Amy Klobuchar

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, it is now Wednesday, and we have been debating the issue of speculation for several days. I believe it is time to stop talking and it is time to vote to end speculation in the oil marketplace. There is an honest debate going on about our long-term energy policy--one I am glad we are having. We need to talk about the potential of expanding our domestic production and about new refineries. I live next door to North Dakota, and I see their potential with the oil shale. Certainly, as T. Boone Pickens has been doing over the last few weeks, we need to lead the way with wind, solar, and to put the focus on hybrid and electric cars, biofuels, as we have seen in Minnesota. We have seen a revival in our rural areas with wind. We are third in the Nation with wind. We have seen it with biodiesel, biofuels. I have seen firsthand the potential for this next energy revolution. It is my belief that we should be investing in the farmers and workers of the Midwest and not the oil cartels of the Mideast. So I welcome this debate, and I hope we can get something done on that. Let's look at the short-run. What are the American people facing now with $4-per-gallon gasoline? Right now, they don't have the time or the patience for us to tell them we are not going to get anything done on speculation even though almost every Senator in this Chamber has admitted there are problems with speculation and that it is part of the problem. We may differ on how much of a problem it is, but we know it is part of the problem. I believe our Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act will help to pop the oil speculation bubble. This bill has a number of provisions that will fight the kind of excessive speculation that drives up energy prices for hard-working American families. This bill will close the so-called London loophole. It will stop traders from routing transactions through offshore markets to get around limits on speculation put in place by U.S. regulators. The Intercontinental Exchange, or ICE, allows trading on American oil futures, gasoline, and home heating oil with far less stringent reporting requirements than we have here at home. I can tell you that my constituents--it is not great to tell them: Don't worry, Dubai or London will be taking care of you. They don't buy that, and they don't buy it for a good reason. The way the world has worked now with the loopholes that have existed, like the Enron loophole--and I see Senator Feinstein, who worked to close that loophole to the point where we can better regulate our energy future. We know there is more we can do, and that is what this bill contains. This bill will make foreign trades in American oil and gasoline futures subject to the same reporting requirements as trades made here at home, so we can stop a glut of overseas trades from driving up our energy prices. This bill would also require the CFTC to review the letters of ``no action'' that it issued to the ICE electronic exchange in Atlanta, and the Dubai electronic exchange, which operates in cooperation with NYMEX in New York. With these ``no action'' letters, the CFTC gave these exchanges permission to operate in this country and trade in American energy futures with no oversight from U.S. regulators. Personally, I don't believe it is good enough to say that the Dubai Financial Services Authority is looking out for people in my State. We need to let speculators know that if they want to trade in American energy futures, they are going to be subject to American regulation. The bill would also convene an international working group of financial market regulators to develop uniform reporting and regulatory standards in the major trading centers in the world to put an end to the problem of speculators shopping around for the country with the weakest regulations. The world has changed. One of our jobs in the Senate is not to just put our heads in the sand and pretend the world hasn't changed. It has. The laws must change with it. This bill would also require the CFTC to impose position limits on speculators who trade in energy futures but don't actually produce energy or receive physical deliveries of energy commodities. If you are an investor who buys and sells oil futures but you don't plan to ever take delivery of actual barrels of oil, this bill will limit how much you can buy and sell so that you won't be distorting prices for your own personal gain. We know some limits are in place right now in American laws, and this is to cover the situation we see going on in the world today. Last, this bill is going to give the CFTC the funding authority to hire at least 100 full-time employees so the Commission can strengthen its regulations and improve its enforcement over the energy derivative market. As a former prosecutor, I know--I have seen it before--you can pass all the laws you want, but if you don't have the cops on the front line enforcing the law, you will not be able to get the job done. I heard the head of the CFTC testify before the Agriculture Committee. I was surprised. As a prosecutor, I said: Give me all the tools I need, because you want to have the tools. That is what this bill does. We have heard from the other side of the aisle that speculation is not a major contributor to high oil prices. It is hard to imagine such a position, but our friends on the other side seem intent on finding some straw to hang on to that just doesn't work. They are literally living in an evidence-free zone. Look at what has happened. Oil prices are up 25 percent. Gasoline is up 25 percent in 6 months; it is around $4. We know demand hasn't gone up 25 percent. Have we seen some increase in worldwide demand? Yes, but demand in the United States is down. It is nowhere near 25 percent, though. We know something is going on. It is our job to adjust our laws and give the agency that enforces these laws the funding it needs to do its job. We saw this happen