Amy Klobuchar

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 556, which was submitted earlier today by Senator Landrieu.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak about a fundamental right in this country: the right to vote. Although it is one of the greatest rights we have built this government on, we have states across the country that still limit that right by not allowing people to vote if they have not met an arbitrary registration deadline. A deadline that is sometimes set months in advance of Election Day. Since 1973, Minnesota has allowed citizens in the state to register to vote on the same day as the election, and, not coincidentally, year after year, my state has the highest voter turnout in the country. As the Presidential election is fast approaching, we need to ensure that people across the country have the ability to vote when November 4th, 2008, rolls around. This is why, Mr. President, I am happy that this afternoon, Senator Feingold and I introduced legislation that enables voters in every state to register on Election Day for Federal elections. My colleague's home state of Wisconsin, like Minnesota, has put a high price on voter registration, and has allowed Election Day Registration for over 30 years with great success. I am also pleased that we are joined on this bill by Senator Harkin from Iowa and Senator Tester from Montana. Both Iowa and Montana recently enacted same-day voter registration laws--significantly improving voter turnout throughout the state. This legislation comes at a critical time--it is on the heels of a Supreme Court decision that tightens the ability of Indiana citizens to vote by requiring valid photo identification at the polling booth. And just this last week, several election registration volunteers in Florida stopped their registration work for fear that they would be fined upwards of $1000 if they made a mistake. In Minnesota, some credit the election of Jesse Ventura as Governor in 1998 to our same-day registration voting policy. Voters who had never voted before showed up at the polls and voted in unprecedented numbers. I can't say that I ever imagined that we would have a Governor wear a pink boa at his inaugural celebration, but the ability for the citizens of Minnesota to cast their ballot and enact change is the kind of democracy this country is founded upon. In the past decade, as states around the country are experimenting with new and innovative ways to combat voter fraud, Election Day Registration has actually helped eliminate voter fraud at the polls. I've worked a great deal with the Secretary of State in Minnesota, Mark Ritchie, and he has found that registering at the polls, instead of by mail with a postcard, decreases the chance for fraud. When citizens are registering right in front of the election official, on the day of the election, chances of fraud are decreased. It's a pretty simple concept, but a fundamental one. As Secretary of State Ritchie has said, it's ``a no-brainer.'' The myriad of voter registration laws across the country are mind- boggling. In Nevada, you must register by 9 p.m., on the fifth Saturday before the election. A handful of states require registration 25 days before the election, another handful require 29 days. Some have to be postmarked by that date, and others have to be received by the deadline. A few set the cutoff at 20 days, a few at 10 days, and in Vermont, you have until 5 p.m., the Wednesday before the election. If you're in Utah, you must register 30 days before the election by mail, but if you miss that, you can register in person on the 18th or 15th day before the election. Where we have one, national, election day of November 4th this year, it is hard to imagine voters, because of the State they reside, could miss their chance to vote. There are 8 States that allow citizens to register at the polls: Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and now Iowa and Montana have joined the list. Historically, these first six States have seen voter turnout that is 8 to 15 percent higher than the national average. In the 2004 Presidential election, only 64 percent of the eligible population voted; but in Minnesota, 79 percent of the population turned out to vote. As Senator Feingold mentioned, the last time we had turnout that high on a national level was 1896, and we only had 45 states. No matter what side of the aisle, we are seeing an unprecedented interest in the upcoming Presidential election, and we need to give the citizens the ability to register on Election Day. This is a simple, yet fundamental bill. It amends legislation we passed in 2002, the Help America Vote Act, to allow voters to register and cast their ballot on the same day in a Federal election. Where Americans across the country are facing skyrocketing gas prices, health costs that many cannot afford, and an economy that is approaching recession, we need to ensure that every citizen has the right to wake up on Election Day and decide they will cast their ballot for President.