Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, let me just say that with the last space shuttle launching last Friday--and it was a beautiful launch--of course, the expertise of the finest launch team anywhere in the world was very evident. When they got down to T-minus 31 they saw an indication on the controls that there had not been a retraction of one of the arms, which is a servicing arm, but they were ready for that, and as it turned out, it was a faulty sensor. Of course, the way they checked is they have cameras all over the launch tower. So they turned the cameras on and trained them over there and saw that it had, in fact, retracted and was pulled into a safe position. So with only 53 seconds left in the launch window--the window being that they had to launch the shuttle at that time so that it, once in orbit, could catch up with the space station, which was its destination, with 53 seconds to go, the count continued then, starting at T minus 31 and went down to a flawless launch and flawless flight, as they are now docked with the space station, and as they are now transferring this 20,000 pounds of cargo and equipment and supplies that will keep the International Space Station supplied for the next year. I don't think people realize how big the International Space Station is. It is 120 yards long. If you sat on the 50-yard line of a football stadium and looked from the end of one end zone all the way to the other, that is how big the International Space Station is that we have built with another 15 national partners. Primarily, our partner in building it was Russia. Of course, you remember that the iteration before the International Space Station was originally the Soviet space station that became the Russian space station called MIR, which we used to fly our astronauts with the space shuttle to the Russian space station. So the Russians have been our partners. Remember, when we have been down--for example, after the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia in early 2003, for over 2 years we would not fly the space shuttle as we went through and made the corrections that had caused the destruction of Columbia and the loss of seven astronauts. We relied on the Russians to get us to and from the space station. The sad thing is that the new rockets that we are building to go to and from the space station--there is one version of those rockets that, in fact, is going to fly later this year, rendezvous and dock with the space station and deliver cargo. But it has not been human rated. To do that, we have to go through and put in all the redundancies for safety, all of the escape mechanisms on the capsule, and once that is done this will be a rocket that will be much safer than the space shuttle--as a matter of fact, we can save the crew even from--if they had an explosion on the pad, the crew can safely eject in the escape rocket with the capsule parachuting to safety, all the way, 8\1/2\ minutes to orbit--if they had a malfunction. Contrast that with the space shuttle. When we saw Atlantis lift off, for the first 2 minutes there is no escape. You are married to those big solid rockets. If there is a failure then, there is no way out for the crew, and, as we saw, that was how Challenger, 25 years ago, was destroyed. They had a malfunction in one of the rockets. It caused the whole thing to explode--one of the solid rockets--within the first 2 minutes of flight. We are going to have a much safer way to get to and from the space station. The sad thing, however, is that the rocket for humans is not ready. It is going to take about another 3 years. Therefore, it is sad that with all of that finest launch team in the world at the Kennedy Space Center, a good part of them are having to be laid off. That employment will ramp up over the next several years as we build and launch those kinds of rockets. There is another set of human-rated rockets. I am talking about the manned space program now, not the unmanned. This year we are going to Jupiter. Later on we are getting ready to launch a Volkswagen-size rover that will go to the surface of Mars. Do you know what those little rovers have done over the last number of years? They have gone, like the energizer bunny, all over the surface. This one is going to be the size of a Volkswagen. So we have these kinds of mixes going on, but the human space program--the next big one to get NASA out of the Earth's orbit is the rocket that we are developing, a monster rocket. The capsule contract has already been let, and we are now going on in the process of--pursuant to the NASA law we passed last year--proceeding with the design and building of this rocket, which will take us, on the goal set by the President, to Mars with interim stations along the way. He has suggested an asteroid--to rendezvous and land with an asteroid by 2025. We have a vigorous space program going ahead. Senator Hutchison, who has been a wonderful partner in helping set NASA policy in all of this, and I are going to have something to say about this in the next few days because we think there is a holdup in the Office of Management and Budget with regard to the rocket design and the architecture for the big rocket. We are wondering why this delay keeps occurring. But we will talk about that in the later session. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator again. We stood shoulder to shoulder and we were able to get these two additional flights, which the Senator from Texas just chronicled, that no sooner had Mark Kelly and his crew put the alpha magnetic spectrometer up on the space station that it started collecting these cosmic rays. These are subatomic particles that are flying around in space that we try to duplicate down here on Earth by smacking atoms together in accelerators to understand subatomic particles, and we have them out there being collected right now on the space station in the AMS. It was on the station one day after they put it there. It is collecting this. It is going to help us learn all the way back to the origin of the universe.