Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I come here on a happy note. I am filing a resolution and I hope this is the kind of thing the Senate can come together to celebrate, the fact that three Americans that were held hostage over 4 years in the jungle by the FARC contraband guerillas, a drug-running crowd, murderers who put chains around these captives' necks just like an animal, a wild animal, and they had to carry these collars, these steel collars with these steel chains, heavy, so that was another way of keeping them from escaping. But if they escaped, where were they going to go? They were out in the middle of the jungle. This resolution which I am introducing with Senator Isakson, because there is a connection of one of the hostages to Georgia, and my colleagues Senators Martinez, Dodd, Coleman, Lieberman, Cardin, Craig, Bond, Domenici, Hatch, and Chambliss, I would like to see move like greased lightning through the Senate so we can recognize this significant achievement of the Colombian military, assisted by the U.S. Government in a miraculous hostage rescue of 15 people, including Ingrid Betancort, the celebrated and quite well known former senator in Colombia who also had dual citizenship with France. In this miraculous rescue operation there was not one bullet fired and not one drop of blood spilled. Our three Americans, all of whom live in Florida--Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes, and Marc Gonsalves--were held hostage for over 5 years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, after their plane had crashed on February 13, 2003. The pilot was hurt, and he was executed. There was another Colombian with them at the time who was executed. These three--Keith, Tom, and Marc--were taken hostage and, in the words of Keith Stansell, whom I have spoken to today, they were human currency. They were the trading, the barter for the FARC to get whatever they wanted. They kept them over 5 years. They would still have them if they did not have this miraculous rescue operation. This is one of the few times you have seen in the entire world where the world came together and focused and said: That is a job well done; for it was reported how miraculous this was, through deception, through interception of communications, through creating a story line that this was an operation to come in and move these hostages from one part of the jungle to another. By creating such a good ruse, they were actually--with all these 15 hostages in 3 different places, 50 miles apart from each other in the jungle--they were able to get their FARC captors to bring them together in one location, and to load on a helicopter that they thought was going to be taking them to the No. 1 commander of the FARC in another part of the jungle. It is a miraculous story: the fact that it was pulled off by a hostage rescue team--all volunteers, playing their roles--but knowing that if it went awry, they, too, would become hostages of the FARC. We want to send our congratulations to the Colombian Government, the Colombian military, and especially to that hostage rescue team that performed so flawlessly but that knew the risk they were taking. This resolution I have submitted honors our three Americans and recognizes their families and their relatives who kept faith all these years--all those years, over 5--without even knowing the fate of their loved ones. Finally, on July 2 of this year, Colombian forces carried out this dramatic rescue mission, freeing those 15 hostages, including Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes, and Marc Gonsalves. In this Colombian rescue operation, not a gun was fired; the playacting, the ruse, the deception was so good, not a drop of blood. It is going to go down in history as a model for these kinds of operations. We in America are very grateful to President Uribe; to Defense Minister Santos, whom I had the pleasure, a couple days ago, of hosting; and the Colombian military for the execution of this historic operation and for bringing our men and their folks home to freedom. I wish to recognize our commander of the U.S. Southern Command, Admiral Stavridis, and I wish to recognize our U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, Bill Brownfield, for the exceptional work they have done to strengthen the United States-Colombian relations which laid the foundation and the close coordination that was demonstrated by this successful operation. I believe this dramatic hostage rescue and the competence and professionalism that was demonstrated by the Colombian military have not only put the FARC on notice, it has put them on their heels. They are in disarray. They are demoralized. There are defections from FARC every day. The FARC is designated by our Government as a foreign terrorist organization because it has committed atrocities against the citizens of Colombia and the United States. The FARC still holds 700 people as hostages. When I talked to Keith Stansell today, he said what we have to do is to keep remembering them. Because of the rescue of the 15 hostages, he said they have now put heavier chains around their necks and they are making them constantly move. You can imagine: 700 people. He told me about individual hostages and how brave they have been. He said: Let's don't forget them. And let's keep talking about this until they are able to bring all those people safely home. So I wish to echo what has already been said by the Government of Colombia, that we call on the FARC to lay down their arms. They are not going to win. They can see it now. They are demoralized. They are having defections every day. Come to your senses, revolutionary guerrillas whom you think you are. Come to your senses and work out a plan with the Colombian Government and President Uribe to release the remaining hostages you have-- hundreds of them. We say to Mr. Cano, the leader of the FARC, your numbers are dwindling. Today you have only about 8,000. This is less than half the force you had just a few years ago. And you are losing your rank-and- file soldiers because they see it is a lost cause. And you have suffered losses in your secretariat and in the mid-level ranks by death and desertion. These are significant losses. The U.S. people have stood with the Colombian people as they fight this violence, this impunity, this narcotrafficking in this little country of Colombia. It is a happy occasion for us but a sobering reflection upon those who are still held similar to animals in cages. It is a happy occasion, and we are overjoyed at the return of Keith and Tom and Marc. But Colombia's war against the narcotraffickers is not over.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I echo the remarks of the distinguished Senator from Vermont. There is simply no sense for political games to be played with the lives of people, particularly the lives of the elderly--in his State having to do with the cold; in my State having to do with heat. It is extremely important. It is sad we have to be delayed on a piece of legislation that should have been passed long ago. Here again, it is another example, as I was saying earlier this morning, having to do with the energy legislation, talking about trying to do something about the supplies of energy as well as the cost of it, of all these games that are being played out here, these political games. Another example is right here with the program of assistance to the poor for the cost of heating and air-conditioning. There is no sense in the world that we should be having to come back. I could care less about coming here on a Saturday, but the fact is, this should have been passed several days ago, not being strung out as it is. Then we have a test that we have to meet the 60-vote threshold to get through cutting off debate in order to even proceed to the bill. This is some of the monkey business that is going on around here, pure partisan political games. There is no sense for it. I couldn't help but reflect on what the Senator from Vermont has said. I appreciate his leadership on it and certainly his coming from Vermont, those cold winters and those senior citizens who are going to be doing everything they can to stay alive. This is America in 2008. Senior citizens should not have to be making that decision. Senior citizens also should not have to be making the decision of whether they are going to eat or take their medicine, which is another battle we have had on this floor, as the Senator from Vermont has fought with us on that as well. I thank the very distinguished Senator from Vermont. (The remarks of Mr. NELSON of Florida pertaining to the introduction of S. Res. 627 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I thank you for the opportunity to share this issue with the Senate.