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I think there are a number of things we can do in the short term, but I am here today to talk about the long- term energy future and climate future for this country. In 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt invited delegates from the Allied Powers to a remote New Hampshire resort called Bretton Woods to discuss the future of the global economy. Although the world was locked in a terrible war, these leaders had fresh memories of the Great Depression, a worldwide panic that had left the world's major economies in tatters. They wanted their countries to emerge from World War II on a more stable financial footing. Over the course of 3 weeks, they created the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to battle world poverty and to avert currency crises of the sort that had led to the worldwide economic meltdown in the 1920s. It worked. Both the World Bank and the IMF have had their share of controversies in the last decade, but they succeeded in stabilizing the world's financial systems so that in the ensuing six decades there has never been a global financial disaster comparable to the Great Depression. I draw on this chapter of history because today the world faces another grave international threat that demands imagination and leadership. This time, the threat is environmental. I am speaking, of course, of global climate change. The heating of the Earth is a threat every bit as grave as the financial catastrophe that threw the developed world into chaos 80 years ago. The science is clear. Global temperatures are up 1 degree in the last century. That doesn't sound like much, 1 degree in the last century. To put it in perspective, they have risen only 5 degrees since the height of the ice age. The Environmental Protection Agency of this country predicts that temperatures could rise another 3 to 7 degrees in the next 100 years. The consequences are frightening: rising ocean levels, which we are already seeing, increased drought, wildfires, and destructive weather patterns. The Presiding Officer knows from being in the Midwest that our constituents aren't as focused on rising ocean levels. But I can tell you, in Minnesota they are focused on the fact that last year Lake Superior was at the lowest level in 80 years. Why would the oceans be high and Lake Superior be low? That is because Lake Superior, as you know, is a lake, and when the ice that forms on that lake melts quicker, the water evaporates and the water level goes down. Why do we care about that? You think, are you going to swim in that cold lake? A lot of Minnesotans, probably not, but it matters because our barges cannot get through and it has had a severe economic impact for barge traffic and the economy in the Duluth area. You can see the rising impacts of global warming and what we are seeing across the country: increasing wildfire risk--remember the fires we had this year in California? We had some in northern Minnesota as well--decreasing water availability. That is in 2007. You go up to the 2020s, increased mortality from heat waves, floods, and droughts; in the 2050s, millions more people face flooding. You go up, if we do not do anything, to some profound and very serious consequences. Two weeks ago, President Bush gave a speech in the Rose Garden to announce a new initiative on global warming. To be perfectly blunt, I really didn't see anything new in the President's announcement and no initiative that had not been discussed before. The President has proposed that we wait until the year 2025 before we even stop the increase in the emissions of greenhouse gases. He did not call for a cut in emissions that was immediate. He did not call for concrete steps to meet the goals. He said it would be unwise to do it at this time. I believe Americans are leaders not followers. When the world faces a crisis, they do not wait for someone else to go first. Our country has always stepped in and taken leadership. When we see a problem in our own backyard--and my people in Minnesota see shrinking wetlands and endangered wildlife, they have seen what has been going on with our ski resorts and ice fishing--they do something about it. Our friends across the seas in Europe have recognized the challenge. They have introduced a plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions covering 27 countries. It is a plan covering more than 12,000 industrial sites in 27 countries. And they did it using a concept known as cap and trade. This was actually started in our country. That is how we reduced acid rain. The European Union did not do everything right. They will be the first to admit that. Their emissions targets were too high. They issued too many carbon permits. But they are getting it back into equilibrium. I believe we are going to learn from what they did, and we will do better when we do it in this country. But the point is, many of these European countries rose to the challenge and took leadership. Here at home, our country's private investors and business leaders already recognize this challenge. Nationally, venture capital investments in green and clean technologies have increased dramatically. In 2006, venture capital investment in green technologies in the United States reached $2.9 billion, up 78 percent from a year earlier. Not only is clean technology the fastest growing venture capital sector, it is now the third largest category of venture capital investment. So when we talk about some of the things Senator Dorgan and I have been talking about with energy, and we mentioned wind, we invented a lot of that wind technology in our country. But now we have fallen behind in wind production to other countries that have government policies in place that pushed that investment. From what I can see, wind is going to bring jobs across our country. So is solar. So is biofuels. All of these things