Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be set aside.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be set aside.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be set aside.

Mr. GREGG. Will the majority leader yield for a question?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I would ask the majority leader if I might be recognized to speak after he completes his speech and his statement because I would like to speak.

Mr. GREGG. Will the majority leader yield for a further question?

Mr. GREGG. I think the majority leader has made his case as to the status of the situation. But I do believe we should not shut off debate in the sense of not allowing for those of us who would like to express the way we see the situation to also be able to speak. That is why I would like to have an opportunity to speak.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. GREGG. Then I object.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I am happy to agree to this because I have been trying to speak now for 4 or 5 hours, and the last three times I rose to speak, the majority leader would not allow me to speak. I understood his concern and his pique about what he perceived as to what was happening on the floor, but independent of that, I still think I should have the right to speak. Therefore, since I sought the floor initially and was seeking the floor the last time this exercise took place, I would request that the unanimous consent request be adjusted so that I be recognized first and that I be given 5 minutes to speak.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I wanted to rise earlier to put into context what the exercise we were involved in was about and the fact that the issue of the Graham amendment, in my humble opinion, did not, in any way, adversely affect the capacity to pass and proceed on the underlying bill, which is the firefighter initiative here that I and Senator Kennedy have brought forward. I think there were representations from the majority leader that the Graham amendment was some sort of attempt to basically sidetrack the firefighter bill. It was not that at all. It was simply the Senate doing its natural business, which is to amend bills on the floor of the Senate and get votes on those amendments. The Republican leader, in his absolute right, set the matter so it would be voted on. If he had not done what he did, there probably would have been no vote on the Graham amendment because the majority would have been able to sidetrack that amendment. I think Senator Graham had every right to come forward with whatever amendment he wanted. Every Member has that right when a bill is open to amendment. That has been a huge debate for quite a while. The majority party, for some reason, has decided to try to run the Senate as if it were the House of Representatives, which means they are trying to proceed in an autocratic way, where they decide for the minority party what amendments will be brought forward. That is not appropriate. That is not the tradition or the purpose of the Senate. The minority party has an absolute, sacred right to bring forward amendments, and there is no right in the majority party to ban the capacity of the minority party to do that, unless the majority party has the capacity to basically bring down the entire operation of the Senate, which is what it consistently has been doing--filling the tree time and time again in an attempt to shut off our party, the minority, from making its points and bringing forward amendments, which can be debated and voted on, and then you can get to the underlying bill--which is the way the Senate worked, by the way, for over 200 years. Now, another action is occurring here which required Senator Graham to offer this amendment. He didn't, by choice, pick this bill out of his interest in the bill to offer the amendment on. He had to offer it because the majority party is using the rules of the Senate to shut off all amendments to the bill being proposed by the Senator from Virginia. The bill of the Senator from Virginia will be marked up in a manner that will bring it to the floor so that it would not be amendable. That has been public knowledge around here for weeks--that we were not going to be given the opportunity to amend the Senator's bill. That is inappropriate also. So the only way Senator Graham could protect his rights was to bring this amendment forward at this time. It did nothing to undermine the movement of this bill forward. If this bill doesn't move forward--the firefighter bill--it will be because the Democratic leadership has not been able to schedule the floor in an efficient enough way to get the bill across the floor. That is the reason. It is not the failure of the minority to move this bill across the floor. It is failure of the majority to bring forward the bill in a proper procedure and allow for a proper amendment process to occur. I think that point needs to be made. It is like the story of the guy who kills his parents and throws himself on the jury's mercy because he claims he is an orphan. The majority party has killed its parents. They are trying to deny the right of the minority to offer amendments to the Webb measure. It is inconsistent with the way the Senate should act. I think we had a legitimate case with the Graham amendment. I think the Republican leader did the right thing in filing cloture to force a vote on that amendment. We have now had a vote, which was a vote to table. As a practical matter, it hasn't slowed down the firefighter bill. The bill has not been prejudiced by this action. Rather, the activity of the Senate, which is to give the minority the right to amend, has occurred in a proper way. It took work to get it done and huffing and puffing from the other side of the aisle, saying it should not be done. The proper order was done, and I congratulate the Republican leader for following this course.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, first, I appreciate my colleague for allowing me to proceed at this time. I recognize that we are debating a bill the conclusion of which is already foregone. The cards are dealt and turned over, and this bill will pass. That doesn't mean it should not be discussed and some of the weaknesses should not be pointed out. I have severe reservations about the way we approached the commodity side of the bill, which is, as it has been adequately represented, not the majority of the spending bill, but it is a very significant amount of spending, $190 billion, or somewhere in that vicinity. Some may ask--and I guess I may have wondered from time to time--what happened to all of those economists who worked for the Soviet Union when it failed, who were sitting around their desks and they didn't have a job anymore--the folks who believed in a command economy, in top-down management, and believed in 5-year plans and believed that supply and demand had no relationship to the market. Where did all those people go? We now know. They went into the development of American farm policy. It is sort of like, after World War II, you took all of the scientists out of Germany and put them in Huntsville. At the end of the Cold War, we took the economists out of the Soviet Union and put them in the Midwest or maybe in the South because this bill is structured in a world that has no relationship to the market. It actually fundamentally undermines the concept of market and relating productivity to demand and supply to the market. It is also a bill that does serious damage to budgeting because it uses $18 billion