Bob Menendez

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. About 10 minutes.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent I be recognized for 5 minutes at this time, that Senator Leahy be recognized immediately following me for 10 minutes, and the remainder of the time be given to Senator Dorgan.

Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I rise to speak in support of the Higher Education Opportunity Act. There is no doubt in my mind that I would not be speaking here today if it were not for the kind of assistance we will be voting on today. I would not have been able to go from the small tenement apartment I grew up in to the halls of the United States Senate if it were not for our Federal Government's commitment to educating our young people, no matter what neighborhood they grow up in, no matter how much money their parents make, no matter what their ethnicity or the color of their skin. I was the first person in my family to attend college, and then law school, thanks to Pell Grants and Perkins loans. The fact that I could get a quality education and was willing to work hard-work meant that the American promise was real for me. And I believe that providing every child with the same opportunities I had--so they can achieve their God-given potential--should be the unalienable birthright of every American. Supporting our children's future isn't just a social responsibility, it is an economic necessity. Just a few decades ago, workers could find a good paying job and comfortably raise a family on the strength of their high school diploma. But times have changed. If we are going to stay on the apex of the curve of innovation, if we are going to be the economic power we were in the 20th century going forward into the 21st century--a century that increasingly belongs to those who innovate--we have to do all we can to educate our children and prepare them to compete. Unfortunately, we are in danger of falling behind. At the same time we are seeing higher education become increasingly more important, we are seeing it become increasingly less affordable. We are seeing students pass up the opportunity to go on for a higher degree, because they are so pressured to pay their bills today that they can't focus on what is best for them tomorrow. We are seeing so many students who do go to college leave with two pieces of paper that they will carry for the rest of their lives--their diploma in one hand, and the bill for their tuition loans in the other. What we need now is a brainpower stimulus package: a brainpower stimulus package that will make college more accessible and more affordable so that higher education is not reserved only for the wealthy; a brainpower stimulus package that will improve and modernize our Nation's colleges and universities so they will remain the greatest and most distinguished in the world; a brainpower stimulus package that will protect students from unscrupulous lenders and ensure they are getting the best deals possible when they invest in their education with private loans; and a brainpower stimulus package that will close the achievement gap, because in this great Nation, the darkness of your skin should not diminish the brightness of your future. The package we pass must honor and respect our soldiers and their families and provide them with the same opportunity and promise that they have given so much to defend. Today we have the opportunity, and the responsibility, to make education a national priority and commit ourselves to accepting nothing less than greatness from our educational system. The Higher Education Opportunity Act would take enormous strides to accomplish many of these goals by increasing Government assistance for students, families, and institutions of higher learning. Allow me to take a moment to point out some crucial aspects of this bill. Recognizing the dramatic increases in tuition over the years, this bill would increase Pell Grants and Perkins Loans would also permit low-income students to receive Pell Grants all year round, so they can afford to stay in school and earn their diplomas quicker. As tuition costs continue to skyrocket, we need to do everything we can to ensure that every child has the ability to soar to the highest heights of achievement. In the wake of the recent student lending scandal, we must protect our students from deceptive loans that often leave them mired in debt even before they receive their diploma. This bill would establish strong standards to prevent schools from playing favorites with lenders due to expensive gifts they were given and ensure students are given the best rates possible. This bill would work to narrow the achievement gap between Caucasians and minorities by investing in Minority Serving Institutions, Hispanic Serving Institutions, and enhancing vital programs such as TRIO and GEAR-UP. It would reauthorize funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Predominantly Black Institutions and expand their masters programs, by providing $500,000 per year in mandatory funding to each of these institutions for 6 years. This bill would also honor the dedication and commitment of our armed forces and their families by helping servicemembers, veterans, and their families attend and pay for college by providing interest-free deferral on student loans while servicemembers are on active duty and in-State tuition rates if they are not stationed in their home State. Finally, it would establish new college scholarships of up to $5,000 for children and family members of servicemembers who have died since 9/11. When one of our brave servicemembers gives their life in defense of our country, they are not the only ones sacrificing--rather their sons and daughters; husband and wife; and often mother and father have also given the most precious thing in their lives for our country. Like their cherished loved one, they deserve more than anybody the opportunity and promise that makes this country so great and worth defending and sacrificing for. Our Nation faces great challenges to meet the demands of global innovation and competition, but as i true with all great challenges, we also have a great opportunity--an opportunity to invest in our most important resource: our children; an opportunity to spur our economy and develop new, innovative industries that create high paying jobs that cannot be outsourced; and an opportunity to prepare our students and strengthen our economy so America remains a leader in the world-- not just during the onset of the 20 century, but throughout it. A nation that is united in its purpose can answer that challenge, as we have so many times throughout our history. Just as an entire generation before us was once inspired to dream new dreams of reaching space and landing a man on the moon, so must we set our sights to the heavens and be the next great generation of leaders and innovators. The time has come to make a robust, national commitment to the education of our youth at all levels, from kindergarten through graduate school, from technological institutes in our inner cities to centers of agricultural research in the heartland. New generations of doctors and lawyers, artists and engineers, captains of industry and commanders of our Armed Forces, are depending on what we do here today. This legislation has been in the works for a long time. We are a little late on the assignment, but we can still get an ``A'' for finally taking the time to turn it in. I certainly hope our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will allow us to make this happen today. I yield the floor and yield the remainder of any time I may have to Senator Leahy.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I heard President Bush's statement at the White House today, and I have to be very blunt. I think the President must think the American people are stupid. For 7\1/2\ years we have had two oilmen in the White House, with Republican majorities in Congress for 6 years, and we have seen gas prices go from $1.46 when President Bush took office to over $4--to about $4 now; it went over $4 at one point--per gallon. Now he would have us believe, after that 7\1/ 2\ years--Republican majorities for 6 of those 7\1/2\ years and having the oil industry write the energy policy with Vice President Cheney in the White House--now he would have us believe, in fact, that we are responsible for this. It is a good lawyer's game. When you don't have the facts on your side, when you don't have the law on your side, you pound on the table and create a diversion. That is what they have done--tried to create a diversion. The American people are a lot smarter than that. The fact is, Democrats cannot act as we want to on the energy crisis because the Republican Party simply won't allow us. We have a slim majority in the Senate, and by Senate rules, the Republicans can filibuster to require us to get 60 votes for anything. That really means, in essence, for those watching, they have the ability to block any legislation they want, and they have used that power to the hilt. Over 90 times they have used this procedural tactic to block much needed legislation. Even though we are in the midst of an energy crisis, they are still blocking everything. At first they said they were blocking us from our work because they wanted a vote on opening our shores to oil drilling--something I don't support--but the majority leader said OK. We will give you a vote on opening our shores to oil drilling. Then the Republicans said: Oh, that is not good enough either. Instead, they claimed to want to vote on opening the shores to oil drilling, a vote on nuclear power, a vote on oil shale development, a vote on their larger package of proposals, and guess what. The majority leader said earlier this week: OK, you can have a vote on all of that. Yet, somehow, every time the majority leader offers the other side votes on exactly what they want, they keep saying that is not good enough. They simply won't take yes for an answer. I hear their speeches. They all mention speculation. Well, we have had testimony that, in fact, speculation in the marketplace could raise oil by $50 per barrel. We even saw a company that was just taken by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission being charged with having manipulated the marketplace--made $1 million in 11 days and increased gas and oil prices. Yet they won't let us go to speculation. They say one thing, they do another. The big issue they keep talking about is production, but the Republicans don't want production. They simply don't want us to have progress. That is their game plan. They have a political equation, and it is: Don't let anything be achieved. On five separate occasions, they have had the opportunity to vote for energy production. They have had the opportunity to keep the rapidly developing wind and solar industries growing at an accelerated pace, but instead they decide to play politics. The Republican Party doesn't seem to take renewable energy seriously. It is true that renewables are essential for our environment, essential for our economy. What these industries really represent are an opportunity to produce massive amounts of domestic energy cheaply and at least 100,000 new high-paying jobs in America. Now, if you don't think renewables are serious business, just ask landowners in Texas, Minnesota, Iowa, or Wyoming who are, in fact, receiving $3,000 to $5,000 per month for allowing a windmill to be sited on their property or ask oilman T. Boone Pickens, who is plowing billions of dollars of his own money into wind energy and a plan to use renewables to end our addiction to oil. Now, somebody who has made a lot of money in oil doesn't all of a sudden plow billions of dollars of his own money into renewable energy unless he thinks there is going to be a payoff at the end. He understands. In my home State of New Jersey we have windmills in Atlantic City, where the casinos are, generating a lot of electricity. Last year we installed enough turbines to power over 1.5 million homes. The solar power industry is growing at over 40 percent a year. These technologies work. They are working now. They are in high demand. They produce an enormous amount of energy. We need to accelerate