that cut our dependency on foreign oil and invest in the next generation of new technologies, that money is starting to filter into that area. But I think we can do better in our country. CEOs from major corporations such as DuPont, Duke Energy, and General Electric see the opportunities, and they are making investments of their own. More than 200 major U.S. corporations such as American Electric Power and DuPont have started buying carbon offsets that are now traded on the new Chicago Climate Exchange. You can see the global investments I talked about in renewable technologies that have been increased in wind, in solar, and other kinds of renewable technologies. A company subsidizes a project that reduces greenhouse gas pollution, building a wind turbine, for example, then recoups its investments by selling that offset to another company on the Chicago Exchange. The Chicago Exchange is new, but it reports that it kept 10 million tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere over the last 4 years. Meanwhile our Nation's Governors and mayors have also stepped up to the challenge. Governors in five Western States, including California and Arizona, have announced they will work together to reduce greenhouse gasses by setting regional targets for lower emissions and establishing a regional cap-and-trade system for buying and selling greenhouse gas credits. California alone plans to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by the year 2020. The Western Greenhouse Gas Initiative builds on other regional initiatives, especially the landmark New England Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, with seven Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic States that have also agreed to a regional cap-and-trade system set to take effect next year. You can see all of the States that have been involved. In my home State of Minnesota, we have one of the most aggressive renewable electric portfolio standards in the country; a 25-percent reduction. We did this on a bipartisan basis. We did it with the support of ExelEnergy, our biggest electricity company. We did it the way we do things in Minnesota, with a focus on results and getting things done--Leadership. There is also the U.S. Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement. More than 400 mayors representing over 59 million Americans have pledged to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas reduction goals in their own communities. Among the signatories to this agreement are cities in my home State of Minnesota: Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester, and Duluth. I admire these States and communities that have signed onto this agreement for their initiatives and what they are doing. They should be an inspiration for this Congress for national action. There is a famous phrase, ``the laboratories of democracy.'' That is what Justice Brandeis said in one of his most famous opinions when he described the special role of States in the Federal system. He said: It is one of the happy incidents of the Federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country. But Brandeis did not mean this would serve as an excuse for inaction by the Federal Government. We have States all over this country, Governors, legislatures that have been brave, that have been courageous in taking action on climate change. But never, when Justice Brandeis talked about the one courageous State going above the norm, doing something different, did he mean there should be inaction by the Federal Government. Good ideas and successful innovations are supposed to emerge from the laboratory and serve as a model for national policy in action. That is now our responsibility in Congress. In about 1 month we will have the chance to take up that responsibility. We will have the opportunity to vote in the Chamber on landmark climate change legislation, the Lieberman-Warner bill. I thank my colleagues, Senator Warner and Senator Lieberman, for their hard work on this bill. I thank our chairwoman, Senator Boxer for her leadership as it moves forward. At this very moment we are listening to Members make changes to the bill, doing everything we can to make the bill as strong as possible. The truth is, we can no longer delay. I have been to Greenland and have seen those humongous icebergs melting in the ocean, and I have seen the effect of this in my own State. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates if we start today and cut emissions by just 4 percent a year, we could achieve an 80-percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But if we wait just 10 years, we would have to double that annual rate of reduction. This is forward-looking, bipartisan legislation. It is comprehensive, and it is carefully tailored. It is our opportunity to show the leadership for which Americans have always been known. I pledged last week I was going come to the Senate floor and give a speech about this legislation on different aspects of why it is so important to move forward and to show leadership on climate change. Today, I think it is obvious that as we face these long-term consequences of doing nothing with our energy policy, when it comes to electricity or oil, this is our chance. This climate change legislation will play a major role in developing the new technologies we need.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I will yield.