Kay Hutchison

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. It doesn't relieve the specificity of miles of fence. It does relieve the specificity of exactly where it goes.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. That is correct.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Unfortunately, I am afraid the amendment overrules that minor revision in the Border Fence Act to which, frankly, I have to say to the Senator from Oklahoma, we had agreement from the leadership on both sides of the aisle in both Houses that we would take out that particular part. But the leadership changed, and we were not able to vote against and hold up the bill because it was the Defense supplemental bill to which that Border Fence Act was attached. To have held up the bill would have been to hold up our Defense supplemental, which of course overrode everything. That is why we waited to try to fix that minor part in this bill, which we have done and which would be undercut by the Coburn amendment. I find myself having to oppose the amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma, even though in many ways I understand his purpose and agree with his purpose. Nevertheless, I must protect the rights of my constituents--cities and private property owners. We have to have the input from those local people, and the Border Patrol should be the ones deciding exactly where those fences are needed, not the Congress, most of whom have not ever visited Laredo, TX. I do hope we can defeat the Coburn amendment and go forward with the bill--well, not go forward with the bill as it stands today but certainly with this part of the bill. I would like to use the remainder of my time to talk about cloture because I am most certainly strongly against cloture on the underlying bill that is before us. Not that there isn't some good in this bill, but this bill is not ready to be closed out. The good parts of the bill are the border security parts. Border security has specific benchmarks that must be met before the trigger is pulled for the guest worker program to go forward. That is a good part of this bill. I added an amendment at midnight last night that shores up the Social Security protection in this bill. There was a loophole in the underlying bill that would have allowed people to gain Social Security credit for hours worked illegally, for days and months and years worked illegally. That would have hurt our Social Security system. We fixed that last night. That is a good part of this bill. There are good parts that need to be worked on to make this a better bill. However, closing this bill out now would be worse than the present law today, or the present lack of law today. We have chaos in this country with the estimated 12 million, maybe even 20 million illegal people here. We know there are security lapses. We have to fix that. I respect very much the bipartisan work that has been done on this bill, but it is not yet ready. The 5-year sunset of the guest worker program is a killer. We could not possibly say that we are going to fix the chaos that happened after the 1986 act because there were not laws for a guest worker program that worked--oh, but it is only going to last 5 years. That would add to the chaos. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I also wish to make sure I have the opportunity to propose an amendment that would take the amnesty out of this bill. I could never vote for cloture until we have the opportunity to address the amnesty issue. My amendment would require every person who is seeking a Z-1 or Z-A visa, the people who are going to try to work in our country legally, to return home to apply from there. I think that would make a huge difference in this bill. It would take out the amnesty because it would say, if you are going to work in our country today or tomorrow or 2 years from now or 25 years from now, you will apply from outside the country to come in legally so we have control of our system. I hope we can avoid the cloture so we can work on this bill in a positive, productive way and do what is right for our country today, tomorrow, and in the long term.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, is there anyone who is going to speak on the other side on the amendment?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, in that case, I would like to use 4 minutes of my time and then reserve the remainder of my time for if there is opposition to my amendment. Amendment No. 1415 Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside, and I call up amendment No. 1415. Mr. President, will the Presiding Officer notify me at 4 minutes so that I may reserve the remainder of my time?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, our Social Security system, we all know, is in a very precarious position. In fact, we are trying to pass Social Security reform that would extend the life of our Social Security system. We know we are facing impending insolvency. The trust fund has $2.4 trillion and is supporting 46 million beneficiaries. In 2017, the trust fund will begin paying out more in benefits than it receives in revenue. It is expected to be fully exhausted in 2041. If we pass the bill before us, we will be adding millions of new beneficiaries into the Social Security system, but we will also be allowing individuals who were not authorized to work in this country the opportunity to qualify from illegal work. Under the current bill, Social Security credits for the time prior to getting a valid card would not be allowed. That is the good part of the bill. However, on a visa overstay or someone who has a card in their name, but they are working illegally, they would still be able to get quarters credited for that illegal work. My amendment would close that loophole. According to the GAO, about 