John Ensign

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, just very briefly, this is our chance, a bipartisan chance, to have renewable energy in this country in a big way. It will preserve over 100,000 jobs in the United States. Let's help us become less dependent on foreign energy. Let's help the environment in the United States. I encourage all Members to vote aye. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. ENSIGN. It is supported by everybody from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Real Estate Roundtable, the American Chemistry Council, the Sierra Club, the National Resources Defense Council, as well as hundreds of other businesses and organizations. This, however, is a delicate compromise. Three times in the past there have been attempts to pass a renewable energy bill. They have all failed. This is our chance to actually pass something that can be signed into law. Unfortunately, the Alexander amendment would break the delicate balance. We need to defeat the Alexander amendment and pass the Ensign-Cantwell amendment if we truly want to encourage renewables into the marketplace in a much larger way in the United States. It is good for the country, good for the environment, and good for the economy. I urge a defeat of the Alexander amendment and adoption of the Ensign-Cantwell amendment. I yield the remainder of my time to Senator Cantwell.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all time be yielded back.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask the Chair to notify me when 2\1/2\ minutes remain. First, I'd like to thank Senator Cantwell for her leadership in the last few weeks that we have worked together on drafting a bipartisan compromise making sure that we help renewable energy become more of the power supply to the United States. We all believe from an economic standpoint, that it will help create jobs and new technologies as well as help the economy not only now, but into the future. Renewable energy helps the environment. It is cleaner than fossil fuels and makes us less dependent on foreign sources of energy. A lot of the money we send overseas is to folks who are not exactly friendly to the United States. The Ensign-Cantwell amendment is supported by a broad range of industries as well as environmental groups. I ask unanimous consent that the following two letters of support be printed in the Record.

Mr. ENSIGN. I ask unanimous consent for the yeas and nays on both the Ensign and Alexander amendments.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, over the last several weeks Senator Cantwell and I worked together in a bipartisan fashion to craft a renewable energy package that would break the gridlock that has happened here in the Senate. There have been several good faith attempts to pass a renewable energy bill, but frankly, several of us, including myself, have objected to some of what are called offsets, the ``pay-fors'' in the bill. I believe very strongly in renewable energy but also know that this country will be dependent on fossil fuels for the next 20 to 30 years. We need more domestic supplies of fossil fuels and less reliance on foreign sources of fossil fuels. In the package that was put before us, tax incentives were going to be taken away from people who explore for domestic sources of fossil fuels. That was the reason I opposed the original renewable energy package. Senator Cantwell and I, along with our staffs, got together over the last several weeks and came up with a compromising provision that has no offsets. We encourage the continued development of solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass energies. There are several renewable energies out there and all kinds of new technologies that are coming on line. The more private investment and innovation that we have, the more alternatives and renewable energies we will see come into the U.S. markets. This will insure that we are responsible to the environment and to our economy by creating innovative new jobs and less dependent on foreign sources of energy. This is the reason Senator Cantwell and I have come together in a bipartisan fashion to say, ``Let's break this logjam in the Senate. Let's make sure we get this bill passed so it can be signed into law.'' What we have today in front of us is a housing bill which will help stimulate the economy. Everyone knows the economy is being dragged down by the subprime mortgage market crisis we are facing in America. My State leads the Nation in foreclosure rates. It is dragging the rest of the Nevada economy down in what appeared to be a recession-proof economy. We need this housing bill. We need to do things that will help bring our economy out of the doldrums it is in. This energy package we have put together is also stimulative. It will preserve the jobs that have already been created, as well as create more jobs and help the economy. I believe strongly, for many different reasons, that this amendment will help the economy, it will help our environment, and it will help make us become less dependent on foreign sources of energy. For those reasons, I would encourage my colleagues to support our amendment. Senator Alexander is offering a second-degree amendment that I believe will gut our amendment and will break apart this bipartisan coalition we have put together. It is his right to offer a second- degree amendment and he will speak in defense of it. But, I am going to encourage our colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, if you want a renewable energy bill, to oppose the Alexander amendment and to support the Ensign-Cantwell amendment on renewable energy. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I wish to speak for a few minutes on an amendment I have offered with Senator Cantwell regarding renewable energy. It is amendment No. 4419. I don't know whether it is going to be voted on tonight or tomorrow. Either way, I wish to spend a few minutes on this particular amendment. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record some letters of support from various industries.

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

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. To clarify, the Senator from Tennessee objects to the wind power part, and he wants to offer a second-degree amendment. He wants to make sure he is in order for a second-degree amendment to our amendment is all.