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Of course.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, while the Senator from Texas is still on the floor, I just want to say how, personally, this Senator is going to miss her after the calendar year 2012, since she is retiring from the Senate. I say that with the utmost respect and affection for the Senator from Texas because what a great partner she has been in setting policy for this Nation's space program. Had it not been for the Senator from Texas, we would not have that policy etched into law in the NASA bill that we passed last year and which now is the skeletal structure that we hang all the appropriations on going forward, giving a clear path, a clear direction, a clear roadmap for our Nation's space program. So I just wanted to thank the Senator from Texas in front of the Senate.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Well, Mr. President, as the Senator is leaving, I just want to say that she and I did have to stand shoulder to shoulder, and we had some fights. Of course, in the process we had some critics too. Now some of my critics wish that when I went into space it would have been a one-way ticket. But the fact is, it was a two-way, and we stood another day. The proof is in the pudding of what is happening up there. I will have something later to say, Mr. President, about the winddown of the space shuttle program. But while the Senator from Texas was here, I just wanted her to know my profound gratitude for her collegiality, her friendship, her expertise, and working in the way this Senate ought to work, which is in a bipartisan way. I thank her profoundly for that example that she set for the Senate and for this country. Mr. President, we are here about General Petraeus. I am a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. I have had a chance to visit with him on a number of occasions in his capacity as general, as well as now the nominee, soon to be the new CIA Director. I would simply say that I don't think for our national security's sake we could have two better nominees now: the former CIA Director, who has been confirmed by this Senate as the new Secretary of Defense, taking over from an extremely good and competent Secretary of Defense, Secretary Gates--and, of course, that is Leon Panetta--and then for his shoes, as the leader of the CIA, to be filled by General Petraeus. And what is happening today is illustrated by the modus operandi of the takedown of bin Laden. It is a marriage between the intelligence community and the military community. Of course, the takedown of bin Laden was exactly that: painstaking years of effort to get the intelligence, since bin Laden went dark after he slipped through our fingers in Tora Bora, and we knew he was communicating by a courier. So the question was, How did we find the courier? Once we identified who it was, where was he? Find him and follow him. That, of course, led us to the compound, and when married up with all of that intelligence on what was going on at that compound, then in came the U.S. military. Although it was a CIA operation, as reported by the newspapers, led by Leon Panetta, in fact, it was a three-star admiral, a Navy SEAL, who conducted the actual raid from his headquarters. Of course, the SEALs took care of business and did it in such a proficient, effective, and magnificent way, and sequestered all of those women and children, save for the one woman, as reported in the newspaper, who got caught in the crossfire when the SEALs were fired at. So it was an absolutely 100 percent operation, and it is illustrative of why this appointment of General Petraeus is so important and why the appointment of Leon Panetta as Secretary of Defense was so important. These two are going to be just like that, as we are protecting the national security for years to come. That is what I want to say about General Petraeus. Mr. President, I would like to speak on another subject--the budget-- so I ask consent that I speak as in morning business.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, 235 years ago this weekend, John Adams proclaimed that July 2 would mark the most memorable epoch in the history of America. It was on that day the Continental Congress declared the 13 colonies free and independent of Great Britain's Crown. It was 2 days after that when Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence was adopted. And when did Americans first celebrate their independence? Philadelphia threw a big party on July 8, 1776, including a parade and the firing of guns. George Washington, then camped near New York City, heard the news on July 9 and celebrated then. But in 1781, Massachusetts became the first State to recognize July 4 as a State celebration. Ten years later, the young Nation's celebration was dubbed Independence Day. This Independence Day I hope every American will stop and think for just a minute about our freedoms--and just how much we owe those who came here long before us and mutually pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. And let us also remember the young men and women who have died in defense of those freedoms. We traditionally observe the Fourth with fireworks and fanfare, pomp and parade. But today we remain engaged in far-away struggles to promote and protect the rights of others who, like us, value freedom and independence. Many of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coastguardsmen are spending their Fourth in Iraq and Afghanistan and other parts of world. I recently was reminded of the commitment and selfless sacrifice demonstrated by one of America's World War II veterans, who lives in my State of Florida. U.S. Army SSG Robert Rickel, of Boca Raton, served as a waist gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress. Sergeant Rickel survived the daring bombing campaign of Schweinfurt, Germany, in October 1943, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his heroism or extraordinary achievement. Sergeant Rickel and all the military members and all their families knew the risks and sacrifices they were making were worth it. As President Reagan once said, ``Some things are worth dying for . . . democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.'' Indeed, our democracy is something to celebrate. Mr. President, I wish everyone a Happy Fourth of July.