with the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Exports went way up, millions of exports; at the same time, the agency became a shadow of its former self. It is no surprise that we suddenly had little foam toys, which were supposed to inflate in water, morph into date-rape drugs. We had a little boy in Minneapolis die because he swallowed something from a toy that was 99 percent lead. You have the same thing going on here. It is this Congress which has to step in and say: Let's get the agency the resources it needs to do its job. When oil prices jump $16 in 2 days without any events to drive them up, we cannot say speculation isn't having an impact. When the 12th largest private company in the United States is filing for bankruptcy after losing billions in oil trading, we cannot say speculation isn't having an impact. Even Walter Lukken, the Acting Chairman of the CFTC, has stated that oil markets are ``ripe for those wanting to illegally manipulate the markets.'' We had an expert testify before Congress that speculation in the oil market is the biggest gambling hall in America. We had CEOs saying it should be trading at $55 or $60 a barrel. Do you know who is taking a hit? It is Americans across the country. They are taking a hit every time they go to fill up their gas tanks. There is no excuse for this Congress not to act on speculation. We are listening to the people of this country, and we are hearing that this bill--Majority Leader Reid's bill--makes common sense to everyday Americans. Groups across the country that deal with high gas prices every day have come out in support of our efforts to stop the out-of-control speculation going on in the oil market. These groups include the National Farmers Union, the Teamsters, the Air Transportation Association, the Consumers for Competitive Choice, Northwest, and the American Feed Industry Association. And the airlines in Minnesota aren't exactly partisan organizations. They are businesses. They have seen their profits go down. They have seen their routes go down. The number of planes they can fly has gone down. They have unhappy customers. They have millions of airline customers who are writing in to do something on speculation. Speculation is where the rubber hits the runway for the airlines in this country. We must do something about it. Even the beer wholesalers want to do something about it. I talked to one of their members last night. They want to get something done. I can tell you that my friends across the aisle say speculation has little to do with this. I will use a good beer word: That is all foam and no beer. It is time to get something done. It is time to act on speculation. In conclusion, the cost of energy is hurting Americans from all walks of life, in businesses and every sector of our economy. We need to work hard. I have pushed, in the last year and a half, for a long-term energy policy. We need a bold energy policy to carry our Nation forward. We also need to do something now--today, not tomorrow, not next week, not in September. Let's pass this speculation bill and help the people of this country. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the sessions of the Senate on July 17, 2008, at 10 a.m.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 17, 2008, at 2:30 p.m.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 17, 2008, at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 17, 2008, at 9 a.m., in room SD-G50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 1 p.m. in room 328A of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I have been coming to the Senate floor to address the price of oil for several months now. It continues to astound me that every time I speak, the prices continue to go up. The average price of a gallon of regular gas hit $3.95 in Minnesota and $4.11 cents nationwide. The price of diesel fuel is at $4.76 per gallon. The price of crude oil recently hit an unbelievable $145 per barrel. There seems to be no relief in sight. Prices have gone up more than $1 per gallon over the last 6 months. Everyone knows that demand has not gone up 25 percent over the last 6 months, but the prices have gone up $1 per gallon over the last 6 months. This increase is astonishing. Even more astonishing is the fact that the administration has continued to do nothing about the speculation issue, continues to do nothing to push the CFTC to use the tools it has and to push for more tools to do something about the excessive speculation that is going on in this market. We cannot continue to do business as usual. I have heard from people in Minnesota who have canceled their trips up to their cabins because they simply cannot afford to fill their car with gas anymore. They have canceled their summer vacations. These are not glamorous summer vacations, these are little cabins up on the lakes of Minnesota. I have heard from farmers who are having a hard time making ends meet, even in spite of the high commodity prices, because the cost of their input, diesel fuel for farm equipment and fertilizer made from natural gas, has spiraled out of control. I have heard from the CEO of Northwest Airlines, based in Minnesota, about how the speculation in the oil markets has so greatly contributed to their cost and made it very difficult for them to continue business as usual with prices going up, grounding flights, not having as many flights leaving, leading to more delays in the summer, because if a passenger misses it, and we had a hearing on this in the Commerce Committee--there are not as many backup flights because there are not as many flights. So the list goes on. The high price of energy has inflated the price of everything from groceries, to transportation, to home heating. It has impacted every sector of the economy, from manufacturing to forestry, to farms and small businesses. Middle-class families are already struggling, as you know, with the high cost of health care and college education. We know we need