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Senator Dorgan, that is completely accurate. When you look at what we have done with oil companies, with the giveaways that we had for years and years and years, this Senate was one vote short of blocking a filibuster. We tried to change that, tried to take some of those oil giveaways and put them in the hands--we see record profits from the oil companies--put them in the hands of some of these renewables producers. We were one vote short, but we have another opportunity. That is what the Senator from North Dakota is talking about, extending the tax credits for wind energy, solar, geothermal, and other kinds of renewables. We did it in the last bill we passed through this Senate. We were able to, with some of the economic work we did with the mortgage crisis, extend that tax credit for 1 year. But we would like to do it for longer. Senator Dorgan has a bill for 10 years. I have a bipartisan bill with Senators Snowe and Cantwell expanding it for 5 years. The problem is, it has been a game of red light, green light. It goes on again, off again. It is hard to follow that investment, to follow in the way that we would like and the way that happens in other countries because they never know. You can show, 8 months before these tax credits go off, that the investment decreases. This is no way to run a national energy policy. It is no way to run a national environmental policy. And that is why today I spoke about the leadership and the potential for leadership in this country. We once put a man on the Moon. With that came not just winning the race against Russia, with it came all kinds of technology: the CAT scan, the space sticks that my family would take on camping trips in the 1970s. With that came technology. That is what we are trying to do with this bill. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am here today to speak on climate change. Before I do that, I commend my colleague, Senator Dorgan, for all of his good work on this oil and gas issue. We have been working together on a number of things he talked about and I do believe that, while I will talk today about the long-term solutions to our energy crisis and the way this can work hand in hand with climate change if we show the kind of leadership we need to show, there are also short-term issues. That means, as he said, cutting down on the speculation, putting things in place, closing down the Enron loophole. In terms of enforcement, to have the Justice Department get some meat on the bone-- as a former prosecutor, I know how important that is--and pushing those OPEC nations with which we have business dealings. If we are going to have business dealings with them, then they should not be cutting down or artificially keeping low the production of oil. Climate Change

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak about a fundamental right in this country: the right to vote. Although it is one of the greatest rights we have built this government on, we have states across the country that still limit that right by not allowing people to vote if they have not met an arbitrary registration deadline. A deadline that is sometimes set months in advance of Election Day. Since 1973, Minnesota has allowed citizens in the state to register to vote on the same day as the election, and, not coincidentally, year after year, my state has the highest voter turnout in the country. As the Presidential election is fast approaching, we need to ensure that people across the country have the ability to vote when November 4th, 2008, rolls around. This is why, Mr. President, I am happy that this afternoon, Senator Feingold and I introduced legislation that enables voters in every state to register on Election Day for Federal elections. My colleague's home state of Wisconsin, like Minnesota, has put a high price on voter registration, and has allowed Election Day Registration for over 30 years with great success. I am also pleased that we are joined on this bill by Senator Harkin from Iowa and Senator Tester from Montana. Both Iowa and Montana recently enacted same-day voter registration laws--significantly improving voter turnout throughout the state. This legislation comes at a critical time--it is on the heels of a Supreme Court decision that tightens the ability of Indiana citizens to vote by requiring valid photo identification at the polling booth. And just this last week, several election registration volunteers in Florida stopped their registration work for fear that they would be fined upwards of $1000 if they made a mistake. In Minnesota, some credit the election of Jesse Ventura as Governor in 1998 to our same-day registration voting policy. Voters who had never voted before showed up at the polls and voted in unprecedented numbers. I can't say that I ever imagined that we would have a Governor wear a pink boa at his inaugural celebration, but the ability for the citizens of Minnesota to cast their ballot and enact change is the kind of democracy this country is founded upon. In the past decade, as states around the country are experimenting with new and innovative ways to combat voter fraud, Election Day Registration has actually helped eliminate voter fraud at the polls. I've worked a great deal with the Secretary of State in Minnesota, Mark Ritchie, and he has found that registering at the polls, instead of by mail with a postcard, decreases the chance for fraud. When citizens are registering right in front of the election official, on the day of the