Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation on a subject that is never far from the minds of citizens in my home State of Florida, folks along the Gulf Coast, or on the Atlantic seaboard: the threat of hurricanes, and the devastation that these storms leave in their wake. This threat is ever nearer as we approach the 2011 hurricane season. Hurricane damage is certainly not new to Florida. On September 1926, the Great Miami Hurricane was a harbinger of things to come. Two years later, a category four hurricane caused Lake Okeechobee to flood its banks killing 2500 out of South Florida's 50,000 residents. In August 1992, Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida causing an estimated $26 billion in damage to the United States. And we all when in August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region, causing more than $91 billion in economic losses, forcing more than 770,000 people from their homes, and killing an estimated 1833 people. According to the Insurance Information Institute, insurance companies had estimated losses of $40.6 billion on 1.7 million claims in 6 States from Hurricane Katrina, the largest loss in the history of insurance. Insured losses are predicted to double every decade as development along the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts increases. The sheer magnitude of this loss is staggering and underscores the need for increased funding for hurricane research and improved forecasting. But hurricanes do not just affect those living along the coasts. These extreme events have national consequences with increased fuel prices and severe inland flooding. U.S. Census data indicates that more than 35 million people live in areas that are most vulnerable to hurricanes. Emergency managers need to know exactly where a hurricane will strike and how hard it will strike before they can issue an evacuation warning. Improvements in track and intensity forecasts will translate into better preparedness for coastal and inland communities, saving lives and reducing devastating impacts. The impacts felt in the wake of Hurricane Katrina--despite a good meteorological forecast of the hurricane--emphasize the need for additional research and development in these areas. I am committed to the protection of life and property. Hurricanes pose a serious threat to the Nation, and losses are growing. So today I am introducing the National Hurricane Research Initiative. This bill calls for prudent investments that will protect lives and prevent economic devastation, reducing our vulnerability to hurricanes. The National Hurricane Research Initiative will dramatically expand the scope of fundamental research on hurricanes, including enhanced data collection and analysis in critical research areas, and the translation of research results into improved forecasts and planning. Specifically, the National Hurricane Research Initiative will improve our understanding and prediction of hurricanes and other tropical cyclones, including, storm tracking and prediction, storm surge modeling, and inland flood modeling. This research will expand our understanding of the impacts of hurricanes on and response of society and help us to develop infrastructure that is resilient to the forces associated with hurricanes. We never know when the next big storm will hit. This type of research is urgently needed, and that research needs to be well coordinated. I look forward to working with Chairman Rockefeller and the members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on this important legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I wish to talk about our Nation's financial troubles. Over the years, I have supported a balanced budget amendment, spending caps, and spending cuts. Recently, we had a proposal to fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year, and I voted against it because I felt we needed to do more than the amendment proposed. The fact is, we need to do much more. I agree Congress should cut expenses. But taking whacks at only 12 percent of the budget--that part of the budget that is the so-called discretionary spending portion outside of Defense, that is not part of the mandatory spending, such as all the entitlement programs, and that is only 12 percent of the budget and includes funding for education and roads and bridges and medical research and NASA and environmental research--even if we whacked all that, it is still not going to solve the problem. Cutting this domestic discretionary spending alone is barely a bandaid, let alone a real cure. What we need is a comprehensive long-term package. For example, when American families fall on hard times, they just do not cut back on eating out or going to the movies. The American family is forced to make wholesale lifestyle sacrifices. Or take, for instance, when a company, a corporation, faces the threat of bankruptcy. They do not only cut salaries or stop buying office supplies, they go in and restructure entire delivery schemes and future investments. In the same way, we just cannot focus on slicing what is the conversation that is going on down in the House of Representatives right now, slicing one small part of the budget, which is discretionary spending, because that is not going to reduce the annual deficit and get at the national debt. We have to do more. Even if we cut huge swaths of discretionary spending, including the programs that help those who need it the most, our expenses for all the other programs in government, mandatory programs, are still growing exponentially. So everything has to be on the table. Now, how in the