22 percent of the whole Social Security that an employee would pay over 40 quarters would be approximately $193.42 per month. What I meant to say is, if you take the example of an hourly worker making $9 an hour, they would, in a 40-hour workweek, contribute $193 to the system per month. However, after working 40 quarters, which is the minimum, the payout would be $405 per month for each overstay after the age of 65 and up to the expected life expectancy of 78. So 22 percent would be paid in, while 78 percent would come out. This means over the lifetime of the Social Security for that worker, the payout would be $81,922 but the input would be $23,210. So over the lifetime of that person, the deficit would be $58,712. Now, it is estimated that 40 percent of the illegals in this country are visa overstays. So if you multiply the 40 percent, which is about 4.8 million people according to estimates, you would get $28 billion that would be a deficit in the Social Security system. That is if it were 1 year of overstay. We don't know how many years people overstay. That is impossible to know right now. But if it were 2 years, it would be $56 billion, and it goes on. We asked for a scoring of this amendment, and we have a letter from the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I wish to use the final minute of my time on my amendment No. 1415 and say I want to make sure we are doing everything to be fair to the people who pay into our Social Security system. We know we will be adding more people in this bill, but we want to make sure they are people who have worked legally in the system. Therefore, I hope we will adopt my amendment No. 1415, cosponsored by Senator Grassley. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from the office of the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration in which he says the average annual savings in the bill from my amendment would be approximately $300 million this year, and over the 75-year period there will be more savings up front, fewer savings toward the end of the 75 years, but the average would be about $300 million per year. That is into our Social Security trust fund. It is a matter of fairness to the people who have paid legally, and I hope everyone will support amendment No. 1415.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Allard be added as a cosponsor on the amendment.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, the underlying bill does not allow Social Security credits for work done with a fraudulent card. However, it does allow credit for work done on visa overstays. We all know that is estimated to be about 40 percent of the 12 million estimated illegal immigrants. Mr. President, if we don't pass this amendment, it could jeopardize the integrity of the Social Security system for all the hard-working people who are going to depend on that for their retirement. It would be a loss of about $28 billion per year. I urge adoption of my amendment.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, we did not think, coming back to the Chamber a week after we had all gone our separate ways back to our States, that we would come back with one of our Members not here. There is a drape over Craig Thomas's chair and a beautiful flower arrangement. But all of us who go through the day-to-day workings of the Senate, working with our constituents at home, the pressures which we all know we feel being 24/7 in a job that we love, but we all know the stresses and strains and therefore we bond because of the similarity of experience. So when we all said goodbye at the end of last week, we did not expect to come back and have one fewer Member. So I want to rise today to express my sadness for the passing of Senator Craig Thomas and to express my deepest sympathy for his wife Susan, their family, and the people of Wyoming. Senator Thomas served in Congress for 18 years, 6 years in the House and 12 years in the Senate. He had just been reelected to his third term. But his service to the United States did not begin when he came to the nation's capital. It began in the Marine Corps, where he served from 1955 to 1959. Then he went back to Wyoming to work at the Wyoming Farm Bureau and then the Rural Electric Association. Later, he began a career in public service, winning an election to the Wyoming House of Representatives. Five years later he won a special election to succeed then-Congressman Dick Cheney as a Member of the U.S. House, and 5 years after that in 1994, then-Congressman Thomas won election to the Senate. Craig Thomas used his real-life, rural background to champion a positive agenda for America's rural community. As a former chairman of the National Parks Subcommittee, Craig Thomas authored legislation to provide funding and management reforms to protect America's national parks in the 21st century. He was honored by the National Parks and Conservation Association with their William Penn Mott, Jr. Park Leadership Award. As a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Thomas was instrumental in vital issues such as Social Security, trade, and tax reform. He was co-chair of the Senate Rural Health Caucus. These are impressive accomplishments, but Senator Craig Thomas, the man, was just as impressive. Every time I called Craig to fill in for me when I was vice chairman of the Republican Conference, he was there. He was on the executive committee as the vice chairman of the conference. Craig was the one I turned to the most to chair a meeting if I could not be there. He would talk on the Senate floor about the specific issues that we were wanting to focus on at the time. He was so well liked by everyone in this Chamber. I cannot imagine anyone ever saying they did not like Craig Thomas. His wife Susan is a very special lady as well. She works with children