and expand that. If we extend the wind and solar tax credits so these industries can continue their rapid growth, we could add 150 gigawatts of installed capacity within 10 years. Now, what does that mean? That means that we would have enough electricity to power over 37 million homes. At that rate, by 2030, we could get over 25 percent of our Nation's electricity from wind and solar power. The package of tax credits that the Republicans continue to block-- blocked again today--represents a solution also for the high price of oil. There is a large tax credit for the purchase of plug-in hybrid vehicles--cars, for example, such as the Chevy Volt, which will be able to run on electricity for the first 40 miles after being plugged in. That means a full three-quarters of all trips--all trips--driven by Americans would not use a drop of gas. If projections by some of the experts hold true, and half the cars on the road in 2030 are plug-in hybrids, we could easily cut our use of oil by 10 percent, and some would suggest that we could even displace much more. And by this time, we would be producing enough renewable energy to power all these cars and still have electricity to spare. If we want cheap gasoline and we want to be free from imported oil, we need to pass the tax credit extensions, and we need to build plug-in hybrids, solar panels, and winds turbines, to name a few. It is that simple. It is time for our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to stop exploiting our energy crisis for big oil's gain and let us vote on the things that will actually produce energy. Instead, they insist on holding up everything for an absurd plan that, according to the Energy Information Agency, will not produce energy at all for 10 years and, in 2030, will only produce enough additional gasoline for the equivalent of a few tablespoons per American car. Let me try to put their plan into perspective. Since April of this year, Americans seeing the high cost of gas have actually reduced their consumption by 800,000 barrels of oil a day more than we did year ago. This is the most significant and sudden drop in oil since the 1970s. But what happened, even though we have reduced 800,000 barrels of oil every day? Prices went up. In recent weeks, in response to record oil prices, Saudi Arabia produced an additional half-million barrels of oil more each day. What happened? Prices went up. So how does the Bush-McCain drilling plan compare to these recent events? Well, based upon the Bush administration Energy Information Agency's own analysis, if we open all our shores to oil production, the first drop of oil would not be seen for almost a decade, and offshore oil production would peak in the year 2030. Then it would peak at only 200,000 barrels a day. So, in fact, if 800,000 barrels a day in reduced consumption combined with an increase of 500,000 barrels a day in extra production hasn't lowered gas prices one bit, it is clear that the production of 200,000 versus a combination of 1.3 million barrels in reduced demand or increased production--200,000 barrels in the year 2030--is going to do absolutely nothing about gas prices. In fact, the Energy Information Agency says that adding those 200,000 barrels per day in production in 2030 will lower the price of gasoline by less than a penny per gallon. Let me repeat that. The Republican production plan to open all our shores to drilling and risk the environmental consequences we saw, for example, in the Gulf of Mexico during Katrina and Rita, with 700,000 gallons of oil spilled and 7 million spilled on land by the facilities that bring that oil to the marketplace, would not lower gas prices but about a penny in 2030. Let's compare these numbers with what renewables have to offer. Remember, if we pass the renewable energy tax extender credits, we could produce massive amounts of electricity from renewable technologies. We hear this constantly being discussed by the Republicans, but they don't let us vote on it. Remember that the tax extenders will help us rapidly deploy plug-in hybrid technology so we can use this electricity for transportation. By some projections, this means that by 2030, the same time period they are drilling off the shore with the risk that comes to a $200 billion coastal economy, we could replace 2 million to 3 million barrels of oil per day with electricity. Compare 2 million to 3 million barrels to a measly 200,000 barrels per day by the drilling. Some, such as the DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, projected we could actually displace 3 times as much, or 6.5 million barrels per day by 2030 versus 200,000 barrels in this big drill, drill, drill. I don't quite get it. You can save the equivalent of 6.5 million barrels every day in energy by pursuing the renewables that they say they support but don't vote for or you can have 200,000 versus 6.5 million by virtue of drilling 30 years from now. So this, of course, means that for us to achieve this, we need to get beyond the Republican efforts to stop us from maintaining the tax incentives we have. It means we actually have to get serious about our energy policies and start a serious effort to run our transportation fleet on electricity. That is what voters have to decide on this fall. Do they want to vote for the party of big oil, the party that saw the dramatic increase in gas over the administration's lifetime, where they wrote the rules and the law at the White House, sitting with the Vice President of the United States--do they want to vote for big oil that has record profits, starting with ConocoPhillips? I can't wait for tomorrow, or the day after, when ExxonMobil puts out their record profits. We are talking about billions in record profits. Do they want to vote for big oil, which concocted a plan that does nothing but enrich the oil companies? This is about one last grab before the administration goes out of office. They already have 68 million acres in this country that they have access to. Now they say we cannot do this or that. They have 68 million acres. They have millions of acres in the Outer Continental Shelf that are not subject to the moratorium. They have areas in the gulf they have not pursued. The bottom line is that plenty of drilling can take place, and they have not done it. Even the President of the American Petroleum Institute says we don't have the infrastructure or the resources to do it. All this talk about drill, drill, drill, which would only produce 200,000 barrels in 2030 versus 6.5 million barrels of reduced demand in oil--that would do something about the gas prices--and not letting us take out the speculation in the marketplace, which would reduce oil $50 per barrel, some experts say, but they would not let us vote on that. They would not let us vote on the tax extenders. So this is not about creating production, this is about stopping progress. This is about a Republican game plan that says we will send the Congress home without having done anything about dealing with gas prices, and the minority will face the consequences. They are so sadly mistaken that the American people will not see through 6.5 years of record gas prices, record oil profits, unwilling to allow us to deal with speculation or deal with production and what the energy tax extenders provide, unwilling to allow us to pursue conservation, unwilling to let the American people get the relief they want. That is why I truly believe that if they continue on this course, the Nation will suffer and consumers will suffer. But they will suffer at the polls come November. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Presdient, I ask unanimous consent that Jillian Curtis from my office be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business.

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I believe Democrats are committed to strengthening our weakening economy by addressing record-high home foreclosures and record-high energy prices. The good news is that we will pass--I certainly hope, tomorrow--the housing bill. Even though President Bush originally opposed the essence of what we are trying to do in the housing foreclosure prevention bill, he has finally dropped his rather stubborn opposition to an important bill. He finally realizes, as Democrats have for quite some time, that we have to act immediately to address the housing crisis. We have to act immediately, not only for the 2 million American homes that could be lost and the American dream gets turned into the American nightmare but because of what that means to us collectively as a nation in terms of our economy and what it means to all of us. We have seen our economy continue to go in all of the wrong directions, and we have seen rising inflation costs of essential goods that people and families need. We have seen rising costs of energy, which I will talk about in a moment, and we have seen decreasing values of homes as a result of foreclosed properties within neighborhoods. As this takes place, the value of everyone else's home in that community goes down $10,000 or $15,000. If there are multiple foreclosures, there are even greater amounts of home values that are lowered, and those values which are in their homes, which for the average American is the single biggest part of their savings and investment and opportunity to draw from, when that value goes down, the opportunity to educate their children, put them through college, to borrow against it, goes down. For having a medical emergency, the opportunity gets diminished. For having retirement savings, the opportunity gets diminished. So the housing package has so many dimensions to it that it is critical to the country. We appreciate that the President has finally dropped his veto threat and will sign the bill. It will help Americans keep their homes and their home equity. We are restoring stability to the housing market and helping businesses and communities hurt by this crisis not only recover but also create new jobs. The bill will help prevent another crisis of this magnitude, stop foreclosures before they begin, and preserve for future generations the American dream of home ownership. The nearly 8,500 new families filing for foreclosure each day can no longer wait for help. That is why it is my expectation, in a special session we will have tomorrow, Saturday, that we will get the votes necessary, this will pass, and it will go on to the President. It has already passed the House.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, tomorrow, around 11 a.m., the Senate will proceed to a rollcall vote on the motion to concur relative to H.R. 3221, the Foreclosure Prevention Act. Following this vote, the Senate will immediately proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 3186, the Warm in Winter and Cool in Summer Act. Senators should expect up to two rollcall votes to begin around 11 a.m. tomorrow.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 9 a.m. tomorrow, Saturday, July 26; 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 the Senate resume consideration of the motion to concur with respect to H.R. 3221, the Foreclosure Prevention Act, under the provisions of a previous order.