Barbara Mikulski

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise as the ranking member of this subcommittee, and also as a cosponsor of the Pryor amendment. First of all, I thank the Senator from Arkansas for offering this amendment which would give $1 million to the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether there is some type of price gouging, price fixing, going on in the marketplace. I thank the Senator for his leadership and the fact that he wants to proceed on the basis of fact and not just rhetoric and finger-pointing. We thank the Senator from New Mexico, the chairman of the Energy bill. This has received bipartisan support, exactly what we need. Boy, do we need it. We in Maryland are hot. We are absolutely hot about these gas prices. Maryland has the third highest gas prices in the United States of America. Who are we behind? Are we behind California with complicated environmental rules? No, we are behind the District of Columbia, and we are behind New York. No one can say why. Our Governor convened a special meeting of oil executives to tell him why, and he is dissatisfied. Our general assembly is working on it to see if there is something we can do at the State level. There is clamor for getting rid of the Federal or State taxes. People want the prices to come down. We want to know, is there gouging? Is there fixing? We want to operate on the basis of fact. In my home State of Maryland, my cost of commuting has gone up $30 a week. I can afford it, but many Marylanders cannot. I saw on a local TV station a mother who filled up her minivan, a soccer mom. It was $90. She put her head on the windshield and cried; how could her family afford it? We see the variance in prices, block by block; in one neighborhood gas is selling for $3.49 and less than 5 miles away, in Baltimore City, it is selling cheaper. Go to another pump further out in a valley situation and it is selling for $3.63. Guess what. Over in another neighborhood, it is selling for $3.03--a 60-cent-per-gallon difference. Can anyone tell me what it is about the marketplace that it is 60 cents difference? Who is pulling the strings? The consequences are severe. If you have a family and are a commuter, you wonder how you can continue to be a soccer mom and a dad and go to work every day. Business in my community is affected, big and small; small businesses, from the florist who delivers the flowers, to the pharmacist who is willing to deliver prescription drugs, to the electrician, to the plumber using a pickup. Much of our food supply comes by truck to our supermarkets. They will have to charge more. It means food is going to go up. People love Maryland and love our crabs, but our watermen are aghast to take the boat out. It is costing a fortune. Marylanders want to know the facts. I am pleased to join with the Senator from Arkansas. This has been a bipartisan agreement. This will move it forward. Let's fund this at the FTC. Let's get the investigation underway and get ahold of the gas prices affecting so many Americans. I thank the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Shelby, for his patience while we worked so assiduously on the bipartisan agreement. I ask unanimous consent the Pryor-Mikulski amendment be agreed to.

Ms. MIKULSKI. It has been laid upon the table.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 1662

Ms. MIKULSKI. I concur.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I yield time to the Senator from Michigan to speak on her amendment. I believe her amendment on interoperability is the pending amendment.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I yield her such time as she may require.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, as I understand it, in about 5 minutes we will be voting on two amendments. One is to establish a Truman-like commission to see if there has been profiteering in the contracts in relation to the Iraq war. Amendment No. 1660 Madam President, there is also another amendment offered by the Senator from New York, Mrs. Clinton, on a Katrina commission recommendation. I am a cosponsor of that amendment. Prior to the vote, I would now like to make a few remarks in support of the establishment of a Katrina commission. This weekend I reflected--as I am sure the Presiding Officer did when you were with your family and maybe made it back to Alaska with constituents--that two tragedies have hit our country. One is 9/11, which we can never, ever forget. How grateful we are to the 9/11 Commission for their rigorous investigation as to what happened: what went wrong, what went right; what went wrong--the failure of communications and technology and intelligence; what went right--the bravery of people, the spirit of America. Then, also, the 9/11 Commission made concrete recommendations. In fact, they are meeting this week to issue a report card on how well we have done to implement their recommendations. Three cheers for the 9/11 Commission on what they have done and what they continue to do. All of America has been mesmerized by what has happened in the Gulf-- in New Orleans, in Louisiana, in Alabama, and, of course, in Mississippi. Senator Clinton's idea--she will