are we going to make progress on health care? How are we going to make progress on comprehensive energy legislation or climate change or a range of difficult international situations? How are we going to reach some sort of understanding that we represent one interest in this country, and that ought to be the public interest in the United States of America? We all work for the same people. Not everything has to be partisan. There is so much rancid partisanship these days. I was with the majority leader when we stood there. I understood what he was saying. He was saying to the minority: Let's get started. If you want amendments, fine, offer amendments. There was nothing but agreement by our majority leader to say to the Republicans, offer some amendments. Give us some amendments you want to offer and then go ahead and offer them.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, rather than yield for a question, let me yield the floor so the Senator from Vermont can explain his amendment, and then reclaim the floor if there is not a Member of the minority present.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, as I have indicated previously, the underlying bill on which we are going to have a cloture vote is bipartisan. There were over 50 cosponsors here in the Senate in the last Congress. Republicans and Democrats alike have supported it. We are apparently going to have a cloture vote that some--judging by what one of my colleagues said earlier--will feel they have to vote against. They will vote to stop this bill because they feel their right to amend was obstructed, despite the fact that their right to amend was explicitly agreed to. Working on bad information is not a great way to vote, in my judgment. Let me make an important point. I indicated earlier this is one of the few pieces of legislation that will be brought to the floor of the Senate that actually reduces the Federal budget deficit by $425 million. That is pretty unbelievable, but there are two other big issues. One is at a time when we are seeing hundreds of thousands of Americans a month losing their jobs, losing their homes, losing hope because we are in a deep recession, at a time when we have all of this unemployment, we should be voting to move forward with a piece of legislation that tries to boost employment by increasing travel to our country by overseas visitors. These visitors are going to spend a substantial amount of money--$4,500 per tourist. And we know we now have 633,000 fewer international tourists coming to America than we did 8 years ago. Why is that the case? The decline in tourism began after the terrible, tragic attack on this country on September 11, 2001. Following that, we obviously decided we wanted to try to keep terrorists out of this country. But we also made it harder for regular tourists. It was harder to get a visa. There were longer lines. Then the Iraq war began and a lot of people were upset with our country for unilateral actions in Iraq, and so on. We have gone through nearly a decade now in which people are traveling around the world more and more often, but they are going to Spain, France, Great Britain, Turkey, India, and Japan--all of which are advertising aggressively internationally to say, come to our country, be a part of our experience. See the beauty of India or Japan or Australia. But our country is not involved in that competition, and we should be, because there is no better place on this Earth. I know I am not objective about that, but to come here is to love this country and to understand the great character and culture that exists here. This piece of legislation will create jobs and opportunity in this country, but even more important, it will create goodwill all across this world from people who visit here and go home and have a better understanding of what America is about. At a time when we are in a deep recession, do we want to create jobs? I hope so. At a time when we care about what the world thinks about us, do we want to improve our standing in the world? I hope so. We will have a cloture vote in 3 or 4 minutes. I am told now, some who have cosponsored the bill, even, will probably come down and vote against cloture because they will claim they don't have the right to offer amendments. Well, they surely do. We agreed they could offer their first five amendments last Thursday. It is just that they said we can't offer our amendments because they object, for example, to the Sanders amendment. We said: You can offer five; we will offer three. They said: That is fine, except we won't allow you to offer the Sanders amendment. We won't agree to that. Again, my question: If the Senate has come to the point where it can't agree on tourism, what hope is there for big, controversial, and important issues that we will confront later this year? My hope is that perhaps some will understand the goodwill with which the majority leader and I and others offered the minority the right to offer the amendments they chose to offer. It was the minority that decided they didn't want to agree. It would be difficult for me to see some of those who were given the ability to offer the amendments come to the floor and vote against a bill they support because they say they weren't given an opportunity to offer amendments. It is pretty hard to square that circle, and my hope is they will understand that before they vote. It will be very nice if perhaps on this one vote, it wouldn't be considered a leadership or a partisan vote and it wouldn't be based on misinformation, but instead we decided that this is about tourism, it is about promoting jobs and economic opportunity in our country, and it is about boosting the reputation of this country around the world by having people visit the United States and understanding the full breadth of what the American experience is about. I yield the floor, and I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, if the Senator will yield for a question.