election, chances of fraud are decreased. It's a pretty simple concept, but a fundamental one. As Secretary of State Ritchie has said, it's ``a no-brainer.'' The myriad of voter registration laws across the country are mind- boggling. In Nevada, you must register by 9 p.m., on the fifth Saturday before the election. A handful of states require registration 25 days before the election, another handful require 29 days. Some have to be postmarked by that date, and others have to be received by the deadline. A few set the cutoff at 20 days, a few at 10 days, and in Vermont, you have until 5 p.m., the Wednesday before the election. If you're in Utah, you must register 30 days before the election by mail, but if you miss that, you can register in person on the 18th or 15th day before the election. Where we have one, national, election day of November 4th this year, it is hard to imagine voters, because of the State they reside, could miss their chance to vote. There are 8 States that allow citizens to register at the polls: Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and now Iowa and Montana have joined the list. Historically, these first six States have seen voter turnout that is 8 to 15 percent higher than the national average. In the 2004 Presidential election, only 64 percent of the eligible population voted; but in Minnesota, 79 percent of the population turned out to vote. As Senator Feingold mentioned, the last time we had turnout that high on a national level was 1896, and we only had 45 states. No matter what side of the aisle, we are seeing an unprecedented interest in the upcoming Presidential election, and we need to give the citizens the ability to register on Election Day. This is a simple, yet fundamental bill. It amends legislation we passed in 2002, the Help America Vote Act, to allow voters to register and cast their ballot on the same day in a Federal election. Where Americans across the country are facing skyrocketing gas prices, health costs that many cannot afford, and an economy that is approaching recession, we need to ensure that every citizen has the right to wake up on Election Day and decide they will cast their ballot for President.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a statement made by Senator Leahy at the University of Minnesota on April 7, 2008.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. 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. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 538 which was submitted earlier today.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow, Tuesday, April 29; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that there then be a period of morning business for up to 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 2881, FAA reauthorization; that all time during any period of morning business, recess, or adjournment count against cloture and the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus lunches.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 536 which was submitted earlier today.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. 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

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 704, S. Res. 497.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 708, S. Con. Res. 74.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for his kind words.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask the Senator if he will withhold. I think the plan is that I am to end the session and he is to speak.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, Spring is finally arriving in Minnesota, even though we had snow last week. Spring does get to our State a little later than in Washington. This is the time of year when people start thinking about putting their boats in the water and start thinking about making a trip to their cabins. We call it the lake season. It is also the time of year when farmers are preparing to put their crops in the ground. But this year is going to be different. The average price of gas just hit $3.45 a gallon in Minnesota, and it is $3.56 per gallon nationally. The price of diesel fuel is at $4.14 per gallon nationally. Of course, the price of crude oil is at an unbelievable $118 per barrel. People cannot afford to do the things they used to do. I don't think people usually think of going up to a small lake cabin as a luxury, but it becomes one when gas is this expensive. I have heard from constituents who are having to cancel their family road trips or their summer vacations up north because they cannot afford the gas they need to get there. 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 inputs--diesel fuel for farm equipment and fertilizer made from natural gas--has spiraled out of control. Of course, it is particularly hard on middle-class and low- income families because when they have less disposable income and gas goes up to these levels, it is very difficult for them to get by. The high price of energy has inflated the price of everything from groceries to transportation to home heating, as the occupant of the chair knows, as he is from Vermont. It has impacted every sector of our economy, from manufacturing, to forestry, to farms and small businesses. In cold northern States such as Minnesota, Spring is when a lot of people--especially senior citizens living on their own--are trying to pay off their natural gas bill from the winter. They are too afraid to think about how