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, on July 20, 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus. Thirty four years later, Turkish troops continue to occupy 37 percent of the land on Cyprus. During the occupation, some 180,000 Cypriots became refugees and over 5,000 Cypriots were murdered. The European Court of Human Rights recently found Turkey guilty of violating the European Convention on Human Rights. Notably, 26 year-old Solomos Solomou, was killed on August, 14, 1996 after being shot three times by Turkish snipers while trying to climb a pole in order to remove a Turkish flag from its mast. The killing happened after the funeral of his cousin, Tassos Isaak, who was himself beaten to death on August 11, 1996 by a Turkish mob while taking part in an anti- occupation demonstration. On March 12th of this year, I sent a congratulatory letter to the newly elected Cypriot President Christofias. In addition to a new President in the Republic of Cyprus, his election represents a new direction for the Republic of Cyprus. I commend President Christofias for the intensification of efforts to reach a just, viable, and functional solution to the Cyprus problem. I believe this is a unique time to capitalize on the commitment made to find a solution and I am optimistic that the working groups and technical committees will prepare the necessary groundwork for full-fledged negotiation. However, I also believe that any solution that will reunite the island, its people, its institutions and its economy and must come from the Cypriots themselves. On September 25, 2007, I introduced S. Res. 331, which calls on the United States Government to initiate a new effort to help Turkey understand the benefits that will accrue to it as a result of ending its military occupation of Cyprus. In addition, the resolution urges the Government of Turkey to immediately begin the withdrawal of its military occupation forces. Ultimately, it is on their shoulders to prove their good will and I hope they do so promptly. As Cypriot-Americans join with Cypriots from throughout the world to help to rebuild their homeland, and as they seek to secure an economically prosperous state free of illegal occupation, I will stand by them. I will work to ensure that the Turkish occupation comes to an end. This week, we remember those who perished on Cyprus, and honor those who survived and who continue to live under Turkish occupation. We have not forgotten and our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families. Remembering together the events of July 20, 1974 in solidarity gives reverence to historical events we cannot afford to forget as we move forward to a peaceful, just solution and a hopeful tomorrow.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I wish to start off by saying how much I agree with my distinguished colleague from Maine. I think the LIHEAP program is one that is essential. There is a real possibility if we do not deal with the LIHEAP program, fellow Americans across the landscape of this country will find themselves in the cold, literally and figuratively, and they will be in such a situation where they will have to make desperate choices in their lives. So this is something, among other things, on which we should be reaching across the aisle. As one Democratic Senator, I want the Senator from Maine to know that we are absolutely in agreement with her, and we believe this is essential to move forward. I appreciate her comments about coming to common ground and common cause on those things on which, in fact, we can agree. There is much, at least from listening to the speeches on the Senate floor, that, in fact, we supposedly can agree on. We see there are elements of the Republican package that deal with market speculation. That is the essence of the underlying bill we are debating. Let's come together on that. Let's come together on the renewable energy tax credit extenders, something that we began, that existed, and we need to extend if we want to get the marketplace not depending on oil, whether it be foreign or domestic. Let's agree on that. That is apparently something we can agree on from speeches I heard. We should come together in that respect. I heard conservation about using less. We agree on that issue. Let's come together on that. I agree with the Senator from Maine that while there may be differences, there are a lot of elements together that we do agree on, and if we can begin to move on those elements, maybe we could come to a point in which we could move forward on other items as well. But why not allow those things that ultimately can make a difference in the short term and in the long term for our collective constituents? When you are cold, it doesn't have a Republican or Democratic label to it. When you have to make a choice between a gallon of gas or putting a gallon of milk on the table, it doesn't have a Democratic or Republican label on it. I agree with the Senator from Maine. I am glad to have been on the floor to listen to her. She is a voice of reason, and I appreciate where she stands on these issues, and I agree with her. Hopefully, we can move in that direction. Coastal Drilling Mr. President, I have come to the floor various times over the last couple of weeks to discuss opening our coastline to drilling. This is part of one of the marvelous beaches in New Jersey. You have to get off the New Jersey Turnpike to understand. I had some colleagues say: Why are you so fixated on this drilling issue? Isn't your State one big refining place? They obviously never got off the New Jersey Turnpike. If you get off the New Jersey Turnpike, you will see one of the most incredible parts of the United States coastline where not only millions of New Jerseyans go, which they consider a birthright, but people from throughout the region. Canadians come down and contribute to our economy because they want to go to the New Jersey shore. The Presiding Officer, the distinguished senior Senator from Florida, understands what that Florida coastline means to his State and his economy. That is why he has been such a vigorous voice on the floor of the Senate. Ever since I have been having to come down to the floor, ever since we have had these two oilmen in the White House, the Presidential candidate they support, and many on the other side of the aisle--not all but many on the other side of the aisle--have begun a very hard sell to the American people over an absurd notion that opening our coastlines to drilling will ever lower gas prices. They have grabbed on to a source of fear and frustration among American families, and there is no question that there is frustration and pain for our American families. But they are using that frustration and pain to pull a fast one on the American people. Exploitation of pain at the pump to grab more land to build up stock prices, that is what this is all about. They are using it to sell a plan that in reality will bring absolutely zero relief to Americans but instead represents one last great big handout to oil companies that are already making astronomically staggering profits. We just saw the beginning of that parade with ConocoPhillips, an incredible increase in profits. On one hand, you have American families who are getting absolutely slammed by high gas prices. On the other hand, you have oil companies counting their money, sitting on 68 million acres of public land that are not being put to use and focusing way more on taking that money and using it on stock buybacks that ultimately drive up the value of their shares than exploration or innovation. It is not because I say that. Listen to what the President of the American Petroleum Institute said when he was asked: Why can't you create more production? He said: We don't have the infrastructure and the rigs and the drills and all the pipeline and everything that is necessary to create more production. He didn't say why. One of the reasons is they haven't been investing the money to do that. So all the suggestions to lift the moratoria and tomorrow out sprouts oil and, therefore, gasoline and prices plunge is simply not true. They cannot even pursue the 68 million acres, the extra area in the gulf, the extra area off the Outer Continental Shelf in Alaska that is not subject to any moratoria right now. They cannot even do that and haven't done it. What an incredible falsehood perpetuated on the American people. But I believe the American people know better. If we listen to these proposals, you would think--I have seen some of my colleagues shake the legislation and say: There is no oil in here. Guess what. There is no oil in their proposals either. That is really laughable. Who do our colleagues on the other side of the aisle choose to help? The oil companies have more money than the eye can see, and you don't even hear them talk about the oil companies. They never invoke their name unless it is to say: Oh, we need to give them more. We need to do more for them. We need to do everything for them. The average American wishes they were in the role of the oil companies--record profits, huge amounts of money. Let's give them more. Let's give them more. We never hear from our Republican friends talking about the oil companies having any responsibility--I am not saying the responsibility, any responsibility--for some of our lack of production. I have just heard one too many speeches that are apologies for the oil companies. Multibillion profits--I am not going to be an apologist for the oil companies. As we try to pass legislation to crack down on greedy oil speculation which could lower gas prices quicker than anything, they just say no, even though they include it as part of their proposals. Back at home, people who are hearing these debates say: They keep talking about speculation. I know what speculation generally means. What does it mean in the context to the average person? What it means is traders buy huge quantities of oil online, many times intentionally inflating prices. They then turn around and sell those very orders to other traders at even higher prices. These traders never intend to use the oil. This is not a purchase of oil because they are going to ultimately use it in distribution in the country and make sure people have, for example, home heating oil or they are going to refine it and have gasoline. No, they use these constant trades bidding up the price so they can ultimately cash in. But who gets stuck with the bill every time we have to pay to fill our tanks and heat our homes? It is the American consumer. We Democrats want to do something about it. For those who keep saying--even though it is part of their plan--oh, no, this is really not a problem, let me read to you from an article that appeared today, July 25, in the New York Times: Firm said to manipulate oil market. Commodity regulators in Washington have accused a Dutch trading company of making roughly a million dollars in illegal profits by manipulating the prices of crude oil, heating oil-- What we are going to be using this winter-- and gasoline-- Over what period of time? over an 11 day period of time. One million dollars in 11 days in illegal profits. Oh, it is not a problem; speculation is not a problem. In audio tapes uncovered in their investigation, regulators said one defendant described the scheme as an effort to ``bully the market''-- Bully the market-- by making a large number of trades at or near the end of the trading day to move closing prices. But this is a marketplace that cannot be bullied. Therefore, we don't need to do anything about the speculative nature and unbridled speculation. Well, guess what. One million dollars in 11 days, with their own voices saying that this is an effort to ``bully the market.'' Moreover, unlike many manipulation cases, this one accuses the defendants of actually succeeding in moving prices that were used as benchmarks for consumer markets--actually moving the benchmarks that are used for consumer markets, in essence, saying not only is it our intention to bully the market, but the regulators are saying yes, and they did bully the markets. They did bully the markets. Now, the complaint that was filed in the Federal District Court in Manhattan says at least two of those attempts resulted in, guess what, higher prices for gasoline and crude oil. But our Republican friends say: Oh, no, market manipulation and speculation isn't a problem. But here is only one example, and this has been a reluctant regulator to pursue this. When they have heard the speeches on the floor and they have heard this going on for some time now, all of a sudden we grab one of these companies, 11 days, $1 million, bullying the market and doing it successfully. That is why we need the legislation Senator Reid and the Democratic majority brought to the floor and that others only talk about, saying it is part of our package. Well, join us. Join us before more market speculation takes place. What are Democrats trying to do about it? We are trying to add 100 new cops on the beat to the commission that oversees these traders. We are trying to create greater transparency, for the first time requiring--for the first time--detailed reporting of previously undisclosed trades. And oversight--stopping speculators from inflating oil prices by playing domestic and foreign markets off of each other. We