world are we going to do this in the next few days? By the time the clock runs out on April 8, where we are faced with funding the government for the remaining 6 months of this fiscal year, how are we going to do it? What would it look like if our debt keeps growing? Well, the Federal Government is going to have to start writing huge checks to our creditors. Who is a creditor? China is a creditor, and we are having to write for them huge checks on interest payments alone. We will not have anything left to pay for things that we promised to our people, and no one else will want to lend us any more money. The money people have spent their lives paying in to Social Security may not come back to them unless we can solve this budgetary crisis. Bonds that have been bought and held for decades will go down in value if we cannot meet our debt obligations. Of course, if we do not get to the point that we can pay our debts, then the stock market could even have a worse crash than we had last time. So if we do not address this pending debt crisis now, our children and grandchildren could be sorely affected by the financial condition of this country in the future. Every economist we have listened to lately has said that we need to provide certainty to our creditors and to the markets. In other words, they need to know that we will get our debt under control before interest payments skyrocket and overwhelm our obligations. No one knows how long we have before our creditors get nervous and start to make it harder for the United States to borrow money. But they all agree we have to put into place a long-term plan instead of waiting to act until the crisis is upon us. The crisis is coming. It is coming on April 8. That is the first crisis. Assuming that we can get through this and get the government funded for the remaining 6 months of the fiscal year--until the end of September--the next crisis that is coming is the debt ceiling--probably in early June--that has to be raised in order for the government to pay its obligations. And then we are going to have to have a plan for next year's budget, the fiscal year that starts October 1, in order to get the votes to increase the debt ceiling. So between now and June, first in a couple of weeks, and then in a couple of months, we are going to have to devise a comprehensive plan. I am going to support cuts across the board. I am going to support cuts in discretionary spending. But I also want to see cuts in what we call tax expenditures, which are equivalent to spending, but are nothing more than outrageous tax breaks to big corporations that make billions of dollars in profits each year. For example, some of the royalty payments that are not being paid by oil companies for their privilege of extracting oil from Federal lands, particularly those lands in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. There are corporations that ship massive amounts of jobs overseas, and they get tax breaks for it. There is also money made by U.S. citizens that is being held offshore in foreign accounts, which is not reported to the United States, and tax is not being paid on that income. So there is plenty of opportunity to tighten up. Another place that we can tighten up is to implement the changes that we made in the health care bill that cut the fraud that plagues programs like Medicare and Medicaid. It is costing us billions and billions of dollars. So there are tireless efforts that are being made by a lot of Senators right now trying to work together to draft a comprehensive plan. I came to the Senate to fight for my State and for our country, and if we continue to allow a debt crisis to happen when, in fact, we had the opportunity to avoid it, it is going to be far more reckless than casting a vote that is going to be disliked by some. I am ready to stand and have that fight. Yet we should not have to. We should, as the Good Book says, ``Come, let us reason together.'' Then we can find a comprehensive solution to this budgetary crisis. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

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

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

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, you remember a year ago, before we passed the health care bill, everybody testified that Medicare was set to go into bankruptcy in 7 years? Do you remember back then, just a year ago, Medicare paid doctors when seniors got sick, and Medicare was focused on the quantity of care instead of the quality of care? Back then Medicare paid hospitals more if a patient got an infection that could have been avoided in the hospital, and they paid hospitals less if they avoided that infection in the first place because Medicare, whatever the cost was, paid it. And do you remember back then that doctors would perform the same test over and over for the same patient because they had not been encouraged in a law to work together and to share results? That is why a year ago we passed the Health Care Reform Act. Now that act extends the life of Medicare by 12 more years until at least the year 2029. Now, because of a change in that law, Medicare does not just care for people when they get sick, it is a more comprehensive health care system. Now the senior citizens receive an annual wellness visit. As part of the new Medicare law they can receive screenings and tips on how to manage or prevent conditions such as if they have diabetes or high blood pressure, and they do not have to wait until they get sick. In my State of Florida that is a lot of senior citizens. That is 3.2 million senior citizens. Another