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, if we wanted to solve this problem on energy, if we wanted to solve the problem on health care, if we wanted to solve the problem on housing, which we are finally going to get to final passage on tomorrow, if we wanted to do it and we had the political will, we could. The problem is the Senate is all wound around the axle because people cannot get along with each other. That is being reflected in the two leaders not being able to get agreement on unanimous consent, which to operate in this Senate is necessary to have that kind of good will and mutual trust. Yet we do not have it. So now someone is listening on TV or sitting up in the galleries right now and hearing the statements on this floor that are completely contradictory of each other. We have had statements on this floor over the last several days. People say, for example: Well, there is no problem drilling out in the waters off of the Outer Continental Shelf of the United States because we do not have any experience on oil spills now. As a matter of fact, we have had Senators on this floor who have said there were no oil spills after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And, of course, I have pointed out the White House itself came out with a report, Lessons Learned After Hurricane Katrina. It came out in February of 2006. I quoted at length from that document that pointed out over 7.4 million gallons of oil were spilled after Hurricane Katrina. That is the White House report. But let me give you another example. We have had, including the Republican Leader has said: There was not a drop of oil spilled after Hurricane Katrina. I want to show you a satellite photo. This is a NOAA photo 4 days after Hurricane Katrina. This is the coast, the gulf coast. Would you look at the oil spills that are out there as a result of Hurricane Katrina, a Category 3, and it was a Category 4 at one point out in the Gulf. What is it doing to those oil platforms? What do you think all of that is? That is oil. What do you think all of that is? It is oil. What do you think all of that is? And that. And that. And that. And that. It is oil. I am pointing out that people are making extreme statements that have no basis in truth. As a result, we are getting ourselves so worked up into our own little positions that if we wanted to, we could come together and we could have a bill that could be part speculation, part drilling. There are still plenty of places out there to be drilled. I am not talking about the 68 million acres that are under lease, under lease by the oil companies on public lands, the lands of the U.S. Government, the 68 million acres that are under lease to the oil companies that have not been drilled that are out in the Gulf of Mexico. There are 32 million acres that have been leased and have not been drilled. This Senator knows something about that because 2 years ago, we did a compromise to try to protect the interests of Florida from oil spills on our beaches, from oil spills in our delicate estuaries that spawn so much of the marine life in the gulf, indeed, to try to protect the interests of the national security of the country in keeping oil rigs away from the military testing and training area, which is the largest testing and training area for our military in the world. So we struck a compromise. Originally they wanted 2.5 million acres, but it was headed on a line straight from Tampa Bay, entering the military mission area. Instead, we worked out a compromise where they got four times as much. They got 8.3 million acres. But we kept it away from the military testing and training area and kept it away from the coast of Florida where that testing and training area is. We worked it out then 2 years ago. But now that is not enough, even though none of that 8.3 million acres has been drilled. This is getting to be ridiculous in the amount of hyperbole and rhetoric and, oh, the sky is falling, the sky is falling, when it would take that for us to come together and have a bill that would go after speculation, the unregulated speculation after the Enron loophole was opened that allows unregulated trading. I have commentary here. I will not go through it. I have got three oil executives who have testified to the Congress saying that in normal supply and demand, one executive says, would have oil at $60 a barrel; another executive says it would be $50 to $55 a barrel. These are oil company executives saying, if the world oil market were only operating by supply and demand, but it isn't. It is up close to $130 a barrel. So there are other factors contributing to it. One of them is unregulated speculation on these unregulated markets that bid that price up and up and up. We can address that. We can address drilling in other parts of the gulf. In addition to the 68 million acres of public lands, there are more public lands that you could drill in in the central and western gulf, if we really wanted to, but everybody wants to sit around here and fight. Then we could do something really important. We could get serious about putting Federal money into research and development for alternative fuels and creating new engines and tapping renewables such as Sun and wind, really get serious about that, get serious as we did when we finally raised the miles per gallon. It only took us the 8 years that I have been in the Senate to increase the miles per gallon on the fleet average of our cars. My goodness, look who is in trouble in Detroit. It is not Toyota and other foreign manufacturers. They have a 50-miles-per-gallon standard in Japan and in the high 40s in Europe. It is not those automobile companies. It is the American automobile companies that are in financial trouble because they have fought us the whole way on increasing miles per gallon. Their problems, as we say back home, are like chickens coming home to roost. We could do that, if we just had the political will and we would put our differences aside. On this issue of speculation, the bill that was turned down today because we can't get 60 votes to cut off debate to get to the speculation bill, I know Senators on the other side are saying they are not able to offer amendments, but again, it could happen like ``that,'' if we would get together to offer a certain number of amendments and use the speculation bill that Senators on that side have already spoken in favor of. If we wanted to, we could get it done. We do need an additional law on speculation because when we tried to plug the loophole in the farm bill, we didn't completely plug it. Senator Reid has offered this leadership bill that reins in speculation by imposing limits to ensure that legitimate speculation doesn't get out of hand. It is a complicated approach, but it can get us to where we need to be. I believe there are some improvements that could be made to the bill. If we really wanted to come to agreement, we could have those amendments offered. If we pass a bill that allows speculators to evade limits of how much they can control, then we are going to be in the worst of all possible worlds--a bill that purports to tamp down on speculation but fails to do so. Wall Street financiers and the Wall Street Journal call the effort to shut down excessive speculation ``misguided.'' They say that the spiking price of a barrel of oil is just the market telling us that demand exceeds supply. But ask yourself if that makes sense. When the Saudis agreed to increase production--in other words, increasing supply--there wasn't any decrease in the price of oil. The price of oil keeps on spiraling, and there is no evidence that dramatically increased demand is going to do anything but allow speculative money to pour into the energy futures markets. We