be here shortly to express it, and I concur--is that we also have a commission now to look at the response to the Katrina situation. We appreciate the fact that the President has taken responsibility, and he himself wants to know what went right and what went wrong. We think that is a very good move on the President's part. We support him. Second, we know there will be good efforts by our own colleagues, particularly in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is very ably chaired by our colleague from Maine, Senator Collins, and of which Senator Lieberman is ranking member. But it is us investigating us. It is the President looking at his own executive branch. I do not doubt the integrity of the President. I do not doubt the vigor and pursuit that the Governmental Affairs Committee will have. Golly, just look at their record on intel reform. I think we know they really do operate with intellectual rigor and integrity. But I do believe we need an outside group that will look at us and develop an opinion that will be truly independent, made up of appointees from both sides of the aisle. They would absolutely not be political, even though some might have a background in politics. Governor Kean did a fabulous job chairing the Commission along with our former colleague, Congressman Lee Hamilton. They had a wonderful array of people on the 9/11 Commission. So we owe it to the people of the Gulf and we owe it to the people of the United States of America to examine this situation and not to do finger-pointing. We do not need any more finger-pointing but we sure do need pinpointing as to what collapsed, what was not in place. Some years ago, I led the reform effort of FEMA. We started with President Bush 1 and then kept going under President Bill Clinton, who gave us James Lee Witt. FEMA should be one of our premier agencies focusing on readiness, response, and recovery. What went wrong? Was it us? Did we neglect in oversight? Did we neglect funding Corps of Engineers projects? I really don't know that. And maybe we did not neglect anything, but nature had enough with our bad behavior and kicked us a little bit. So I really want to know that, and why. One reason is so it will never happen again, just like we never want a predatory attack on the United States of America, which is why out of 9/11 came intel reform and now the followup. We do not want this result ever to happen again when a natural disaster strikes--whether it is a hurricane that hits coastal States or whether it is an earthquake, which I know the Presiding Officer's own dear beloved State is possibly subjected to and which our colleagues from California worry about, and our colleagues from Missouri worry about that fault that goes right down through Missouri. So we have to make sure we have an independent analysis. We would then take what the President finds, take what our colleagues find, and listen to an independent commission so we can make sure we are truly ready, we are truly able to respond, and then to make sure we have the wherewithal to do recovery. This could have been a dirty bomb in any city in the United States. Could we evacuate? Would communications be interoperable? What would happen to the poor and the sick? Are they collateral damage? Nobody in America is ever collateral damage. We have to have plans. What happens to our first responders? If there is an evacuation plan, who evacuates their families while they are protecting us? These are the kinds of questions, these are the kinds of things that need to go into the planning. Right now, all that many of us see is that we have spent a lot of money on homeland security. But what I see is a lot of salesmen out there selling gear. In fact, sometimes I think there are more salesmen selling gear than there are first responders. We need to be effective. We need to be smart. I want my country to be safer. I want my country to be stronger. But I think we need to be smarter. This is why I think a good step forward would be an independent commission, not to finger- point but to pinpoint, so that never ever again would any community have to suffer or that they could be in a position to recover better. Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, we, too, concur with the managers' package. We think the amendments are very good. We look forward to moving the bill. We are ready to vote.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I thank the Senator for his withdrawing of the amendment yet maintaining his stand. I, too, am sympathetic to the policy direction the Senator is interested in under eminent domain. The Senator might not know my history, but I got into politics fighting a highway. Had the recent Supreme Court decision stood, we would not have had a fighting chance. Just to tell the consequences of that, the highway would have gone where our Inner Harbor is; it would have gone through Camden Yards, the Ravens Stadium, and where we are trying to create the digital harbor. We got our economic development but not the way the planners wanted. I am sympathetic. It has raised some liberal eyebrows, but I look forward to working with you, and maybe we will have a Sununu-Mikulski amendment.