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, the negotiation over this deficit reduction and the debt ceiling package has hit the critical stage. It is beginning to come into the consciousness of the country and most of the people around here. Those people have in some cases wanted to push it off, in other cases have said: Oh, the debt ceiling? That is not such a big deal. It is baffling that people would say that. The economic chaos that would reign in this country and the world financial markets if the Federal Government was not able to pay all of its bills would be catastrophic. How can any person in a responsible position say that? But it is also baffling that there are so many people--and you know who they are--who have decided to draw a line in the sand on any deficit reduction and say: It is going to be my way or no way. That is part of the problem of what is going on in this country right now. This is a big, broad, diverse, complicated country. The very principle of a body such as this is that you respect the other fellow's point of view. When you have differences of opinion, you try, as the Good Book says, to say, ``Come, let us reason together'' and to hammer out a workable solution. Yet you hear the rhetoric--it is going to be their way or no way, so no matter whether you talk about closing corporate tax loopholes--no. That has to do with tax revenue. It sure does, but certain people are not paying their taxes due to loopholes. Two weeks ago, we acted on one of those tax loopholes overwhelmingly. This Senate voted to get rid of one of those tax loopholes. It was for corn ethanol, the big subsidy. It was multibillions of dollars per year that was a tax credit--in other words, lost tax revenue. The Senate finally realized that was not worthwhile. Why are we saying we should not put that in as a part of the package on deficit reduction? A dollar of deficit reduction is a dollar of deficit reduction regardless of where it comes from, whether it comes from actually whacking Federal spending or whether it is cutting some of the special tax breaks for some of this country's most profitable multinational corporations. The objective is to bring down the deficit. What is a deficit? You have income coming in the form of tax revenue, you have outflow going out in the form of expenditures, and when the two are equal, that is a balanced budget. When I came into the Senate 11 years ago, we had 4 years of this. Tax revenue was above annual expenditures, and for 4 years, we had a surplus. But this is what has happened: The expenditures are up here and the tax revenue is down here. If you are going to get the budget eventually in balance over the course of a decade, you have to do this. That doesn't mean just tax increases. It can be done by eliminating tax expenditures. Over the next 10 years, tax expenditures in the existing Tax Code are $14 trillion. You don't have to get rid of all of them. Some of them we don't want to get rid of because they are good tax policy, they are good public policy. But you can sure get rid of some of them. But we have the other side over there who will not even talk about some of these tax loopholes we ought to be cutting. They say that is increasing taxes. Now, the truth be known, it is because most of them, whether they like it or not, on that side of the aisle have taken a pledge to a fellow named Grover Norquist and said they will not vote for any new taxes, and it is being interpreted that tax expenditures-- in other words, tax deductions, tax credits, or tax exclusions--that if you close those tax loopholes, that is going to be new taxes. Well, that is tax revenue that is not coming into the U.S. Treasury because some special interest is getting preferential treatment that we ought to question. A good example of this is what we just voted on in the removal of the tax subsidy for corn ethanol. At the end of the day, for Americans, this debate is going to matter hugely. If we have to do something by just cutting expenditures and not remove the tax loopholes, then in order to address the deficit-- remember, this is the deficit, this is expenditures, and this is tax revenue, and if we have to bring that into balance by only moving down the expenditures, we are going to have to take it out of the hide of retirees, out of the hide of hospitals, schools, what Senator Hutchison and I were just talking about, the space program, the coastal preservation programs, our national parks, and the Federal prisons. Are we going to put an end to the narrow tax breaks for the well-connected or are we just going to whack all of those programs? The view of this Senator is that if you really want to get a package that is going to be serious and that is real money, that is not smoke and mirrors and budgetary sleight-of-hand, then you are going to have to get a package of about $4 trillion in 10 years of deficit reduction. There is no reason, if you are going to be serious about budget