have had the CEOs of all the various airlines come to see us. They wrote all Senators a letter. They said: Normal market forces are being dangerously amplified by poorly regulated market speculation. The nation needs to pull together to reform the oil markets and solve this growing problem. That is the CEOs of every major airline. What do we hear in this debate? We hear: Drill here, drill now, pay less. It is an easy slogan, but it will not solve it because it is cruelly misleading and deceitful. If we are really going to do something, we are going to have to have the political will in a bipartisan way to get to the bottom of this. Think about it. Why such a seductive argument about ``drill here, drill now,'' when, in fact, there is 68 million acres that has not been drilled of public lands? What does that do for oil companies? The more leases of acres they can have, the more reserves they can show on their books, which is shown as an asset, increases the value of the oil company. That, of course, is to their advantage. But unless we can get them to start drilling and show good faith that they are going to drill on the 68 million acres they have now, why is that the answer? Well, it isn't. That is, again, where we need the balanced approach--alternative fuels, rein in speculation, drill where it is available now with existing permits, drill onshore, offshore, continue to work with our international partners, lessen our consumption of foreign oil by doing all of the above plus shifting to alternative fuels with a vigorous research-and-development project of developing those alternative fuels and alternative motors. I have had the privilege of being a part of one of this Nation's great accomplishments; when a young President said, in the midst of the Cold War, when we looked as if we were having our lunch being eaten by the Soviet Union because they were taking the high ground in space and we had not even flown John Glenn in orbit, President Kennedy said: We are going to the Moon and back in 9 years. If ever there has been an example of a nation having a determination and coming together in a bipartisan way and focusing the political will on solving what seemed to be an insolvable task and committing the resources, that is the example of how to do it. Another example I can think of is 1983. We were at a point in which Social Security was going to run out of funds within 6 months. Social Security was not going to be able to pay its bills. Two old Irishmen-- one the President of the United States, President Reagan, and the other one the Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill--got together and said: We are going to solve this in a bipartisan way. We are going to put together a bipartisan, prestigious panel, and they are going to come up with the recommendations of how we can make Social Security actuarially sound and safe. That is another one of the great examples where political leaders of different parties came together in a bipartisan way and took that highly volatile issue of Social Security off the table at the next election by saying: We are going to solve it, because we had the political will. We had the political will in the Apollo project going to the Moon and, in 1983, to solve the Social Security crisis. If we had the political will in a bipartisan way to solve this energy crisis right now, right here, we could do it. But you can't do it if the attitude is ``my way or the highway.'' You have to do what this body is best adapted to do. As the Good Book says: Come, let us reason together. Let us work this problem out together. I am tired of hearing all of this excessive rhetoric. I am tired of hearing this rhetoric that does not display truth. I am tired of hearing the ``it is my way or no way'' attitude. Our people out there want us to solve this problem, not only for here and now but for generations to come. For example, since we get in excess of 60 percent of our daily oil from foreign shores, can you imagine the disruption of any one of those foreign sources such as coming out of the Persian Gulf, such as coming from Nigeria, such as coming from Venezuela, all of which are substantial percentages of our daily consumption of oil? Can you imagine what that would do if it happened today or if it happened to our children or our grandchildren? It is up to us to solve this by coming together. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. The Senator has given an excellent exposition and debunking of a number of these myths. As to his recitation debunking the statements made by a number of Senators on this floor that there was no oilspill in the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, I want to ask the Senator whether he had seen this particular report from the White House, ``The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina, Lessons Learned,'' February of 2006, after Katrina, in August of 2005. I want to find out whether the Senator had seen this report: In fact, Hurricane Katrina caused at least 10 oil spills releasing the same quantity of oil as some of the worst oil spills in U.S. history. Louisiana reported at least six major spills of over 100,000 gallons and four medium spills of over 10,000 gallons. All told, more than 7.4 million gallons poured into the Gulf Coast region's waterways, over two- thirds of the amount that spilled out during America's worst oil disaster, the rupturing of the Exxon Valdez tanker off the Alaskan coast in 1989. That is the end of the quote from the very report on Katrina from the White House. Has the Senator seen that report?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, it has been some time, with great anticipation and joy, that I have extended an invitation for Rev. Willie C. Barnes of Eatonville, FL, to come and be with us as the guest Chaplain for the day. Reverend Barnes's church in the historically Black town of Eatonville is a very large church. It is a church that ministers to the entire Orlando metropolitan area. They do it not only with the excellence and the soaring oratory of Reverend Barnes himself but with an outreach to the community, with projects to help the least of these, our brothers and sisters. It is with great appreciation and humility that I recognize the accomplishments of that church and am so glad to have its pastor, a man who, with a twinkle in my eye, I call my pastor, come and be with us here in our Senate family today.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, as the Senate debates a bill that will stop out-of-control speculation in the energy commodity markets, I would like to make a brief statement on this legislation and why it is essential that we act on it. For weeks now, the Senate has heard testimony from experts, even oil executives, who attribute the shocking increase in oil prices to the influence of oil speculators. Here are a few examples: The [oil] fundamentals are no problem. They are the same as they were when oil was selling for $60 a barrel, which is in itself quite a unique phenomenon. That was from Jeroen van der Veer, Chief Executive Officer, Royal Dutch Shell, Washington Post Apr. 11, 2008. $100 oil isn't justified by the physical demand in the market. It has to be speculation on the futures market that is fueling this. That was from Clarence Cazalot Jr., Chief Executive Officer, Marathon Oil, October 2007. The price of oil should be about $50-$55 per barrel. That is from Stephen Simon, Exxon Mobil Senior Vice President, Senate Judiciary Committee April 1, 2008. What has happened in our markets? Clearly, we are not suffering from a supply and demand problem. Something else is happening. In 2000, about 37 percent of the oil futures market was comprised of speculators who include investment companies and investment banks as well as institutional investors, like pension funds. Eight years ago, 63 percent of the oil futures market was represented by companies that were hedging the price of oil because they need oil to function, for example, the airlines. How has the market changed in the past 8 years? Seventy-one percent of the oil futures market is in the hands of speculators who rarely take control of the oil they are bidding on, and only 29 percent represent companies that use it for the purpose that most of us