thing this health reform law does is increase payments to hospitals for providing higher quality care. It gives hospitals the incentives to prevent avoidable illnesses, and the law improves the quality by increasing the number of primary care physicians. In my opening statement I said hospitals were paid more if people got an infection in the hospital. We are now going to pay the hospital less. We are going to give the hospital an incentive not to have that kind of hospital that increases infections while the patient is there. Now doctors, under the new law, can track the patient care. They can make sure patients are seeing the right specialists, and they can help specialists avoid repeating the tests and the procedures. There is a part that is just being implemented now in the health care bill called the accountable care organization. Combined with that will be electronic records. So, instead, the Medicare beneficiary, the senior citizen going to this specialist, this specialist, this specialist, and this specialist, and all of them getting Medicare fee for service, now they are going to be under the umbrella of an accountable care organization that may be in the private sector. It may be part of Medicare Advantage, in an insurance company that is managing the care for the Medicare recipient. Whatever it is, it is going to integrate with electronic records, with the enhancement of primary care physicians, so that all of that duplication is not done and so that everybody is talking to everybody through the electronic records. So these doctors now are going to be able to keep track of patient care, to see the right specialists, and to help the specialists avoid repeating the tests. Now, you remember a year ago when senior citizens had to pay a lot for their senior citizen prescriptions under Medicare? That meant that sometimes our seniors did not get the treatment they wanted because they could not afford it. Remember back then that Medicare covered the first $2,800 worth of prescription drugs, but then they did not get any Medicare coverage for drugs until they had exceeded $6,300. If they did not have the money and were a senior citizen, I will tell you what was happening in that $3,000-to-$4,000 gap. The senior citizens, as some of the senior citizens in my State and in your State, Madam President, were doing without, or they were cutting their prescription drugs in half, or they were, unfortunately, making the choice between food or their medicine, something that in America, in the 21st century, you cannot believe is going on. But, in fact, it was and, unfortunately, it still is. It is about to go out because we are now covering that gap that is known as the doughnut hole in the new health care reform bill. So this bill that was passed a year ago is closing the gap in that coverage, and in my State alone, that means that 235,000 Florida seniors received a check this year of $250 that helped cover the cost of those prescriptions in that last year of 2010. This year, in 2011, under the new law, the seniors who hit that gap called the doughnut hole are going to receive a discount of 50 percent off the cost of their prescriptions. The gap under this new law is going to be entirely eliminated by the year 2020. It is going to be gradually phased in. One year ago, a lot of folks talked about the effect of health reform on Medicare Advantage. Remember that? Remember all that criticism about how Medicare Advantage was going to go down and how it was going to get cut? When we started proposing some real improvements to Medicare Advantage, a lot of the opponents were saying it was going to kill the program. They said it was going to cut those benefits, and it scared a lot of our senior citizens. The truth was, the insurance companies that provided Medicare called Medicare Advantage had a cushy extra 14 percent over Medicare prescription direct benefits. Medicare fee for service plus 14 percent is what the insurance companies were getting. Those insurance companies pocketed much of that government extra spending, and we were not, under the old law, holding those insurance companies accountable for enough on quality. As a result of that health care reform bill, today that program is stronger than ever. Remember how they said it was going to get whacked and it was going to cause the seniors to go way down? I can tell you, in my State, enrollment is up 6 percent in Medicare Advantage, and the premiums are down in Florida by 9.6 percent on Medicare Advantage. The new health care reform bill allows us to push back against the insurance companies that wanted to charge too much for Medicare Advantage. Just in my State, we were able to save Florida seniors $4 million in the form of extra health benefits or reduced out- of-pocket costs for their Medicare coverage. Under the new law, we are going to be able to reward Medicare Advantage plans: Medicare insurance companies--we are going to be able to reward those that provide the quality plans, the high-quality care. Remember back 1 year ago what was happening on waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare? The standards to prevent that waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare were certainly not tough enough. How many times did we pick up the newspaper and we read about this guy had fleeced Medicare by opening a storefront that was a fake storefront and they started billing Medicare right and left and Medicare was paying it. As a result, the criminals were able to rip off Federal health care programs. A lot of that was because there was not an adequate enough review. This new law has