had testimony before the Congress, sworn testimony, as a matter of fact--and it is not often we have sworn testimony--from oil company executives. They were challenged as to why we are having these high prices. You tell us, in fact, it is the demand and the supply side. We said we have heard a lot of talk about supply and demand, and that largely over the last 2 years they have traced each other pretty closely together. Well then, what is the issue? And what is their response, these very oil company executives? Their response is: market speculation. But no, we don't have to go after that. It is not one of the most important issues, something that can be done now. So they say no. I have to hand it to my colleagues for their political talent, to take an issue so vital to the daily lives of Americans and convince them they want to do something about it with a proposal that is more about oil company stock prices than gas prices. That is quite a feat, if you can pull it off. That is talent. But here is the problem. The facts always come out, and the facts ultimately always win. It has been tremendously important to me, as a Senator from New Jersey, to come down here and give the facts about coastline drilling. It is not just the facts about drilling and gas prices, although that is how they initially make their plan popular, it is also the facts about oil spills, which they say are virtually impossible with today's drilling technology, virtually impossible. That is exactly what they told us about the tanker industry that carries the oil. We don't have any rigs that I know of in the country, along the coastal waters of the United States, where there is drilling, that either don't have a pipeline system or don't ultimately have a vessel. And we were told: Don't worry about our tanker system. In fact, it is impossible to have any spills. This is what happened with that impossibility. Workers there are cleaning up after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound--a lot of oil there, obviously, a huge disaster. So if we could say that, and if it were true, that would surely be nice for the eastern and western coastlines of the United States. If it were true, in fact, that it is virtually impossible to have no spills, that surely would be nice for the $200 billion that our coasts generate each and every year in fishing and tourism revenues--$200 billion. And it surely would be nice if it were true for my home State of New Jersey and the millions of people who end up on the Jersey shore each summer and the half a million jobs in the State of New Jersey supported by the economy there between recreation, tourism, and the commercial and recreational fishermen. It surely would be nice if an oil spill off the coast of Virginia didn't have the potential to affect the coastline from South Carolina up to New York. That surely would be nice, if it were true. But the facts always come out, and at the end of the day, the facts always win. Earlier this month, the distinguished minority leader made this statement, echoed by several of his colleagues as part of their hard sell to the American people: ``Not a drop of oil was spilled during Katrina.'' Not a drop of oil. Well, that surely would be nice, if it were true. But the fact is, we can see here from this U.S. Coast Guard photo that was published in the Washington Post on July 14 of 2008 what was happening with this spill and how they were trying to burn the spill up in order to try to deal with the disaster. Oh, but not a drop of oil was spilled during Katrina. I guess this picture must be a fabrication of the Coast Guard. Last month Senator McCain said: ``Not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage.'' Well, the same picture from the U.S. Coast Guard. That surely would be nice, if it were true. Last time I checked, 7.7 million gallons of oil is pretty significant, pretty significant. And then in the last 24 hours, there was a stroke of poetic justice. Senator McCain was ready to fly out to an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico to stage a photo opportunity. He was ready to show how safe it is to drill for and transport oil these days. Nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, he should have known better, because the facts always come out, and the facts always win. Just as he was set to do this yesterday, there was an accident on the Mississippi near New Orleans in which a freighter rammed a barge and spilled 419,000 gallons of fuel oil. Next thing you know, the McCain photo-op was postponed. It seems they realized it is hard to make the case that oil drilling and oil transportation is completely safe when there are 419,000 gallons of oil floating around and washing up on the shore nearby. Of course, now his representatives are saying it was postponed because of the hurricane that hit the southern tip of Texas yesterday that this event was cancelled. I thought: Well, that might be a legitimate reason. But then I checked the National Weather Service forecast. And what did the National Weather Service's detailed forecast say, which I have right here--satellite images? The National Weather Service made the following forecast today for the Louisiana gulf coast: Partly cloudy. Scattered thunderstorms, mainly in the afternoon. Highs in the lower 90s. Southeast winds 5 to 10 miles per hour. Chance of thunderstorms, 30 percent. I think the Presiding Officer has a pretty good sense that this is pretty tame weather conditions for this time of the year--certainly not hurricane weather. So if you look up ``irony'' in the dictionary, I think you will find possibly that it might describe cancelling an oil drilling photo-op because a massive nearby oil spill took place. Having to cancel your big oil drilling photo-op because of a massive oil spill is like cancelling a crime safety photo-op because the house next door got robbed. In selling this absurd coastline drilling plan to the American people, Senator McCain and others have time and time again pointed to advanced technology that would supposedly eliminate the threat of massive oil spills. Well, this is the oil fire after Katrina. As he can now personally attest to, even with the most modern technology, we can't prevent massive oil spills such as the one currently devastating the Mississippi, just as we couldn't prevent a 7.7 million gallon oil spill after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And that is the type of straight talk we need about oil drilling and the type of talk the American people need to hear and that they deserve. As to the claim that coastline drilling will lower gas prices, we know it simply won't. That is clear when we realize there are millions of acres already subject to oil exploration that aren't being pursued. In fact, the American Petroleum Institute president says: Well, we don't have the infrastructure and the rigs and the drills to pursue it. We can't do that overnight. We know we have reduced 800,000 barrels a day in demand because of high gas prices. The Saudis have produced 500,000 barrels a day in extra production--a 1.3 million barrel a day shift in barrels of oil-- and yet gas prices have done what? They have gone up. We opened the gulf--181--and gas prices have gone up. So if 1.3 million barrels in either reduced demand or increased production haven't done anything about gas prices, imagine the very large sum of 200,000 barrels in the year 2030 at this risk. If 1.3 million barrels can't do it, how does 200,000 do it, and yet accept this risk? Accept this risk to this environment and to the $200 billion that is generated by the coasts of the east and west. And, by the way, that 200,000 would mean that every State would have to agree, assuming we would give States an option, and we have already heard the Governor of California say: No way. They are one of the biggest parts of the coastline. I doubt you will get Oregon and Washington in that respect. We have heard some of their distinguished colleagues say that is not going to happen. New Jersey won't do it. So by the time you are finished, you are nowhere near even the 200,000. Now, what is it we can do? Well, I agree with the comments of the distinguished Senator from Maine, who said: Let's do what is possible and what we agree to. And what is possible and what we agree to is very significant. The Republicans say they are for a renewable energy source, and are providing the tax credits that existed and expired and should be brought back to life. They say they are for that. Well, they have said ``no'' twice, though. Twice we have brought that forward, and twice they have said ``no.'' The fact is that passing the tax credit extenders would create the incentives that are necessary to move us in a direction in which oil is not the issue, and risking the coastlines and the $200 billion economy is not the issue, and where we could do things in a tighter timeframe and better timeframe than the year 2030. That would move us toward renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, biomass, and cellulosic ethanol, plug-in hybrids, which are critical. All of these things would move us in a direction long before 2030, which is when all of this production would take place, if it takes place. We supposedly agree on moving forward on that, but our Republican friends have said ``no'' twice. Republicans say that speculation is part of their package. I talked about that earlier. We saw already one company being pursued--$1 million, 11 days, bullying the market and succeeding in doing it. Well, it is time to move on speculation. Yet that is the very essence of the underlying bill. We can't seem to get them to agree on that. Most of the speeches I have been hearing is that they pooh-pooh speculation. When it made a difference in oil and gas prices, as that case suggests, I would simply say that is certainly not anything to be pooh-poohed. It is real and it is consequential, and even the testimony of the oil company executives says it could produce anywhere up to $50 per barrel more. Republicans say that conservation is part of their package. We agree. So why not join us in that respect as well, with the conservation proposals we have put forward? There are three very significant areas: renewable energy tax credits, speculation, conservation. Let's move forward. But instead, what we have is a series of noes. Then we have 18 amendments filed by Republicans, all to do what? To open the coastline of our country, which, as I have already discussed, will not achieve anything. But do you need 18 different amendments even to pursue what you think is an appropriate energy policy to open the coastline to drilling, to risk the consequences of this? OK, the majority leader said: Go ahead, we will give you an amendment. But you cannot take yes for an answer. We have to have 18 different amendments to do virtually the same thing. You can repeat a big lie over and over. We have seen that in the history of the world, that you can take something that is not quite true, repeat it over and over, and try to give it the life it otherwise does not deserve--try to make it true. But saying it over and over doesn't make it true, saying over and over that drilling is the panacea, the solution to bring down gas prices. The way I hear it, I hear: Pass the legislation, have the President sign it, tomorrow oil sprouts up, gas gets made, prices go down. I give a lot more credit to the American people than that. The truth, crushed down to the floor, springs back up. The truth is that, in fact, we have the wherewithal to move our country in a much different direction. It is the can-do spirit of America. It is the pioneer spirit of America. It is the spirit that gets going--the tough get going when the going gets tough. That is the spirit we have. That is the spirit we should pursue. That is the renewable energy from tax credits. That is the conservation. That is stopping the speculation in the marketplace. That is ensuring that, in fact, we move to necessary renewable energy sources. That makes for a great America, a new economy--and do something about global warming all at the same time that we deal with the challenges of gas prices in the short term and liberate ourselves in the long term. That is what the debate is all about.