would agree it should be intended. So we know speculation is growing when it comes to oil, and we know the transactions have gone up 600 percent in the last 8 or 10 years. What allowed this to happen? The infamous ``Enron Loophole,'' which was slipped into must-pass legislation in late December of 2000. This loophole allowed energy futures to be traded without Federal oversight. Various investigations of the Enron collapse have pointed to this loophole as crucial to Enron's manipulation of the California energy market which provoked an energy crisis in the State in 2000 and 2001. Last month, with passage of the farm bill, the Congress finally succeeded in bringing a measure of oversight and transparency to this market, requiring the Commodities Future Trading Commission, CFTC, to review all contracts to determine which ones should be regulated as though traded on a major public exchange. While this was a step in the right direction, and the result of much thoughtful discussion and debate, the farm bill provision can be improved upon and strengthened. That is why I introduced a bill to shut down the unregulated oil futures markets created by the now-infamous ``Enron loophole.'' It also removes energy from the list of exempt commodities; requires energy to be traded on a regulated market; and creates a new definition of what constitutes an energy commodity. Senator Reid has introduced a leadership bill that reins in speculation by imposing position limits ensure that legitimate speculation doesn't get out of hand. It is a more complicated approach that leaves the door open for unregulated trading, but if it is done right, the approach taken by Senator Reid can get us where we need to be. And I am interested in working with Senator Reid to ensure that his bill gets at the problem. I believe that some small but significant changes can significantly improve the bill. If our approach to dealing with excessive speculation is to impose speculation limits, then we must ensure that those limits actually operate as limits, not as loopholes. U.S. speculators should not be able to circumvent speculation limits by trading on foreign exchanges, by setting up a subsidiary that would not be subject to the limits, or by trading both on and off regulated exchanges without aggregating the number of contracts so they count against the overall speculation limit set by the CFTC. If we pass a bill that allows speculators to evade these limits, the bill's promise will remain unfulfilled, and we will have the worst of all worlds--a bill that purports to tamp down on speculation but fails to do so, and a bill that lets those who would dismiss the effect of excessive speculation on the price of oil say ``I told you so.'' My friends on the other side of the aisle, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and Wall Street financiers, call the effort to shut down excessive speculation misguided and say that the spiking price of the barrel of oil is just the market telling us that demand exceeds supply. But ask yourself whether this makes sense. When the Saudis agreed to increase production, there was no drop in the price of oil. But the price of oil keeps spiraling, and while there is no evidence of dramatically increased demand, there is plenty of evidence that speculative money is pouring into the energy futures market. The airlines, which hedge against increases in the price of jet fuel by participating in the energy futures market, are suffering. They are the legitimate hedgers who actually use the futures, and they are calling on us to take action against excessive speculation. Meantime, the oil companies loudly will be claiming they need to drill in new areas off the coasts of Florida and California. They have a well financed campaign that says: Drill here; drill now; pay less. This is cruelly misleading and deceitful. Drilling everything we have in the waters below our coasts will do nothing to lower the price of gas. If we open all our shores and give away billions in tourism, fishing, and all the economies of all the coastal States to boost oil production, the first drop of oil wouldn't be seen until the year 2017, and oil production would peak in the year 2030. What could we get in the year 2030? We would get 200,000 barrels a day. To put that number another way, as expressed by my colleague, Senator Menendez yesterday, ``the amount of gas we could get from offshore drilling is equivalent to a few tablespoons per car per day.'' It is simply wrong to think that opening offshore drilling will lower gas prices. Yet the public relations machine of big oil continues to churn out falsehoods. They insist they are trying to find new oil that might help bring down gas prices, but the money they spend on exploration is nothing compared with what they spend on stock buybacks and dividends. This is good news for shareholders but offers no help to drivers to offset the high cost of fuel. Yesterday the Associated Press reported the 5 biggest international oil companies plowed about 55 percent of the cash they made from their businesses into stock buybacks and dividends last year, up from 30 percent in 2000 and just 1 percent in 1993, according to Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. The percentage they spend to find new deposits of fossil fuels has remained flat for years, in the mid-single digits. In the first 3 months of this year, ExxonMobil Corp., the world's biggest publicly traded oil company, shelled out $8.8 billion on stock buybacks alone, compared with $5.5 billion on exploration and other capital projects. ConocoPhillips has already told investors that its stock buybacks for April to June of this year will come to about $2.5 billion, 9 times what it spent on exploration. This leads me to the conclusion of one oil expert who said, ``If you're not spending your money finding and developing new oil, then there's no new oil.'' Senator Reid has introduced a leadership bill that will rein in speculation. Over and over, the Congress has heard testimony that the question of supply and demand is not what is causing oil to be up at $130 a barrel, as I referred to earlier, statements by oil company executives that the price of a barrel of oil would be much less, given the normal vagaries of the market of supply and demand, even though there is a lot of demand out there in the world market. But as Senator Reid pointed out, in the underlying bill that is before the Senate, it is the speculators, unregulated after the law was changed to deregulate the markets, where there are no controls on how much oil they can buy on futures contracts or whether they have to use that oil, who continue to speculate and drive up the price. That is what this underlying bill is trying to address. They should not be able to circumvent speculation limits by trading, for example, on foreign exchanges if those oil contracts are for America. I see my colleague from Pennsylvania is here, and I want him to have the time to which he is entitled. What is confronting us is an effort to get us off focusing on the problem with this mindless statement that is out there, put out by the oil companies--look at who is sponsoring the advertisements on TV and in the newspapers; it is the only companies--and it is that statement: Drill here, drill now, pay less. Now, if we are going to solve this problem, we have to do a bunch of things. But just drilling is not going to solve it because if you do just that, it is going to be years and years before the fruits of that effort come in. In fact, it has been said over and over, there are 68 million acres under lease that have not been drilled. There are plenty more acres out in the Gulf of Mexico, without getting close to Florida, without getting over the line into the military mission area, where the largest testing and training area of the U.S. military in the world is, off the coast of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. There is plenty. So we ought to drill. But at the same time, let's go after what is causing these prices to go through the roof. Speculation is a big part of it. If you want to get down to it, let's strengthen the U.S. dollar against the world's other currencies, by getting our fiscal house in order and starting to balance the Federal budget. That would help a lot too. So it is an extremely complicated issue that a simple slogan is not going to solve. That is what this debate is trying to bring into focus. The American people can see through the simplified slogans of ``drill here, drill now.'' We need to get to a real solution. Mr. President, I see my colleague from Pennsylvania is in the Chamber, and I wish to yield the floor so we can hear from him.