in gimmicks in order to avoid and get around pay-go rules and other budget enforcement mechanisms. It even brings back-- amazingly enough--the Customs fees. How many times can we bring back Customs fees? But it brings them back and claims a savings and uses that money and spends it--$10 billion, I believe. So at a time when the farm community in this country is doing pretty darn well--in fact, the average farm income today is about 51 percent higher than it has been, on average, over the last 10 years--$92 billion--real farm income is up $200 billion just in the last couple of years. Farmers are experiencing record income. We are setting up a subsidy structure, the purpose of which is to basically make payments to farmers who are making a lot of money on products that are doing very well. Wheat is selling at $6 or $8 a bushel, and the average price has been around $3.50. It is almost twice the average price. The same can be said for corn--corn is higher even--barley, soybeans, and rice, which is at three times the average price. We have commodities that are able to compete in the market, so why do we need this massive new subsidy structure which essentially creates this command and control attempt to manage the markets? We don't, obviously. We don't in the context of this time. In addition, the bill sets up some new mechanisms that are rather poor. It creates this new floor for emergencies. It says there will be a $3.8 billion kitty for emergencies. We have never handled emergencies that way. The reason is because we don't know what the emergencies are going to be. We have always taken care of emergencies, whether it was Katrina--which cost will be over $150 billion--or whether it was smaller events, such as a flood somewhere or hurricanes or tornadoes. We take care of them when we know what the cost is. We don't set up basically a slush fund for emergencies so that the next time a post office box blows over in some community, it is declared an emergency and they can go get this money. This is going to incentivize an aggressive attempt to declare everything an emergency to get at the money that exists. The irony is--to show how totally inconsistent this language is--they don't even use the emergency money they have set aside in this bill for an emergency they identify in the bill, which is the Kansas tornadoes, which they funded in the amount of $60 million, I believe it is. It shows this money is just going to be used for something else. If they are going to fund a $60 million emergency in the bill, they ought to at least have the credibility to take it out of the new slush fund. I mean, how absurd is that? This is walking around money. That is what it amounts to--$3.8 billion, which is real money, by the way. It would run the State of New Hampshire for 2 years. There is a representation that there is a major reform effort in the area of payment to wealthy farmers. They reduce the payment level so you don't get any payments if you have more than $750,000 of farm income. What isn't discussed today is the $2.5 million. The fact is, you can also have $500,000 of outside income, plus the $750,000, so that gets you up to $1.2 million. Then, if you are married, you can couple that up with your spouse so that she or he can have the same amount. If it is a married farmer, and they are making $2.5 million of income, they still qualify under this bill. So it is sort of a sleight of hand exercise to claim there is significant reform. In fact, this reform is insignificant compared to what is suggested. The President's reform would have saved $1.6 billion. He suggested that people with an adjusted gross income of over $200,000 not get these payments. How much does this bill save in that area, because it allows the spouse to qualify also and it allows the extra income outside farming to qualify? Mr. President, $286 million. That is not a lot of money when you spread it--that is a lot of money, but when you put it over the period of this bill, it is not a significant amount of money, and it reflects the fact that it is not a significant reform. It simply is not. The bill also does nothing to limit the practice of farmers locking in subsidy payment rates at the lowest market prices, yet retaining their crops to sell later when the prices are much higher. As a result, farmers are paid subsidies for losses they never had. This is what is known as commissar politics. This is where the guys from Russia and the Soviet Union gather and say: This worked in the Soviet Union, let's do it here. The concept that you pay people for losses that don't exist for a product that is being sold that the guy gets to keep and gets to sell-- let's be reasonable about this. This is not logical, and it certainly is not market politics. It has very little relationship to Adam Smith. It also, ironically, at a time when we should be encouraging people to use ethanol, continues a major discouragement for those of us who live in the Northeast from using ethanol by extending the tariff for 2 more years, to 2010. This tariff makes no sense at all because you cannot ship to the Northeast the ethanol that is being produced in the Midwest, and we don't have the production capabilities in the Northeast. We don't have the product, although the switchgrass initiative, which I respect and say is a good initiative, hopefully can give us that option. The simple fact is, to maintain this tariff is to penalize uniquely the Northeast--Pennsylvania, New England, New York, New Jersey, everything basically in the East, not even the Northeast--in order to protect the subsidies of product corn in the Midwest. Corn is doing pretty darn well. It does not need the protection. In fact, if anything, we need to figure out a way to produce other products to make ethanol. The folks in Brazil have figured it out, so why not let us b uy that ethanol? Why penalize us in a way that is really punitive-- punitive--for the purposes of basically protecting production which is already at a record price? It makes no sense at all. And then the one that really is the worst or, in my humble opinion, the most egregious. The most egregious is the Sugar Program. The Sugar Program was pretty bad before this bill. In an act of avarice that can only be called a sugar high, they managed to make it significantly worse. I mean, how can they do that? It is very hard to do, but they essentially locked in a price for sugar in the United States that is double the world price. On top of that, they are making the Federal Government buy sugar at that inflated price and then resell it for the production of ethanol at a significant loss. The Sugar Program makes no sense to begin with. It never made any sense other than the fact this was a commodity that had influence in the process of developing this bill; obviously, a disproportionate amount of influence. To take this program, which was bad to begin with, and make it so egregious by forcing the Federal Government and Federal taxpayers first to have to pay twice what the world market price is for sugar and then to have to resell it to ethanol producers at a huge loss--how many times can you hit the taxpayers for the purpose of the sugar production industry? It is not right. Then, of course, there are the new programs, the asparagus payments. I like asparagus. When we did the farm bill, I talked about the fact that I used to grow asparagus. I love it. I did rototill my asparagus bed, I admit to that. I destroyed our asparagus crop. I didn't get a subsidy payment. I didn't get a disaster payment. Under this bill, I might because