who have disabilities. She has made that her life-long mission. She is so loved and respected in the teaching community for the great work that she has done. So when all of us learned about Craig Thomas's illness late last year, we all thought: Gosh, he is going to be a fighter. He is going to do so well. And he did. He did do well. He fought it with immediate chemotherapy. He came back with less hair than he started with in the month of November, but we knew, as we were watching him progress, that he was looking better and better and his color was getting better and better. Then when we all left last week, some knew he was going back for another round of chemo. Many of us did not know. But no one in our body realized how serious it was. Yesterday, God did call him home. At the moment that he was called, his wife Susan; his sons, Patrick and Greg; and his daughter, Lexie, were all there with him. So our prayers shift now from recovery to comfort, and we hope his family knows and the people of Wyoming know what a mark he made on this body. He will be remembered, and he certainly is where the angels are because of his good nature and his good deeds. We wish Susan and the family our condolences and our best wishes, and we hope all of us will be able to have the good memories when time begins to heal. I yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I tried to offer an amendment on May 24, before the week's recess, and I was asked by Senator Kennedy if I would withhold and he would make every effort to allow me to have a vote on my amendment on Social Security for Z visa holders on the first day back, which is today. Now, I know there have been intervening circumstances, and I am not saying there is any blame here. However, I am asking that we set a time for the vote on my amendment No. 1302, which has been filed but which I was asked to withhold offering. Now I wish to have a time certain, if possible, where we can have a vote on that amendment. I have to say I have now seen this body operate. What happens on a bill such as this, that is very complicated and long, and especially when you are writing the bill on the floor rather than taking it through the committee process, there are a lot of amendments which are legitimate amendments, yet the distinguished majority leader said he was going to file cloture on the bill tonight. That would ripen on Thursday. I have three amendments. One is on Social Security protection for America, from any person who works illegally to get credit on Social Security when they are working illegally; another one on the future flow of Y visa holders; and then I have an amendment for people to return home before they come back and become legal guest workers in our country. So those are three amendments I am giving everyone notice I believe are very important, they are productive, they are positive, and they are an effort to make this a bill that Americans will see is the right approach to handling the chaos we have with illegal immigration in our country. I don't want to be squeezed out by cloture or by time deadlines. If we take 4 weeks on this bill and it becomes a better bill that all of us can support, those who wish to have comprehensive reform, 4 weeks, with the effect this is going to have in the next 25 years for our country, that is nothing. So I hope I will be able to offer my three amendments and get votes on them at some point. I want to be able to protect my rights, and I want to ask if I could have a time certain to vote on the first Social Security amendment, No. 1302, if that would be possible.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Let me say I am happy for the Finance Committee looking at it. I wish this whole bill had gone through committee so we would know exactly where we stand. If they are for it, great. If they are against it, let us debate it. But let me ask if I could have at least a unanimous consent to bring up the amendments that are filed, No. 1301 and 1302--those are the two Social Security amendments--and then lay them aside, so that at least they are here and I know they will be disposed of.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. My third one, the one that requires the return home, has not been offered yet but it will be germane. We are still trying to work with Senator Kennedy, Senator Kyl, and all the Senators who are involved in this process to try to get a consensus on that return home amendment. So it has not been filed. If I could ask unanimous consent to bring up amendments Nos. 1301 and 1302, after which I would be happy to set them aside, to make them pending before cloture.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Senator. Mr. President, I will attempt to work with the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I will withdraw the request, yes.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I wish today to congratulate Senator Ted Stevens on becoming the longest serving Republican Senator in U.S. history. Senator Stevens has served in the Senate for over 38 years, and this milestone is a lasting tribute to his outstanding record for the people of Alaska and for the people of America. On a personal note, I have always enjoyed working with Senator Stevens, and it has been a true privilege to collaborate with him on some of the most important issues facing our great Nation--including energy, healthcare, and national defense. Senator Stevens' service to the United States didn't begin when he stepped inside this Chamber; rather, his service began decades earlier--during some of the most harrowing days of World War II. Senator Stevens was part of the ``greatest generation'' who fought and won that global struggle for freedom--flying a C-47 in the China Burma India theater. Incredibly, over 1,000 of Senator Stevens' fellow