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the joint resolution be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no interviewing action or debate, and any statements related to the measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration of S.J. Res. 35, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand in recess under the previous order.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, there will be no rollcall votes on Monday. The next vote will occur Tuesday morning. That vote will be on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the energy speculation bill.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after the Senate convenes on Tuesday, July 22, the hour prior to the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to S. 3268 be equally divided and controlled between the leaders or their designees; that upon the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture; further, that the mandatory quorum be waived.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, it looks as though I am the cleanup hitter tonight, before we close the session. It has been this Senator's privilege to be sitting in the chair while a number of these, our colleagues, have been speaking from their perspective. One of the unique features of this democracy is that there are 50 States, each with two Senators who sometimes have points of view that are different from each other. But out of the collective will, by the give-and-take process--as the Good Book says, ``Come let us reason together''--we try to forge a consensus in which to govern the Nation and to set policy through law and then abide by the rule of law. What a great privilege it is for this Senator to be a part of that and try to articulate the interests as I see the national interests through the lens as I perceive it, through the interests of my State, as well as the country as a whole. The fact is, we are in a deplorable condition where we are now importing 66.2 percent of our daily consumption of oil from places such as the Persian Gulf, Nigeria, and Venezuela. These are very unstable parts of the world. The President can certainly appreciate the fact that if we did not have to do that, we would be not only economically a lot better off but just imagine what our defense posture would be if we did not have to protect the sea lines. The U.S. Navy has to protect the sea lines, not only for our interests but a lot of the others of the world's interests in all those areas coming around--out of the Persian Gulf, on the west coast of Africa, and so forth. It is also true that those sea lines and that flow of oil is increasingly under jeopardy because of terrorist groups such as al- Qaida that can figure it out and strike in undefended oil-producing facilities, as they have tried to do in Saudi Arabia and who knows where else. All of those jitters that ripple throughout the economy come because people think this tight oil supply is going to be cut off--as well it may be. Back in the early 1970s it was cut off because of a cartel called OPEC, and they decided to cut back on production. You remember in the early 1970s that drove oil from something like $2 a barrel up to $10 a barrel. This has progressively gotten worse to the point that the United States is now dependent for almost two-thirds of our daily consumption of oil coming from foreign shores. The United States only has 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. Yet the United States consumes 25 percent of the world's oil production. It does not take a mathematical genius to realize if we want to do something about our vulnerability, if we only have 3 percent of the world's oil reserves but we consume 25 percent of the world's oil production, what is the ultimate solution? We have to wean ourselves from oil. We have to go to alternative fuels. We have to vigorously, through research and development, develop new engines. We have to use renewables, such as solar and wind and geothermal. Indeed, we have to get serious about conservation. This Nation simply has not done this with great vigor. It is clearly the hope of this Senator that the next President of the United States is going to have this at the top of his agenda. Then, this Congress, combined with the next President, is going to be able to make some major policy shifts about our energy consumption and from where we get our energy. But, in the meantime, the scare, the fright, the pain of $4.11-per-gallon gasoline; the scare, the fright of oil, what normally would be at $55 a barrel, according to an ExxonMobil executive testifying, under normal supply and demand--it is not anywhere close to that. It is way up in the 130s, and it actually got up over $140 a barrel. Because of that pain right now we have to act. There are those who have trooped in here and over and over their mantra is, as they hold up a big sign--and it is primarily the ones on that side of the aisle who say: ``Drill here. Drill now,'' as if that is the solution. This Senator has no problem with drilling if it is done responsibly and it is done in an area that there is not a prohibitively painful tradeoff. What do I mean? I want to give you an example. It was this Senator who, 3 years ago, had to start a filibuster to stop a punitive measure against the defense interests of the United States. I had to stop it with a filibuster. That was an attempt to drill oil in the eastern Gulf of Mexico off of Florida. That happens to be the largest testing and training area for the U.S. military in the world. Why do you think we train all of our F-22 pilots at a base in Florida? Why do you think we train the pilots for the still-being-developed F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in Florida? It is because they have all of that unrestricted space over the Gulf of Mexico. When the U.S. Navy shut down their training facility on the island of Vieques next to the island of Puerto Rico, why did they bring all of that U.S. Naval Atlantic Fleet training to the Gulf of Mexico? It is because it is restricted air space where they can have joint air, sea, and, at Eglin Air Force Base, land exercises in the training of our military. We are testing new weapons systems that go hundreds of miles. Where? In the testing and training area of the Gulf of Mexico. And this Senator has shared with this Senate a letter from the Secretary of Defense that says: Do not drill for oil and gas in the military mission area of the eastern gulf testing and training area. So 2 years ago, we put together a compromise. The oil forces wanted to have 2.5 million acres headed on a line straight for the west coast of Florida. This Senator worked it out with Senator Landrieu and several others. We arranged not 2.5 million acres to drill in, but 8.3 million acres, four times as much. But we kept it away from the military mission area, the military testing and training area, which also kept it away from the coast of Florida. So when these folks come up with this mantra: Drill here, drill now, it is not taking into consideration that we have been through this drill before, and we have crafted a compromise. You know, we put that into law, as Senator Landrieu has shared, on different parts of the offshore. She showed you where we put that into law. It is prohibited under law, not by Presidential proclamation, it is prohibited by law until the year 2022. We did that for the reasons I have already said. We thought we balanced the interests, and that was 2 years ago. And do you know what. Not one acre of that 8.3 million acres has been drilled. So this mantra of ``drill here, drill now,'' as if we do not have the area to drill, this Senator worked his fingers to the bone to get a compromise to satisfy all of the interests, including the drilling interests, and not one acre of that has been drilled. As a matter