there is a new asparagus program. There is a new large chickpea program and a camelina program. I don't even know what that is. That is, obviously, some product made somewhere for which somebody wanted to get a subsidy. There is the National Sheep and Goat Industry Improvement Center for $1 million. There is the Desert Terminal Lakes Program, which is $175 million to lease or purchase water rights. There is a variety of earmarks, and one I find to be most representative of the failure of this bill as being outrageous is one that sets up a program for farm and ranch stress assistance networks. Do we have a stress assistance network for the family who is running a gas station or maybe the family who opened a restaurant and they are not doing so well or the folks who start a small shoe store somewhere? Do we have a stress program, a farm and ranch stress program? What qualifies farmers and ranchers for a special program dealing with stress? The only thing that qualifies is somebody somewhere came up with this program, got somebody's ear, and decided to stick it in this bill because this bill was leaving the station. It does not make sense, and it is certainly something on which tax dollars should not be spent. We have items that arrived out of nowhere in this bill: fisheries disaster assistance of $170 million for California, Washington, and Oregon; forest conservation bonds. As I mentioned, I find it reasonable that there should be relief for the tornado in Kansas, but why wouldn't it come out of the money we just set aside in this bill for disasters, $3.8 billion? Why wouldn't the fishery assistance, if that is an emergency, come out of that money? The budget gimmicks. This bill is just replete with gamesmanship to try to get around pay-go. I refer to pay-go as ``swiss cheese-go,'' which is very appropriate in a farm bill. I assume it is subsidized. The fact is, there is $18 billion of gimmicks in this bill. There are sunsets of programs after 5 years that they know are not going to sunset, so they won't be scored. There is the nonscoring still of the milk income loss compensation issue. There is the classic shift of the corporate tax one day so that you collect it a day earlier or a day later, and that gives you a different score, which allows you to avoid the pay-go rules. If you look at this budget, it had to have pay-go waived in the House, with $7.4 billion out of whack for pay-go in the House. Equally ironic, tomorrow we are going to take up the conference report on our budget, on the unified budget. If the budget that passed the Senate earlier this year were in place now, a pay-go point of order would lie against this bill because it violates the very budget that was produced by the majority party and passed with some fanfare earlier this year. The only reason we cannot make the pay-go point of order is because the budget has not fully passed and therefore is not in effect. But I think it is very hard to, with a straight face, say this bill does not violate pay-go when you know that right around the corner is a budget which was passed by the majority which, if it were in place and which I presume it will be in place fairly soon, a pay-go point of order would lie against this bill. I think we can stop talking about pay-go around here as an enforcement mechanism because it clearly does not exist, and this bill is just another example of where it has been gamed and manipulated. We count 15 to 20 different examples, adding up to something around $143 billion of instances where pay-go has been gamed around here. And this bill just takes that total up a little further--not a little further, a lot further, $18 billion further. So as a result, enforcing pay-go becomes very--well, it is just a very fraudulent exercise. It is only used on very rare occasions when it is politically acceptable for the majority to use it. On other occasions, where it might lie, it is gamed. This bill is one of the extraordinary examples of that gamesmanship. And, of course, I mentioned customs fees. I believe the last count is we have used customs fees to fund 55 different programs around here in 55 different instances. The same fees. No, they are not different fees. They are the exact same fees that have been used, I believe, 55 times to fund different programs so the programs can claim they met the budget rules, and this bill--maybe it is 56 or 54, but it is $10 billion of gamesmanship. The bill has, in my opinion, decoupled economic common sense from the farm production and especially from farm payments. If we want a farm system that works, why don't we go to the market? A lot of these commodities today are doing pretty doggone well, extremely well. It is good times in farm country for most people. Why don't we let the market continue to work? Why do we have to set up these massive subsidy programs? Why do we have to have a sugar program that charges American consumers twice the world rate for sugar? It makes no sense. Why do we have to have a slush fund for emergencies when nobody else has that sort of slush fund? Why do we have to have a new program for asparagus? I think asparagus growers are probably pretty competitive. I don't know who their competition is. Maybe the Chinese grow asparagus. I suspect most asparagus growers can compete with the Chinese. I prefer American asparagus, by the way. Let's let the markets do this rather than create this bill which is such a mutation of every idea that Adam Smith put forward which has made, quite honestly, our country strong, the basis of which basically won the Cold War, which was that free markets work, capitalism works, competition works, the rules of supply and demand work, that you let people produce the product that has a comparative advantage, and they produce it better and more efficiently, especially Americans, and you get it at a better price for the consumer, and the taxpayers don't end up with the bill. I know I am not going to win this battle. The way this bill is structured, it is the classic log-rolling exercise. You pick this group that has this interest and you give them a subsidy and they give you a vote. Then you go over here, pick this group, they have an interest, they get a subsidy, and you get their vote. You pick this group that has an interest, give them a dramatic increase in their program--it all adds up to 80 votes around here. The only problem is, the people who pay are our kids and our consumers. This is taking a lamb chop to the head of the American consumer and just pounding him with it. I just thought of that. In any event, I have a point of order which lies against this bill which I wish to make at this time because this bill violates innumerable points of order in spirit, and were the budget the Senator from North Dakota brought to the floor in law at this time, passed as a resolution at this time, it would violate them in reality also. But there is at least one budget point of order which is a holdover from a prior chairman which makes considerable sense, which is that you should not run up the debt on the next generation by adding spending in outyears without paying for it that this bill still violates. Mr. President, section 203 of the 2008 budget resolution makes it out of order to consider legislation that increases the deficit by more than $5 billion in the Senate for any of the four 10-year periods, starting in fiscal year 2018. The pending bill would increase the long- term net deficit in excess of $5 billion. Therefore, I raise a point of order under section 203 of S. Con. Res. 21 against the pending bill.