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

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I know for those who are watching on C- SPAN, they wonder what are we doing as we go through names such as Akaka and Baucus in a quorum call. Actually, what we have been doing is working very quietly with other Senators to see, where they have offered amendments, if we could negotiate compromises and just take them. We have been working very collegially with my wonderful colleague from Alabama, Senator Shelby. As you can see, we just cleared eight amendments on which we could come to bipartisan support. So there is a lot of work going on right in back of these doors and also with other Senators in their offices. Amendment No. 1648

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, pretty soon we are going to be debating the Coburn amendment. We could not reach an agreement on it, even though there was a good-faith effort. This Coburn amendment could bring great damage to the efforts for innovation and discovery in this country. What the Senator from Oklahoma wishes to do is eliminate a program called the Advanced Technology Program that is currently at the National Institute of Standards. This is a Government agency under the Department of Commerce, and its job is, No. 1, to establish standards of products that are coming to the marketplace so that they would be uniform--for example, that every firehose would have the same gauge so the guys coming down from New York, working with the people from Alabama, could bring their equipment and it could be joined together. That is what a standard is. Madame Curie discovered radium, and it was there they established the Curie standard on how to measure radioactivity. But it does more than that. The Advanced Technology Program actually promotes innovation and technology transfer. The amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma would eliminate the funding, and commitments that have already been made to those people primarily in the private sector would be eliminated. It would hurt critical research and development. This is very important to our competitiveness. We keep talking about offshoring. We don't want to offshore jobs. What we need to do is come up with the new ideas, come up with the new products that create the new jobs right here in the United States of America. The amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma is well intentioned. He wants to eliminate a Government program and provide it to local law enforcement and to weather. We understand what his priorities are. In the bill, working on a bipartisan basis, we feel we have done that. I know, in the reading of the bill, one can see we provide over $1 billion to State and local law enforcement. We provide half-a-million dollars to the COPS program that helps local law enforcement be able to add more COPS on the beat. We add more money, $775 million, to the Weather Service operation, which has proved so wonderful and effective in predicting hurricanes and, actually, tornados and other things. I support the goal of the Coburn amendment to increase funding for these critical programs, but we cannot support the cutting of the Advanced Technology Program. On March 17 of 2005, 53 Senators voted to support the ATP program in an amendment to the budget resolution. So I am going to urge my colleagues to defeat the Coburn amendment. I have come not to defend another Government program. I am not here to defend another agency. I am here to protect the interests of the United States of America in innovation, discovery, and partnerships with the private sector that actually come up with those new ideas. Many of those ideas save lives, and they create the jobs that save livelihoods. My colleague from Oklahoma had some great charts, and it implied that ATP was corporate welfare. This is not corporate welfare. This is a creative approach that offers partnerships between the Federal Government and the brain power of the private sector. Through these partnerships, ATP accelerates the development of innovative technologies that promise significant commercial payoffs and widespread benefits for the Nation, but they are so early in the development it is very difficult for them to attract private investment, even venture capital. How does this agency work? ATP funds development in technology that is too new or too risky for private sector investment in the so-called ``valley of death'' between research and commercialization. There is lots of money around for research and there is money around for commercialization but not for that bridge between those. ATP fills this gap. It does not displace private capital because these projects cannot get private capital. ATP applicants are required to look first for private capital, venture, wherever they can find it. ATP is the funder of last resort. For example, in the 1990s, NIH was conducting research on the human genome and DNA. It was a breakthrough effort, and at the same time NIH worked simultaneously with ATP and industry. Why? We needed practical tools to use the discoveries that benefit the Nation so we just would not have this research in the lab. Guess what came out of it. ATP's investment came out with new ideas for DNA technology to detect disease, to get lifesaving drugs to the market, to catch criminals. State crime labs are using that technology. They are using DNA to go back to old death penalty cases to make sure that we have the right person who committed a particular crime. DNA is saving lives, and it is also restoring justice in this country. It is a phenomenal breakthrough. We helped take it from the lab, worked with the private sector, and came up with these new ideas. Is ATP important and effective? Sure. It has benefited the Nation for two reasons. One, we partnered the Government with industry and the private sector to develop those new technologies. For example, ATP was a partner in the development of something I am tremendously interested in, and I know the Presiding Officer is. It helped come up with a new generation of digital mammography and radiology. It provided far more accurate detection at far lower cost, and it is projected to save over $200 million in health care costs. Helping develop that one idea is saving lives, helping families and, at the same time, what it saves in the burgeoning health care costs would pay for ATP itself. ATP has contributed to the development of more than 240 new technologies that have been commercialized. It improves our economy. Just 41 of their 700 projects to date have given us economic benefit. The other thing that my colleague from Oklahoma suggests is, again, we are funding big corporations. Why are we doing that? I will not give their names but this blue chip and this S&P 500 and so on. Well, what colleagues need to know is that 75 percent of all ATP recipients are small businesses. Are large companies involved in ATP? Yes. How? Because they have joint ventures offered with smaller companies in their chain of development. In