of fact, not any of the 32 million acres under lease in the Gulf of Mexico has been drilled. This Senator is not opposed to drilling. This Senator wants to drill in the 32 million acres that are already available in the Gulf of Mexico and not harm the preparation and training of the United States military to defend our country. Now, that is a simple message I want to share, and I had to wait until this hour in order to get the time to come out here and maybe, through the lens of that camera, some of this message is getting shared. There is one more thing I want to share with the Senate that simply is not true. The folks who come out here with this simple message, drill here, drill now, constantly say: In all the hurricanes that they had there was not any oil spill. That is not true. I want to show you a satellite photo 4 days after Hurricane Katrina had already hit land up here on the Mississippi and the Louisiana coast. I want you to see the oil spills as recorded in a photograph from space. That is what it looked like 4 days after Katrina. Now, I hope this debunks all of those folks coming up here and saying there were no oil spills. I think they have gotten a lot safer, but don't come up here and say there are no oil spills. Let's be realistic about it. Let's use the most modern techniques where we are going to drill in those 32 million acres out in the gulf that are leased but not drilled. After Katrina, 7.5 million gallons of oil were spilled. This satellite image was taken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 4 days after Katrina. If you do not believe me because I am saying it, let me point you to the report that was produced by the Bush administration after Katrina. This is from ``The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina, Lessons Learned.'' It has the seal of the U.S. Government, written in February 2006. I want to give you the quote on page 8 of this report: In fact, Hurricane Katrina caused at least ten oil spills, releasing the same quantity of oil as some of the worst oil spills in U.S. history. Louisiana reported at least six major oil spills of over 100,000 gallons and four medium spills of over 10,000 gallons. All told, more than 7.4 million gallons poured into the Gulf Coast region's waterways, over two-thirds of the amount that spilled during America's worst oil disaster, the rupturing of the Exxon Valdez tanker off the Alaska coast in 1989. That is the administration's own report. In the next hurricane that came a few weeks later, Hurricane Rita, a large vessel struck a submerged oil platform that sank during the storm. Up to 3 million gallons of oil spilled in the gulf because of that, and only half of that oil was recovered. There have been plenty of technological advances on safety. But it has not ensured the safety of all that oil infrastructure that Senator Landrieu showed you an aerial photo of in the Gulf of Mexico. Listen to what the Bush administration's Minerals Management Service predicts. They predict there will be one oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico of 1,000 barrels of oil each year, and one spill of at least 10,000 barrels of oil every 3 to 4 years in the future. That is their prediction. And, of course, if we have another Katrina--and remember, Katrina was only a Category 3 storm, which is up to 135 miles per hour. Guess what would happen if you get to a Category 5, which are winds in excess of 146 miles per hour, and the destructive forces of each mile per hour, when you get into that category, go up exponentially. Well, I think I made my point. More intense hurricanes could mean more big spills and more damage to our fragile coastline and wetlands, our military mission, our gulf coast beaches, and the tourism industry they support, and the ecosystem. It could be devastating and decimated by a huge oil spill. Now, we have to have balance because we are behind the eight ball since we import two-thirds of our daily consumption of oil. What this Senator wants is for us to balance the approach to this: R&D, alternative fuels, conservation, stretch the envelope, develop new engines, drill for oil, and do it in a responsible way where we have already provided the leases.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in recess until 3 p.m., Monday, July 21; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 3268, the energy speculation bill.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

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

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Well, I will speak with the existing floor legislation then. Energy Concerns Madam President, it is time for us to address this matter of speculation. We have heard testimony on Capitol Hill from numerous experts in the Agriculture Committee, the Commerce Committee, the Homeland Security Committee, and many others over the course of the last several weeks. All signs are indicating there is something terribly wrong with the markets--the energy markets, the financial markets--and they are having an effect upon each other. Something is clearly causing high gas prices and our people are hurting and we have to get to the bottom of it. When somebody comes up with a solution, those who are on the other side of that say: No, that is not true. Well, we are going to have to force the issue and get to the bottom of it because now the President has lifted the moratorium on offshore drilling in the areas that have been under a moratorium for decades. The President is offering that as if that were the solution, instead of taking on the oil speculators. The President implies that by lifting the moratorium, if you drill off the coast in the areas that heretofore had been off limits to drilling, it is going to affect the price of gas but, in fact, the President's own Energy Information Agency has stated in a report they published last year that if you drilled all over the entire offshore, it would not affect the price of gasoline until the year 2030. So the President's own administration is undercutting the very argument the President is saying. So if they know it would not affect gas prices, why are they saying it? They are saying it because they know it is a seductive argument at a time when people are hurting under the strain of paying for $4 gas. It sounds simple: Well, let's go drill. However, the fact is, if we want to drill, why don't we drill? There are 68 million acres under lease by the oil companies. Let me repeat that figure: 68 million acres under lease by the oil companies that have not been drilled. It is seductive to say: Well, let's drill. Well, then, if we are going to drill, let's drill. Let's drill in what is available with thousands of permits that have already been issued to drill. Why aren't we drilling? If we look at the argument, we will find that to lower gas prices by as much as half, you have to go after the unregulated speculation that keeps driving up the price of crude oil, and up to unrealistic and shockingly high prices, largely because of a legal loophole called the Enron loophole that was enacted in December of 2000. Oil is hovering now at about $138 a barrel, but recent congressional testimony has told us from a leading industry executive--I am talking about an oil industry executive--that under normal supply and demand, the crude oil price ought to be about $55 a barrel, not $138 a barrel. If you brought that price back down to what normal supply and demand would require, then instead of gas being $4 a gallon, you are talking about gas being around $2.28 a gallon. So that is why a number of us have gotten into this act and offered various bills on speculation. My legislation, S. 3134, would take us back to the status quo before the Enron loophole was enacted, and it would say you would have to regulate the energy commodity trading markets. That way, I think we could bring gas prices back down to a more realistic level. So what Senator Reid has done is, he has reached out to all these different speculation bills, and he has tried to put them together into a leadership bill that reins in the speculation by imposing position limits so one particular speculator couldn't absorb most of the oil contracts in a particular market, so it would ensure legitimate