they are going to pay their heating bills next winter, if this trend continues. Middle-class families are struggling with the high cost of health care and a college education already, and they cannot afford this increase in the price of gas. I just heard an expert a few weeks ago talk about, if you look at the past 8 to 10 years, a regular, average middle-class family--their costs for everything from daycare, to home heating, to gas has gone up about $8,000 to $10,000 a year. But their wages have not gone up. They don't have a choice, Mr. President, about how they are going to get to work. In my State, many don't have a choice. They have to drive. They have to get to work, get to school, and they have to get to the doctor. Any wage increase they may have gotten last year goes straight into their gas tanks. And more often than not, there haven't even been any wage increases. Not a day goes by when I don't hear about the struggle from my constituents in Minnesota. So it is hard for me to understand how recently the President seems taken aback when someone asked him about $4 gas. The President said--remember, this was February 28. The President said: You're predicting $4 a gallon gasoline? That's interesting. I hadn't heard that. To the people in my State, $4 a gallon for gas isn't ``interesting.'' It is a budget-buster for many middle-class families in our State. 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. This country needs a bold energy policy for the future, a policy that will stabilize prices and give consumers more alternatives, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and provide us with the next generation of home-grown biofuels. Brazil has already achieved this energy security. They have leapfrogged in front of our country. They can do it with sugarcane. We don't have that much sugarcane here, and we have to go to the next generation of biofuels, cellulosic, switch grass--many different things. But we have to put the reserve and incentives into place. We can do this, but we need the will, and we need to pursue a forward- looking energy policy with the same sense of urgency we used to put a man on the Moon nearly 40 years ago. In the long term, this is going to mean strategic investments in research on hybrid electric cars, new solar technology, cellulosic ethanol, and other forms of energy from biomass. We should be investing not in the oil cartels of the Middle East but in the farmers and workers of the Midwest. We need better fuel efficiency standards in our cars. We already have a start on that with the Energy bill and the 10-mile-per-gallon increase in fuel efficiency standards. We need to do more. We also need a renewable energy electricity standard, a portfolio standard for the Nation, like we have in Minnesota where the requirement is 25 percent of our electricity will come from renewables by 2025. It has spurred investment in wind. We are third in the country in wind now because we have been willing to take that step. There is also much that we need to do in the short term, Mr. President. We can put a stop to oil company giveaways by ending the giveaways and tax breaks going to the oil companies and putting them into a futuristic energy policy focused on renewables. We tried to do that in the Energy bill, and we were one vote short of blocking the filibuster. I still believe we can do it. We also have to look at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We can stop diverting 50,000 barrels of oil every day into that Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Of course, we need to have a petroleum reserve to protect our country in times of emergency. But the time to fill it is not when oil prices are at record highs. Here is what the staff at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve had to say on the subject 6 years ago, in 2002: Commercial inventories are low, retail prices are high, and economic growth is slow. The Government should avoid acquiring oil for the reserve under these circumstances. If this was true in 2002, it is doubly true today. Maybe I should say it is triply true because gas prices are more than triple what they were then. That is why I was proud to join with my colleague, Senator Dorgan of North Dakota, and others in sending a letter to the President asking him to halt inputs into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to provide some relief for consumers. Next, OPEC. Another area where we can take immediate action is in our dealings with the OPEC nations. OPEC is a cartel of oil-producing countries that meets and decides how much oil to produce and thereby control prices. They make no pretense of having a free market system. They don't obey the laws of supply and demand. They gather together and set production, which determines prices. As a former prosecutor, I call that kind of behavior ``collusion.'' It is illegal in our country. But the members of OPEC are foreign governments and so far they have gotten away with it. As oil exporting nations, the members of OPEC could provide us with some relief. They have the spare capacity to increase production of oil and ease the pain being felt by American consumers and businesses. But OPEC recently met, as you know, and decided not to increase production, at least until the fall, after the summer driving season. Not only that, Saudi Arabia has actually decreased production since 2005. So I have joined with my colleagues, Senators Schumer, Dorgan, and