airmen died ``flying the hump'' and elsewhere in the Chinese Burma India theater--a sobering reminder of the high price of freedom. For his heroic efforts, Senator Stevens later received two Distinguished Flying Crosses and two Air Medals, as well as the Yuan Hai medal awarded by the Republic of China. After the war, Senator Stevens completed his education at UCLA and Harvard Law School and then moved to Alaska, which was then a U.S. territory. In the city of Fairbanks, Senator Stevens practiced law for several years, until he came to Washington, DC, to serve in the Eisenhower administration and also to lobby for Alaska's admittance into the Union--a mission that succeeded in 1959. When Senator Stevens returned to Alaska, he ran for--and won--a seat in the Alaska House of Representatives and later became house majority leader. Then, in December 1968, Governor Walter J. Hickel appointed him to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate. In 1970, the voters of Alaska ratified that choice by electing Senator Stevens to finish that term in a special election and then reelecting him six more times, always by overwhelming margins. Senator Stevens' achievements are legendary in this Chamber-- including, but not limited to, chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate--putting him third in line for the Presidency from January 2003 to January 2007. For his many decades of service, Senator Stevens has received and accepted numerous honors-- including having the Anchorage International Airport named after him. Our entire country has been enriched and improved by his hard work, dedication, and leadership. I say this not as a distant observer but as an up-close witness to his achievements. Back in 1993, when I first arrived in the U.S. Senate, I was one of only seven female Senators, and if the Senate was a men's club, then the Appropriations Committee was its inner sanctum. There was not a single woman on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, but that is where I wanted to serve. I explained to Senator Stevens--who was then the ranking member of the committee--that Texas has more Army soldiers than any other State, more Air Force air men and women stationed in Texas than any other State, and our defense industry builds everything from fighter aircraft to Army trucks to artillery systems to sophisticated electronics equipment for the Pentagon. Therefore, it was absolutely essential that a Senator from Texas serve on that committee. After some careful thought, Senator Stevens agreed and welcomed me to the committee. Since that time, he has been a valuable mentor to me--not to mention a passionate advocate for Alaska and America. And when I say passion, I really do mean passion. Senator Stevens has been known to show dramatic performances on the Senate floor, keeping wandering eyes focused on the urgent issues that need to be addressed. One day, during a markup in the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Stevens, who chaired the committee at the time, grew very animated and laid down the law. When a frustrated senior Senator told Senator Stevens that ``there was no reason to lose your temper,'' Senator Stevens glared back and responded, ``I never lose my temper. I always know exactly where I left it.'' But if Senator Stevens has a temper, he also has a compassionate heart. I will never forget when a group of protestors gathered outside of the Appropriations Committee conference to demand increased funding for breast cancer research. One particularly agitated advocate got in Senator Stevens' face and said, ``If men were dying of breast cancer, you wouldn't think twice about increasing the funding.'' Needless to say, those words made quite an impact on Senator Stevens but probably not what this advocate anticipated. When Senator Stevens walked back into the conference, he repeated the charge and then looked around at his mostly male colleagues. He knew that at least six of them suffered from prostate cancer. He also noticed that the bill they were considering didn't fund prostate cancer research. But thanks to the excellent suggestion of the woman in the hallway, he was going to advocate breast cancer research and prostate cancer research. Senator Stevens was determined to become a leader on these issues, and over time, that is certainly what he has become. For all of these reasons, and many more, it has been a true honor to serve with Senator Stevens. I congratulate him once again on becoming the longest serving Republican Senator in U.S. history. I look forward to serving with him for years to come.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I would appreciate the Senator from Vermont going first, after which I will offer mine.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, could I ask my colleague, and also the Senator from Massachusetts, when the Senator from Texas is finished with his remarks, I wish to be recognized for 5 minutes--just to speak, not to offer my amendments, but I wanted to speak on the bill. I ask unanimous consent to do that, after he speaks. Then we will talk about my amendments.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, could I also have 5 minutes following Senator Cornyn?