reduction, that special benefits for oil companies, for pharmaceutical companies, hedge funds, and other special interests should be a sacred cow and not to be touched. What message does it send to the everyday American about their government and whom that government represents if we just take it out of the hides of people such as those I just mentioned, like retirees? Basically, I suggest you take a page from one of our illustrious former President, President Reagan. In 1984, the Federal Government was confronted by deficits as far as the eye could see. I was a young Congressman at the time. President Reagan understood that it was appropriate to close those tax loopholes as part of the deficit reduction process, and the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 included more than 60 provisions aimed at shutting down tax shelters and ending abusive special interest tax breaks. That 1984 bill targeted foreign investors who sought to use the offshore havens to dodge U.S. taxes, and it targeted Wall Street's use of financial derivatives to evade U.S. income tax, and it included a provision targeting the windfall profits for oil companies. That brings me to an example I want to discuss in some detail. For decades, oil companies have been enjoying the generous tax subsidies of the American taxpayer by using their ample resources to get tax benefits very generously given from the Federal Government. Oil and gas companies are experts at figuring out the narrow tax break, and it benefits their interest, and it does so particularly with regard to offshore drillers. The largest of all the dedicated oil and gas tax breaks is the ability of the oil companies to immediately expense intangible drilling costs. These costs include drilling and development work completed before a well begins production. Oil companies are able to deduct--in other words, to write off as an expense--those costs and do so immediately. The tax break for intangible drilling expenses is going to cost the American taxpayer $12.4 billion over the next decade if it is not repealed. The President has proposed its repeal. Several of us in the Senate have proposed the repeal and have filed a bill to do it. The repeal of this tax break on intangible costs for oil companies ought to be included in a deficit reduction package. Remember, it is a choice: Are we going to cut people like retirees and the space program and educational expenses and the environment and the Federal prisons or are we going to get tax revenue from special tax breaks like these? For several years, oil companies working offshore have been devoting significant resources toward complex tax schemes to avoid paying taxes to Uncle Sam. Let's take a closer look. Transocean, that is a name that ought to ring familiar. They were the ones, remember, who operated the defective blowout preventer, the one that did not work, that was supposed to jam the two cylinders together and cut off the oil flow when there was an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Let's look at the record. In 1999, Transocean moved its place of incorporation from Delaware to the Cayman Islands. In 2008, it moved from the Cayman Islands to Switzerland. This tax-avoidance operation, referred to as ``corporate inversion,'' had no real effect on where Transocean does business. Even after it moved to the Cayman Islands, it continued to be, in fact, managed and controlled from Houston, TX. It continues to have substantial drilling activities in American waters. And by changing its legal domicile from Delaware to a tax haven in the Caribbean, Transocean was able to cut its tax bill nearly in half. Martin Sullivan, a former economist at the Joint Commission on Taxation, estimates that Transocean's offshore tax scheme saved the company $1.9 billion from 2002 to 2009. That is an example of one of these tax subsidies that ought to be eliminated. Congress shut down those corporate inversions in 2004 but only on a going-forward basis. Until Congress gets serious about taxing U.S.-managed companies that deceptively claim to be foreign corporations, Transocean and others will continue to benefit. Transocean is not alone. We know of at least five oil companies involved in offshore drilling that moved their legal domicile to a tax haven in the Caribbean in order to avoid paying U.S. income tax. I will conclude by saying, unlike Transocean, BP has never been an American corporation. But it has no problem in reaping the benefits of our porous Tax Code. We learned soon after the $20 billion claims facility was announced that BP would be writing off the entire expense for tax purposes, writing off all of that expense for the oil that was spilled that hurt so many of our residents in Florida and all up and down the gulf coast. They are going to write that off as a tax deduction, and, therefore, pay less taxes. We estimate this will reduce the tax burden by nearly $9 billion for BP. Several of us have introduced legislation to shut down this abusive tax break as well, and it is another that we ought to put in this deficit reduction package. I conclude by saying these corporate tax loopholes for oil companies should be part of any deficit reduction package, and this Senator is going to continue to stand up and fight to ensure they are a part of that deficit reduction package. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Toomey amendment No. 514 be considered as having been adopted before the managers' amendment to S. 679.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak as in morning business.