you, Mr. President, in calling on the President to demand that OPEC nations increase their oil production to provide American consumers and businesses with much needed relief. Think about it: This country spends $600,000 every minute on imported oil. That is money leaving the pockets of American drivers going into the coffers of foreign countries. By refusing to step up production, OPEC nations are saying we don't think prices are too high yet; we want them to go even higher. I don't think that is right. It is time this administration stepped up and did something about it. If we are going to be doing business with Saudi Arabia and some of these countries, this administration should have the leverage to push for more oil from OPEC. Another short-term solution: Current prices are simply not justified by supply and demand. The administration likes to tell us nothing can be done, that it is a case of supply and demand. But that answer does not hold true any longer. Listen to what the oil company executives themselves have to say about this matter. On October 30, 2007, the CEO of Marathon Oil said: $100 oil isn't justified by the physical demand in the market. That is exactly what he said: $100 oil isn't justified by the physical demand in the market. Let's look at what another CEO said. Here we have the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell. 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 that the price of oil should be about $50 to $55 per barrel. He said: The price of oil should be about $50 to $55 per barrel. That was April 1, 2008. I note that is April Fool's Day, but he did say the price of oil should be about $50 to $55 per barrel. Why is it trading at $118? If supply and demand doesn't explain the high price, 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 who was recently named by Bloomberg as the top-ranked energy analyst in the country. He said: 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. That makes you feel good. It makes the people filling up their gas tanks paying that nearly 4 bucks a gallon feel good, like a gambling hall. Why are these trades in a commodity as vital as oil unregulated? Back in 2000, a provision was inserted into the Commodity 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. Oil and natural gas prices became volatile. The provision has become known as the Enron loophole because it made possible the many abuses that triggered the Western energy crisis and cost the economy $35 billion and nearly 600,000 jobs. The Federal Government has a critical role to play in conducting aggressive oversight of changing energy markets. History has shown us that when enforcement is lax, consumers ultimately pay the price. Simply put, we need to close the Enron loophole and strengthen Federal oversight of energy trading. I am pleased to say my colleagues, Senators Feinstein and Levin, have succeeded in including this provision in the farm bill. It is another reason we need to get the farm bill done. I commend my colleagues, Representative Collin Peterson, from Minnesota, and Senator Harkin and Senator Conrad for getting this provision done. A final short-term solution. After the collapse of Enron, the President formed a Corporate Fraud Task Force at the Department of Justice. The task force has since produced more than 1,000 convictions by aggressively pursuing corporate fraud under existing law. What this shows us is good laws in and of themselves are not enough. We need enforcement. We need a cop on the beat. Any prosecutor can tell you that. That is why I joined my colleague, Senator Cantwell, in calling on the President to establish a new division of the Corporate Fraud Task Force specifically to apply to energy markets. This new Oil and Gas Market Fraud Task Force would allow us to focus combined efforts of the Department of Justice, FTC, SEC, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. In conclusion, the cost of energy is hurting Americans from all walks of life and businesses. I don't think we need one silver bullet. As we say in my State, we need a silver buckshot. We need a bold energy policy, first of all, in the short term, that focuses on temporarily suspending deliveries of oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, that pressures OPEC nations to increase oil production, that closes the Enron loophole to eliminate that speculation, and to establish the DOJ Oil and Gas Market Fraud Task Force. Then we need for the long term--Mr. President, you know this well we need to increase vehicle fuel efficiency, make a national commitment to generate electricity from renewables and invest in research in cutting- edge technologies for alternative fuel vehicles and renewable energy sources. This is what we need to do. The time is now for Congress to take strong steps toward creating that bold energy policy. Americans are depending on us. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I understand that H.R. 5715 has been received from the House and is at the desk. I would ask for its first reading.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of Senator Sessions. I wish to again thank Senator Sessions. I did not realize that this closing moment would take so long. I appreciate his patience.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Small Business Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 524, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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