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I had originally come to the floor to offer two amendments on Social Security. However, I have yielded to the request from Senator Kennedy to withhold, and he has told me that I will be able to offer those amendments on the first day we return and take this bill up on the floor again. Madam President, I did wish to speak, however, on what I hope to do with this bill. I think there are some very good features of this bill. It has been negotiated really for years. The good features are the border security and we do have benchmarks that are required to be done before any temporary worker program or dealing with the backlog of people who are in our country illegally begins. We will have benchmarks that are finite for border security. That is a good feature of this bill. It also has a temporary worker program going forward. I think it is essential, if we are going to have border security in the future in this country, that we have a temporary worker program that works. If we do not have a temporary worker program that works, we will not have border security. Many people are not putting that together, but it is essential that you put it together because if we do not have a way for people to come into this country and fill the jobs that are being unfilled because we do not have enough workers who will do those jobs, then we will never be able to control our borders. I am supportive of those parts of the bill. What I cannot support in this bill and what I am going to try to make a positive effort to change are basically two areas. First is the amnesty portion of the Z visa. It would allow people to come to this country illegally, stay here, and if they do not wish to have a green card, they would never have to return. And that visa would be able to be renewed as long as the person wanted to stay here and work. I will offer an amendment at the appropriate time that will take the amnesty out of the bill and require that before a person can work in this country legally, if they are here illegally, they would have to go home and apply from outside the country. We will have a time that will allow that to happen in an orderly way, probably 2 years after the person gets their temporary card when they register to say they are in our country illegally, which they will be required to do. Then they would have 2 years from the time they get that first temporary card to go home and register at home to come in our country legally. I think taking out the amnesty part of this bill would be a major step in the right direction, to say, for people who are here illegally today, they can get right with the law by applying from home, just as all future workers will have to do. So there would not be an amnesty for people who would be able to work here, stay here, and never go home. That would be my amendment which I would like to offer at the appropriate time. The second area I think must be fixed is in the Social Security area. We all know our Social Security system is on the brink of failure. We know that in the year 2017, the system will start to pay out more than it receives. By 2041, the trust fund will be exhausted. Now, in 2017, under the present law, we will have to make adjustments that will either increase Social Security taxes or decrease payments to Social Security recipients. If we put more people into our system who have gotten credits illegally working in this country, it is going to bring forward the year in which we have to start either lowering the payments or raising the taxes. I don't think that is right. I do not think we should give Social Security credits to people who will be Z visa holders in this country for the time they have worked illegally. In the underlying bill, they do address the issue of fraudulent cards. I commend them for putting that in the bill. If you have paid Social Security with a fraudulent number or a card that is not yours, you will not be able to get credit for Social Security. To be very fair and honest, that is a good part of this bill, but it does not deal with the people who have a card in their own name, but they have worked illegally. That is what one of my amendments will attempt to address, that we will also not give credit to people who have a card in their name, but they either obtained it illegally or they have overstayed a visa. So I hope we can also not give credit for that illegal time they have worked even if the card is in their name, but it was not their legal right to work. If we can do that and then start a person, when they are on the proper visa, toward getting credit, I think the American people will feel that is a fairer system. The second area I hope to address is the new future flow of temporary workers. Now, under the bill, the temporary workers who will be coming in after the backlog of the illegal workers is dealt with, those people should not ever go into the Social Security system because, according to this bill, they will be limited to a 6-year period. It is very important that in dealing with those temporary workers, that they will not ever be eligible for Social Security, nor should they be, because they will not have the requisite number of quarters. What my second amendment does is allow them to take what they have actually put into the Social Security system through the employee deduction. It will allow them to take that home when they leave the system. We think--I think that is a fair approach for both the person working and also the Social Security system itself, that they would get back what they put in, but they would not be eligible for our Social Security system, which would be much more costly down the road. In addition, the Medicare deduction which is taken from the employee would also go into a fund which is already a fund in place that now allows compensation for uncompensated health care to a county hospital or to a health care provider that delivers a baby of an illegal immigrant who cannot pay or does any emergency service for an illegal immigrant today. We know many hospitals--I know that in my home State of Texas, my hospitals in my major cities always talk about how much they are having to raise taxes on the taxpayers who live in their districts because there is so much use of the health care facilities by illegal immigrants who cannot pay. So the Medicare deduction would go into a fund that would compensate