speculation doesn't get out of hand. Senator Reid's approach is a more complicated approach that leaves the door open for unregulated trading, but if it is done right, the approach that the majority leader has taken can get us where we need to be. So I am going to be trying to assist our leader as we try to get this kind of legislation passed. Now, it is interesting what we have heard coming from the Wall Street investment banks that have a lot of involvement in this speculative bidding up of the price, and what we have heard from the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, which says that if you attack speculation it is misguided, and they say that the spiking price of a barrel of oil is just the supply and demand question; that the demand exceeds supply. Just ask yourself if that makes sense. When the Saudis agreed to increase production, there was no drop in the price of oil. They increased the supply, but there was no drop in the price, and the price of oil keeps spiraling on. And one day it jumped up $11 a barrel. When there is no evidence of any dramatically increased demand, there is plenty of evidence that speculative money is pouring into the energy futures market. If you were making that much money, putting it into that marketplace, why wouldn't you pour your money in there? Madam President, our airlines are just about to go out of business. The day that oil jumped $11 a barrel, just that $11 a barrel jump cost the airline industry $4 billion extra. The airlines go out and they bid in the speculative market to hedge against increases in the price of jet fuel. But they are hurting so bad because of this marketplace going haywire. There are legitimate hedgers who try to use the futures market. Every CEO of every major airline has written us, all asking us to take action against excessive speculation. In the meantime, you know the drill--the oil companies keep asking loudly, along with the President--they claim they need to drill in new areas off of Florida and off of California. They will argue that this is going to increase the supply of oil. But what they don't tell us is that in the Gulf of Mexico, there is already 39 million acres under lease, and 32 million acres of that 39 has not been drilled. So why wouldn't they drill? Well, there is a fact of a balance sheet and assets. The more areas of land and offshore land they can have under lease, the more reserves the oil company accumulates, and the more that is a valuable asset that is added to their books. This Senator was involved in crafting a compromise 2 years ago on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Initially, the proposal was to drill in 2.5 million acres. That was going to go on a beeline straight toward Tampa, FL. This Senator, and others, crafted a compromise of 8.3 million new acres for lease, keeping it away from the coast of Florida and away from the military testing and training area. We have the largest testing and training area for the U.S. military in the world, which is basically the Gulf of Mexico off of Florida. So we worked out that compromise. But in this argument to lift the moratorium, their side is not telling you that in the 8.3 million new acres they got in the gulf 2 years ago--that did nothing to bring down the price of gasoline and oil. They don't tell you they have not drilled in any of that new 8.3 million acres. It is available, and it is there. So the fact is, they ought to be sinking wells in the areas they have under lease--68 million acres--before demanding the control of millions of new acres with all the resulting tradeoffs that may occur. What do I mean? For example, States such as my State of Florida or California have an enormous part of their economy depending on pristine beaches. In our State alone, we have a $60 billion-a-year tourism industry. Do we want that threatened? Do we want our economy threatened? In States such as mine, the State of California, and many other States, there are these delicate bays and estuaries where so much marine life is spawned. Do we want that threat? No. I admit everything is a tradeoff. So why can't we balance the interests here by protecting the economic interests, the environmental interests, and the military interests against the interests to have additional oil drilling by utilizing the 68 million acres to drill on, already leased, including the 32 million acres available in the Gulf of Mexico that is under lease but hasn't been drilled? It is too much of a commonsense question that people like to ignore. This Senator is going to continue to demand that we answer that in a commonsense way. Let me point out something else. By the lifting of the moratorium, which the President has just done on Monday, it would lift the moratorium all up and down the eastern seaboard, from Maine all the way down to the Keys in the State of Florida. That would open in the Atlantic the area off of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the Kennedy Space Center. Do you think we ought to be having oil rigs out there where we are dropping the solid rocket boosters of every space shuttle flight, and where the defense satellites that are being launched out of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, on whose ride to space are expendable booster rockets, with the first stages dropping off into the Atlantic--should we threaten that capability of our national security? Yet what Senator McConnell is going to offer as a Republican alternative is to allow this drilling in all of the areas offshore of the United States, with the exception that the Governor of an individual State could veto drilling off that State. Do we, the United States, whose main function as a government is to provide for the national security, want a Governor of an individual State to have veto power over whether the military interests of the Nation are going to be able to be conducted off the shore of that particular State? I think the answer is clearly no. You can't let a single individual, with their point of view of a State, say we are going to drill out there and kill that military testing and training area or in the case of Cape Canaveral, the area where we have to launch our rockets into space. Yet this is what we have come to. So why do we want, in this system of tradeoffs, a tradeoff against the interests of our national security, our environment, and our individual State economies? It is simply not worth it if you have an alternative. The alternative is to go ahead and drill in the 68 million acres you already have under lease. We are not opposed to drilling. We want to make sure we approach this, as you make the decisions of tradeoff, in a commonsense way. That is what a lot of people do not understand. We simply cannot allow the administration to take advantage of the situation, to give away the store, before this President leaves office in about 5 months. Instead, we need to do something that is going to reduce gas prices by curbing the profiteering and the excessive speculation on the unregulated markets. That is the real solution for the short term. Then, for the long term, we must rapidly develop alternative fuels and vehicles and have a legitimate alternative to petroleum as a means of the source of energy as we propel ourselves forward in this country in this century. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I understand that when we finish the work on this Global AIDS relief bill, we are going to take up the urgent matter of speculation in the commodities trading markets specifically with regard to energy and specifically with regard to oil. I wish to speak on that critical subject. Is it my understanding that I should speak as in morning business?

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for yielding. Would the Senator address the question of--in his very excellent and very compelling argument he has just made about speculation, it has been determined that speculation may be as much as one-third the cost of gasoline, even up to one-half the cost of gasoline that is as a result of speculation?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a quick question?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. May I ask unanimous consent for 30 seconds to ask the Senator one question?

