Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I certainly agree. I have found, as I have gone to my own State and other States, that when people find out what we are doing there--the commitment we have there in terms of the facilities and the troops involved, and how much it is costing; and the fact that we have never voted to authorize; we do not know where we are headed, how long it is going to take, how much it is going to cost, what the plan is-- they are horrified. They basically look at me--and I can see it in their eyes-- and they are thinking: What are you going to do about it? It is our responsibility.

Mr. LOTT. Right. I agree.

Mr. LOTT. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT. Well, we have a number of very important appropriations bills we want to move through the Senate, including appropriations bills with emergency provisions. In the case of the military construction bill, we have emergency funds, needed funds, for the Defense Department to reimburse accounts, such as operation maintenance, that have already been used to pay for the additional cost of fuel. In the case of foreign operations, we have language regarding the Colombian narcodrug war situation. In agriculture, of course, we have disaster funds included in that legislation. The rule is very clear on germaneness when it is a substantive amendment, and the germaneness point also lies against budget resolutions and, under rule XXII, cloture votes and on reconciliation bills. All this would say is, that germaneness point of order would be ruled on by the Chair, as it is in these other instances, in the future. Germane amendments would clearly still be in order. I assume they would be offered on many of these bills. It is a clarification of the rule XVI provision.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, let me say that I certainly have shown my sympathy for what Senator Byrd has tried to do. I understand Senator Levin wanted to make sure he has thought through what is involved here. But I hope that we could go ahead and get this unanimous consent agreement and begin to make progress. Let's work with these two Senators to see if we can't find a way to accommodate each other's desires. I know that this is substantive. But I also know that the sponsors of the amendment to the language would have an opportunity to adjust it. I hope we can go ahead and get this agreement and proceed, and let's continue to work on that possibility.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if we could get the request agreed to at this point, with that one addition, I think that is reasonable.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we agree to an amendment of 15 minutes on each side--before we begin the Kosovo debate. We have 10 hours of time for the Kosovo debate. This is a very important foreign policy and defense issue. We need to get engaged in this discussion. I make that modification, and I urge my colleagues to agree to this request.

Mr. LOTT. It is not.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. LOTT. I thank my colleagues on both sides for working to understand what we are doing. I renew my unanimous consent request as stated, with the addition that was offered by Senator Reid.

Mr. LOTT. I thank my colleagues. In the 15 minutes after the votes, I will respond to some of the comments that have been made in the way they richly deserve. For now, I believe we are ready to proceed.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to use 5 minutes of my leader time to explain what I am planning to do.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, let me say to my colleagues that I have just put in a phone call to Senator Daschle and advised him of how I wish to proceed. What is at stake here is, can we go forward and make progress with the work we do in the Senate on our appropriations bills? Can we complete the military construction appropriations bill and have debate that we want to have on the Kosovo issue and include it as a provision? And it is not partisan. Can we go on to the foreign relations appropriations bill that has the emergency money for Colombia in it? Can we go to the agriculture appropriations bill which has the emergency and disaster money in it or are we going to be faced every time we bring up appropriations bills with nongermane amendments? Under rule XVI, they can be ruled out of order only by the Chair. But if it is a sense of the Senate, the Chair has not ruled and has basically submitted it to the Senate for determination. I am going to make a point of order that the Lott amendment--my amendment--violates rule XVI, that it is sense-of-the-Senate language on an appropriations bill, and that the Chair should rule on the germaneness question. If the Chair does not rule on that, then we will submit it to the Senate and we will have a vote on that question. Assuming a majority votes for that, then nongermane sense-of-the-Senate resolutions will be ruled out of order just as any other nongermane amendment. I want to emphasize, germane amendments and germane sense-of-the- Senate resolutions would clearly be in order. But if we are going to deal with these emergencies, if we are going to get our work done and assist the appropriators in moving these very important, very difficult bills, we are going to have to get some clarity on this issue. That is what I plan to do. We expect the Chair to rule, and then we will move to a vote on that. Mr. President, I make a point of order that the pending Lott amendment violates rule XVI; that it is sense-of-the-Senate language on an appropriations bill, and that the Chair should rule on the germaneness question.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I appeal the ruling of the Chair, in that the Chair has ruled it will not rule on amendments containing sense-of- the-Senate language on the question of germaneness, and ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I believe we have worked out a good agreement on how to proceed on the issues before us and the time that would be used this afternoon, tonight, and into tomorrow. Let me read that, and if there are any questions, I will respond. I ask unanimous consent that the vote now occur on the appeal of the ruling of the Chair and, immediately following that vote, the point of order be withdrawn, the Senate proceed to a vote on the Lott amendment No. 3150, to be followed by a vote on the Daschle amendment No. 3148, all without intervening action or debate. I further ask that following those votes, Senator Levin be recognized to offer a strike amendment relative to Kosovo and there be 10 hours of debate equally divided in the usual form, with 75 minutes of the opponent's time under the control of Senator Byrd, and no amendments in order prior to the vote. I also ask consent that the vote occur in relation to the Levin amendment at 2:30 p.m., Thursday, and, following that vote, Senator Burns be recognized to offer a series of cleared amendments on behalf of the managers, and, following those, the bill be advanced to third reading and the Senate proceed to the House companion bill, H.R. 4425, and all after the enacting clause be stricken, the text of S. 2521, as amended, be inserted, the bill be immediately advanced to third reading, and a vote occur on passage, all without any intervening action or debate. I further ask consent that the Senate insist on its amendments and request a conference with the House and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees, which will be the subcommittee and the chairman and ranking member, if necessary, and, following the passage vote, the Senate bill be indefinitely postponed.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I would not have an objection to that. I don't believe there would be objection on our side.