enforcement officials with new tools to prevent fraud before it occurs. This Senator had a part, a little bitty part, in that. The law gives States money to conduct background checks on long-term care providers and to educate seniors on fraud prevention, to educate them about those people who prey on our senior citizens and take advantage of them. My State has received in excess of $3 million thus far in order to provide that education on fraud prevention. Because of the changes in this health care reform bill, Medicare is now stronger than ever. As it is being implemented over the course of the next several years, it did not take effect all at once. There is a lot of implementation in each year over about the next 4 years. As it does, Medicare is going to be stronger than ever. We certainly need to continue to protect and strengthen Medicare for all of our seniors. On the occasion of 1 year ago, when this new law on health care reform became law--it is so complicated and there are mistakes in it and we will correct those mistakes over time. That is the good part about this being implemented over the next several years; that where there is a mistake, it can be corrected. If this goes all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which I expect it will, and if the Court declares a part of it as unconstitutional, that does not mean the Court is going to strike down the whole law. But there are plenty of opportunities, where there need to be corrections as it is being implemented, that we can do that. But I wished to come to the floor and point out some of these reforms that have already strengthened the Medicare Program, as well as providing a more favorable environment in which to receive health care coverage, particularly for America's senior citizens. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

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, you hear a lot of talk about the trouble in the Middle East, and people are saying that oil prices are going up and, therefore, the pain at the gas pump is being felt because there is this shakiness in the oil markets. You hear the commentary: Well, we ought to be solving this problem by drilling more in the United States. In essence what people are talking about is they want to drill more in the Gulf of Mexico. Of course, there is plenty of opportunity to drill in the Gulf of Mexico. There are 30 million acres that are already under lease that have not been drilled. There are 7 million acres that are being drilled under lease, but there are an additional 30 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico under lease, so there is plenty of opportunity. There is a lot more opportunity for domestic drilling. But what I want to talk about today is, it is this simplified message that if we drill more domestically--which we clearly have the capacity to--that is going to solve the problem. That is not the problem, and that is not the reason for why the gas prices are going up as they are. I will grant you that whenever there is an oil-producing region of the world where there is a disruption, then that does have some effect on the price of oil. But what we have seen is an extraordinary spike in the last couple of months in the price of oil. I want to try to point out to the Senate why this Senator thinks, and a number of my colleagues join me, that spike in gas prices is going up. There is further evidence that our energy markets are no longer governed just by the economic dictums of supply and demand when it comes to oil prices. That is what I want to talk about. It is simply this: The speculators are back. We saw the speculators in oil futures contracts. We saw their handiwork 2 years ago when the price of oil hit an all-time high of $147 a barrel. This time the speculators are seizing on the turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa to use that as an excuse to drive this price of oil sky high. Yet recent upheavals abroad have had little, if any, effect on the actual supply of oil. Again, coming back to the economic theories of supply and demand, Libya, for example, controls only 2 percent of the world's oil supply. Well, there is a key piece of evidence that points the finger at these ``condo flippers'' in the commodities market. Data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the CFTC, reveals that since January, when the protests began in Egypt, speculators have increased their betting on future oil price increases by more than 38 percent. Meanwhile, legitimate hedgers for oil futures contracts, legitimate hedgers such as airlines and shipping companies and oil companies have actually reduced their holdings in oil futures contracts. All you need to do to see what is happening is as represented on this chart. You see closely how the rise of oil prices, the red line, tracks the increases in speculative activity, the white line. A long position in a futures contract means you are betting that the price of oil will go up and, therefore, you buy a contract to buy oil at a determined amount in the future. That is what this chart is about. As you go over here, on January 25 of this year, the day the protests began in Egypt, the speculative money was on long held positions in just over 217,000 West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contracts. West Texas Intermediate crude is the standard by which they judge. When the protests began in Egypt, they were down at 217,000 futures contracts. That is the equivalent of about 217 million barrels of oil. On March 8, the last day for which we have the data, these same speculators held the equivalent of