Mr. GREGG. I thank the leaders on this bill for their courtesy on the floor, the chairman and the ranking member. They have given me more than a reasonable amount of time to express my thoughts. I understand I have totally swayed them to my view and they will be joining me in my position. I also very much appreciate the courtesy.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by Senator Kennedy and the other 31 cosponsors of the Public Safety Employer- Employee Cooperation Act of 2007, as we begin discussion of this legislation. The Cooperation Act would extend to firefighters, police officers, and other public safety officials the right to discuss workplace issues with their employers. Each year, more than 80,000 police officers and 75,000 firefighters are injured protecting their communities. Not counting the tragic events of September 11, it is estimated that 162 police officers and 100 firefighters will lose their lives each year in the line of duty. These extraordinary individuals selflessly risk injury, and sometimes their lives, to protect others, yet they remain the only sizable segment of workers who do not have the combined right to enter into collective bargaining agreements with their employers. The Public Safety Employee-Employer Cooperation Act is balanced in its recognition of the unique situation and obligation of public safety officers. The bill requires that, within 2 years of enactment, States offer public safety officers the ability to vote in a free and fair election on whether to form and voluntarily join a union and collectively bargain over hours, wages, and conditions of employment. The bill only affects States which do not currently provide this opportunity, and those States would have 2 years to establish their own collective bargaining systems that can meet their unique needs. This approach leaves the decisions regarding implementation, enforcement, and all other major details with the individual States and local governments, ultimately allowing them to have the final say over any contract terms. Finally, under this legislation, States with right-to- work laws, which prohibit employers and labor organizations from negotiating labor agreements that require union membership or payment of union fees, can continue to implement those laws. The legislation recognizes the need to put public safety first, so the use of strikes, lockouts, sickouts, work slowdowns, or any other action that is designed to influence the terms of a proposed contract and that will disrupt the delivery of emergency services is strictly prohibited. It further protects small towns by ensuring that areas with populations of less than 5,000 or fewer than 25 full time employees are exempt from collective bargaining and that firefighters or EMTs who are employed by a department participating in collective bargaining agreements can still serve their local communities as volunteers. Healthy labor-management partnerships result in improved public safety for our towns and cities. The bipartisan Cooperation Act helps build these partnerships by putting firefighters, law enforcement officials, and other public safety officers on much deserved equal footing with other private and public sector employees and providing them with the ability to negotiate with employers over basic workplace rights.

Mr. GREGG

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

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to speak briefly--not about the bill that is pending but about a bill that is somewhere in one of the hallways around here, which is the supplemental that is necessary in order to fund our troops in the field. That bill was supposed to be marked up today in the Appropriations Committee, but, regrettably, for reasons which are not totally clear to me but which are reasonably apparent--which is that the House has not yet gotten its procedures in order--the bill was not marked up, the markup was canceled. It was supposed to start at 2 o'clock. I certainly hope we will mark up this bill. It is very important this bill be subject to regular order. It is a very significant bill, obviously, because it involves funding for our troops in the field. It is significant also because a lot of other matters which are extraneous to the issue of fighting the war and giving our troops the resources they need have been added to it on the House side, and even more, as it appears, maybe even being added on the Senate side. Thus, the Senate ought to have the right to work its will on the bill in the regular order, which includes a committee hearing where the various issues are aired and amendments can be made. Then when it gets to the floor, it should also be subject to amendments so the minority, especially, can have some input on the bill. Otherwise, the minority gets written out of the process, which is not constructive to the institution, and it certainly means we would have to defend our rights and probably oppose the bill on those procedural grounds that we have an obligation--that we as a minority basically have the sacred right of making a decision as to when amendments are to be offered or at least what amendments should be voted on. Relative to a major piece of legislation such as this, we as the minority should have the right to amend it. If we decide not to amend it, that is our choice, obviously. But parts of this bill clearly need to be subject to amendment, and the minority has a right to be heard on that in the Senate, especially because that is the essence of the institution. The minority has the ability to participate in the process through the amendment process and through the filibuster process. So I wish to speak to some of the amendments I would have offered had we met today which I happen to think are very appropriate to this bill and which are in the area of jurisdiction for which I have primary responsibility. I am the ranking member on the Foreign Operations Subcommittee which is the committee that deals with foreign relations, with the State Department, and with funding foreign activities. There are some very important issues which need to be addressed in this bill that are not addressed. This bill has a significant amount of money in it that will flow through the State Department which deals specifically with Iraq, with Afghanistan, and to some extent with other issues such as Mexico. The first amendment I would have offered would have been language to correct what is an inconceivable bureaucratic snafu, in my opinion. That is the fact that Nelson Mandela--certainly one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century, who epitomized the movement for freedom and for equality in Africa but really for the world generally--is not allowed in the United States unless he gets a special waiver from the Secretary of State which allows him to come into the United States because of the fact that he was a member of the African National Congress and is a member of the African National Congress, having been the head of South Africa as that party rules there; and that party, due to the history of that party, has been caught in the bureaucratic framework of our laws and is designated as a potential terrorist organization, which is really ridiculous on its face. The fact that Nelson Mandela cannot come into the United States because the organization he led, which delivered freedom and equality in South Africa, has gotten this designation due to its prior activity, it would be like saying the head of the Likud Party, which a number of Prime Ministers of Israel come from, because it at one time was an activist organization confronting British rule in Palestine at the time, the head of the Likud Party would not be allowed in the United States but would have to receive special exemption. It makes no sense. So this language, which the Secretary of State totally supports and the Secretary of State is equally outraged by, would have to be changed. So working with the State Department, we have this language together, and we will go over it. I understand at 2 o'clock we go into debate on the DeMint amendment, and I will be happy to yield the floor as soon as somebody arrives and wishes to debate. But I ask unanimous consent to be able to continue until such individual arrives.