Mr. ENSIGN. To add a clarification, we were only going to talk for 5 minutes, 5 minutes, and the next people 5 minutes, 5 minutes.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Cantwell and Thune be added as cosponsors to the amendment. I am sure there will be others who will want to be added as cosponsors to this amendment. Since Senator Cantwell and I introduced the freestanding bill yesterday, we already have 28 of our colleagues who have become cosponsors. Additionally, we expect many more of our colleagues will be added as cosponsors to the bill and will also want to be added as cosponsors to this amendment. Briefly, I wish to share my time with the Senator from Washington, who has shown great leadership on this issue. The amendment we are proposing deals with renewables. We know this country has an energy problem. We are too dependent on foreign sources of energy. Too much of our energy byproducts are polluting the environment, and there are concerns about climate change around the world. And this amendment addresses both of those concerns, as well as being a stimulant to the economy. There are over 100,000 jobs that we protected with this amendment. We are talking about solar power, geothermal, wind energy and biomass. There are many different renewables that are going to help within this amendment. Additionally, at a time when our country is at war in places where we are spending over $100 per barrel of oil, we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars from our economy to support people who are not necessarily friendly to the United States. It is very important that we as a Senate, act now on this amendment in order to help the United States become less dependent on foreign sources of energy as well as clean up our environment. It is a national security concern, it is an economic concern, and it is an environmental concern. I am very pleased to introduce this amendment today so we can vote on it next week. I think it is very critical that this be part of the package, and that is why it needs to be done as soon as possible. Some may ask why there is such an urgency. Well, because a lot of this type of energy production takes a long time to develop. We do not have a lot of time to set the financing of these projects. We have been told by a lot of industries that if there isn't stability, a lot of these industries are going to go away. We need to be encouraging renewable energy development. Mr. President, I yield a couple of minutes to my friend, the Senator from Washington, who is the lead sponsor of the bill we introduced yesterday.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I will yield the floor after one brief comment to once again thank the great leadership of the Senator from Washington. I look forward to all of our colleagues joining us on this vote in a bipartisan way next week. I thank the Chair.

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

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, how much time is left?

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask that the pending amendment be set aside and I be allowed to call up amendment No. 4419.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I wish to applaud the Senator from Maryland, Mr. Cardin, for his great work. It has been a pleasure working with his staff and with him personally on this very important amendment. We are trying to help the housing situation in the United States. My State, Nevada, leads in foreclosures. I saw a statistic the other day that, after a record month of foreclosures in February, foreclosures in March were up another 50 percent over February. So it is a huge problem. There are a lot of young people out there--first-time home buyers--who want to get into the marketplace to try to participate in the American dream. That is what this amendment is about. It is targeted right at those young people, or the single person, who is trying to buy a home for the first time. And maybe they might even be a little older but have never been able to afford a home until now. This might be the economic incentive to get them into owning their home for the first time. There are so many benefits to home ownership. There is more of a sense of community when you are paying property taxes; you care more about the schools; you care more about where those taxes are going. So this is an excellent amendment at a great time when we are trying to help the housing market. But we will also be helping individual Americans with this tax credit at the same time. I wish to applaud the leadership of Senator Cardin on this. We worked together well when we were both on the Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives. This is another example of what bipartisanship can be about. It is about putting the country before your party and looking for solutions that actually work. So I am proud to cosponsor this amendment and be the lead Republican on it. I hope this amendment can be adopted as part of the final package. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, we have over 20 cosponsors of the bill we introduced today. It is a bipartisan effort. We are working as part of a team. What we are trying to do is work together. So I would ask the Senator: With 20 Republicans and Democrats cosponsoring this bill together, does he consider them to be working as individuals or as part of a team? We will probably have over 50 cosponsors by the early part of next week. It seems to me that the way the Senate works is getting people together and not worrying about whether you are a Republican or Democrat but worrying about what is right for the American people. That is what we are attempting to do.

Mr. ENSIGN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 4419 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, the amendment I was attempting to offer is a bipartisan amendment on renewable energy at a time when our country is looking for cleaner sources of energy. We are also looking for more domestic sources of energy and at ways to help our economy. This housing bill is not just a housing bill, it is a bill to help our economy. It is a bill to keep us from going further into recession. The amendment I introduce is a bill Senator Cantwell and I have worked on for the last several weeks because there has been an impasse on renewable energy legislation. The offsets that were included in the original bill were unacceptable. And because there are going to be very few vehicles that are moving this year, we are trying to get this amendment on this bill to try to get renewable tax credits included so it can be signed into law this year. The problem is, if you wait too long on these renewable tax credits, these businesses will shut down because they require time in advance for planning and business development. So it is critical we get this done. I know the chairman of the Finance Committee is working on a bill, he is working on some offsets, but the problem I see with what he is doing is it may not pass later on in the year, and it also may be too late. So this bill may be the best vehicle we have to ensure America becomes less dependent on foreign sources of oil and other energy sources. It may be the last chance we have to preserve over 100,000 jobs in the United States that have been and can be created in the renewables industry. And it may be the last chance we have this year to significantly help the environment in America. So I appreciate that the Democratic chairman of the Finance Committee has objected to us bringing up this amendment, but we are going to continue to try to get this amendment on this bill. Mr. President, I think it is a mistake at this critical time for renewables and for our country that an objection has been made to our offering of this amendment at this time. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENSIGN

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

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, the last amendment Senator Boxer offered was extra money to have laws that protect children. That is fine. That is why I voted for that last amendment. We could actually have taken that amendment by a voice vote. What my amendment now does is create money so we will be able to enforce the Child Custody Protection Act when we enact that law. Around here, as I said before, too many times we enact laws, we authorize things, and we do not fund them. This is going to set up funding so the Child Custody Protection Act--the law that says we are going to protect young children from being taken across State lines to have a surgical procedure, a surgical abortion--we are going to make sure those people are protected. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4335.

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

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, briefly, this amendment is to means test Medicare Part D the same way we means test Medicare Part B. An individual making over $82,000 a year, a couple making over $164,000-- seniors--would be expected to pay a little over $10 a month extra. That is all we are doing. This amendment saves a couple billion dollars over the next 5 years. It is very reasonable. There is nothing else in this budget that does anything on entitlement reform, and we all know entitlements are heading for a train wreck in this country. We ought to at least do this little bit for our children for deficit reduction. I encourage all Senators to vote for this amendment. It is very reasonable. It is modeled exactly after Medicare Part B means testing.