Mr. DORGAN. Last Thursday, the majority leader and I stood in that aisle. The question was going to be, under what conditions would this Travel Promotion Act come to the floor of the Senate? We said: You know what, tell us what amendments you need. Tell us which amendment you wish to offer and we will give you some. So it ended up five amendments on their side, three on ours, as a start. It was not going to be a limit, but we were going to start with five and three. They showed us their five. None had anything to do with this bill. We said: Fine, you can offer those five, no problem. They were all about TARP, troubled assets and so on. We said fine. Then we showed them the three to be offered on this side, and they looked at three of them and said this one we will not allow to be offered. All of a sudden, the minority was deciding they could offer all of theirs, but they will not allow the majority to offer one amendment that deals with the issue of the price of gasoline. The result was we now had a vote against cloture on an issue dealing with travel promotion on a piece of legislation that raises $500 million and reduces the deficit $500 million in 10 years. It is pretty unbelievable to me. I asked the question earlier today, if we can't agree on a piece of legislation that in the last Congress was supported by over 50 Senators, Republicans and Democrats, dealing with promotion of tourism and creating jobs and promoting this country's economic interests by asking international tourists to come to this country, you are welcome to come and see America and understand what America is about--if we cannot agree on that, how on Earth will we agree to get amendments on energy, health care, climate change, and so on? It is so disappointing.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, let me make one additional point. Unfortunately, too much of politics these days is there is my team and your team. On this kind of legislation I would have thought this was about our team, all of us working together on a bill that Republicans and Democrats had cosponsored, on a bill that is actually going to reduce the Federal budget deficit by a half billion dollars and on a bill that, at a time when we are in deep recession, promotes tourists to come to this country, who would, on average, spend $4,500 in this country to create new jobs. We have a substantial number, hundreds of thousands--633,000 fewer visitors to the United States from overseas than we had in the year 2000. Think of that, 633,000 fewer people visited this country from overseas than did in the year 2000. Every other country is experiencing a very substantial increase: France, England, Italy, Yugoslavia--not Yugoslavia, again, I made the mistake--it is Turkey and Japan and India, so many other countries--Kosovo; they are all advertising, all pushing for international tourism, to come to their country because they know it creates jobs and, more importantly, they understand when you go there you leave those countries with a good impression. If ever there were a time when we need people to come to this country and leave with an understanding of culture and character of this country and at the same time create jobs in this country by buying gas, renting hotel rooms, buying airplanes seats, going to the tourist attractions, and understanding about America, it is now. My hope is, in the next day or so, we might be able to find a way to bring those who voted against cloture to understand we have said, you know what, if you want to offer amendments, offer amendments. There is no obstruction anyplace. One of our colleagues came to the floor and said: I am voting against cloture because I was obstructed from offering my amendment, and that was a colleague who had an amendment on a list we said explicitly yes to. How does one reconcile statements that are not accurate? My hope is maybe we can find agreement in the next day or two.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 2:15 p.m. in room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing to examine S. 797, the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2009. Those wishing additional information may contact the Indian Affairs Committee at 202-224-2251.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the business of the Senate, now that we have had the final vote on the supplemental here in the Senate, will be the Travel Promotion Act. That is a piece of legislation that is widely bipartisan. We have passed it by unanimous consent through the Senate Commerce Committee and brought it to the floor of the Senate with very substantial Republican and Democratic support. I am an original author of the legislation called the Travel Promotion Act, but a good many Republicans are cosponsors and colleagues on the Democratic side are as well. It should not be controversial. Yet getting that bill to the floor of the Senate required the filing of a cloture motion, which means, just on the motion to proceed, we had to wait 2 days and then have a vote on whether we could actually proceed to the motion to proceed to the legislation itself. That passed, I believe, 90 to 6. Then we had 30 hours postcloture. We have been in a waiting position to try to determine can we get to this bill. Let me make the point that this is a piece of legislation that is almost unique, in the sense that, No. 1, it is very bipartisan and, No. 2, the Congressional Budget Office says it is going to reduce the Federal budget deficit. Let me say that again. The Congressional Budget Office says this legislation will actually reduce the Federal budget deficit by very close to $500 million over 10 years. There ought not be substantial controversy about this legislation. What we are working on and have been working on for some hours is to try to determine how we get, now, on the bill and agree on amendments. We have had lists back and forth of what amendments might or might not be offered. We have not been able at this point to agree on the list. We are not asking for a finite list, just a list on how to begin. There have been so many amendments that have been proposed that have nothing at all to do with the legislation, so we are working back and forth. It appears we