Mr. GREGG. The second amendment I would have offered would address the issue of the war on terror and our involvement with Iraq relative to the State of Jordan, which unfortunately has found itself incurring dramatic costs as a result of the overflow of the events in Iraq. Massive amounts of refugees are coming into Jordan. It has put an extraordinary burden on that country, a tremendous ally and friend of the United States. So I believe we have an obligation as a nation--since we created this problem for Jordan in many ways by the activity in Iraq--to support Jordan as it tries to address the issues of the refugees. We cannot help them with the physical activity of the refugees there, but we can give them resources. I was going to increase funding to Jordan to accomplish that. I know Senator Inouye is also very interested in this issue. In addition, money being spent by the State Department in Iraq on behalf of reconstruction should be significantly limited; but more important than that, any new money we spend for reconstruction through State Department accounts should be matched one-to-one by the Government of Iraq. I find it inconceivable for a government that runs a $30 billion or $40 billion surplus, on the issue of oil revenues, not be asked to pony up or at least match what the American taxpayers are spending there relative to resources to promote reconstruction in Iraq. So I was going to offer that amendment. I see the Senator from South Carolina is here. I understand this time is correctly his. At this point, I will yield the floor. First, I also intended to offer an amendment in markup today which would have put a consular office in Tibet. I think it is critical to have a consular office there as the Tibetan people deal with the situation occurring there relative to the Chinese Government crackdown. At this point, I yield the floor. Amendment No. 4710

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 7 minutes.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I rise on a separate subject that is coming at us that is of even greater significance in many ways because it is going to impact the entire structure of the economy and the lives of everyone in the United States, and that is how we get a handle on the issue of global warming and the issue specifically of the emission of toxic materials from plants which generate energy. The term ``cap and trade'' is applied to a bill that is going to be brought forward supposedly in early June. Cap and trade is a concept of basically creating areas where energy companies are required to start reducing their emissions but the manner in which they do so is tied to the trading of rights of basically emissions and what sort of chemicals can be emitted through a trading process between different regions and within different communities of emitters. This cap-and-trade proposal, which is known as the Warner-Lieberman bill, is a huge readjustment of our economy. It represents a massive cost to our economy as well as, hopefully, a massive improvement, if it would work right, in the amount of toxic emissions which we incur and which occur as a result of our production of electricity specifically. The cost of the cap-and-trade program, through the purchasing and selling of allocations of what can be emitted, is estimated to be about $1.2 trillion over the first 10 years of the proposal. This cost, obviously, is going to have a major impact on our economy. It is going to have a major impact on the people who consume the electricity, because the cost is going to be passed on to the people who use electricity in their homes, primarily, and businesses. There are a lot of issues raised by this bill on the substance of whether cap and trade can work--for example, issues of foreign competition, whether the technology necessary to meet the conditions for reduction will be available in time, issues as to whether certain segments of our industrial society are going to be unnecessarily handicapped and create a rush to move jobs offshore. These are big policy issues. I didn't want to address those. I don't want to address the substance of how the actual cap and trade will work. What I want to address instead is the ancillary, sidecar issue of the generation of this huge cost of $1.2 trillion, and it will go on 40 years. So we are talking about literally trillions of dollars passed on to consumers through higher energy costs. It is estimated those energy costs will increase anywhere from $30 to $500 a month. In any event, the costs are dramatic, and that has two effects. One, the Federal Government is going to make a massive amount of income as a result of these costs. Two, the consumers, the homeowners are going to see their electrical rates go up which is essentially a tax as a result of these costs. So the way I conceive of this is that the Federal Government is going to get a lot of new revenue, and what do we do with that revenue is the first question. Secondly, what about the consumers who are going to have to pay this new consumption cost through the increase in the price of electricity which is essentially a consumption tax. The bill itself that is being discussed in committee and is supposedly going to be reported on the floor will take the $1.2 trillion over that 10-year period and essentially spend it all, spend it all in a variety of ways. But a large amount of that spending would involve the expansion of Government. It would be a huge infusion of funds into the Federal Treasury at the expense of the consumer who pays those funds. Barack Obama, who is running for President, who appears to be close to successful in winning his quest for the nomination, has suggested he would pay for an additional $300 billion in new spending annually. He has proposed over $300 billion in new spending annually. He would pay for a large amount of that through generating $30 to $50 billion annually in taxes as a result of cap and trade. It is estimated by some that that revenue to the Federal Treasury might exceed that number and be actually up to $100 billion a year annually of income to the Federal Treasury. But Barack Obama has already suggested that we spend it on the expansion of the Federal Government. The bill itself proposes that it be spent on the expansion of Government as well as on various other initiatives which the bill suggests we should pursue. I suggest a different approach. I suggest that if we go down the path of cap and trade and if we end up raising well over $1 trillion over a 10-year period from consumers, we should return those dollars to