Mr. MENENDEZ. I have. I appreciate the distinguished Senator from Florida pointing it out. The words are powerful because there it is not a Member of the Senate saying this, not a Democrat saying this. This is the official report. I have used the pictures because a picture speaks better than a thousand words, and you cannot deny it as you cannot deny the report. The fact is that we had massive oilspills after Katrina and Rita. This is a Coast Guard picture. That is the reality. The fact is, we were told we have the most highly technologically advanced--it is impossible to have any spills as a result of tankers. The Exxon Valdez. It simply is not true to suggest that there was not. How is it that it has been quoted here-- Not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage . . . At least that says ``significant spillage.'' Not a drop of oil was spilled during Katrina . . . It is pretty tough to say that not a drop of oil was spilled during Katrina. This is why we have to be so cautious about risking the coastlines, the economy, the environment, when it will not produce a drop of oil for over a decade, it will not do anything about gas prices now or in the future, but can create an enormous consequence. We need to be honest with the American people, and I hope this opportunity to get to the floor and talk about some of the facts and show some of the photos from the Coast Guard will make it very clear. I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, here is the situation we find ourselves in with respect to oil. Global supplies are tight, global demand keeps rising, and our country has a dangerous dependence we haven't yet begun to break. Meanwhile, the Bush administration has run up massive budget deficits, instigated by war in Iraq that is costing us $5,000 per second, tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that could cost more than $4 trillion before the next decade is out, and that has caused the value of the dollar to drop and investors to buy more commodities, such as oil. The oil futures market used to be primarily a place for companies to pay in advance for oil supplies they knew they would need. But now the futures market is overcome with runaway speculation, with people buying futures because they are betting the price will go up. Some experts say speculation is adding as much as 50 percent to the cost of every barrel. With oil prices this high, oil companies are raking in record profits--sums of money that are bigger than the GDP of some countries. But instead of reinvesting that money in their business and in renewable energy possibilities, and expanding production to meet our country's growing needs, oil companies are investing in their own share price by buying back their own stock. That may be good news for Wall Street, but it is bad news for anyone struggling to pay to fill up their gas tanks. That is how we have gotten to $140 a barrel oil--tight supply, high dependency and demand, a Bush budget deficit that is weakening the dollar--oil is traded in dollars--speculation in the market, and the oil companies' greater concern for boosting their share price than for boosting production. Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have suggested all it would take to bring down oil prices would be to allow oil companies to drill off the east and west coasts of the United States. Here is the problem with that: The companies already have, as we have said before on the floor, 68 million acres of Federal land under lease that they are largely not exploiting. The Federal Government will be opening 2.3 million additional acres to them in October, and they have over 200 million more acres they don't lease, but they could if they wanted to. The oil companies clearly think there is oil on all those millions of acres or else they would not be leasing the land. But they are not using it. To get an idea of the scale that is involved, here is a map showing how much territory the oil companies control in the Gulf of Mexico. The red area represents all of those unused acres. It is a huge portion of the gulf region that is going completely undeveloped, and that has been available to them already. Yet all of those red areas go undeveloped. Here is an even more impressive map--the map of how much of the western United States oil companies control. The black portions show where oil companies are exploring and, again, the red section shows where they are not exploring. As you can see, it is overwhelmingly staggering, all of those red sections of places where they already have the ability to pursue, which they are simply not pursuing. The oil companies control an enormous amount of land. When you add it all up, it is an area more than 12 times the size of my home State of New Jersey. So why would signing over yet more land to them have any effect at all? It is not that companies don't have enough land to drill on. That is not the bottleneck. The bottleneck is that, for 20 years, oil companies have been underinvesting in oil exploration and in the infrastructure, the equipment, and even the engineers needed to do additional drilling. Here is what the CEO of the American Petroleum Institute--the trade organization representing all of these companies--said last month: Every single available drilling rig, drill ship is in use-- being used right now. You can't go and drill when you don't have equipment. We are not magicians as an industry. So all of this clamor for more land doesn't do anything about that reality. For all of this land, this water, the rights, all of these land rights--all of that doesn't even deal with that. If we give them even 1 more acre, what would it mean? That is part of why it would take so long--as long as a decade--to get to the first drop of oil from the Outer Continental Shelf. Even if we wanted to, if we thought it were good policy--which I do not--the capacity isn't there. There is a reason they don't have the equipment to drill more: They are not reinvesting in their own businesses. They are only investing in their own stock. Last year, ExxonMobil spent about $21 billion in capital expenditures, such as buying new equipment, compared to more than $35 billion it gave to its stockholders. What we see here in this chart is, in fact, billions of dollars of big oil stock buybacks. You can see that from 2002 to 2007, it has increased over five times what it was 6 years ago. So the reality is we have a lot of money from big oil going back into big oil stocks, raising the value of these stocks, but doing nothing about what the CEO of the American Petroleum Institute talked about. In the first quarter of this year, with oil prices sky high, ExxonMobil decided to spend almost $9 billion on stock buybacks alone-- $9 billion in the first quarter. They spent almost a full 40-percent less on actually exploring for oil. The situation is more extreme at ConocoPhillips, which told its investors that its stock buybacks this quarter will come to about $2.5 billion or nine times its budget for exploration. On the whole, the five biggest international oil companies used more than half of the cash they made from their businesses in stock buybacks and dividends last year, up from only 1 percent in the early 1990s. An expert at Rice University who studies how oil companies spend their money summed it up very well. She said: If you're not spending your money finding and developing new oil, then there's no new oil. There is a very simple economic reality here: While families are struggling to make ends meet, the oil companies are flush with cash. We have seen big oil profits steadily increasing under this administration, from approximately $22 billion or so in 2002 to nearly $120 billion in 2007. That is about $100 billion more. There is a simple economic reality here. Families are struggling to make ends meet, but the oil companies are flush with cash. Instead of investing in the new equipment they say they need to pursue the lands they want, they are giving themselves a big payback and plowing their cash back into their own stocks. At some point, oil companies need to recognize they have been trusted to manage natural resources from public lands, and there are times when they have a responsibility greater than boosting their bottom line. With gas and food prices through the roof, and the economy sputtering, we arrived at that point long ago. So when people say, ``We need to drill more,'' I say, tell it to the oil companies. Tell them to use their profits to invest in more equipment and drill in the 68 million acres they already have leased. Basically, when oil companies say that giving them more acreage would increase the amount of oil they produce, it is like saying, if your car is about to run out of gas, you need to pull over and install a bigger tank. The problem in that situation isn't the size of the tank, and the problem we face right now isn't that oil companies don't have enough land to drill on. The problem is they are not drilling on what they have. Not to mention, even if offshore drilling produced every drop optimists are talking about, it would not even be close enough to affect gas prices one way or another. Even President Bush's own Energy Information Administration admits that all we are talking about is a drop in the bucket that will have no effect whatsoever on the price at the pump. Let me put offshore production into perspective. What our colleagues say is the panacea, the solution to everything, is misleading. The way they say this, you would think if we drill tomorrow, open up new land around our Outer Continental Shelf, guess what spurts right up? Let this happen tomorrow and you will get gasoline in your tank for a lot less. I think the American public understands this much better than that. It understands it takes a decade before we see the first drop, and it understands it takes until 2030. Let's talk about needing relief now, not in 2030. Even then, what do we get? Since April, Americans have responded to record high gas prices by using over 800,000 barrels a day less--800,000 barrels a day less than we did 1 year ago. This is the most significant and sudden drop in oil demand since the 1970s. What has happened--notwithstanding the fact that we have reduced demand by 800,000 barrels a day--is that since April we have continued to see record gas prices--prices going up. In recent weeks, Saudi Arabia has increased their production by 500,000 barrels every day. What happened? Gas prices continued to go up. So how is it that if we had 800,000 barrels a day in reduced demand-- gas prices went up--and 500,000 barrels a day in new production by Saudi Arabia--a combination of 1.3 million barrels a day--how does the Bush-McCain drilling plan compare to these recent events wherein prices have gone up, notwithstanding that shift of 1.3 million barrels a day? If we open all our shores and risk all our tourism, fishing industries, and all the economies of all the coastal States to oil production, the first drop of oil wouldn't be seen until the year 2017, and oil production would peak in the year 2030. What could we get in the year 2030? We would get 200,000 barrels a day. Well, my God, if a reduction of 800,000 barrels a day has done nothing and gas prices went up, if the Saudis are pumping out 500,000 new barrels a day and prices go up, how is it that getting 200,000 barrels a day in the year 2030 is going to reduce gas prices tomorrow? It is a sham being created by those who want another grab for their oil company friends, as we have seen over the last 7 years by the two oilmen in the White House. To put that number another way, the amount of gas we could get from offshore drilling is equivalent to a few tablespoons per car per day. Together, an 800,000 barrels-per-day reduction in demand, an increase of 500,000 barrels per day of Saudi production equals that 1.3 million barrels-per-day shift in the market. Yet we still have record gas prices. So if this massive shift has no impact, it is clear the production of 200,000 barrels a day in the year 2030 will do absolutely nothing at all about gas prices today. It is simply wrong to think that opening offshore drilling will lower gas prices. So one might ask: Why are oil companies asking us to hand over more land when they already have so much that is unused? It seems to me there is only one explanation. Oil companies aren't actually in a rush to drill in those areas, but they are in a rush to control as much Federal land as possible before their friends in the Bush administration leave office. The oil companies' strategy right now is to grab control of as much Federal land and water as possible before January 20 of 2009, the date the next President of the United States takes office. They are trying to take advantage of the current energy crisis to take control of more public property and boost their profits. The GOP plan to open our shores to drilling isn't only about oil prices, believe me; it is about share prices. That plan comes with a serious pricetag: a vast increase in the risk to the health of our coasts and the economies they support. Sometimes, if you go to the Archives building here in Washington, on its portal it says, ``What's past is prologue,'' and I would remind Americans of some of these facts. We were all told we had the most advanced tankers in the world and that they would prevent any spills from happening, but we all also, I hope, remember the devastation off the coast of Alaska after the crash of the Exxon Valdez. We all remember that after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita there was, yes, a human tragedy and there was also an economic tragedy. There was an environmental tragedy off the gulf coast. I have read comments by some who say: Oh, nothing happened. Look at that. The infrastructure and the technology is so advanced, we didn't get one drop of spillage after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Wrong. False. Seven hundred thousand gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, and over 7 million gallons of oil leaked offshore from the infrastructure that supports offshore drilling. Now, here is a picture. This is not my picture; this is a picture from the U.S. Coast Guard. What did they do to try to deal with the oil that leaked? They burned it to try to dissipate it. If I saw this off the New Jersey shore or in North Carolina or Florida or California or Oregon or Washington, I would say that is a major disaster. Yet we have colleagues who say not a drop--not a drop--spilled. False. Wrong. Not true. Between commercial fishing, sport fishing, forestry, and tourism, drilling would pose a threat to coastal economies that are over $200 billion a year. That is how much our coastal economies generate along the east and west coasts--over $200 billion a year. That is part of what led President Bush's father to declare, when he was President, when he put in place the moratorium on offshore drilling, that: Certain areas of our coast represent unique natural resources. In those areas, even the small risks posed by oil and gas development may be too great. I don't consider this type of contamination a small risk, but even the first President Bush said: ``Even those risks posed by oil and gas development may be too great.'' Even what he considered small risks were too great. This is far beyond small risks. It is what led President Bush's brother, Jeb, the former Governor of Florida, to say: ``Protection of those resources is of paramount importance to the State of Florida.'' Now, those Bushes got it straight. They understood. In my home State of New Jersey, we cannot escape those risks, when