to do things about that, but we keep getting blocked. We are very hopeful, with the new President, that we are going to be able to get things done for the middle class. But for now, we have people in my State who simply cannot afford the price of gas when you couple it with everything else that has been going on in their lives. We know the statistics. We know what has been happening, where average families in the last 8 years, their wages have gone down about $1,000 a year, but their expenses have gone up about $4,000; so that is a net loss of $5,000 a year to them. Many of the people in my State, and I know you know this, Mr. Presiding Officer, in Colorado, many of the people in my State are in rural areas. They do not have access to public transportation. They do not have a choice in how much they drive. They have to get to work. They have to get to the grocery store. They have to get to the doctor. Any pay increase they have gotten in the last year, if they have gotten one, has been eaten up by the cost of gas. More often than not, I will tell you, there has not been a pay increase. But yet, as recently as February of this year, the President seemed taken aback when someone asked him about $4-a-gallon gas. He said: You are predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline? That is interesting. I had not heard that. The fact is this administration has failed to provide Americans with a meaningful energy policy that would provide relief from high gas and energy prices. They saw this coming. They saw it was going on in the international markets but they failed to act. This country needs a bold energy policy for the future, a policy that will stabilize prices and give consumers more alternatives and reduce our dependence on foreign oil and provide us with the next generation of homegrown biofuels. In short, I believe we have to invest in the people, the farmers and the workers, from my perspective, of the Midwest, not the oil cartels of the Mideast. The same could be said of any area of this country. This country spends $600,000 every minute on imported oil. That money leaves the pockets of American drivers, going overseas, and contributing to our enormous trade deficit. It amounts to a tax on the families and businesses of this country, and it undermines our national security. Why does it affect our national security? That is because America has roughly 3 percent of the world's proven crude oil reserves, but we are responsible for about 25 percent of the world's oil consumption. Now, we know we cannot continue on this path without becoming more and more vulnerable to other parts of the world, some of which are politically unstable, some of which we do not want to do business with. But there is another way. If you look at what is going on in Brazil, they have achieved energy security with a combination of biofuels. Now, they have sugarcane, so it is easier. But we have all kinds of things. We have all kinds of things: Switchgrass, prairie grass, that has not even been developed, other parts of the corn. We know we cannot do it all with corn. We are talking about algae, we are talking about biofuels. We are talking about residue from logging. There are all kinds of possibilities. But Brazil was able to do it with a combination of sugarcane and domestic production and a government policy that drove them to energy independence. We need to put together a forward-looking energy policy with the same sense of urgency we had 40 years ago when we put a man on the Moon. In the long term, this is going to mean strategic investment, putting these standards in place so people will push to buy the hybrid cars, electric cars, new solar technologies, cellulosic ethanol, other forms of energy for biomass. We need to have better fuel efficiency standards for our cars and trucks. I am proud the Senate, on a bipartisan basis, for the first time since I was in junior high school, increased the gas mileage standards on cars by 10 miles a gallon. But there is so much more we can do. We need a renewable electricity standard, we need to look at other sources, as I said, solar, we need to do more with nuclear, we need to do more to increase responsibly our domestic production. We need to have functioning refineries. These are long-term solutions. I believe very strongly they are important, and we need to get them done. But there is also something we can do in the short term about high gas prices that will bring immediate relief; that is, to address the role market speculation is playing in driving up energy prices. The administration likes to tell us these high gas prices are just a simple case of supply and demand; more people are driving, so the price of gas goes up. We know that is not true in our country. Fewer people are driving. There have been some increases internationally, but when the expert, Mr. Yergin, testified before our committee, he said there has been sort of a leveling off in terms of demand for world oil. Whatever it is, we know that even if there has been an increase in demand, it hasn't been 25 percent, such as we have seen with the dollar-a-gallon increase in only the last 6 months. The answer that it is just supply and demand doesn't hold true any longer. Listen to the oil executives on this matter. On October 30, 2007, the CEO of Marathon Oil said: $100 oil isn't justified by the physical demand in the market. On April 11 of this year, the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell said: The [oil] fundamentals are no problem. They are the same as they were when oil was selling for $60 a barrel. On April 1, a senior vice president of ExxonMobil testified before the House: The price of oil should be about $50-55 per barrel. If oil should be roughly $50 to $60 a barrel given market fundamentals, as we heard from the oil executives, why is it trading so high? Why is it trading at over $100 a barrel? If supply and demand, which should be the market forces which determine price, don't