health care providers for service to foreign workers who would not be able to pay. Those are the two amendments which I think would assure that the taxpayers of our country and the contributors to the Social Security system who have earned the right to have that safety net would not be unfairly taxed for people who have not been legally in the system or people who do not have the quarters that would be requisite. I hope we can take these amendments up. I hope they will be acceptable. If we can take the amnesty out of this bill by assuring that everyone who is here illegally will have to apply outside of our country to be able to come in legally to work, then we have set the precedent of the rule of law which we have always prided ourselves on in this country. If we can assure that the Social Security system is not also unduly burdened with quarters given for illegal work, then I think the American people will accept that we have to address this issue in a responsible way. I have heard the outcry of people about this bill, and I think some of that outcry is justified. But I think we can fix the parts that are not in tune with the American people and also do what is right for our country going forward because there is one thing on which I think we can all agree; that is, we have a system that is broken when you have 10 to 12 million people--and that is an estimate because we do not know for sure--who are working in our country illegally. They are not being treated fairly, nor are the American people who do live by the rule of law being treated fairly. It is a system that is broken, and it is a very complicated and hard problem to fix, but that is our responsibility. I respect those who have tried, in a bipartisan way, to put forward a bill. As a person who has written a book, as a person who has written legal briefs, I know that the person who puts out the first draft is always going to be the one who is under attack. But someone has to do it, and the people who have worked on this bill did step out and say: Here is the starting point. Congressman Mike Pence and I, last year, when the House and Senate broke down in negotiations over this issue, did the same thing. We came out with what we thought was a starting point that would be the right approach, and the principles we laid down were that we would have a guest worker program which would not include amnesty but would be a fair and workable guest worker program. It would have private sector involvement. It would have border security as our No. 1 goal. It would also preserve the integrity of our Social Security system. Congressman Pence and I tried to do that last year. Many of the elements in the Hutchison-Pence plan are in the bill before us. If we can perfect this bill and take the amnesty out by requiring everyone to apply outside our country--and it can be done in a responsible way mechanically because you would have some amount of time--1 or 2 years--to do it so that it would not be a glut on the system. I regret the argument that you cannot do it. I think we can. I also think we need to make a responsible effort, and that is exactly what I am going to try to do. I hope all our colleagues will work in a positive way to try to fix the parts that we think are bad, to admit that there are some good parts. The border security and the temporary worker program are very good, and the part about the Social Security protection for fraudulent cards is good. Let's try to make it better. Let's try to make it a bill that everyone will accept as fair for America, fair for foreign workers, helps our economy, and keeps our borders secure. That is what we owe the people. I hope to make a contribution in that effort. I yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I rise today to speak to an amendment and resolve an issue impacting the citizens of our country that live along the U.S.-Mexican border. I have long stressed the need to secure the borders of the United States--not only our southwest border with Mexico but also our northern border with Canada and our maritime borders, coastlines, and ports of entry. I have consistently supported and voted in favor of border security efforts--such as the installation of reinforced fencing in strategic areas where high trafficking of narcotics, unlawful border crossings, and other criminal activity exists. I have also supported installing physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras and sensors where necessary . The Secure Fence Act of 2006 was passed by Congress and signed into law by the President, and it signaled a major initiative to secure the border with Mexico and Canada. We must address border security so that we can move forward to address comprehensive immigration reform. I will continue to champion border security measures and strongly support the efforts of my colleagues to strengthen our southwest border--protecting our citizens from threats of terrorism, narcotic trafficking, and other unlawful entries. However, I am concerned that Congress is making decisions about the location of border fencing without the participation of State and local law enforcement officials working with the Department of Homeland Security. The location of fencing should not be dictated by Members of Congress who have never visited our border. Our border States have borne a heavy financial burden from illegal immigration, and their local officials are on the front lines. Their knowledge and experience should not be ignored. Texas shares approximately one-half of the land border between the United States of America and the Republic of Mexico. Our State and local officials and those in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas should not be excluded from decisions about how to best protect our borders with their varying topography, population, and