drilling would happen less than 100 miles off our shores. The New Jersey shore generates tens of billions of dollars in revenues each year, and it supports about a half a million jobs. We have already seen in the past the devastating economic effects of medical waste washing up on our beaches. New Jersey families and businesses cannot afford the risk of an oil slick on the scale of the Exxon Valdez crash or the spills after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, with sticky crude forcing beaches to close, killing wildlife, collapsing property values, and destroying our economy in the process. We need real barrels coming out of the ground, not paper barrels filling nothing but big oils' balance sheets. It is time to take action to shore up our energy security and drive down the price of gasoline. First, we need to take action to lower gas prices now. The Federal Government should release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to provide immediate relief. We can have a swap where we can take the light crude--we can actually, in fact, make money on this--and get the type of crude we need and, at the same time, help try to affect the price by having that immediate surge of oil into the marketplace. In addition, I have joined with Senators Feingold and Dodd to introduce the Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act, which requires oil companies to show they are either producing oil or gas on public lands or making progress exploring or developing them on current leases before they get their hands on more land, when they are not even producing on that which they have. We have also introduced the Responsible Ownership of Public Land Act, along with Senator Durbin. The bill would charge oil companies a fee for every acre of land they lease but fail to use for production. The combination of these measures could give the oil companies the incentives they need to get barrels of oil off their balance sheets and into the marketplace. In addition, I will be offering an amendment to make sure oil that is produced on land owned by the people of the United States gets used by the people of the United States. Right now, oil companies shift 1.5 million barrels per day of domestically produced oil overseas. So 1.5 million barrels a day produced in the lands and waters of the United States shift overseas. Last year, that meant over half a billion barrels of oil per year was taken from U.S. public lands and sent abroad. Now, we are talking about using the Outer Continental Shelf and getting 200,000 barrels in the year 2030, while we have been sending over 1.5 million barrels a day to other places in the world--oil that comes from public lands. If we are going to endanger our own environment and deplete our own resources, certainly we should be the ones who benefit from it. Not that I believe that should be the case, but in terms of taking a risk for our own lands and public resources--certainly not to drill off the coast, but to the extent that we have drilling going on now and we have land they are not drilling on, that ultimate production should be used here in the United States. Over half a billion barrels are sent abroad. We need to bring medium- and long-term relief so an energy crisis such as this does not happen again. That moves us to the ultimate goal. This country should be far more aspirational in its view of this issue. We should approve the renewable energy tax extensions bill, which our colleagues on the Republican side have opposed, that would help continue the rapid growth of wind and solar and provide an incentive for the purchase of plug-in hybrid vehicles. This will help us begin the transition to new energy sources so we are not so vulnerable to the rising costs of fossil fuels, not to mention what it does to our environment and global warming. We should clamp down on rampant oil speculation and burst the speculative bubble that has caused oil prices to skyrocket. We should be acting now on global climate change legislation that lays out the framework to completely change our economy from one that is based on oil and other fossil fuels to an economy based on renewable energy. That is a real plan, not just a plan to go out in search of our next oil fix. Increasing the share of oil we produce here at home is important, and we should make sure there are incentives for oil companies to produce, but authorizing drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf would just be a distraction and would do nothing to bring down gas prices, now or ever. Drivers are calling out for us to bring down gas prices, not to prop up oil companies' stock prices. Our Government needs to stop holding the oil companies' hand and start holding them accountable. American families and businesses deserve a government that works for them, not just for the people who sell us our oil. A mother can't fill the family car with the predictions in oil companies' annual reports. A business can't ship its products with so- called likely reserves. What makes the engine of our economy run today is what comes out of the ground, not what is written on paper. What will make our economy run tomorrow is our ability to transition beyond this addiction. Making a major commitment to create the economy of the future, free from the liquid shackles of oil, would send a clear message to the world that America is ready to lead again. That is the message we should be sending. We have to ask ourselves: Since when have we been a country that is afraid of a challenge? Since when have we waited for others to innovate, waited for others to rescue us from the dangers we face, waited for other nations to take the lead? When we entered the Second World War, our allies knew we were in it with our hearts and souls. When President Kennedy announced we would go to the Moon, friend and foe alike knew we would not rest until we had allowed mankind to take that giant step. I refuse to believe a country responsible for the light bulb, the telephone, and the computer can't decide to become a country powered by wind turbines, solar cells, and geothermal plants. There is no reason we can't decide to move toward powering our Nation with innovative, clean energy, especially since we have the technology to get started. Two Americans were the first to fly. As one engineer said at the time: ``The Wright brothers flew right through the smokescreen of impossibility.'' It is time we showed we believe that ending this energy crisis is incredibly possible. If we want to bring down the sky-high price of oil, stop shipping our money overseas in exchange for foreign oil and make our economy soar again. It is time we did everything we can to get a real program for energy independence off the ground. That is our real challenge. That is our real opportunity. That should be our real mission. I close once again by saying that this comment about offshore drilling, that it is the way we are going to solve all our problems-- 800,000-barrel reduction in demand, prices went up; 500,000 barrels more production by the Saudis, gas prices went up; 1.3 million barrels and change, prices went up; 68 million acres of land the oil companies have they don't use, that is another reason prices go up--restrict the demand. The bottom line is, let's move forward in a way that meets our challenge not only today but tomorrow. We are a country that can do. We are a country of infinite possibilities. It is time to go beyond the shortsighted, narrow view that, in fact, we must risk all of our coastal economies, $200 billion a year, for something that won't produce one drop of oil for a decade, won't receive full production until 2030, and won't do anything now or in the future about reducing gas prices but will ultimately say to future generations of Americans that we, in the expediency of the moment, were willing to risk not only those economies but the natural resources of this country for something that would do absolutely nothing about gas prices. We can do better than that. That is what this debate is all about, and that is the opportunity we have. I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that John Veysey, a congressional fellow in my office, be granted privileges of the floor for the duration of debate on S. 3268.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. I wish to join my distinguished colleague from West Virginia, Senator Rockefeller, who has been a champion on this issue from its creation and continues to be a champion to preserve the health care for some of the most vulnerable children in our society. I appreciate his leadership, and I am privileged to join with him in this effort along with Senator Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee; my colleague from New Jersey, Senator Lautenberg, who has tried time and time again through the appropriations process; Senator Snowe, who has been a champion on this issue as well. We understand the consequences. Eleven months ago today, the Bush administration decided to jeopardize health coverage for hundreds of thousands of children across the country. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services sent a letter to all State health officials announcing that 1 month from today, States will be pressured to cover a much narrower range of families. They based their directive on an unfair financial standard that would exclude hundreds of thousands of children in the most difficult economic circumstances of our time. The result of that directive would be unconscionable. It would mean hundreds of thousands of terrible stories--a child with diabetes that goes undiagnosed, a child with a cleft palate she has to live with for the rest of her life, missed tetanus shots, untreated allergies, asthma, and hundreds of thousands of small, painful situations that would add up to a wave of tragedy too immense to imagine. Many of us in this Chamber decided we were not going to sit back and watch this happen. We sent letters. We introduced legislation. We shouted as loudly as we could. But the President did his best to ignore us and keep his back turned on these children. In 1 month, this unbelievably harmful rule is set to come into effect. In 1 month, States will have to overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles if they want to cover children above 250 percent of the poverty level. In 1 month, the strength of our values will be seriously called into question. If it weren't for this program, these children would fall between the cracks. They are not in dire enough poverty to qualify for Medicaid, but their working parents still don't have enough to afford private coverage. The families we seek to cover work hard every day, in some of the toughest jobs, but they work at jobs that offer no health care. These families certainly don't make enough money to afford private coverage. The State Children's Health Insurance Program is their last resort. That is why I am still shocked at the nerve of this administration when they unilaterally issued this harmful, coldhearted directive on children's health. Where are those values I have heard the administration talk about? This really boils down to a different set of priorities. It is yet another example of placing some of the wealthiest above our working families. If the President's directive takes effect, he is effectively saying tough luck to these families; go ahead and roll the dice with your daughter's health care. Let's think about what that says about our values. That kind of sentiment is completely out of line. But that is not the only reason this directive should be overturned. The directive is not just a violation of our values, it is a violation of the law. The administration bypassed Congress and violated the Congressional Review Act when issuing this directive. The Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Research Service have issued legal opinions stating as much. The opinions conclude that the directive is not merely a clarification of existing SCHIP rules, as CMS has maintained, but, rather, a marked departure from well-settled policy that first should have been reviewed by Congress. That is why we are introducing this resolution of disapproval regarding the August 17 CHIP directive. The President cannot be allowed to get away with this destructive backdoor policy. If we can't convince him on moral grounds, if we can't make him see the benefits of providing health care to children--and by the way, in New Jersey we have letters from the administration that not only gave us the authority to do this in the first place, to cover these children, but then also lauded our program and said it should be a model for the country; if it is a model for the country and you gave us the legal authority, how can you just take all those children off the rolls--then we call him out on procedural grounds. And the administration's procedure was, quite simply, illegal. When this resolution passes into law, the August 17 directive will be nullified. That is my ultimate goal, to protect the health of our Nation's children and, certainly, the many children in New Jersey affected by this directive. The goal we strive for should be to cover more, not fewer, children. I believe we have a responsibility, a moral, financial, and professional responsibility to ensure that in the greatest country in the world, no child goes to bed at night without proper health care and treatment. That means we must provide them with health coverage. If we don't, what are these families supposed to do? In these tough economic times, now more than ever, we need to support States that offer options for affordable coverage to hard-working parents and their children. It is not just the health of our Nation's children but the health of our values that is at stake. I hope our colleagues, when this resolution comes up for a vote, will give it an overwhelming level of support, and we will send the right set of messages as to our values as well as how much we appreciate our children as the future of our country and the health that is associated with them that will be necessary for them to achieve their God-given potential.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I rise to strongly support the chairman and ranking member's initiative on the Lantos-Hyde U.S. Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Reauthorization Act. As we discuss how to support the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, we have the chance to take on the most devastating diseases the world has ever known. The death toll from the AIDS epidemic stands at 22 million. Malaria will claim more than 1 million lives this year alone, most of which will be children under the age of 5. This country has seen time and time again how the fate of the American people is intertwined with the fate of people all over the world. The AIDS epidemic is just one more case of that. More than half a million American lives have been lost. Not just from a moral standpoint, but from an economic standpoint, a national security standpoint, and the standpoint of our own health as a nation, the fight against deadly diseases is a fight we are all in together. Addressing these diseases is not just a humanitarian endeavor, it is also in the national security interests of the United States. These devastating diseases are a destabilizing force for many countries in Africa, and it is in our interest to ensure that sufficient funds are available to make meaningful progress in this area. This bill moves us closer to that goal. The bipartisan bill we are considering offers ambitious but achievable targets, including supporting prevention of 12 million HIV infections, care for 12 million people with or affected by HIV/AIDS, including among those 5 million children, and an antiretroviral treatment for an increasing number of persons whose rising target is expected to represent at least 3 million lives saved. Cutting funding would require a dramatic downsizing of these targets. Tuberculosis and malaria combined claim more than 3.6 million lives a year. The President's initial proposal of $30 billion did not address funding for these diseases, except through the Global Fund. This bill, like its House counterpart, does include these diseases and increases the treatment goals for persons with HIV/AIDS, as well as for the treatment of children, thus justifying the additional authorization of funds. Authorization of funds--this is only to say we have the ability to go up to that amount. It does not guarantee we will spend that amount. The amendment that is being offered by the Senator from South Carolina would slash the funding of this bill by almost a third. While international organizations estimate that achieving universal access to antiretroviral medications would demand $40 billion in resources--a number the world needs to do all it can to achieve--this amendment shaves down America's contribution, putting medication further out of the reach of thousands of people. I chaired hearings on behalf of the committee. I know Senator Lugar was with me during those hearings. This country hasn't gone into our greatest challenges halfheartedly. When we entered the Second World War, our allies knew we were in it with our hearts and our souls. When President Kennedy announced we would go to the Moon, friend and foe alike knew that we would not rest until we had allowed mankind to take that giant leap. This is our chance to show that America is ready to lead. We should come together as Republicans and Democrats, as Americans, as human beings, to stop this vast catastrophe, to attack it with all that we have. This is about our vision for the world, a world where disease can be controlled, a world ultimately free from fear. If we act today to give PEPFAR full funding, it is more than just a powerful statement. We will have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and that--that--is the essence of this debate. That is what is at stake right now, pure and simple. It is an expression of our humanity. It is an expression of the fulfillment of being able to do the one single thing that I think is the highest calling in public service, which is to save the life of another. It is an understanding that is in our national interests and our national security interests because disease knows no boundaries. We have faced that time and time again during the course of our history. If we believe this is someone else's problem, we are sadly mistaken. This is a chance for us to lead. It is an opportunity to do it in a bipartisan way. I hope my colleagues will ultimately support the underlying bill and certainly oppose the amendment offered by my colleague from South Carolina so we can fulfill that obligation. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, we are all aware of the seriousness of the oil crisis. Gas prices are more than three times what they were when President Bush took office. High prices are forcing some businesses to cut back or close and forcing some families to choose between putting a gallon of gas in the tank and putting a gallon of milk on their kitchen table. People are demanding honest solutions to our oil crisis. But President Bush, John McCain, and their allies on the other side of the aisle have only decided to perpetuate myths, which is what brings me to the floor. They have told us offshore drilling will lower gas prices tomorrow. They have told us oil companies could produce more if we hand over even more Federal land and water to them. When people spoke about the dangers of drilling, they claimed no oil was spilled after Hurricane Katrina and that drilling off the shore of one State would not affect all the other States around it. I am here to clear up these myths before it is too late and they take a life of their own. Myth No. 1: Drilling immediately brings down gas prices. The biggest myth, a myth that has been repeated over and over on the floor of this Chamber, is that opening our shores to drilling will somehow lower the price of gasoline. Let's get one thing straight; drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf will do nothing to bring down gas prices--not now, not ever. While President Bush is suggesting that drilling will bring down prices at the pump, his own Energy Information Administration admits drilling will have no effect. The reason is the amount of oil involved is a drop in the bucket compared to what we use every day. Let me put offshore production in perspective. Since April of this year, Americans have responded to extraordinarily high gas prices by using over 800,000 barrels of oil less than we did 1 year ago. That is the most significant and sudden drop in oil demand since the 1970s. Yet what have we seen since April? We have continued to see record gas prices. In recent weeks, in response to record oil prices, Saudi Arabia has increased its production of oil by 500,000 barrels each and every day. What has been the effect on gas prices? They continue to go up. So how does the Bush/McCain drilling plan compare to these recent events? If we open all our shores to oil production, the first drop of oil would not be seen for over a decade. Offshore oil production would peak in the year 2030 and only at 200,000 barrels a day. To put that number another way, the amount of gas we could get from offshore drilling is equivalent to a few tablespoons per car per day. So let's look at the totality of this. If 800,000 barrels per day in reduced demand by Americans combined with an increase of 500,000 barrels per day of Saudi production--a total shift of 1.3 million barrels a day--doesn't lower gas prices, how does 200,000 in the year 2030 lower gas prices? If we have seen a shift of both a reduction in demand and an increase in that supply by 1.3 million barrels a day, and the price still goes up, how is it that 200,000 barrels in 2030 is going to do anything? It is a myth. The second myth we hear is that if oil companies could only lease more Federal land and water, they would produce more oil. The fact of the matter is the oil industry has already leased 68 million acres of land, where they have not produced--for the most part--a single drop of oil. The oil companies clearly think there is oil there or else why would they be leasing the land? But they are not using it. This chart is an example of where all that oil is located. I know our Republican colleagues have these little sayings, and they are going around with patches on their lapels saying ``find more, use less.'' This is what they should be telling the oil companies: Find more and use less. In fact, they are not even pursuing that which they already have access to. To get an idea of the scale involved, here is a map showing how much territory the oil companies control in the Gulf of Mexico. The red part of the map represents unused acres. It is a huge portion of the gulf region, going completely undeveloped, which they already have leases and access to. Here is an even more impressive map--a map of how much of the Western United States oil companies control. The black portion shows where companies are exploring and, again, the red is where they are. As you can see, the red far exceeds the black portion of the map. These oil companies control an enormous amount of land. When you add it all up, it is an area more than 12 times the size of my home State of New Jersey. So why are oil companies asking us to hand over more land, when they have so much land that is already unused? It seems to me there is only one explanation: Oil companies aren't actually in a rush to drill in those areas, but they are in a rush to control as much Federal land as possible before their friends in the White House leave. Let's talk about myth No. 3. In order to convince us to let this plan go through, big oil and their supporters want us to believe a third myth, which is that offshore drilling presents no threat to our environment and to the economies of States, such as New Jersey, where tourism is the second multibillion dollar part of our economy. Many of my colleagues from the Republican side of the aisle, including Senator McConnell and Senator McCain, have repeatedly denied that oil spills could happen. They have denied repeatedly that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused any oil to spill. The picture I have here was taken not by me but by the U.S. Coast Guard. It shows what happened after the hurricanes: a massive oil spill that was set on fire to assist in the cleanup effort, as indicated in this photo. I don't know what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would consider ``significant spillage,'' but I know if I saw this scene on the New Jersey shore, I would consider it a disaster. In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused devastation on a massive scale. The EPA, the U.S. Minerals Management Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Coast Guard all agree that the storms caused 700,000 gallons of oil to spill into the Gulf of Mexico and over 7 million gallons of oil to leak onshore from the infrastructure that supports offshore drilling. When oil spills in those quantities take place, it is not isolated to a small area. Some suggest certain States may want to drill and other States may not want to drill off their coast, but the devastation spreads far and wide. When the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska, the spill was 600 miles wide. The IXTOC I spill in the Gulf of Mexico traveled 600 miles. That is why the decision to drill cannot be left to a single State, because the State's actions affect all the other States in proximity to it. An oil spill off the coast of Virginia could wash up as far away as Maine. It could devastate the coastline from South Carolina to New York. In my home State of New Jersey, the shore generates tens of billions of dollars in revenue each year and supports about half a million jobs. New Jersey families and businesses cannot afford the risk of a disaster on the scale of the Exxon Valdez crash or the spills after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, with sticky crude washing up on our beaches, killing our wildlife, collapsing property values, and destroying our economy in the process. Let's be honest. If there is drilling off our shore, it is not guaranteed that there would not be a major spill. These facts show that to be quite to the contrary. Disasters have happened before and they will happen again. The question is, Is the risk of a significant disaster worth the insignificant amount of oil that might come with the drilling? That answer is, clearly, no. Now, to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who say, drill more and ultimately conserve some, I say our need is to act more and talk less. Let's do something that really does something about gas prices. If we are going to bring down gas prices, we need a better plan. First, we cannot wait until the year 2030 to get the type of relief we need in terms of offshore drilling. We need to lower gas prices now. The last time we opened lease 181 in the Gulf of Mexico, with huge amounts, ultimately, what happened? That was a year and a half, 2 years ago. Did prices go down after we opened that section of the gulf? No. They went up. We cannot wait. The supply-and-demand equation for oil is basically the same as it was a year ago--that is what testimony before the Congress tells us by even the oil executives--and prices have skyrocketed. We need to check the unchecked speculation on the oil trading markets, which has driven oil prices higher. We need to see to it that our commodities markets are functioning fairly, so prices come down from their artificial highs. Yes, we offer drilling. But let us drill on the 68 million acres the oil companies have already leased to bring down the price of oil, not just use it to pad their books and inflate the price of their stock. Together with Senators Feingold and Dodd, I have introduced legislation that sends a simple message to oil companies about the Federal land they lease: Use it or lose it. The bill mandates that oil companies either produce on or seek to develop their existing Federal leases or make way for someone who will. Most importantly, we need to break our dependence upon oil. Here is the bigger picture: We can only ever produce a fraction of the oil we use as a country. The only way for us to protect ourselves from rising gas prices is to end our dependence on oil, and that means making immediate, substantial investments in renewable fuels and conservation. We should all get behind legislation, which our colleagues are opposed to, to expand tax credits for renewable energy producers. In order to boost vehicle efficiency, we should create stronger incentives for plug-in hybrids, support advanced battery research and research into cellulosic fuels. It is time we fully funded mass transit at the level it deserves. We can do all this in the time President Bush would have us wait for minimal oil production along our coastlines. Let's be clear. This coastline drilling plan is not a serious proposal to help American families today. It is exploitation of pain at the pump to give yet another handout to the oil companies. It is long past time to stop repeating the myths that lie at the bottom of it. Instead of buying into this overhyped, oversold plan, if we work together, we have the ability and ingenuity as a country to secure our energy future once and for all. It is that aspiration that we should, in fact, pursue. It is time we decide on a plan that looks out not just for the future of the oil companies but for our future as a nation. That is why our colleagues should join us in pushing the big oil companies to pursue drilling on the 68 million acres they have, ensure that they use billions in subsidies and tax breaks they have been given to invest in renewable energy and refineries, not stock buybacks to boost their pockets, tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to immediately increase oil supplies, and hopefully by doing so lower prices and stop the market manipulation that is taking place in the marketplace. Let's get the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to pursue this vigorously. Finally, let's aspire to be something more than just today's crisis. Let's use the ingenuity of America to break our dependence not only on foreign oil but on domestic oil as well. We can do all of these things. We are the people on the face of the Earth who are can-do. It is time for us to begin to deal with that rather than try to pursue a course of action that will do absolutely nothing about reducing gas prices, do absolutely nothing about breaking our dependency on foreign oil, absolutely nothing in terms of our domestic economy and security. Those are the choices before the Senate, and I trust we will make the right ones. I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I do not intend to object. Can you tell me whether, to your knowledge, the rules require the objecting Senator to be present? I understand on the last vote, which also had an objection, that the objecting Senator did not cast a vote.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. I would be happy to yield for one more question before I get to the focus of my statement.