more than 301 million barrels of crude, which was an increase of 38 percent, from 217,000 to 301 million. Look how closely the price of oil tracks those swings. This is the speculative buying or betting in futures contracts, the white line. Look how closely the price of oil follows the red line. During the same period, from January 25 to March 8, the price of oil climbed from $85 a barrel all the way up to $105 a barrel. That is an increase of nearly 24 percent. Guess who is the loser in this game of profit gouging. It is the American consumer. Our gasoline prices mean less money for anything the American consumer has to buy. And, at the end of the day, guess who else is the big loser. It is the American economy. These speculative bubbles in oil prices are becoming more and more common. We saw it in the summer of 2008 when oil spiked up to an unbelievable $147 per barrel, only to plummet almost 80 percent a few months later. You cannot say that going from $147 a barrel all of a sudden down to $30 a barrel back in 2008 had anything to do with supply and demand. There had to be another influencing factor. Because of this, last year when we passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Congress empowered the CFTC to rein in excessive speculation to keep the commodities markets from flying off the rails. Just look. It is in the last 2 months. Yet, the Commission, the CFTC, has yet to finalize new rules to govern the speculative position limits. Meantime, what happens is speculators continue to buy $100 worth of oil futures with $6 down, 6 percent down to buy oil contracts for futures. I believe the law we passed last year has given the CFTC an extremely effective tool at its disposal that it could use to discourage excessive energy speculation and bring down gas prices our American consumers are now finding hurting their pocketbooks so much. That authority is the authority to impose higher margin requirements on oil futures contracts. So instead of $6, they could require that there be more than 6 percent they would have to pay down on buying a futures oil contract. In the current system some ordinary investors have to put down as much as 50 percent in order to buy things, while financial speculators have to post only 6 percent to buy a futures contract in oil. That does not seem to me to be fair and is leading to this kind of system which is now causing pain at the pump. These kinds of margin requirements are not set by Federal regulators but, rather, by the exchanges themselves. For the same reason we do not let pharmaceutical companies approve of their own drugs, we should not let futures exchanges self-regulate by setting their own margin requirements. Fortunately, in a section of the Dodd-Frank bill, section 736, Congress removed the broad statutory restriction that prohibited the CFTC from setting those margin requirements. That section authorizes the CFTC to call for higher margin requirements in order to protect the financial integrity so this kind of event does not happen. I am calling on the CFTC now to exercise the authority the Congress, signed into law by the President, gave them last July. I am asking them to get going. There is a letter that has been circulated here among the Senators encouraging the CFTC to use the Commission's power to increase margin requirements on these oil speculators. I want to urge my colleagues who are listening to join in this letter as it is circulated among your offices. Under the Dodd-Frank Act, these new margin requirements would take effect as soon as July. But the CFTC must begin the rulemaking process now, because if we do not, and get into the summer driving season, you know what is going to happen here. This is March. It is going to keep going up and up. I want to be clear, that where those who have a legitimate reason, such as airlines, shipping companies, oil companies, to buy future contracts, that margin level would not apply. It will only apply to the speculators. Imposing a higher margin level on speculators is consistent with existing exchange practices. For example, the New York Mercantile Exchange, the major trading platform on oil futures, imposes different margin rates on speculators as compared to bona fide hedgers. Anybody who has been at the gas pump recently knows this is a real issue, and they are asking us to do something about it. Then we hear in return it is supply and demand. I am trying to prick that balloon, bust that bubble. Congress and the administration need to be out front doing everything we can to ensure that the price of oil reflects the real supply and demand, not the irrational speculative fervor. With the right policies, we can discourage the damage excessive speculation is doing. I ask two things of my colleagues. I ask that they all take a look at the letter being circulated to Commissioner Gensler, Chairman of the CFTC. Don't fall for the notion that more drilling is going to put an end to the spiral. I am all for drilling in all those acres out there that are already leased. I am all for it, if it is done safely. But guess what we are hearing. We are starting to hear: Drill, baby, drill. Facts are stubborn. Even if there was expanded drilling in the United States, it is not going to affect the price of gas in the short term or even over the next half a dozen years. That is largely because the United States holds 2 to 3 percent of the world's supply, which is not enough to affect prices globally. Further, the oil and gas companies have 30 million acres that are leased but not drilled offshore and another 30 million acres onshore and they are not even drilling