consumers in some way. I believe since we are basically creating a consumption tax and we are essentially shifting the burden of the Government significantly onto the user of electricity, especially the homeowner, they should receive a commensurate reduction in taxes that they pay in other places. It makes sense to me that if you are going to shift what amounts to a $1.2 trillion increase in consumption taxes, you ought to take those revenues and use them to reduce income taxes to working Americans by pretty much an equal amount. I believe if we did that, if we took the revenue from the consumption tax and moved it over and reduced the income taxes so working Americans could benefit from that reduction in their income taxes, you could end up dramatically reducing income tax rates on working Americans. That should be our goal with these dollars. We should not use these dollars to significantly expand the size of the Federal Government. If we are going to create this brandnew consumption tax in order to try to energize the effort of the marketplace to control emissions which may be causing global warming, then we ought to use the revenues which are the result of a new tax burden, a consumption tax burden on people using electricity, to reduce the tax burden on working Americans in other places. We should not use it as a windfall to the Federal Government which would expand the size of the Federal Government and expand the size of Government. It is not right to do that. The overall tax burden on the American people is already significant. It is going to grow, regrettably, over the next few years. If we listen to some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, it is going to grow a lot. In fact, the budget that passed this Congress suggests it will grow by almost a trillion dollars over the next 5 years. We don't need to throw on top of that increased burden of taxation, which Americans are already paying, a brandnew consumption tax, the revenues from which are then taken to expand the size of the Federal Government. Rather, let's take those revenues and put them toward a reduction in income taxes. In fact, there are many people who look at tax policy and would argue that this is an intelligent way to structure this, to basically begin the shift from an income tax system to a consumption tax system is a much more efficient way for us to collect revenues and, secondly, a better way to collect revenues from the standpoint of energizing a strong and vibrant economy. But independent of that argument, which has been raging for years, whether a consumption tax makes more sense than an income tax, what doesn't make sense is to raise consumption taxes through cap and trade by $1.2 trillion over 10 years and then spend it to increase the size of Government. Let's use that money to reduce the tax rate on working Americans, to reduce the income tax. That should be our goal as we move forward and debate the issue of cap and trade and how we are going to use the revenues which that bill will generate. I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from Louisiana and yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

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

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to respond to some attacks relative to my integrity which were run today in a New York newspaper--I think it was the Daily News--which I presume were energized and orchestrated by the staff of the leadership--the Senate office of the senior Senator from New York. The editorial could not have had the fact pattern that it had, had it not been fed that information from the senior Senator's staff. So I think it is appropriate to respond to it. It implies, obviously, that I am inconsistent in my views on how I approach spending in this Congress. I think that will come as a surprise to most people in this Congress because I doubt anyone in this Congress--I am sure there are a few--does not think my record in trying to control spending and having some resistance to spending which I feel is inappropriate is fairly strong. As chairman of the Budget Committee, I tried to discipline spending. I tried to make our Government more affordable for our children. I tried not to pass on to our children debts which they should not have to bear so our children can have the opportunity to live as fulfilling a life and have as high quality a life as we have had. There is in this bill a proposal to spend $1.6 billion on an air train to Kennedy Airport. That is not an aircraft issue. It is clearly an add-on. This proposal is, ironically, paid for using the Tax Code in a very ingenious way. It gives a credit to the State of New York, or the city, for taxes which they don't pay over a period of time, which is fairly extensive. I think it will run into the period 2020. That credit totals about $1.6 billion, $1.7 billion. It is, under any scenario--I did not use this term when I spoke about it first, but I will use it now--it is under any scenario an earmark, and not a very good earmark, to say the least. The representation is that my opposition to this is an attack on the efforts of this country to address the very serious and legitimate and appropriate concerns of the city of New York that resulted from 9/11. After 9/11, the people of New Hampshire and the people of this Nation were committed and remain committed to making sure the city of New York is made whole, to the extent it can be. Obviously, it could never be after such a horrific event. We in our State were happy to take our tax dollars and put them toward the city to try to address those problems, and I voted for that. And we in our State were happy to support efforts to rebuild and continue to be happy to support efforts to rebuild Ground Zero because that is a place which has taken on sacred meaning to our Nation. But we are not interested, in New Hampshire--and I suspect most American citizens are not interested--in using dollars which were supposed to be used for 9/11 to help out some other, maybe a legitimate need--but I don't know whether it is--in the city of New York, and that is building a train. I call it the train to nowhere. It is a bit of an exaggeration, but since I was trying to put it in the context of an earmark that was of a questionable purpose, that seemed like a reasonable term to use. That has become sort of like the term ``Xerox'' when you talk about an earmark about which you have serious questions. But building this air train to Kennedy Airport--by the way, I understand there is some significant disagreement