geography. Local officials and property owners in my home State of Texas-- particularly in the areas of El Paso, Del Rio to Eagle Pass, and Laredo to Brownsville--cited in the Secure Fence Act, under current statutory law, do not have an opportunity to participate in decisions regarding the exact location of fencing and other physical infrastructure near their communities. To address this issue, I hosted a meeting in my Washington office, on January 17, 2007, with DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, my colleague from Texas, Senator John Cornyn, mayors from the border cities in Texas, and representatives of the private sector. That meeting began a dialogue with our local representatives in Texas and the Federal Government. I look forward to helping ensure that this dialogue continues. The Hutchison-Bingaman Amendment, No. 1168, cosponsored by Senators Cornyn, Kyl, McCain, Feinstein, and Domenici, addresses these issues and provides local and State officials greater involvement in decisions regarding the location of border fencing. I urge the adoption of my amendment.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, actually, that is absolutely right, and I will say to the distinguished Senator from Arizona that is only one of the problems we have, and it is the reason my husband walked into the house this weekend and said: I just spent $70 filling my gas tank; what are you going to do about it? Like every one of us, I am sure, who has this same experience, I think we should be doing something about it. We should be doing a variety of things about it. Senator Kyl specifically asked about the refinery capacity. We are very tight on refinery capacity. We did pass legislation in the last Congress that would try to ease the regulatory burden and therefore the timetable that it takes from either starting a new refinery or adding critical capacity in an existing refinery, but the regulations had not yet been put out as of a couple of weeks ago. One of the refiners in my State that wants to add capacity asked me if I would help and at least say to the Department to please issue the regulations so they can go forward, knowing they would have the guidance to move forward with expansion plans and add more refinery capacity. In addition to that, I have to say that one of the things we see continuing to be blocked on the other side of the aisle is the ability to explore and drill in our own waters. The Department of the Interior, just last week, put out a lease-sale proposal in eight areas, including the Gulf of Mexico, the Outer Continental Shelf, Virginia, and Alaska. In Virginia, the legislature is taking the first steps to production--by supporting the exploration of gas. The capability for earning money for the treasury of Virginia caused the Virginia Legislature to say: Yes, we want to do it, but there has to be a waiver of a previous extension of the moratorium in drilling. We're hearing signals that the Congress is not going to allow that, even though the Legislature of the State of Virginia and the Governor have said they want to be able to explore to see what is out there, 50 miles out. The people who represent the people of Virginia have seen, as so many of our legislatures have, that technology today is not what it was 25 years ago. You can drill and explore in an environmentally safe way and we can do something about the price of gasoline at the pump if we will take these kinds of measures. The Department of the Interior is now trying to do that. Yet we are seeing already the signs of obstruction on the other side of the aisle. So I guess we are going to let these prices continue to go up without any regard to what we have in our own resources, under our own control, which could alleviate some of this. It is not just drilling and production and exploration, either. We are also trying to put forward nuclear power, which is the cleanest, most efficient form of energy. The French have proven that it can be very effective as a clean energy source. Yet we are thwarted from the opportunity by the other side of the aisle to explore that avenue, and then lawsuits crop up, which have stymied our efforts to increase nuclear capacity in our country. So I would suggest to my friend from Arizona, or my friend from Texas, if we are going to continue to be stopped from using our own natural resources and if we are not going to be able to increase our refinery capacity, then I think we are looking at the capability for countries that have denounced America and said they want the destruction of America to, in fact, be able to hurt our economy by cutting off the oil supply. I would ask my colleagues, what should we do if we are not going to have cooperation?

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I am pleased to follow the Senator from Idaho who is talking about an issue that is so important for our country. It is a wake-up call. Amazingly it is on May Day. I think that is the appropriate moniker for what we are facing in this country because of what is happening today. Mr. President, I wish to talk about what I see happening in Venezuela and what I think America should be doing to make sure we maintain the capability to control our national security and our economic security. Today, President Hugo Chavez is completing his latest and most ominous scheme out of the Fidel Castro playbook. He is nationalizing multibillion-dollar, heavy oilfields in the Orinoco Belt. This energy- rich region southeast of Caracas has so much energy potential that some experts claim it could give the country more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia. By seizing the Orinoco Belt, President Chavez is consolidating his political power within Venezuela and increasing his ability to manipulate global oil markets. This nation