yet. Simply put, attempts to link the recent increases in the price of oil to the need for increased drilling are off the mark. Frankly, we haven't changed the way we do business with oil companies. Unfortunately, it has been a little less than 1 year since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded. We know what damage that did to the fisheries, the tourism, the economy of the entire gulf region. A lot of oil is still there. American citizens continue to fight to get their lost claims paid. We are not going to know for years to come what the long-term impacts will be, but certainly the economic damage is rising and rising. Even worse, if another spill happened today, the responsible party would still have only a liability cap of $75 million. We have to address that. In the meantime, we have to confront high gas prices. We need a multipronged approach that includes getting the CFTC to do its job.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

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

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

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, 4 years ago yesterday, a man who had spent more than 28 years serving the United States of America disappeared from Kish Island in the Persian Gulf. His name is Bob Levinson, and he is a dedicated husband and father, a retired FBI agent, and one of my constituents. Today Bob Levinson remains missing, and we must bring him home. On March 8, 2007, Bob traveled to Kish, an Iranian free trade zone, on a business trip. From what we know, he checked into his hotel, checked out on March 9, got into a taxi, and then disappeared. In the 4 years since then, I have worked closely with the State Department and the Swiss government to lodge a number of requests for information with the Iranian government. Bob's wife Christine has traveled to Iran and visited Kish on a fact-finding mission. She and her children have remained steadfast and determined in their mission to bring Bob home. Just last week, Secretary Clinton offered a glimmer of hope: we now have recent indications that Bob is alive and being held somewhere in Southwest Asia. Secretary Clinton also asked the Government of Iran to undertake humanitarian efforts to return him home safely. Today, on the fourth anniversary of Bob's disappearance, I join Secretary Clinton's call for the Government of Iran to do all it can to reunite Bob Levinson with his family. The Iranians have long offered their assistance, and now it's time for them to make good on that commitment. Christine Levinson and her children have waited 4 long years for Bob to come home. It is time to grant their wish.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, for years, I have fought to keep oil rigs off the coast of Florida--both in federal waters and Cuban waters. As we've seen, an oil spill even hundreds of miles away from Florida can send the black stuff onto our beaches and close our fishing grounds. Risky exploration close to our shores endangers Florida's marine environment and tourism as well as our national security. Yet we know that drilling just a mere 45 miles off Florida's coast is possible and is coming from the behest of Cuba's communist regime. For years the Castros have been eager to develop undiscovered offshore oil resources, and have already started leasing off different plots of land. Later this year, the Spanish oil company Repsol, in a consortium with oil companies from Norway, India, Italy and others, is expected to drill a deepwater exploratory well roughly 20 miles northeast of Havana--right in the midst of currents that run up the eastern seaboard. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the North Cuba Basin could contain over four and a half billion barrels of recoverable crude oil. We now find ourselves in a grim situation. Over the past several years, I have asked both Republican and Democratic administrations to withdraw the diplomatic letters that we exchange with Cuba every 2 years. This exchange of letters is the only thing enforcing the 1977 Maritime Boundary Agreement, which has never been ratified by the U.S. Senate. Though I have consistently advocated against this boundary agreement, our presidents have disagreed. It seems that oil exploration in waters that are essentially our backyard is imminent. So today I'm introducing the Gulf Stream Protection Act of 2011, which will protect the economy and environment of Florida. This legislation will require federal agencies to safeguard our shores by preparing for another devastating spill like the Deepwater Horizon that occurred less than a year ago--but this time in Cuban waters. If a company that's drilling in Cuba wants to lease drilling rights in the United States, this bill will require them to first prove that they have a sufficient oil spill response plan and the resources to address a spill in both Cuban and U.S. waters. Additionally this bill directs the Department of Interior--in consultation with the Department of State--to provide recommendations to Congress on a multinational agreement for spill response, not unlike what was suggested by the Spill Commission chaired by Senator Bob Graham and Bill Reilly. We have seen what oil spills have done in other parts of the country and around the world. If oil spilled from a well in the North Cuba Basin, it would coat popular South Atlantic beaches like Miami and West Palm. I am not prepared to take chances with Florida's coral reefs and other marine life, nor with the livelihoods of millions of Floridians who depend on tourism for their economic well-being. That is why I believe that in addition to my responsibility to deter exploration and drilling off Florida's coastline, I also have a responsibility to ensure that we are prepared for the worst-case scenario: an oil spill from a foreign rig in Cuban waters. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this commonsense legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, for years, I have fought to keep oil rigs off the coast of Florida--both in federal waters and Cuban waters. As we've seen, an oil spill even hundreds of miles away from Florida can send the black stuff onto our beaches and close our fishing grounds. Risky exploration close to our shores endangers Florida's marine environment and tourism as well as our national security. Yet we know that drilling just a mere 45 miles off Florida's coast is possible and is coming from the behest of Cuba's communist regime. For years the Castros have been eager to develop undiscovered offshore oil resources, and have already started leasing off different plots of land. Later this year, the Spanish oil company Repsol, in a consortium with oil companies from Norway, India, Italy and others, is expected to drill a deepwater exploratory well roughly 20 miles northeast of Havana--right in the midst of currents that run up the eastern seaboard. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the North Cuba Basin could contain over four and a half billion barrels of recoverable crude oil. We now find ourselves in a grim situation. Over the past several years, I have asked both Republican and Democratic administrations to withdraw the diplomatic letters that we exchange with Cuba every 2 years. This exchange of letters is the only thing enforcing the 1977 Maritime Boundary Agreement, which has never been ratified by the U.S. Senate. Though I have consistently advocated against this boundary agreement, our presidents have disagreed. It seems that oil exploration in waters that are essentially our backyard is imminent. So today I'm introducing the Gulf Stream Protection Act of 2011, which will protect the economy and environment of Florida. This legislation will require federal agencies to safeguard our shores by preparing for another devastating spill like the Deepwater Horizon that occurred less than a year ago--but this time in Cuban waters. If a company that's drilling in Cuba wants to lease drilling rights in the United States, this bill will require them to first prove that they have a sufficient oil spill response plan and the resources to address a spill in both Cuban and U.S. waters. Additionally this bill directs the Department of Interior--in consultation with the Department of State--to provide recommendations to Congress on a multinational agreement for spill response, not unlike what was suggested by the Spill Commission chaired by Senator Bob Graham and Bill Reilly. We have seen what oil spills have done in other parts of the country and around the world. If oil spilled from a well in the North Cuba Basin, it would coat popular South Atlantic beaches like Miami and West Palm. I am not prepared to take chances with Florida's coral reefs and other marine life, nor with the livelihoods of millions of Floridians who depend on tourism for their economic well-being. That is why I believe that in addition to my responsibility to deter exploration and drilling off Florida's coastline, I also have a responsibility to ensure that we are prepared for the worst-case scenario: an oil spill from a foreign rig in Cuban waters. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this commonsense legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, on August 21, 1944, laden with precious cargo for the Pacific theatre, the USS Mount Hood, the lead ship of her class for the U.S. Navy, departed Norfolk on her first mission. On board were 296 sailors and 22 officers. The USS Mount Hood reached Manus Island, a province of Papua, New Guinea, on September 22 and commenced with dispensing ammunition and explosives to ships preparing for the Philippine offensive. On the morning of November 10, 1944, a young Naval Reserve lieutenant and 17 enlisted men climbed over the side of the USS Mount Hood and boarded boats to go ashore. After reaching the beach, they saw an enormous flash followed by two explosions, and the men were knocked to the ground. They scrambled back to the boats and headed to where the Mount Hood had been anchored, but found only debris where the ship had once been. The entire ship, and all aboard, were gone. Over 400,000 Americans lost their lives in World War II. In the deserts of North Africa, the jungles of the Pacific islands, on the beaches in Normandy, and everywhere in between, these brave men and women sacrificed their lives to preserve the freedom and individual liberties we all enjoy. We owe them all an immense debt of gratitude for the sacrifices they made to defend our Nation. They should never be forgotten. The only surviving officer of the USS Mount Hood, LT Lester Wallace, is now 95 years old and resides in Pensacola, FL. While we mourn those who gave their lives to the cause of freedom, we must also remember to celebrate the service and sacrifice of those who survived. I am extremely proud of the service Lieutenant Wallace rendered to our country as a Navy officer, and later as a civilian. On behalf of the people of Florida and our Nation, I thank Lieutenant Wallace--and all those who have served and continue to serve--for their sacrifice and service.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to take 1 minute of the time remaining allocated to the other side of the aisle.