within the city about whether it should even be built, but certainly it should not be on this bill as an attempt to basically get around an authorizing process or a process which would air whether this earmark is appropriate. It should also not use a brand new exercise in tax policy, which is totally inappropriate, of basically using the tax laws in a way that creates an earmark by saying that you get a credit for a tax you don't even have to pay. That is very bad precedent--horrific precedent, quite honestly. This earmark should see the light of day, and I don't think it can be defended on the grounds of 9/11. In fact, I think that really does serious damage to the historic and very human perspective of 9/11. To try to defend building an air train to Kennedy Airport and stand behind 9/11 as your reasoning, and then claim, in a way that is most inappropriate, in my opinion, if somebody opposes that proposal, they are attacking the memory and the purpose and the sacredness of the 9/11 event and the Ground Zero reconstruction, is just, even by New York standards of exaggerated politics, carrying it a step too far--more than a step too far, in my opinion. But that is what was done here. An earmark was created for something which has only marginal relationship to even downtown Manhattan--I guess you have to get there from Manhattan, so I guess it has a relationship--certainly no nexus with Ground Zero from the standpoint of an air tram construction to Kennedy Airport. Using the tax laws in an abusive way to generate this earmark and then claiming, when anybody raises the question of the legitimacy of it, that they are somehow acting in a way that is inconsistent with the commitment to the rebuilding of New York after 9/ 11 and they are degrading the name of the 9/11 event is beyond the pale. But that seems to be the goal, the style, and the approach of at least the people who fed the information to the paper--which I presume was the staff of the senior Senator from New York. Maybe it was not his staff. I would like him to come down here and deny it if it wasn't. I would like him to come to the floor and deny it if he didn't basically give this information and set the tone of this position because, very clearly, in my opinion, he has. Let's return to the fact pattern as it exists. I will stop using the term ``train to nowhere'' because I can understand how that might irritate. I will accept that term was probably inappropriately applied. I will call it an earmark, a very questionable earmark for a lot of money which does not flow from the original commitment, in my opinion, to the rebuilding of New York--which the citizenry of America made and which we were happy to stand behind. In fact, ironically, the plans for this train, this elevated train, were begun in 1998, and the actual commitments that this train would go forward, as I understand it, were discussed as early as 1988. The claim this is tied into Ground Zero is to extend credibility quite a bit, in my opinion. To hide behind that and use it in such a personal way which basically questions another Member's integrity is obviously inappropriate. I think the Senator may have the votes to support his proposal to raid the Tax Code for $1.6 billion. Maybe he has the votes to do that. But it should not be on this bill. It is not an airplane issue. I can tell you right now, if I have anything to say about it, this bill is not going to move forward as long as it is on this bill. It had not been my intention to engage at this level, but, as, you know, people from New Hampshire know how to play politics. We know how to deal in this Chamber as well as people from New York. We may be from the country, but we know how to engage. It appears engagement has been called upon, so let us go forward and see who is right, see who has the equities on their side, and determine whether the American people believe building a train which was designed in 1988, was committed to, I believe, in 1998, about which there is considerable discussion whether it should even be going forward, which is an elevated train to an airport in, I believe, Queens, is an appropriate use of $1.7 or $1.6 billion of their hard-earned income. Let's see what happens on that issue. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise today to express my thanks to Franklin D. Barca, a loyal member of my staff who has chosen to retire after being a public servant to our country for more than four decades. A graduate of Braintree High School in Braintree, MA, and Northeastern University, Frank served a full career as a civilian within the Department of Defense at locations such as the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Systems Center, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and the Pentagon. To my good fortune, Frank was assigned to my office as a detailee in 1997 and later agreed to join my staff as my military legislative assistant, a position he has dutifully held ever since. Serving as my adviser on national security issues, Frank's greatest legacy will be his work as the clerk of the caucus created to save the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard during the 2005 round of base realignment and closure. His tireless work ethic, attention to detail, and leadership were instrumental in our efforts to show the Department of Defense that Portsmouth truly is the gold standard of the Navy. During his work on BRAC, Frank was affectionately given the nickname of ``The General.'' Walking through the Capitol with Frank you understand his love and respect for history. Whether it's showing someone Lincoln's catafalque for the first time or telling stories of the District during the Civil War, Frank seems to have a bit of trivia for every corner of this building. In the words of another man whom the states of New Hampshire and Massachusetts lay claim, Daniel Webster, ``The dignity of history consists in reciting events with truth and accuracy, and in presenting human agents and their actions in an interesting and instructive form. The first element in history, therefore, is truthfulness; and this truthfulness must be displayed in a concrete form.'' I will certainly miss Frank's advice, straightforwardness, and willingness to go the extra mile to help me serve the people of New Hampshire. I hope that Frank Barca will enjoy his retirement. It is an achievement that he certainly has earned. I know that Frank will get pleasure from being able to spend more time with his wife Elaine, his daughters, and his four grandchildren Katie, Meredith, Michael, and Sarah.