are not going to be able to reach agreement on a list of how we begin with these amendments this evening, but my hope remains that perhaps tomorrow we will be able to have some kind of agreement on a list that would allow us to proceed to the Travel Promotion Act. Let me mention briefly that this legislation is not controversial. Travel promotion means that our country would begin to address a problem. What is that problem? The fact is, we have many fewer visitors from abroad to this country, in terms of international tourism, which is very job creating, strongly supportive of economic growth because international tourists spend a lot of money. On average I believe they spend somewhere around $4,500 per trip when they come to this country, for hotels and car rentals and airplanes and tourist attractions and so on. It is very job creating. The fact is, we have far fewer tourists coming to this country from abroad than we had in the year 2000. That is a very serious problem; we have fallen substantially behind other countries that are aggressively marketing their countries for destination by international travelers. Italy, France, Great Britain, Spain, Australia--the list goes on and on of countries that say come to our country, travel here, visit here, be part of the experience in our country. Our country is not involved in that. It is as if there is a competition and we are not competing. We put together a piece of legislation that would create and promote international destination travel to our country because it will surely create jobs and certainly be beneficial to our economy. As I said, it has wide support throughout the industry, throughout this Chamber, with Republicans and Democrats, and it actually reduces the Federal budget deficit. It is pretty hard to find a piece of legislation such as that. Despite all that broad support and the fact it passed out of the Commerce Committee unanimously, we are having trouble getting it to the floor in a way that has amendments offered and in the regular order we consider this legislation. As of tonight we are not able to reach an agreement on a list, but I remain hopeful. As we continue to exchange and have discussions about beginning this process and agreeing to amendments that can be debated, my hope remains that perhaps tomorrow we will be able to agree to such a list. I believe others will have additional comments tomorrow as these discussions continue. My hope is we will be successful. I have a number of unanimous consent requests I wish to offer.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for as much time as I may consume.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 79, S. Res. 153.

Mr. DORGAN. I ask the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 81, S. Con. Res. 23.

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow, Friday, June 19; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and there be a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 192, which was introduced earlier today.

Mr. DORGAN. I further ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, there will be no rollcall votes during tomorrow's session of the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wish to visit about two issues, the first of which is a bill we passed out of the Senate Energy Committee earlier this morning. I wish to give some context to what we have done. It will perhaps not get as much notice as it should. Yet, it will be headed to the floor of the Senate to deal with energy policy, and it affects everybody virtually all of the time. All of us get up in the morning and in most cases, flick a switch and turn something on. We plug something in or turn a key for an engine or a lightbulb or a toaster or an electric razor. In every way, energy affects our lives in a very profound manner, and what we did has a significant impact on our daily lives. First, I will describe part of the challenge. Every single day we stick little straws in the earth and suck out oil. Every single day, there are about 84 million barrels of oil taken out of the earth. It is a big old planet with a lot of people living on this planet, and of the 84 million barrels of oil we take out every day from the earth, one-fourth of it is destined to be used in the United States. We use one-fourth of the oil every day. Why? We have a standard of living in a big old country that is far above most other places in the world, and we want to drive vehicles. We use oil in a very substantial way. We have an enormous appetite for oil. So here is the deal. One-fourth of all oil produced comes here because we need it and nearly 70 percent of the oil we use comes from outside of our country. Much of the oil produced comes from very troubled parts of the world, such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Venezuela, and other countries. So 70 percent of the oil we need comes from outside of our country and nearly 70 percent of the oil we use is used for our transportation system. So you see the dilemma here is that we are unbelievably dependent and vulnerable on something over which we have very little control. By that I mean that if, God forbid, tonight terrorists interrupted the supply of oil coming to this country from other countries, this economy of ours would be flat on its back. We are unbelievably dependent on oil from other countries, and we have to begin reducing our dependence. How do we do that? By the way, as dependent as we are, we need to visit the events of last year once again and remember what happened: Speculators took control of the oil market and drove the price of oil to $147 a barrel in day trading. The price of gasoline went up to $4 to $4.50 a gallon. There was no excuse or justification for it. There was nothing in supply and demand that justified the price of oil and therefore the price of gasoline going up like a Roman candle and then in July last year starting to come right back down. The speculators, who made all the money on the way up, made the same money on the way down. The consumers who drove cars and pulled up to fill up with unbelievably expensive gasoline were the victims. Still nobody has done the investigation to ask the questions who did this and how did