Mr. LOTT. I would certainly be inclined to work with Senator Byrd on that. I hope we can clear this agreement. We will check with all interested parties. I think it is a fair request. It is Senator Byrd's amendment along with Senator Warner. A lot of Senators are interested in it, and we want to be sure they have an opportunity to be aware of it.

Mr. LOTT. If it was raised 16 years ago, I guess that would be justification enough under the precedent of the Senate. Sense-of-the- Senate resolutions have been growing by leaps and bounds. You will recall that at the conclusion of the budget resolution debate, Senator Byrd rose and objected to the proliferation of these sense-of-the-Senate resolutions, and something like 35 or 40 sense-of-the-Senate resolutions fell because of the concerns he raised. We have a lot of important work to do. We have the people's business to deal with. We need to get appropriations for agriculture. I know the Senator feels strongly about that. We need to get transportation work done. There will be plenty of germane amendments, substantive amendments, to be offered. If we don't make it clear that rule XVI applies to the appropriations bills, both on substance and on sense of the Senates, a great deal of our time will be spent on both sides of the aisle--and this is not something just on one side or the other; unfortunately, we abuse it, too. So that is the reason, to try to clarify that and facilitate doing the people's work. We should have completed this military construction bill last Thursday. Here we are with a lot of issues really we should not be dealing with. You could argue about even some of the language that was included in the committee. But the fact is, we have got to get it done, and I am trying to find a way to help get that work done and still allow for appropriate germane amendments.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, everybody is trying to be patient and understanding. I ask the Senator be allowed to speak under his right to object, but remind him that the rules are that it is not an opportunity to give a speech on the substance. It is a reservation to make a point or a question. I hope the Senator would accommodate that and not go into a long statement.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I hope I have some time left because I do need to put some things in the Record. With regard to cloture votes, I have studied the masters. First of all, we now have to file cloture on the motion to proceed because we are told it is going to be filibustered. Even the motion to go to a bill is being filibustered, and there has been a tremendous increase in that. We are not filibustering even the substance of the bill but the motion to proceed to the bill. Let me give you some statistics. When Senator Byrd was majority leader, he filed 87 cloture motions. There was one cloture vote on a conference report. The average cloture votes per Congress: 289. Senator Mitchell filed 166 cloture motions--26 cloture motions on conference reports, and then 35 motions that were withdrawn or vitiated. That is another thing. Quite often we have to file cloture; we get an agreement, and we vitiate it. Senator Dole--so everybody understands this is not partisan--filed 91 cloture motions: 5 cloture motions on conference reports, and 21 of them were withdrawn. These are some interesting statistics about how we proceed around here. When we are having a filibuster, either we have amendments or we debate. That is the only option the majority leader has. I wanted to get that in the Record. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, it is my pleasure this morning to introduce and cosponsor, with the distinguished chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, S. 2557, the Energy Security Act of 2000. There is a dark cloud on the horizon for America's future and for our economy and for job creation. This cloud could cause serious problems in the future. That cloud is the fact that we don't have a national energy policy. Despite a lot of rhetoric that we do--there is nothing to worry about--there is plenty to worry about. The American people remember the long lines we faced at the gasoline stations in the 1970s. At that time, we were dependent on foreign oil for much less than 50 percent, probably around 45 percent at the time. We passed legislation in an attempt to deal with that problem and, for a variety of reasons, the prices came back down. The problem was not resolved, and the problem is much worse today. In today's Wall Street Journal, for instance, there is an article entitled ``Tight U.S. Gas Market Boosts Oil Prices.'' I ask unanimous consent to have the article printed in the Record.