explain the high price of gas, what does? According to the experts, there is a frenzy of unregulated market speculation in the oil futures market that is driving prices up to record highs. I would like to share a quote from an energy market analyst with Oppenheimer and Co. who was recently named by Bloomberg as the top- ranked energy analyst in the country: I'm absolutely convinced that oil prices shouldn't be a dime above $55 a barrel . . . Oil speculators include the largest financial institutions in the world. I call it the world's largest gambling hall . . . It's open 24/7 . . . It's totally unregulated . . . This is like a highway with no cops and no speed limit, and everybody's going 120 miles per hour. Why are these trades in a commodity as vital as oil unregulated? You have to go back in time, to the middle of the night in 2000. A provision was inserted into the Commodities Futures Modernization Act that exempted electronic energy trades from Federal regulation. In the absence of oversight, what was once a small niche market became a booming industry, attracting rampant speculation from hedge funds and investment banks, the largest financial institutions in the world. Oil and natural gas prices became volatile. The provision came to be known as the Enron loophole because it made possible the many abuses that triggered the Western energy crisis and led, in part, to the collapse of Enron and cost the economy $35 billion and 600,000 jobs. I am pleased to say that we succeeded in partly closing the Enron loophole in the farm bill. Those provisions will provide new protections in the natural gas market. They will put a new regulatory structure on ICE, the electronic exchange in Atlanta, where large traders try to game natural gas futures on an unregulated electronic exchange. But we need to do more. That is why I am proud to be a cosponsor of the Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act of 2008. It was introduced by our leader, Harry Reid, and my colleagues, Senators Durbin, Schumer, Dorgan, Murray, and others. This bill has a number of provisions that will fight the kind of excessive speculation that drives up energy prices for hard-working American families. This bill will close the so-called London loophole. It will stop traders from routing transactions through offshore markets in order to get around limits on speculation put in place by U.S. regulators. Specifically, the Intercontinental Exchange, or ICE, in London allows trading in American oil futures, gasoline and home heating oil, with far less stringent reporting requirements than what we have at home. This has driven a lot of energy trading offshore and out of the reach of our regulators. This bill will make those foreign trades in American oil and gasoline futures subject to the same reporting requirements as trades made at home, so we can stop a glut of overseas trades from driving up our energy prices. The bill would also require the CFTC to review letters of no action it has issued to the ICE electronic exchange in Atlanta and the Dubai electronic exchange which operates in cooperation with NYMEX in New York. With those no-action letters, the CFTC gave these exchanges permission to operate in this country and trade in American energy futures with no oversight from U.S. regulators. I don't think I can tell the people of my State, in Duluth or Rochester, that they should rest easy because the Dubai Financial Services Authority is looking out for them. They know that is not true. We need to let speculators know that if they want to trade in American energy futures, they are going to be subject to American regulation. We had the head of the CFTC testify before a joint meeting of the Agriculture and Appropriations Committees. I still can't quite believe the meeting. He was happy that we will give him more people to work in his agency since they have had an enormous decrease at the same time we have seen an enormous increase in rampant speculation. But I tried to push him. I said: When I was a prosecutor, I would want every potential way of trying to get evidence, trying to prosecute a case or get a sentence or a bill if it made sense and we could use it in going after a crook. It wouldn't mean we always used them. Some of them we maybe used once a year. With some of them, we have a hammer over someone's head. Some of them we used all the time. But you want to have those tools. He didn't seem that interested. That was the moment I thought: We are going to do everything we can to prop up this agency and get it moving, but we have to have people in charge who really want to do the job. That is why I am so concerned about this administration. You haven't seen the same thing in the financial services area, where you have Secretary Paulson and Ben Bernanke working hard on this crisis, along with people in Congress on an equal footing, trying to get things done, communicating with us. I just didn't get that same feeling when we had that testimony before our committee. What else will this bill do? This bill will also convene an international working group of financial market regulators to develop uniform reporting and regulatory standards in the major trading centers of the world to put an end to this problem of speculators shopping around the world for the weakest regulations. The bill will require the CFTC to impose position limits on speculators who trade in energy futures but don't actually produce energy or receive physical delivery of energy commodities. So if you are an investor who buys and sells oil futures but you don't plan to even take delivery of actual barrels of oil, this bill will limit how much you can buy and sell so that you won't be distorting prices for your own personal gain. We know that has been going on. A lot of these people took the money, the funds, out of the subprime mortgage market and then started playing around in the oil market even though they are not truly involved. Lastly, this bill is going to