these arrangements, almost all ATP funding goes to the smaller company, but the larger companies handle all administrative costs so that the small companies can focus more on product development. By the way, large companies do not get a free ride. Large companies must match the ATP by 60 percent. So this is a partnership to leverage these private sector efforts. For example, large automakers partnered with the auto parts supply people to improve the manufacturing of American automobiles. It has improved our aerospace industry, making manufacturing more competitive. Finally, ATP does not subsidize companies to do product development. Companies have to have their own scientific plan. They have to have a business plan on how the technology will go to market. Our ATP only funds the development of the new technologies. Companies must then take it to the marketplace. We understand that our new colleague wants to use the Federal taxpayer dollar wisely, and he wants to protect communities by using the money to go to law enforcement and weather. We want to help that, too, and we have put the money in the budget for that. What we want to do, when we are talking about protecting the American people, is protect them through innovation, discovery, and the new ideas for the new products that lead to the new jobs that keep this country ahead and an economic superpower. I hope that when our colleague comes and discusses this and we have a vote, my colleagues--certainly those on my side of the aisle--will take my word for it that we have supported law enforcement, we have supported the Weather Service, and this Advanced Technology Program is crucial to the future of our country. I yield the floor. Mr. LEVIN, Mr. President, the Advanced Technology Program, ATP, promotes the development of new, innovative products that are made and developed in the United States, helping American companies compete against their foreign competitors and contribute to the growth of the U.S. economy. We have lost nearly 2.8 million manufacturing jobs since January 2001. In the face of these losses and strong global economic competition, we should be doing all we can to promote programs that help create jobs and strengthen the technological innovation of American companies. The ATP is a very modest program which, according to the Department of Commerce, has had a result eight times more in technologies developed than the amount of money we have put into the program. This is an eight-time return on investment in advanced technologies which is achieved when the Department of Commerce partners with industry through the ATP. During consideration of the Senate budget resolution in March, the Senate adopted a Levin-DeWine amendment to restore funding for the Advanced Technology Program, putting the Senate on record in support of this program. Leaders on the Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee also support this important innovative program and have funded it at $140 million in their bill for fiscal year 2006. I urge my colleagues to continue their support for the ATP and oppose this amendment that would gut the ATP.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I would like to thank Senator Cantwell for her tireless leadership in the fight against meth. Meth abuse has reached epidemic levels across our country, and by working to ensure that we don't shift the burden onto local communities, Senator Cantwell has given State and local law enforcement an important ally. Accepting her amendment to add $20 million to the hotspots program brings funding for meth State and local law enforcement to $80 million. Coupled with the bipartisan addition of $43 million of meth authorization dollars that Senator Cantwell cosponsored and other meth- related funding, this bill makes an enormous Federal commitment to help our State and local effort to fight the meth battle. Senator Cantwell's amendment sends vital Federal support to law enforcement officers and first responders on the front lines of the meth epidemic everywhere. These crime fighters need more funds to help combat this dangerous drug, and Senator Cantwell has fought to give them resources they need. I appreciate her work to improve this bill, as do countless law enforcement officers across America.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I move to reconsider the vote.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I will talk about another amendment from the senior Senator from Arkansas. I ask that Lincoln amendment No. 1652 be withdrawn because that policy content will be accomplished on another bill.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, first I would like to thank the senior Senator from Illinois for his kind words about my advocacy. You see, I wanted not only new leadership at home--that is why I called for Michael Brown to step down--but I believe FEMA needs a new focus. It needs a new energy. And it needs a new independence. In the 1990s I worked to form FEMA, after Hurricane Andrew, and actually worked with President Bush (I) and Andrew Card. We started that. President Clinton came in, we kept our reform efforts up, we got James Lee Witt, and what we really focused on was, No. 1, that FEMA become independent; No. 2, that it be run by professionals--meaning emergency management, military, or even private sector people with crisis management experience because this is enormously important to saving lives, saving livelihoods, and quite frankly, being good stewards of taxpayer money. We are about to spend $60 billion, and we are into no-bid contracts? OK? So that is why I wanted Brown to go. The President has appointed someone. I look forward to getting acquainted. I supported the commission, not to finger-point, but to pinpoint, just like the 9/11 Commission. Where do we need to reform? Where do we need to reinvigorate? Where do we need to refocus? Yes, the President is going to look into it, and he should. Yes, the Congress is going to look into it, under the able leadership of Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman. But I believe in independence. Frankly, as you know, I say to the Senator, just as in medicine, nothing goes wrong when you get a second opinion from outside. So that is what I hoped would happen. But I look forward to working with the President on recovery. We have to make sure we are ready and able to respond if it happens again. Thank you for your kind words.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 1688, which was submitted by Senator Stabenow, be modified with the changes that are at the desk and, further, that the amendment be considered and agreed to with the motion to reconsider laid upon the table.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, may I make a request of the Senator from Vermont, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee? I want to be able to speak on the Pryor amendment. I wonder, given what the Senator needs to do and, of course, the responsibilities that are pressing, should we do that after this?