Mr. LOTT. It says in this article that crude oil prices were back up to nearly $30 a barrel yesterday, and for the last month our dependency on foreign oil was in the range of 60 percent. This is going to have an effect on the price of fuel oil. It will have an effect on the price of gasoline. It will have an effect on the economy. While we saw some leveling off or some general slide back, we have done nothing to secure our country's energy future. Earlier, I tried to put in place some reduction in the Federal gasoline tax, to stop until the end of the year the 4.3-cent Federal gasoline tax that was added back in the early 1990s and say if nationwide gas reached an average of $2 a gallon, we would suspend the entire Federal gasoline tax for the balance of the year. The Senate was not inclined to go along with that. My purpose was a wakeup call--first, that gasoline prices are probably not going to go down; more than likely, they will go up. But the wakeup call was bigger than that, to try to make people realize that we don't have a national energy policy. What are we going to do? I ask the American people: Do we feel safe with the idea we are dependent on foreign oil, OPEC oil, oil from Iraq, oil from Libya? I don't. What if they decide not only to turn down the spigots but to turn the spigots off? What would America do? Within 30 days we would be in serious trouble. Now, we have a strategic oil reserve, and that was a very wise decision; it could be helpful in dealing with a national security emergency. It would help deal with a crisis created if the spigot should be cut off. However, I think to not have a plan to be less dependent on foreign oil is irresponsible. We can't tolerate it. So what are we going to do? We know now we are dependent on the foreign oil imports to the tune of 56 percent of oil consumed, compared to 36 percent imported in 1973 when we had the Arab oil embargo. Even the Department of Energy predicts America will import at least 65 percent of foreign oil for our energy needs by the year 2020. Secretary Richardson even admitted that the administration had been caught napping when energy prices began to rise a few weeks ago. We appointed a task force to deal with this problem, to look at it, to see what we could do to address our energy needs for the future. It is a multifaceted proposal, not only aimed at gasoline or oil but across the spectrum. This task force has been working to find these reasonable solutions to give us more of our own energy supplies. Chairman Murkowski has headed that task force. This task force has been a diverse group, including Senators from all over the country--Senator Craig from Idaho, who is on the floor; Senator Nickles from Oklahoma; Senator Hutchison from Texas; also Senators from the Midwest and Northeast, including Senator Collins of Maine; Senator Snowe; Senator Roth of Delaware; Senator Santorum of Pennsylvania, Senator Smith of New Hampshire. They have worked together and have come up with a proposal that I think will make a real difference. It will encourage alternative sources. It will try to enhance the use of renewable energy resources, including hydro, nuclear, coal, solar, and wind. We need to increase our domestic supplies of nonrenewable resources, including oil and natural gas. In my own State of Mississippi, and in the gulf off the coast, we have a tremendous supply of natural gas. Natural gas is relatively cheap and is a very clean source of energy. Yet there is no incentive to make greater use of natural gas. We have more oil deposits. We know it. Some of them are in marginal wells, some are in large areas such as off the coast of Alaska. We have to do something to take advantage of these resources, give incentives to take advantage of them. I absolutely support the effort by the Alaskan Senators who advocate getting the oil off the coast of Alaska in what is commonly referred to as ANWR. We should also look at unique needs within the country, in the Northeast where they have extraordinarily cold weather, compared to my part of the country, where people are dependent on home heating fuel. We need to strengthen the Department of Energy weatherization program. We need to establish a State-led education program to encourage consumers to take actions to minimize seasonal price increases and fuel shortages. We should authorize the expensing of costs associated with building new home heating oil storage. We should authorize the Secretary to build a home heating oil reserve. If we don't do that, more than likely there will be a problem in the Northeast next year. We have a number of tax incentives that would encourage more production. We would provide relief for marginal wells. By the way, these so-called marginal wells are responsible for 50 percent of U.S. production, so they may be marginal but they are significant. It allows for expensing of oil and gas exploration costs. It would delay rental payments. The 1999 Taxpayer Relief Act had a 5- year carryback provision, and that is included. Finally, there is an expansion of tax credits for renewable energy to include wind and biomass facilities. Some people say we shouldn't be giving any kind of consideration or breaks to people who are out there trying to produce more oil and gas; they may not need it; it may not be good for the environment. What do you mean? That is the most fallacious argument of all. It can be done safely and cleanly and we need that resource. The alternative is to go ahead and continue to be dependent on OPEC and other countries for our energy needs. It is irresponsible. This is a broad package. It is a good package. I thank Senator Murkowski and the task force for their work. We will talk more about it later. I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to take a look at this. This is something that should not be partisan. It is not partisan. It should be bipartisan. It will help our country all across the Nation both in terms of energy needs and in terms of energy production. This is not something that is aimed only at this administration. I emphase this administration has no plan to deal with this problem, but this administration is going to be leaving shortly. What are we going to do about the future? We need to come together. We cannot continue down the path we are headed. If we do, I predict disaster looms on the horizon. I want to make sure that we make our best effort to do something about it so we can avert this disaster. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, in order to have this important bill placed on the calendar, I ask for the first reading of S. 2557.