it happen. How is it that when the supply of oil is up and demand is down even while price rose? I was prepared to offer an amendment this morning to the Energy Committee. I didn't have the votes to offer it, so I simply described it. I will offer it on the floor when the bill gets here. It requires the investigation and gives the Energy Information Administration the requirement to investigate and authority to subpoena information to to find out what happened. We need to do that to make sure it doesn't happen again. The price of oil is on the rise now, and it has gone from $38 to $70 a barrel even as supply is up and demand is down. Describe that to me, in terms of a market, how that works. It doesn't make any sense. That is a little background of where we find ourselves. We are unbelievably dependent upon oil, much of which comes from troubled parts of the world, over which we have little control. We need to be less dependent on oil. How do we do that? We wrote an energy bill in the Senate Energy Committee that does a lot of everything. I believe in doing a lot of everything. I believe we ought to produce more oil and natural gas here onshore and in the Outer Continental Shelf. We should conserve more because we are prodigious wasters of energy. We should make all the things we use more efficient. Efficiency is an unbelievable component of what we can do to save energy. Further, we should maximize the capability of producing renewable energy. The fact is, energy from the Sun shines on this Earth every day far in excess of the energy we need. If we are just smart enough and capable enough of doing all the research and science that allows us to use all that energy, then we can make progress. The wind blows every day. At least where I come from, it blows every day. The Energy Department calls my State the Saudi Arabia of wind. So we take the energy from the wind and produce electricity. The fact is, once we put the turbine up, we can gather electricity from that wind for 30 years at very low cost. I believe we ought to do everything, and that is what we have tried to do in this legislation. Key to that is not just collecting energy from the wind and turning it into electricity; it is also about being able to move it where it is needed. I come from a sparsely populated State. My State is 10 times the size of the State of Massachusetts in terms of landmass and has only 640,000 people living in it. We don't need the additional energy produced from wind farms. We don't need that additional energy in my State. But we need it in the larger load centers in this country. In order to get it there, what we need to do is build an interstate highway of transmission capability which is capable of producing renewable energy where it is produced and then move it to where it is used. This is not rocket science. We did this with highways in the 1950s. President Eisenhower and the Congress said: Let's build an interstate highway system, and they moved forward. In parts of rural areas, one might say: How can you justify building four lanes between towns where very few people live? Because we are connecting New York with Seattle, that is why. That is what the interstate was about--connecting America. The same is true with respect to the need for transmission. What we have put in this legislation addresses the issues that have so far prevented us from building the transmission capability we need in this country. What are the key issues? Planning, siting, and pricing. If you cannot plan for, site or price them, then nobody is going to build them. All of those issues are critical to building an interstate transmission system. In the last 9 years, we have built almost 11,000 miles of natural gas pipeline in this country. During the same period, we have only been able to build 668 miles of high voltage transmission lines interstate. Isn't that unbelievable? Why can't we do it? Because we have all these bifurcated jurisdictions that can stop it, saying: Not here; not across my State lines. We have passed legislation this morning that carries out some important things. This includes my amendment to open the eastern Gulf of Mexico for additional oil and gas production. That makes sense to me. I have a chart that shows what I did with this amendment. I know one of my colleagues was on the floor having an apoplectic seizure about this suggestion of opening the eastern Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas exploration. He suggested that it was going to impede and cause all kinds of difficulties with the routes over which we have sophisticated, important military training. I have been working with a group of retired military and business leaders on an energy plan. They are members of the Energy Security Leadership Council. In April, Senator Voinovich and I introduced the plan which we called the National Energy Security Act. Let me describe a little about the membership of that group. By the way, that group understood that the western and central Gulf are open for production. They believe that the eastern gulf should be open as well because there are substantial reserves of oil and natural gas in this eastern area. It can be done in a way that does not compromise our military readiness. Among the membership of this group is former GEN P.X. Kelley; GEN John Abizaid; ADM Dennis Blair; ADM Vern Clark; GEN Michael Ryan; and GEN Charles Wald; and others. These are some of the highest military officials who have served this country, all of whom have retired, but all of whom also believe this area should be open for development. Would they suggest that if this somehow would impede a military training area? Of course not. We have military training areas in the central and western gulf, and there is no issue there. There is no conflict. This legislation is landmark in many ways. I was one of four Senators who opened this little area. Four of us--Senator Domenici, Senator Bingaman, Senator Talent and myself--offered legislation to open lease 181 in the gulf. That was about 3 years ago. That was opened, but it changed substantially before it was opened. This is another attempt to open that area, which should be open in the eastern gulf. I understand there are people upset