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I wish to quote from a publication. Days after working at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, a U.S. Navy veteran found himself behind bars--where he could remain for a decade--for alleged passport fraud. I had to read that article--from CNN's Web site--twice. I couldn't believe it. But that is what it said. Former U.S. Army SPC, now Navy reservist, U.S. PO2 Elisha Leo Dawkins--a 26-year resident of Florida--was arrested in April and has spent now more than 2 months behind bars in a Federal detention center in Miami, and a Federal indictment says the serviceman failed to acknowledge he had once applied for a passport when filling out a new application, something the prosecutors call passport fraud, but his public defender calls an innocent oversight. Petty Officer 2nd Class Dawkins now faces up to 10 years in prison if he is convicted. Remember John Dillinger? He was sentenced not to 10 years but to 8\1/ 2\ years on a conviction for assault and battery with the intent to rob and conspiracy to commit a felony. We all recognize that falsifying information on a passport has grave implications for our national security, and we want our government to be vigilant and to crack down hard on those who would attempt to sneak in here and do us harm. Zero tolerance. Zero. But according to Petty Officer Dawkins' Guantanamo naval base work evaluations, his superiors praised his work ethic and performance. He was a military photographer who, because of what he was photographing, had to have a secret clearance. By the way, he had that secret clearance when he was an Army photographer in Iraq. When he went into the Naval Reserves, they--and this is according to the U.S. Navy--gave reciprocity for the secret clearance for him to go into the Naval Reserves. As the Miami Herald reports in today's edition, he took 7,500 photos during the 7 months of his service at Guantanamo, and this was after his 8 years in the Army, where he was in Iraq. His evaluation right before this unexpected arrest by the U.S. Navy says that Dawkins ``always'' lived up to the core Navy values of ``honor, courage, and commitment.'' Honor, courage, and commitment, and he had that secret clearance while he was at Guantanamo. This morning's Miami Herald chronicles the sensitive photos he took of detainees at Guantanamo. In one evaluation report that was obtained by CNN, a superior lauds Dawkins as ``a team player with a strong work ethic and a desire to learn'' and recommends him for promotion. It goes on to say: Dawkins is eager to tell the military story and to further the image and success of U.S. servicemembers. That was written by fellow PO1 Sally Hendricks. Let's see: honor, courage, commitment, and a team player. I have sought explanations. I have been on the phone. I have talked to government high-ups in person. I have talked to the highest levels in the U.S. Navy, the Army, and Homeland Security. I have just been on the phone with very high levels of the U.S. State Department. I want to know: Does the military stand by the evaluations they made of this fellow? Is Petty Officer Dawkins suspected of other misdeeds? If so, they better get it out. How did they give him a secret clearance while he was named in an old deportation order? Was this case part of an ongoing State Department diplomatic service crackdown on passport fraud? Does the State Department have any additional information they are not telling us? From time to time they have intimated that there is something more, but they are not saying. Well, did the U.S. military believe him to be a citizen during all those years of service in the Army in Iraq and now in the Navy in Guantanamo? This case raises lots of questions, and we need to get to the bottom of it. I have taken an interest in this case because when I read these stories on CNN, the Miami Herald, the New York Times, and now it has gone all over the country on Associated Press, there seems to be a disconnect in government agency coordination. One hand doesn't seem to know what the other hand is doing--and a Floridian, with honorable service in two services of the U.S. military, has been in jail being held on a $100,000 bond. He would have to produce a $10,000 bail, which he obviously doesn't have, and he has been there for over 2 months. I didn't call the U.S. Attorney's Office because I respect the independence of the prosecutorial rule. But let me just quote for you this morning's Miami Herald. Carol Rosenberg is the reporter. She disclosed that a Federal judge has now said that the U.S. Attorney's Office has made a secret offer to resolve this passport prosecution. The judge revealed the offer of a pretrial diversion in a conference that set a July 12 trial date for Petty Officer Dawkins. The idea, according to the Herald, is to give someone facing charges an opportunity to avoid prosecution through a program such as doing community service or perhaps taking a civics class. The judge was so taken aback by hearing this secret offer that the judge said she was left speechless, and she was quoted in this morning's Herald story as saying it appeared to reflect ``a kinder, gentler'' approach to prosecution. So whether the petty officer is released from jail tomorrow or whenever it is, we will have to see, are there further things? If it has to do with his immigration status; according to his public defender, whom we have talked to, he came to this country from the Bahamas when he was a kid. He still is not a citizen, but he has served this country for years and years. In conclusion, if the facts of this case are, as we have been told in the scratching and scraping, with some reluctance on the part of agencies to talk--if it is as it has been reported to us, wouldn't it be interesting if the DREAM Act were in fact law? The DREAM Act would have prevented something like this from happening in the first place because the DREAM Act says, if a kid has been brought here illegally as a child but that child grows up and