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

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I can say it in 1 minute. Why do we not want to savage the FAA budget, cutting millions and millions, to go back to the 2008 level? Simply this: It is the safety of the flying public. The airways are getting more crowded. The delays on the ground, in the airports, are getting longer. That is the whole idea of creating a new system of air traffic control--in order to handle more traffic safely by having instruments in the cockpit that operate off our constellation of satellites that can keep the separation between airliners, can fly more efficient direct routes, and it all be coordinated instead of through radar from the ground. That is the whole purpose of the updating of the FAA air traffic control, called the Next Generation of air traffic control. If this amendment is adopted, all of that is savaged. That is not where America should be going. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, do I need to set aside the pending amendment to call up amendment 34?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, others have already spoken on this amendment. It is to take out unnecessary language in the bill that has been superseded by the NASA authorization bill we have passed. The letters in NASA, the first A is aeronautics, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Aeronautics research is a big part of the NASA bill. We have plussed up a lot of money for aeronautics research. There is superfluous language in the bill about a study. Other studies have already been done. We want to get rid of that redtape. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, the NASA bill we passed last fall strongly reaffirmed that aeronautics research is an integral part of the agency and made the point in that bill of increasing a focus on NASA's aeronautics research programs. As a matter of fact, what does NASA stand for? It has become a noun, but it actually stands for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The first A in NASA stands for ``aeronautics.'' It is vital to our research programs in both air and space, the research that is going on. We have existing aeronautics research facilities that are national assets, and they are in places such as the Ames Research Center in California; the Glenn Research Center named after our former colleague, Senator John Glenn, which is in Cleveland; Langley Research Center in Virginia; the Dryden Flight Research Center, and that is at Edwards Air Force Base in California. These NASA centers are unique in their ability to leverage the complementary and ever-increasing synergies between space and aviation systems through these incredibly experienced technical researchers, and they make remarkable advances in aerospace-related disciplines such as materials and structures, flight controls, aerospace systems health management, and high speed aerothermal analysis tools. We take for granted when we get on commercial airliners some of the improvements that have been made. Well, where do we think a lot of that came from? It came from NASA and the research there. These advances not only accelerate space and aviation systems but also other very complex systems such as the smart grid, remote medicine and medical robotics, smart cars, a whole bunch of things. NASA's fundamental aeronautics research capability happens to be also integrated with enabling the future space missions of NASA. The Nation's aeronautics research and development investment currently is planned and well coordinated through the National Aeronautics Research and Development Policy as well as in Executive Order 13419 in which the roles and responsibilities of executive departments and agencies in Federal aeronautics R&D are clearly defined and delineated all the way through the rest of this decade, until 2020. What happened when this FAA bill was put together years ago is that it had a transfer to some committee of NASA's successful aeronautics R&D investment leadership and this competitiveness, this investment has supported springing forth key technologies that directly contradict a national policy of doing this in a committee instead of doing it in NASA. The unnecessary reassignment, when this bill was crafted some time ago, of those responsibilities to other agencies of government would clearly jeopardize the success of this extraordinary R&D program. The amendment, to which we have no objection, is to take this part out of the bill with the new NASA bill that was passed, with the robust aeronautics research and development that is within NASA, be the operative policy. If it is appropriate, if this is the proper parliamentary procedure, I ask for the yeas and nays--or I would ask for a voice vote. I am told we are not in the proper venue for that. So I have offered the amendment, it is laid down, and we will deal with it appropriately. I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside in order to call up amendment No. 34.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, it is very apparent that President Mubarak must step down. The longer he waits to realize he has to step down, the more difficult it is going to be in order to have an orderly transition and to keep the peace in Egypt. The longer he waits to announce he is stepping down immediately, the more difficult it is to transfer power to his Vice President, General Omar Suleiman. If he had done this several days ago, then that transition would have been so much easier because General Suleiman is well respected in Egypt, certainly by the military. He is well respected by the Arab neighbors in the region, and he is well respected in Israel, as well as the United States. But every day there is violence and bloodshed in these clashes, it makes the Arab street much more difficult to accept any semblance of authority that would come from Mubarak, even though, under the Egyptian Constitution, there is a Vice President, albeit that Vice Presidency has been vacant for years and years and years. But, nevertheless, there is a Vice President who is in the constitutional line of succession to become President. Again, I say what I said several days ago: President Mubarak needs to recognize, despite his long years of great service in keeping Egypt stable, especially in the aftermath of the assassination of President Anwar Sadat, that it is time for him to step down, that there is a new nation of Egypt out there and they want reform and they want free and fair elections and most of them want a peaceful and orderly transition of power. I would again call on the President of Egypt to step down and step down immediately and let the Presidency be assumed by his Vice President, with the guarantee of free and fair elections in September and the guarantee that President Mubarak is not going to run for reelection. Madam President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I am waiting just momentarily to receive the documentation on offering an amendment. But in the meantime, I would like to speak as in morning business.