with it. They say: You can't open it for drilling. Let me show what my proposition is in terms of doing it responsibly: The states control the first 3 miles. After that, there would be no visible infrastructure allowed in the line of sight so you cannot see anything. Beyond, 25 miles there would not be restrictions. The fact is, I think what we ought to do this in a way in order to be sensitive to the coastal States. I am not interested in putting oil wells right off their beaches. That is not the point. My point is, if we are going to have an energy bill that solves America's energy problem by making us less dependent on foreign energy and especially foreign oil, then we ought to do something of everything to make that happen. Does it include drilling and additional production? The answer is yes. Does it include substantial conservation? Absolutely. Efficiency? Yes. Maximizing renewables? Certainly. What else? We need to move toward a future in which we will have an electric drive system of transportation, by and large, and we will also then, in the longer term, transition to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. All of that is accomplished if we can make us less dependent on oil from outside our country by producing more here and conserving more here and then producing substantial amounts of additional energy from renewable energy such as wind and solar. We can produce electricity to put on a grid, a modern interstate highway grid, to move what we produce to where we produce it to where the loads are and where the load center is needed. This is not some mysterious illness for which we do not know the cure. This is an energy policy that we know will work if we just will decide to do a lot of everything that represents our own self-interest: produce more, increase energy efficiency, and maximize renewables. I have not mentioned one final point, and that is this: Our most abundant resource is coal. Yesterday I was reading, once again, a prognosis that we cannot use coal in the future. Of course, we can use coal, but we have to decarbonize it and use it much more efficiently. There are a lot of inventive scientific folks out there who are doing cutting edge research that will allow us to continue to use our most abundant resource--coal. I talked about opening up fields of oil and gas production. I am making substantial investments through the appropriations subcommittee that I chair with respect to decarbonizing coal. I am convinced we can build near zero emission coal-fired electric generation plants. I am convinced of that. I know one of America's most prominent scientists who is working right now on something that is fascinating. He is working on developing synthetic microbes to consume coal from which would then produce methane gas. Wouldn't that be interesting? If you create a synthetic microbe to simply consume the coal and after consumption, the microbe turns coal into methane gas. For example, there is another scientist in California who testified at a hearing I chaired recently about capturing carbon from a coal plant by capturing the flue gas and using the CO2 by turning it into a value-added product that for making concrete which has value in the marketplace. This would help bring down the cost of decarbonizing coal. I don't know. We have solved a lot of difficult problems in our past. We can surely solve these problems in our future if we are just smart and do a lot of things that work well for our country. Mr. President, I compliment my colleagues--Senator Bingaman, Senator Murkowski, and other Democratic and Republican colleagues on this committee. We have worked on this energy bill for some months. It has taken us a while to get to this point. But today, at long last, we passed this legislation by a bipartisan vote of 15-8. We will have it on the Senate floor at some point. We will have further debate about points of it. It is exactly what we ought to be discussing: How do we make America more secure? How do we make America less dependent on foreign oil and things over which we have no control or very little control? We must develop an energy program at home that makes a lot of sense, that does a lot of everything, and does it very well. I am happy say that we have made a positive step in that direction this morning in the Energy Committee. Financial Reform Mr. President, I wish to talk about one other issue today, and that issue is something that has been announced by the President this afternoon. It deals with the President's plan for financial regulation. I know my colleague from Utah just described it from his perspective. I have great respect for him. Let me describe from my perspective why it is necessary for us to have a financial regulation package that requires some reform in those areas as well. I don't think there is anything we can do in the Congress or that President Obama can do that is more important for the future of this country and lifting this economy and trying to put it back on track in a way that expands opportunity and creates jobs than to try to instill some confidence in the American people. As I have said a dozen times on the floor of the Senate, this is all about confidence. We have all kinds of sophisticated things we work on and tax policy and M-1 B and all these other issues. None of it matters as much as confidence. When the American people are confident about the future, they do the things that expand the economy. They buy a suit of clothes, they take a trip, buy a car, buy a house. They do the things that represent their feeling that the future is going to be better. They feel secure in their job and in their lives, so they do things that expand the economy. If they are worried about their job, if they are wondering whether the economy will allow them and their family to continue to pay all their bills, when they are not confident about the future, they do exactly the opposite. They contract the economy. They defer those purchases. They make different judgments. We are not going to buy the suit of clothes, not take that trip, won't buy the car or the house. They contract the economy. That is why everything rests on confidence by the American people going forward. Just answer the