wants to go into the U.S. military, as Dawkins has for almost a decade already served, then that legislation would grant legal status through a green card to that undocumented young person who wanted to serve the country. We ought to pass the DREAM Act. Every day we have examples of children who came here through no fault of their own, but who are unjustifiably having the law come down on their heads. I want to close by reading a letter to the editor in the Herald from Sandra Wallace of Miami. This is what she writes. Elisha Dawkins served 7 years in the military in both Iraq and Guantanamo, where he was awarded medals for his behavior, yet he's being held in Federal lockup awaiting deportation to the Bahamas. This man thought he was a U.S. citizen because his relatives told him he was when he came here as a young child. Our military was certainly glad to consider him a citizen. Mr. President, the DREAM Act would allow the U.S. Government to consider as a citizen someone who, like Elisha Dawkins, was brought here as a child and wants to serve this country. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Bipartisan Tax Reform

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I congratulate my colleague from Florida, and I want him to know that it is a great pleasure for me to serve with him. It has been a tradition in Florida that the two Senators get along. This has been a great tradition that goes back to when Bob Graham and Connie Mack were the two Senators. It continued with Mel Martinez and me, and now I have the privilege of continuing that kind of relationship with Senator Rubio. The maiden speech is a big deal for a Senator, and it is always a memory that is forever etched in my mind. I was in one of those desks over there as a very junior member, and I will never forget in the course of my speech--and it was mostly an empty Chamber--that I mentioned that it was my maiden speech. In a few minutes, all of a sudden those side doors flung open and in strode Senator Robert Byrd. So here I am giving my maiden speech and Senator Byrd is sitting in his seat. As I finished, he said: Would the Senator yield? I said: Of course, I yield to the Senior Senator from West Virginia. Senator Byrd, off the top of his head, gave an oration about the history of maiden speeches in the Senate. Now, of course, that is indelibly etched in my memory. Surely, the Senator's maiden speech today will be indelibly etched in his, and I congratulate him. I thank him for his personal friendship. I thank him also for the privilege of the professional relationship that we have.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 26, 2011, at 2:15 p.m. in Room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``In Our Way: Expanding the Success of Native Language & Culture-Based Education.''

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 26, 2011, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 26, 2011, at 10 a.m., in SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct an executive business meeting.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 26, 2011, at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement.''

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 26, 2011, at 10 a.m.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 26, 2011, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 26, 2011, from 2-4 p.m. in Dirksen 106.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 26, 2011, at 10:15 a.m. in SH-216.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 26, 2011, at 10 a.m.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 26, 2011, at 10 a.m., in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, we have all heard the phrase ``drill, baby, drill.'' Well, it is interesting that the pro-oil company folks think that all of our answers have to do with drilling because, lo and behold, we have actually increased our domestic production. Let me quote from a Reuters story from May 25: Crude oil production, especially in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, increased by 334,000 barrels per day between 2005 and 2010, which also cut into foreign oil purchases. As a matter of fact, the article goes on to say: Imports of crude and petroleum products accounted for 49.3 percent of the U.S. oil demand last year, down from the high of 60.3 percent in 2005. It also marked the first time since 1997 that America's foreign oil addiction fell under the 50 percent threshold. Now, that is worth noting. That is really something because the trend is reversing. Maybe it is that we are getting more energy conscious. Maybe it is that we are expending less gasoline in our vehicles because of the higher miles-per-gallon standards. Maybe we are remembering to turn off the lights when we leave the room. Maybe we are being a lot more sensitive to how vulnerable we are because we depend--as we have in the past--on upwards of 60 to 70 percent of our daily consumption from foreign shores, places such as Nigeria and the Persian Gulf and Venezuela. Now, I have just named three very unstable parts of the world that could, at any moment, cut off that production. So maybe America is finally waking up to the fact that, lo and behold, we have to be concerned about our energy sources and not depend so much on foreign production. The mantra ``drill, baby, drill'' implies that if we just continue to drill--in places where we can drill domestically--that is going to solve our problem. But that ignores the fact that it takes about 10 years to take an oilfield and get it into production. So that doesn't solve our problem now as we are facing these high gas prices. That is what I want to talk about, the high gas prices. We ought to drill where we should. A lot of people do not know that of the 37 million acres that