Mr. MENENDEZ. Reclaiming my time on the floor, let me simply say, it is always the majority leader's desire to have a full and open debate of the Senate. However, there are those of our colleagues who wish to use that full and open debate to pursue amendments that have nothing to do with reducing gas prices and dealing with our energy crisis or to be able to pursue a course that can bring conclusion to a bill and would give that type of relief to the American people but string it out and string it out on issues that are not relevant. That is when the majority leader has faced the necessity of moving in a different direction. So I do have the expectation that we will have a good debate and, more importantly, we will have a good bill that will be comprehensive and that will give relief to the people, and I am happy to have answered my colleague's questions. The main purpose for which I come to the floor as we debate the housing bill is to rise again to be a voice for those who have no voice in this housing crisis. Certainly, one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle seems to not to hear the cries of children who are being, in one respect, punished through no actions of their own--2 million of them in this country. I am not talking about homeowners, although I am certainly pleased that the bill we are considering today will have a powerful impact on our Nation's families. I am not talking about those on Wall Street, as they seem to be the first group the administration rushes to support. I am talking about our Nation's children. I rise on behalf of nearly 2 million children who will be directly impacted by the mortgage crisis. These children are not only taking a huge hit as padlocks get put on their front doors, but now they are likely taking another hit, as my colleagues on the other side of the aisle threaten to block a critical amendment that could give them relief. My amendment authorizes $30 million in additional funding to the existing McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Program to support these children. By the way, these children didn't decide to go out and get a mortgage. They had no legal authority to make those decisions. They are the ones who get swept up in this process. They are, for all intents and purposes, the worst victims of this process. As I said, an estimated 2 million children and young people, including 50,000 children in my home State of New Jersey, 20,000 in South Carolina, to mention one other State, and over half a million Latino children nationwide will be directly impacted by the foreclosure crisis, placing them at risk of poor school performance, behavioral problems, and other challenges as well. What happens is they lose not only their home, they lose the school they go to. They get moved around. They don't have a home and they get moved from school to school. If you are a student-- and it is not so long ago that I can't remember--and you get yanked in and out of school, in and out of school, your ability to perform is simply undercut dramatically. In one school district in New Jersey, the number of homeless students doubled--doubled--this year, from 200 last year to 423 this school year, and that is only in one school district. The foreclosure crisis is clearly having an impact, and the time is now to stop any more schoolchildren from being affected. An infusion of funds into the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Program will help to ensure that students who become homeless and are forced to move from their homes do not also have to leave their schools. There are some who may be able to shrug this off as a small sacrifice. They are the victims of this process or they are the calamities or casualties of this process, but there is nothing small about the impact of changing schools during this type of crisis. These children are less likely to perform at grade level in math and reading, more likely to be held back, less likely to graduate. There are long- term consequences to what for some may seem a short-term crisis. They are likely to have behavioral issues. One study found that kids forced to move frequently were 77 percent more likely to have behavior problems than their peers. Another study found they were 20 percent more likely to have violent behavior. Now, what is the cost going to be to us collectively in our society when that happens? At the end of the day, these children are forced to say goodbye to not only their home they grew up in and have had to leave their friends behind, but they also have had to leave behind familiar schools and supportive teachers and return to a strange home at night where their lives are often turned upside down. All stability is gone. They are thrown into a riptide with no lifevest, while we sit here in Washington hoping they survive the storm. Hoping is not enough. We have to do more than hope for them; we have to give them a lifeline. This funding would actually help these children. The McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Program provides homeless students with a variety of supports such as transportation to school, tutoring, and counseling. Children are the voiceless victims of the foreclosure crisis. As we lower interest rates, as we support the home building industry, as we reform mortgage lending practices, several children's organizations and education organizations have asked for this amendment as a modest way that our Nation can support the nearly 2 million children who are suffering the consequences of decisions made completely outside of their control. The foreclosure crisis is damaging our economy, yes, but let us not forget the children are the real victims of this crisis, and--even worse--they are the silent victims. They can't speak up for themselves. They have no lobbyist here in Washington roaming the halls, advocating for them. It is not fair that these children get lost in the paperwork. They deserve our full support. This amendment is cosponsored by several of our colleagues, including Senator Murray and Senator Brown, and it has the full support of Senator Kennedy. I wish to thank Senator Enzi, who worked with me on the language for this amendment to make it acceptable, and Senators Dodd and Shelby, the chair and the ranking member of the committee, who agreed to include it in their provision in the managers' amendment. Had I known that in fact we were going to have the objection of one of our colleagues to a bipartisan package, I would have sought an individual vote, but I am beyond that ability today. In conclusion, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune have all written about this critical issue, and a number of respected groups also support this amendment, including First Focus, the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, the National School Boards Association, and the National Education Association, to name a few. We have an opportunity to do something for these children. I hear great speeches on the Senate floor about family and values and the value of families and the value of our children and how our children are, in fact, our No. 1 asset, and that is true as a nation. They are also our most vulnerable asset. Yet when it comes time to be able to help these children, the question is: Is Congress going to listen? Our colleague on the other side of the aisle seems to not be listening to their challenges and their pleas. One Member is likely going to block this and other important amendments, and the result is that our children, once again, are going to be unheard and are going to be the victims of something they had no role in creating; something that, in fact, where they are going to find themselves not only homeless but also having the foundation of their educational opportunities completely disrupted in a way that will more likely create failure than success. I hope my colleagues who talk about family values understand the important value of helping our children in this regard. We have to reconsider our priorities, and I, for one, don't intend to rest until these children receive our help and get our support. With that, Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ. Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, I am going to speak on the motion, and that is the main purpose of my coming, but I do wish to say that, in fact, we will be having a gas price bill and dealing with those issues on the floor very soon. I know the Senate Democratic leadership intends to bring such a bill, but it will be a bill that is, hopefully, comprehensive in its nature and creates real opportunities to reduce gas prices and meet with the challenges. One of the factors we have today that we could get going on already is the 68 million acres that the oil industry already has access to and is largely not drilling on. So before we ask for more, why don't they move on that which they already have to drill on? Secondly--

Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, on behalf of the Democratic leadership, who intends to bring a comprehensive bill to deal with gas prices to the floor, I have to object at this time.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Connecticut for his leadership. I rise to express my disappointment that it appears that the managers' package is being blocked by one or two of my friends on the other side of the aisle. This package includes, among other important provisions, my amendment, offered by family and children organizations across the country, to help children who are the silent victims of the housing crisis. My amendment authorizes $30 million in additional funding into the existing McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Program to support children directly impacted by foreclosures. There are about 2 million children in this country, including 50,000 in New Jersey and over half a million Latino children nationwide, who will be directly impacted by the foreclosure crisis, placing them at risk of poor school performance, behavior problems, and other challenges as well. While we provide lower interest rates supporting the homebuilding industry and reform mortgage lending practices, several children's organizations and educational organizations have asked for this amendment as a modest way that our Nation can support the nearly 2 million children who are suffering the consequences of decisions made completely outside their control. The foreclosure crisis is damaging our economy. Let us not forget that the children who have no say, no ability to make a difference in their lives, are the real victims of this crisis and, even worse, they are the silent victims. It is not fair these children get lost in the paperwork or in the politics of one Member, and they deserve our full support. This amendment was being cosponsored by several colleagues. We worked with Senator Enzi, who had original jurisdiction, along with Senator Kennedy, to get the language right. We appreciate Senator Shelby having it in the managers' package. If that cannot move forward, these children will be left unprotected. That is a disgrace.