question: How on Earth can people be confident about this economy unless we fix that which caused this wreck, that which steered this economy into the ditch and is now causing 550,000, 600,000 people every month to have to come home and tell their loved one: I have lost my job. No, not because I was doing bad work; I was told they are cutting back at the office or the plant. This economy has in recent years been an economy with an unbelievable bubble of speculation about a lot of things, and at the same time there was unbelievable negligence in oversight by those the public has hired in Federal agencies to do the oversight of what was going on. We wake up one morning and we discover there are hundreds of trillions of dollars of exotic financial products called CDOs and credit default swaps and all kinds of strange names that are very complicated with unbelievable embedded risk. We don't know who has them, we don't know how much risk is out there. All of a sudden things start collapsing, the economy goes into a ditch, and we are in huge trouble. How did it all happen? Was someone not watching? Yes, that is the point; someone was not watching for a long period of time. The President has talked about the need for financial reform, and today he has described at least an initial portion of what he would like to do. I think many of us share his feelings about the need for effective regulation. That is not rocket science given what we have been through. Let me say this. Effective regulation is something that I think, from my personal observation, is probably not going to come from the Federal Reserve Board. Let me talk just about where the location of this regulation is or should be. The Federal Reserve Board, in my judgment, essentially became a spectator for a long period of time under then Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan who believed that self-regulation was by far the best. Let everybody do what they will and they will do in their self-interest what they believe is right and self-regulation will be just fine. It turns out it was an unbelievably bad decision. But the problem is, to set up the Federal Reserve Board as the systemic risk regulator is to set up a systemic risk regulator that is unaccountable. The Federal Reserve Board is unaccountable. It is not accountable to the Congress, not accountable to the President. So in addition to establishing an unaccountable entity, it is also an entity that operates in great secrecy. I give the President great marks for suggesting we have to have more effective regulatory capability. I am sure we will have discussions about exactly where should that regulation exist, who should be responsible, how do you get it right. I do hope we can have a discussion about whether the systemic risk regulator should or could be an entity that is not accountable and one that operates in substantial secrecy. My feeling is there is a much better way to do that, No. 1. No. 2, while there are a lot of details I will not describe today, I still am interested in this question of whether we will confront--and I don't know that from the President's description today whether we will--the issue of too big to fail. It seems to me this issue of too big to fail is no-fault capitalism. That is, if we don't address this question of too big to fail--which has caused us enormous angst, in recent months especially--we will ultimately have to confront the issue once again down the road when it is very expensive again to do so. I do think there is a requirement here for us to support the President in deciding that there needs to be regulation that gives people confidence that someone is minding the store. When I said that all of this rests on a foundation of confidence, I mean if we do not restore the regulatory functions in a manner that the American people see as just and fair, and most especially effective, I don't think we will restore the kind of confidence that is necessary to begin building and expanding this economy once again. Again, I give the President substantial credit today for saying this is an important issue. Let us get about the business of doing it. He has offered us a description that now gives us a chance to discuss how we begin to put the pieces back together of what is the most significant financial wreck since the Great Depression. This was not some natural disaster, such as some huge hurricane or some big storm that came running through. This disaster was manmade, and we need to make sure we put in place the things that will prevent it from ever happening again. There will be, I am sure, much more discussion about this in the coming days. Again I thank the President for beginning this discussion because it is essential, as we begin to try to build opportunity in this economy once again, to restore the confidence of the American people by saying we are going to have effective regulatory capabilities to make certain we don't have this unbelievable bubble of speculation that helped cause the collapse of our economy. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, just prior to lunch, we had a vote on a cloture motion. The vote was 90 to 3. It was not some significant piece of public policy that will shake the Earth, it was a vote on the question of whether we could actually proceed to something called the Travel Promotion Act. For those who do not know how the Senate works, you have to have a motion to proceed. Normally, a motion to proceed to a bill such as this would be done by unanimous consent and take just a nanosecond, no problem, a motion to proceed approved, proceed then to the bill, have a debate on the bill, and then vote on the bill. But this is something called the Travel Promotion Act, which I will describe. It is bipartisan. I have offered it along with Senator John Ensign, a Republican from Nevada. The two of us, along with many other cosponsors, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, believe this is an important piece of legislation for the Senate and for the Congress to pass. Despite that, we had to have a vote this morning on the motion to proceed: Shall we proceed to this? A cloture motion had to be filed. It took 2 days to ripen, and then we had a vote. It was 