are leased in the Gulf of Mexico only 7 million are drilled. There are 37 million acres leased in the Gulf of Mexico, but only 7 million of those 37 million acres are drilled. So let's do drill, baby, drill. Let's drill on all those leases, those 30 million acres in the gulf and elsewhere that are existing leases and that haven't been drilled. But it is not the world oil market and the U.S. consumption that is causing these gas prices to go up. There are other factors, and I want to talk about that as well. It is true there are new demands on oil consumption from burgeoning countries such as China and India, and that causes more oil to be consumed from the world marketplace. But remember what I just cited; that the United States is lowering its consumption of imported oil. So that is clearly not a factor affecting the price of oil worldwide or the price at the pump we pay for the refined gasoline. No, there is another reason. That reason happens to be the speculators who are out there running up the price on commodity exchanges for oil futures contracts. Those prices run up until they are ready to dump them, and then suddenly they go down. I want to call the attention of the Senate to a New York Times story from May 24--just a couple of days ago--entitled ``U.S. Suit Sees Manipulation of Oil Trades.'' Let me quote from the article. The suit says that in early 2008 they tried to hoard nearly two-thirds of the available supply of a crucial American market for crude oil, then abruptly dumped it and improperly pocketed $50 million. So the Federal commodities regulators filed a civil lawsuit against two obscure traders in Australia and California and three American and international firms. This was in the context of 3 years ago, in 2008, when oil prices had surged past $100 a barrel. There were those suspicions then that traders had manipulated the market, and that ultimately has led to a number of commentaries and investigations. Well, the regulators at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have now filed this suit, and they are looking into the fraud being utilized in these oil and gas markets, particularly the commodity futures markets. In the past months, I have come to the Senate floor several times to discuss the net result of all of this, which is what we pay at the pump, and how it directly links to these oil speculators and the game they play in running up the price of oil. Using the data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and price data from the Energy Information Administration, we have shown on this floor in speech after speech--until I am blue in the face--the direct link between the rising level of speculators and their speculation in our energy markets and the skyrocketing oil and gas prices. When the top executives of the five largest oil companies in the United States testified a week ago in our Senate Finance Committee on what role speculation played in the oil markets, I asked them to please explain why gas prices are remaining so high when oil prices have begun to fall. Madam President, you should have heard the mumbling around that followed. The truth is, speculators, whether they are active traders or passive investors, have hijacked our oil markets in recent years, and the American people are the ones who are suffering the consequences because the price of that gas goes up when we pump it into our cars. Oil prices are set in futures markets, such as those regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Futures contracts--meaning we buy a contract of oil at a specified price to be delivered at a future date--allow oil producers to lock in prices on their future output. Those contracts also allow large consumers of fuel, such as airlines, to lock in a price as a hedge against inflation and that future price swinging way up. The futures markets were intended to bring actual producers and real consumers of oil together, and, in doing so, the supply would match the demand. Speculators then were allowed to play a limited role to ensure there was sufficient liquidity in the market. But then here is what happens--and this is what happened back in 2008 when the price of gas went so high. Speculators constitute now anywhere from two-thirds to 80 percent of the market. They are no longer a bit player, they are the main player, and this is what we need to end. In last year's financial reform bill, we directed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to set hard limits on the speculative positions. We gave them a deadline of last January 21. Now we are here months past the deadline, but the CFTC has not yet finalized a rule. Why should they do this? If you are a legitimate user of oil--say, an airline--you have every reason to want to hedge against the price of that oil going way up, so you buy a contract for delivery of oil at a specified price at a future date. But if you are a speculator--buying and selling oil futures contracts, having no intention to use the oil, having only to put as a downpayment a bare percentage of the total contract price--you can manipulate that price upwards by buying and selling those contracts. This is exactly what happened back in 2008. It is what is happening again, as we have seen the price of a barrel of oil go up and up. We passed the law last year. The Commission has the authority. We should not have to pass another law that requires them to do it, but if the CFTC cannot get the job done, then we are going to have to. That is the bottom line. The American people are outraged. Here America is lowering its consumption of oil, here America is lowering its imports of oil, here we are getting more energy conscious, and yet the price of gas keeps going up. It is time to put an end to this. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.