now accounts for 14 percent of America's oil imports, and Mr. Chavez has promised to use his ``strong oil card'' to, in his words, ``finish off the U.S. empire,'' even if that means colluding with some of the most nefarious regimes on Earth. Similar to Fidel Castro, who partnered with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, President Chavez is making common cause with America's enemies, including the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, the Government of Iran. Earlier this year, he met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and made plans for a $2 billion joint fund, part of which will be used as a ``mechanism for liberation'' against American allies. President Chavez hopes that the profits from the Orinoco Belt will flood his coffers for other foreign adventures. But by asserting government control over this coveted region, he is actually killing the golden goose that feeds his socialist-inspired revolution. President Chavez's national oil company has already shown signs of stress. Despite record oil prices that should be a boon for the industry, the state-run company has been forced to accumulate a rapid increase in debt to pay for a doubling of ``social development spending.'' Meanwhile, its spending on energy exploration and production badly trails its global peers. In addition, the Orinoco Belt pronouncement has made ExxonMobil, Conoco Phillips, and other energy companies extremely cautious about putting their employees and billions of dollars in assets under Venezuelan management, and for good reason. If those American corporations decide to withhold their expertise and investment, it could further weaken the Chavez Government's pursuit of socialist dreams and redistribution of wealth. ``It seems as if they are going to strangle themselves with their own rope,'' said a foreign oil analyst who chose not to be identified for fear of retaliation. President Chavez's gross mismanagement of the economy should be no surprise to anyone who has followed the career of his Cuban mentor, Fidel Castro. In less than half a century, Fidel Castro has turned what was once the third richest nation in Latin America into one of the poorest nations in the world, a real-life prison for 11 million people who rely on remittances from abroad to avoid starvation and collapse. If President Chavez continues to adopt the Castro economic model, the greatest victims will be the Venezuelan people, but America will also suffer. That is because the deterioration of Venezuela's oil industry could spark a surge in oil prices for American consumers, and we all know that prices have already jumped in the last 30 days. Anyone who has filled a gasoline tank knows this would be a huge hit on the American economy. In fact, some economists say every time oil prices rise by 10 percent, an average of 150,000 Americans lose their jobs because it presses the economy. Margins are narrowed, and that means people are laid off. So what should our response be? America must recharge its efforts to adopt a comprehensive plan for American energy independence, including more exploration for oil and gas at home. It should be a comprehensive plan that includes conservation, renewable energy, new research for new forms of energy that we have not yet explored, and it should include more exploration and drilling for our own resources which we can be assured of controlling. I wrote an editorial in one of the December issues of the Houston Chronicle that said we should be looking to the Outer Continental Shelf of the United States, the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska and even the Virginia shores and other shores on the Pacific and Atlantic sides. Using the comprehensive energy legislation we passed last year, I was very pleased to see the announcement yesterday by the Department of the Interior that we would, in fact, increase production of the natural resources in this country. The Secretary, Dirk Kempthorne, who was once a Member of this body, announced that there would be 21 lease sales in eight planning areas which could produce 10 billion barrels of oil and 45 trillion cubic feet of natural gas over 40 years. That would generate about $170 billion in today's dollars. The potential for this amount of oil exploration alone is equivalent to 20 years' worth of what we import from Saudi Arabia or Venezuela. They are doing exactly what Congress has authorized them to do-- looking in the Outer Continental Shelf. Even the Commonwealth of Virginia is positive about this move because there are now incentives for States to allow production in the waters they control. This is one part of what we must do as part of a comprehensive approach to energy independence. We also need to increase research into alternative fuels, such as solar and wind power. In March, I introduced legislation called the CREST Act, which provides a comprehensive, coordinated national research effort that would spur the development of renewable energy for the marketplace. The oceans and the Gulf of Mexico have potential for energy production and electricity production. Just as we have seen wind energy become a factor on land, it can also be a factor in our bodies of water. We have the resources to achieve energy independence--the resources underneath our land and water--and the best resource of all, the ingenuity of our free, creative minds. Now we need the willpower to use it. President Chavez's announcement today is a tremendous challenge to America's energy future, but if we choose to be proactive, as we've always been throughout our history, we can regain control of our energy resources, and be the strongest Nation on Earth. We can write our own history, and today is the wake-up call that assures we must do it. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.