Mr. GREGG

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

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I rise to speak briefly about where we are headed as a government and specifically what we are passing on to our children, which is regrettably a lot more debt than they deserve. This year the Federal deficit is projected to be close to $400 billion. That is up from last year, where it was under $200 billion. That is not a good trend, to be driving up the deficit. It is also not a good trend to be putting on the books program after program which will end up costing our children a lot of money, and which we borrow from our children to pay for. This bill, which is brought forward today, has in it, unfortunately, a couple of items--at least one specifically--actually a couple that are questionable, in which we are spending money which could much better be used to reduce the debt on our children. As I said, this year alone we are going to add $400 billion of debt to our children's backs. Probably the most significant in this account is something that has nothing to do with air transportation. You can call it the train to nowhere or the fast track to waste. It is the train they are proposing to build somewhere in New York to go somewhere in New York which is going to cost $1.7 billion. Clearly this is not the right bill for that proposal. But even if it were the right bill, this would be not an appropriate proposal. This is a situation where folks from New York, who are good and decent people, have decided to raid the Federal Treasury to get some money to pay for something--in a very questionable way, by the way; by basically waiving FICA taxes, which they are not paying to begin with, for town employees--State employees. They have decided to raid the Federal Treasury for the purposes of building this train to nowhere. We have seen this before, these specific projects, which benefit a specific place, which are not defensible. This certainly falls into that category. But in the broader context it becomes even less defensible because we are facing such a large deficit. We are not only facing this very significant deficit of almost $400 billion, we are constantly adding to that deficit. There are now, within the framework of the walls of this Capitol building--there are not four walls, there are lots of different walls in this Capitol building, but within this Capitol there is a series of ideas which is being promoted, which is also on a fast track, regrettably, a fast track of spending, which is also going to end up ballooning that deficit further than $400 billion. There is, for example, a proposal being floated which has merit in concept but, when it comes to paying for it, nobody is willing do that, which will cost close to $60 billion. That is a proposal to dramatically expand the GI bill, as it is known. There is a proposal to expand unemployment insurance, even in States where unemployment has not hit numbers where it represents an immediate problem. Traditionally, unemployment under 6 percent or 5.5 percent is deemed to be full employment. In much of this country today, many States have their unemployment rates under 5.5 percent. But there is a proposal to expand the number of weeks a person can claim unemployment, even in States where there is essentially a number that represents full employment and that is going to cost $15 billion. There are proposals in the farm bill, which has all sorts of gimmicks and all sorts of machinations to cover its costs and claim that it is paid for, which will cost billions and billions of dollars. The farm bill itself is a $285 billion bill. Huge expenditures are coming down the pike here, which are going to have to be paid for by our children. There are proposals for further relief for Katrina of $5 billion. There are food stamp proposals of billions of dollars. There are Byrne grants, competitiveness grants, county payments, Bureau of Prisons--all of these ideas are floating around this Capitol as ideas on which we should spend more money. Most of them have good and reasonable arguments behind them. But the problem is they also, almost in every case, end up passing more debt on to our children. In many instances, especially the train to nowhere in New York, you cannot justify it. It is wasteful spending at the expense of our children and it is inappropriate because this debt is building up and up. As a result, paying off this debt is going to mean the taxes on our children are going to have to go up and up as they move into their earning years. The practical effect of that is that the next generation, our kids and our children's children, are not going to be able to afford as high quality a lifestyle as our generation has because they will have to be paying so much to support the Federal Government and the debts of the Federal Government. They will not be able to afford to send their kids to college, assuming college is even affordable at that time. They will not be able to buy that first home. They will not be able to live the high quality of lifestyle that has become the nature and character of American life, because the cost of the government, which we have incurred today, will have to be paid for by them tomorrow. It is not fair. It is not right. It used to be around here people talked about the deficit a lot. They used to point to it as a failure of our Government and there used to be genuine efforts to try to reduce the deficit--on the spending side of the ledger from our side of the aisle and on the other side of the aisle by raising taxes. But that discussion has waned. There is no focus right now on the deficit, I suspect in large part because we now have a Democratic Congress and deficit spending is justifiable if it meets an interest group's claims that they have a right to this money or they believe should have a program, such as the train to nowhere in New York, which is promoted by our colleagues from the other side of the aisle who represent New York. In the end, if we do not return to the basic concept that every family in America has to confront, which is you need to pay your bills as they come in and you cannot put too much money on the credit card because that means down the road you are not going to be able to pay that credit card and you are going to have to suffer significant contraction as a family--if we do not face up to that real fact of day- to-day existence that most Americans must realize, as far as how their spending meets their income, or if we do not as a government face up to that, we are going to fundamentally undermine our Nation. We are certainly going to do significant damage to our children and their future. We talk a lot now about the weakness of the dollar and how that has caused the price of gasoline to jump dramatically, which it has. The weak dollar has caused energy costs and costs of commodities which are not produced in the United States to be driven up in large part because the dollar has weakened so much. One of the drivers of the weak dollar is a belief in the international community that we are not going to put our fiscal house in order, that we are going to continue to run deficits that are excessive, and that is what we are doing as a Congress. We have some responsibility here. You can't make great progress unless you begin somewhere. A good place to begin might be to take this $1.7 billion that is proposed in this bill to spend for the train to nowhere, or the fast track to waste, and eliminate that program and take the revenues that are alleged to be used to offset that program and use them to reduce the debt on our children's heads. Reduce that debt by $1.7 billion. That is progress. Granted, in the overall scheme of things it is not a huge amount of money compared to the total debt that is being incurred, even this year, the $400 billion, but you have to start somewhere. This would be a good place to start. Let's stop the wasteful spending which is adding to the Federal debt, which inevitably will undermine the quality of life of this Nation and especially pass on to our children obligations which there is no reason we should ask them to bear. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.