give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission the funding authority to hire at least 100 full-time employees so that the Commission can strengthen its regulations and improve its enforcement over the energy derivative markets. As a former prosecutor, I can tell you that good laws are not enough. You also need strong enforcement. You need the cops on the beat so that you can follow the money. When we follow the money in this $4-a-gallon gas, when we follow the money, we know where it is going to lead. We know it is going to lead--at least a piece of it--to market manipulation and speculation. In conclusion, the cost of energy is hurting Americans from all walks of life and businesses in every sector of the economy. I don't think there is one silver bullet that will solve our energy crisis. It is more like a silver buckshot. We need a bold energy policy to carry the Nation forward. It needs to include both short-term and long-term solutions. In the short term, we need to pass this bill and place stronger limits on market speculation. That will make a difference in the short term. In the long term, we need to develop our energy resources at home. We need to improve refining capacity. We need to improve our domestic production. This is for the long term, so when speculators, even legitimate ones, are looking at America and thinking how much the price of oil is, they need to know we actually have a long-term plan. That, ultimately, is what will bring down the price, when they know we are ready to compete with big oil, that we have a plan, using increased efficiency of cars and trucks, that we have a plan which means looking at biofuels and truly having a competitive force. Maybe it is not E85; maybe it is E10, E20, so we have a blend of fuel. We have to invest in the research to get us those vehicles and get us that energy. We have to make a national commitment to generate electricity from renewable sources, just as my State of Minnesota does. I know there is groundbreaking work occurring in Colorado. Finally, we have to embrace conservation. This is no longer Jimmy Carter going on TV in a sweater and looking glum. The people of this country see this not only as an environmental issue, they see it as an economic issue. They want to save a few bucks, whether it means putting in the right kind of lightbulbs or meters on their washers and dryers so they can figure out when to run them, whether it is more fuel-efficient cars. They want to do something differently. They are ready in my State to embrace conservation as a way to save money for their families. The time is now for Congress to take strong steps toward creating a bold energy policy. American families are depending on us. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: Calendar Nos. 687 and 688, and that the Senate proceed to vote on confirmation of the nominations; that upon confirmation of the nominations, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, en bloc, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, with no further motions in order, and the Senate then resume legislative session; and that any statements relating to the nominations be printed in the Record; and that after this consent is granted, Senator Specter of Pennsylvania be recognized for 1 hour.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. The OMB received this e-mail. Once they realized what it contained, they first tried to make Mr. Burnett take it back, and then they actually tried to bury it. We also learned last week of the administration's decision to leave office without taking any regulatory action to address climate change. This is wrong. The bottom line is that this White House is leaving it to the next President to show leadership, to show leadership on energy, and to show leadership on climate change. I cannot say it more plainly than this: Our climate is changing. If we do not act to stem the tide, it will have grave and disastrous impacts on every single facet of our lives, from our health, to our economy, to our foreign policy. It should begin with science, it should begin with evidence, it should end with science, and it should end with evidence. That is how we will come to the right policy outcome. We cannot have the wool pulled over the eyes of the American people anymore. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, as you noted, I come from the State of Minnesota and the State of Minnesota is a State that believes in science. We brought the world everything from the Post-it note to the pacemaker. We are the home of Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota. We believe in science. As a former prosecutor, I also believe in evidence. What we have been hearing from this administration, time and time again, whether it is about energy policy--where they have actually done literally nothing the last 8 years when it comes to pushing us forward to where we should be when you look at the rest of the world with technology and hybrid cars and electric cars and new gas mileage standards which came out of this Congress, or whether it is about climate change, which I am about to address today--they have been living in an evidence-free zone. It is time to bring out the evidence. The administration made headlines twice last week in its ongoing effort to do nothing about climate change. We learned there was political interference with science--political interference with the evidence and the facts. We also learned the administration will not issue the global warming regulations mandated by the Supreme Court. I am a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Some of my colleagues might recall last fall when Dr. Julie Gerberding, the Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, was invited to testify before our committee. She was invited to testify on how climate change could impact public health. Unfortunately, her testimony that she delivered was markedly different from what she and her staff at the CDC had