90 to 3. The answer was yes by 90 to 3. And now we have 30 hours postcloture that we have to wait until we can get to the bill. And then have another cloture motion filed. It is the most unbelievable, Byzantine example of how this place has sort of fallen off the rails--requiring cloture motions to be filed on things that then get a 90-to-3 vote, and then there is a requirement that we have to spend the next 30 hours waiting until we can actually get to the bill. Unbelievable. But it is an example of what has happened here. And the minority is requiring this of every single piece of legislation. It is a way to require the Senate to walk through wet cement and make almost no progress at all. I guess when you get nothing done and then you are able to boast that nothing has happened, maybe some people feel good. It does not make me feel very good. But having complained about it, now let me at least describe what this bill is. We will get to the bill this week. It will have taken a difficult route to get there. Judging by the 90-to-3 vote, I assume ultimately, when the Senate passes this legislation, we will have very strong support because it is a bipartisan piece of legislation. I am told Senator Ensign has had to leave today as a result of a family matter. I think Senator Martinez will be coming to the floor, who is also a cosponsor of this legislation. I appreciate very much working with Senator Ensign and Senator Martinez; on this side, Senator Reid, the majority leader, a strong cosponsor, and so many others as well. Let me describe what this issue is. The fact is, there is an effort to attract international tourism around this world. Why is that the case? Because international tourists; that is, people who visit other countries, spend a lot of money and create a lot of jobs. They support airlines, support hotels, support recreation facilities and theme parks. Plus, they have a chance to understand a little about that country before they go back home. So many countries around the world are very actively engaged in saying: Come to our country. They have very aggressive, very sophisticated promotion campaigns saying: Come to our country. We do not, but they do. Here is an example of India: One special reason to visit India in 2009. Anytime is a good time to visit the land of Taj. But there is no time like now. Incredible India. Well, India is very interested, very promotional, saying: Come to India. But it is not just India. Here is Ireland, big promotional campaign: Go where Ireland takes you. A beautiful photograph of the majesty of Ireland. An example of Australia: Looking for an experience to remember? Arrived. Departed. An adventure we will never forget. Go find yourself in Australia. All over the world we have campaigns now, very aggressive campaigns, saying: Come to Italy. Vacation in Italy. Come to Great Britain. Come to Spain. See the wonders of Spain. Why are countries doing that? Well, it is interesting. The average international traveler spends about $4,500 on an overseas trip. When they go to a country, they spend money. This creates jobs. So countries are aware of that, and they are very active in trying to encourage travelers to come to their country. Not so with our country so much since 9/11/2001. In fact, it is interesting that in 2008 we had 633,000 fewer people come to this country from overseas than we had in 2000. Let me say that again. In 2008, 633,000 fewer people from overseas came to visit our country than in the year 2000. In fact, here is an example of what is happening around the world: visitors to the United States-- this is 2000 to 2008--a 3-percent decrease; visitors to other countries in international travel, a 40-percent increase. The fact is that we are losing ground and losing shares of the international travelers' tourism dollars and the ability also to explain to them a bit, by having them see this country, what America is all about. Well, why is that happening? Headlines like this post-9/11/2001. We are very concerned about people coming into this country, and we tightened the visa requirements so that there were long lines and very long waits in order to try to come to this country. Here are some of the headlines: Sydney Morning Herald: ``Coming to America is not easy.'' The Guardian: ``America--more hassle than it's worth?'' The Sunday Times in London: ``Travel to America? No thanks.'' Look, the fact is, we want to change that. This legislation is bipartisan. A group of us Republicans and Democrats who want to create jobs in this country and want to attract international tourism to this country want to change this perception that somehow international travelers are not welcome here. So here is what we believe. We believe that to have people come to this country is to see its wonders. It is the only one like it on the face of this planet. It is an extraordinary place. There is so much to see and so much to do. And when we have done polling, and so on, when international travelers leave this country, they have an unbelievably positive impression of the United States of America, and that is very important. At a time when there has been so much discussion about our country going it alone and doing this or that, we have suffered some in international areas. But the fact is, inviting international tourism to our country is job creating, it produces a boost to our economy, but it also allows people to come here and understand what this country is about and inevitably leave with a great impression. Here is what we do with this piece of legislation. We set up a nationally coordinated travel promotion program. I might say that if somebody says: Well, you are going to set up something new, well, you know what, the Congressional Budget Office has a score for this. They have to decide what everything costs or what the consequences of everything will be. This is one of the few pieces of legislation to be brought to the floor of the Senate that the Congressional Budget Office estimates would actually reduce the budget deficit by half a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. Let me say that again. This is one of the few pieces of legislation you are going to get a chance to vote on that reduces the Federal