Ms. MIKULSKI. It was 5, but I could get it to 3.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise as a cosponsor of the Pryor amendment. Why? Because American people believe there is gasoline price gouging. We have to find out if there is. What this amendment does is add $1 million for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether there is price gouging. There seems to be evidence of price gouging throughout the supply chain and in the distribution markets. The impact of gasoline price spikes on our country is severe. They impact people's day-to-day lives at the family level, at the small business level, and at the macro level. And the American people believe deep down there is gouging. All of America knows that Hurricane Katrina had a terrible impact on our country, that the storm had a significant impact on oil production and oil refining capacity in the gulf. We understand refineries were down and badly damaged, distribution pipelines were affected, shipping channels were blocked due to obstructive deposits and, of course, we have seen offshore drilling impacted. But these disruptions happened over a 3 week period. Why were the gas prices being spiked an hour and a half after Katrina happened? We saw price spikes in Maryland even before that. Marylanders are hot about this and so is this Senator. Now, my cost of commuting from Baltimore to Washington has already gone up $30 a week. I can afford it; I am a Senator. But I saw on a local Baltimore TV station a woman who filled up her minivan--a soccer mom--and it was $90. She put her head on the windshield and wept about how her family was going to afford filling the family vehicle with gas. My Governor is also deeply concerned. He brought in the gasoline station operators to find out why prices were the third highest in the Nation. Little Maryland, behind California. And who are the other two highest? New York and the District of Columbia, our neighbor. What are we saying? The average price in Maryland is over $3, compared to $2.46 just a month ago. Throughout the Baltimore-Washington corridor, gas is selling at $3.49, $3.39. But do you know what. We think there is some kind of deal going on because it can vary within a 3-mile radius. Over where I live, gas has been selling for $3.63 a gallon. If you go into another neighborhood, just 5 miles away, it is selling for $3.03--a 60-cent-a-gallon difference. Tell me, who is pulling the strings? Who is setting these prices? Well, right now, we could end up just with finger-pointing. I want to pinpoint the problem. First of all, I salute Governor Ehrlich for convening the meetings he had. His meetings broke up, and he was not satisfied. He is going the next step. I want us to now operate on facts because we see how gasoline prices are affecting families, such as the cost of commuting to work, and Maryland is a commuter State. The price of gasoline is skyrocketing. It is affecting small businesses, from the florists who deliver flowers, to the pharmacies that deliver prescription drugs, and so on. Then, you look at our businesses. So much of our food supply comes to our communities, our wonderful supermarkets, by truck. Also, you go out along the Chesapeake Bay where people love our crabs, but my watermen are just aghast at what it costs to take their boats out to harvest seafood. So I could give story after story. But Marylanders want to know, is there price gouging? If there is, we have to go after it and stop it. We know there are record high profits in the oil and gas industry. We know there is price variance with the oil companies. We know there is price variance even block by block as to how much consumers are being charged for gasoline. But, most of all, we know there is going to have to be shared sacrifice because of Katrina. We are going to have to examine how we build refineries in our country. We have to have an oil conservation strategy; conservation could be our next North Slope. We should focus on those things. But right now I am worried about what is being charged at the pump. We want to make sure there is not price gouging, and that there is not price fixing. We are asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate. I want to advocate an amendment to put money in the Federal checkbook to do so. Mr. President, know that we Marylanders want to move ahead, we want to cooperate, but we want to know why gasoline is so expensive and what is behind the price spikes and price fluctuations? And hello, oil companies out there, if you are listening, if you want to respond to me, I am right there at 503, in the Senate Hart Building. I have an open line to listen to what you have to say because I am getting an earful in Maryland. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. If we have votes.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, is the distinguished Democratic leader aware we have amendments that require votes--and that would help us-- but we have seven that are not Katrina related? So while the negotiations are going on, on Katrina, is the distinguished Democratic leader aware that we do have seven votes, but we do not have a time for those votes? Also, we have about five votes on Katrina. So if we could dispose of the non-Katrina amendments, is the Democratic leader aware of the number of amendments?