prepared. The Office of Management and Budget got its hands on the speech and removed about 7 pages that discussed the impact of global warming--7 pages redacted. These pages included explanations and descriptions of the links between climate change and heat stroke, weather disasters, worsening air pollution, allergies, food and waterborne infectious diseases, mosquito and tickborne infectious diseases, and food and water scarcity. I would say those things seem very relevant to the job of the head of the CDC, and something she should be allowed to testify about when it comes to climate change. Well, at the time there was brouhaha because someone leaked the actual testimony, a whistleblower brought it to our attention. At the time, the White House claimed they needed to edit it because of its ``broad characterizations about climate change science that didn't align with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report.'' Last fall, we provided a number of examples of how her testimony was, in fact, closely aligned with that report. Her testimony, in fact, included the statement that: The west coast of the United States is expected to experience significant strains on water supplies as regional precipitation declines and mountain snowpacks are depleted. She went on to say: Forest fires are expected to increase in frequency, severity, distribution, and duration. In fact, the IPPC has found that ``warm spells and heat waves will very likely increase the danger of wildfire.'' So they were completely consistent, and I do not have to tell anyone, you do not have to read a report on what has been going on in California in the past 2 weeks. Global warming did not cause these fires, but it certainly intensifies the three main causes of wildfires: high temperatures, summer dryness, and long-term drought. Minnesotans know when the wool is being pulled over their eyes. Let's face it, the Bush administration did not change Dr. Gerberding's testimony because of concerns regarding accuracy. They did not worry about if it matched with that record because it, in fact, exactly did. They did it for political reasons. So it was no surprise to me when the news broke last week that both the Office of the Vice President and the President's Council on Environmental Quality had actually stepped in to interfere with her testimony. This revelation came to us from Mr. Jason Burnett, a former Deputy Administrator of the EPA, who informed Chairman Boxer that he had been approached by the Council on Environmental Quality staff and asked to work with the CDC to remove from the testimony any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change. Upon reviewing the original testimony, Mr. Burnett came to the same conclusion we have reached since: The science was correct. He did not think he should alter the statement. He was not operating in an evidence-free zone. He wanted the facts out there. He wanted information out there. I am sorry to report that even though the administration has been caught redhanded in this behavior, time and time again, it has not stopped them from continuing their interference with scientific facts. Last week we learned the Office of Management and Budget has been sitting on an e-mail from that same former Deputy Administrator of the EPA regarding the endangerment of public health or welfare from global warming. The OMB received this e-mail, and once they realized what it contained----

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 860, H.R. 3891.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned as a further mark of respect to the memory of former Senator Jesse Helms.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 608, which was submitted earlier today.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, in order to accommodate Senators attending the funeral of former Senator Jesse Helms, there will be no rollcall votes during Tuesday's session. Senators should expect the votes in relation to the FISA legislation to begin around 11:15 a.m. on Wednesday, July 9.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow, July 8; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and there be a period of morning business for up to 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each. I further ask that following morning business the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 6304, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as under the previous order; that all time in adjournment, recess, morning business, and consideration of H.R. 6304 count postcloture. Finally, I ask that the Senate recess from 12:30 until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly Democratic caucus luncheon.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Calendar Nos. 633 through 636; that the nominations be confirmed, en bloc, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, en bloc; that no further motions be in order; provided further that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate return to legislative session.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask for its second reading and object to my own request.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I understand that H.R. 6377 has been received from the House and is at the desk.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, as in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that the injunction of secrecy be removed from the following treaty transmitted to the Senate on July 7, 2008, by the President of the United States. It is the Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (Treaty Document No. 110-19). I further ask that the treaty be considered as having been read the first time; that it be referred, with accompanying papers, to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to be printed; and that the President's message be printed in the Record.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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