budget deficit by $425 million in the next 10 years. How does it do that? Well, the fact is, it creates a private-public partnership and it establishes a corporation for travel promotion which will be an independent nonprofit corporation governed by an 11-member board of directors appointed by the Secretary of Commerce. It also creates an Office of Travel Promotion in the Department of Commerce to develop programs to increase the number of international visitors to our country. It sets up a travel promotion fund, and that is financed by a private-public matching program. The Federal contributions will be financed by a $10 fee paid by foreign travelers from visa waiver countries, and it will be collected in the electronic system for travel authorizations which already exists. Let me make the point that many other countries do exactly this. It does not in any way retard international travel. Australia charges a $37 departure fee; Guatemala, $30; Mexico, $11 to $38; Thailand, a $14 departure fee. And the list goes on. We are suggesting a very modest $10 fee for international travelers, from the visa waiver countries, and that will finance this piece of legislation that we have had now to file a cloture motion on on the motion to proceed to this issue and for which there was a 90-to-3 vote, an affirmative vote. Here is some discussion about our legislation. I introduced this in the last session of the Congress. We had over 50 cosponsors, Republicans and Democrats. We have reintroduced it now with wide bipartisan cosponsorship. The Detroit Free Press says: Doesn't it make sense to encourage, at no cost to taxpayers, foreign visitors to come here and leave us with some money? There's no good reason not to pass this bill. The Dallas Morning News says: The Travel Promotion Act is a sensible first step toward putting the welcome mat back on America's doorstep. The Orlando Sentinel says: Our position, charging international travelers $10 to pay for the promotion, makes sense. The Los Angeles Times: Considering that the U.S. spends hundreds of millions of dollars on public diplomacy with dubious results, and nearly nothing on promoting tourism, it might do well to invest a little money in wooing travelers. The list goes on of newspapers that have endorsed the legislation. This has been a pretty difficult decade for our country in many ways. Our country was attacked on 9/11/2001. Several thousand innocent Americans were killed by terrorists. Following that, we suffered a recession almost immediately, then a war in Afghanistan, and then a long protracted war in Iraq that cost an enormous amount of money and was very controversial all around the world. It has been a very difficult decade. As I indicated when I started, 8 years later, we have so many fewer visitors coming to the United States. I think during part of this decade there was a notion by some that we were not welcoming visitors to the United States; we did not want them to come here very much. That was not true, but I think that was a sense of some: You want to come to the United States, get in line, it is going to take a long time to get a visa. Why? Because we are concerned. We are screening everybody. We are doing all of these kinds of things. Well, the fact is, no one ever intended to decide we were not going to welcome people to this country. By far, the most effective way to describe to the world what America is about and the unbelievable values that exist and the openness and the wonders of this great democracy, by far, the best way to do that is to say to people from around the world: Come here. Vacation here. You are welcome here. We want you here, to experience and visit America and some of the best attractions and some of the best people and be a part of what we are and then go home and remember what the United States is about. So that is what we are trying to do. It has been too long, but finally we are now putting together a piece of legislation that says: We are not willing to go through another 8 or 10 years like the last 8 or 10 years where our share of international tourism dramatically decreased. We want the next 8 or 10 years to show a substantial increase in people from around the world coming to visit America. And the fact is, it will create substantial numbers of jobs. That is important. I mean, as you know, we ran into a financial ditch, have an economic crisis of sorts. The number of unemployed Americans rises every month, and we are hoping that turns around soon. But in the meantime, this is something constructive and positive and concrete we can do to try to boost this economy. It does not even cost money. This will save almost half a trillion dollars in the next 10 years by reducing the Federal deficit. Again, I wish some of my colleagues were not deciding to see if they could run everybody through the traps for the next few days before we get to what I think will be a very positive vote on a very constructive idea that will benefit this country. But if it takes 4 days or 2 days or 1 day, whatever the moment, I think most of us will feel as if we have done something good for the country. In the midst of all of the other very controversial issues and very important issues, some of which are urgent, the questions of: How do you rein in increasing health care costs? What do you do about a country that is 70 percent dependent on oil that comes from foreign countries? What do you do about the issue of protecting our climate and climate change? How do you deal with the Federal budget deficit that seems galloping out of control? There are all these big issues. In the middle of all that--all of which, in my judgment, we are required to address in order to put America on a different course toward a better future--in the middle of all that, this piece of legislation, the Travel Promotion Act of 2009, might be one small glimmer--just one small bit of hope--for more bipartisanship rather than less. Because this piece of legislation is so persuasive about the interests of this country, we have Republicans and Democrats who have come together to say: Let's do this. Let's do this in the interest of this country's economic future. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.