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I say to the majority leader, I would have asked that, but this Senator thought that was locked in with the previous unanimous consent. I thank the majority leader for the opportunity. Mr. President, the United States has benefited enormously because of the good will. That is one thing. But when you see these folks who have been bedeviled with this terrible, terrible infliction suddenly have a chance for a normal life as a result of these lifegiving drugs, when properly administered, along with the food programs as well, indeed it is one of the least things we can do. Is it not in the capacity of the United States to help the rest of the world? Of course it is. Is it not within our ethos to want to help the rest of the world? It certainly is. Just as a byproduct of that, the people of Africa are recognizing the leadership that the United States has taken. They are appreciative. I must say that there was a part of this African trip that was very disturbing to me, and that was the grave situation in Zimbabwe. That is as a result of the disastrous regime of Robert Mugabe. Last Friday, a bunch of us Senators had joined Senators Feingold and Isakson, who are leaders on the African Affairs Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee, in introducing a resolution to rebuke Robert Mugabe and support U.S. efforts at the United Nations to impose tougher sanctions on the Mugabe regime. Although the U.S.-sponsored resolution failed to overcome the vetoes of China and Russia--listen to that: the vetoes of China and Russia--in the Security Council on Friday--we kind of get an indication of where their attitude is about a democratically elected government in Zimbabwe--it is critical for us to continue to work with the U.N. and our African Union partners to help bring about a political solution for the desperate people in Zimbabwe. On this most recent trip, I didn't go to Zimbabwe. I wasn't welcome. It was a striking survey of the governments that I saw in those four countries, a new African leadership, strong economic growth, the rule of law, political stability--what a contrast with the old ways of dealing with people such as Mugabe, in a government that is marked with autocracy, corruption, and the rule of law through the barrel of a gun. Well, what is clearly in the interest of the people of Zimbabwe and the rest of the world is stability in Zimbabwe. And it is important that we continue to press forward. In east Africa, the rule of law does have some new applications--for example, the Government of Kenya. There, the whole place was being torn apart because of a dispute in the December election. Finally, after much violence and with as many as 5,000 deaths--if you can believe it-- because of the violence following the election, the business community, the government community, and the two opposition parties came together and said: We have to have a better way. They formed this unity government. Thus far, it has worked. Let's see how it continues. But in the aftermath of September 11, we know all too well how instability and weak governance and corruption can sow the seeds of radicalization and terrorism. Now, however destitute and downtrodden the heroic people of Zimbabwe, however, those heroic people have risen up against Mugabe's machine at the ballot box on March 29 and they cast their votes overwhelmingly for Morgan Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change. That opposition party won 48 percent of the vote against 43 percent for Mugabe. But then, of course, Mugabe initiated a reign of terror and intimidation in the lead-up to this farce of a runoff election. His state-sponsored violence against opposition members, against supporters, against civilians, in an attempt to consolidate his power, ultimately caused the opposition candidates to withdraw from the election. He had to take refuge in the Dutch Embassy. This recent runoff was declared neither credible nor fair by independent election monitors. Mugabe was the only candidate left. He was declared the winner. Since the initial election back in March, the opposition party said that 86 of its supporters have been killed and 200,000 of its supporters forced from their homes by militias loyal to Mugabe's party. If you will go back decades, Mugabe took over in a new country of Zimbabwe when he had thrown off the colonial rule under the old Rhodesia. Mugabe was looked upon as a freedom fighter and someone who was going to bring a fresh break, a fresh government that was going to be a democratic government. He has long been celebrated by his fellow African leaders for his role as a liberation leader for Zimbabwe. In recent years, Mugabe has too often been coddled as his failings have come to light. Two weeks ago, unfortunately, the African Union allowed him to take his seat as the head of state among the leaders in their annual meeting that was in Sharm el-Sheikh. Those African Union leaders were split over how to deal with Mugabe, but they allowed him to be seated. Many leaders, including South African President Mbeki, who serves as the South African Development Community's designated mediator, have stood by as Mugabe has trampled human rights, as he has silenced the press, as he has undermined the rule of law, and he has run the once-thriving Zimbabwean economy into the ground. South Africa worked behind the scenes to sink the U.S.-sponsored resolution on Zimbabwe at the U.N. last week. This is quite distressing, given that South Africa is where it is today because of the international sanctions to end apartheid. So now because of these ruinous economic policies, Zimbabwe is the world's fastest shrinking economy. It has a negative GDP of minus 6 percent. It has skyrocketing inflation. Zimbabwe's central bank stopped posting inflation figures in January when inflation stood at, unbelievably, over 100,000 percent. A loaf of bread cost 30 billion Zimbabwean dollars--a loaf of bread. The sinking economy and the government-orchestrated political intimidation and murder has caused a massive refugee flight into the neighboring countries. According to a recent report by Human Rights Watch, there is now estimated to be 1.5 million Zimbabweans who have fled across the border into South Africa. The international community must honor the courage of the Zimbabwean people and help them take back their country from the brink of ruin. Recent reports show that a Chinese ship loaded with more than 1 million pounds of arms bound for Zimbabwe was eventually turned away by the dock workers in Durban, South Africa, a reminder of the support Mugabe continues to receive from around the world. The United States is going to have to continue to work in the U.N. and with the African Union to immediately call for Robert Mugabe to step down and to push for a number of practical solutions for the crisis in Zimbabwe. First is an international arms embargo and stricter sanctions. Although our backed resolution in the United Nations last Friday failed, we must continue to work on an international framework to impose sanctions on international arms, travel, and an asset embargo. We have to get Mugabe to understand that his totalitarian, dictatorial ways have to change. Then we need to press for any new power sharing arrangement. Any new mediation must secure agreement with the opposition, with Tsvangirai in the lead, and provide support in setting up new institutions. We can assist the transitional government by helping to provide a framework for future elections and reforms. We need to help them economically. The African Union, led by Zimbabwe's largest trading partners, including South Africa, Zambia, Congo, and Botswana, should put together a package of aid and reconstruction funding to help the ravaged people of Zimbabwe stand on their feet. The United States and Europe can play a leading role in backing that effort with the support that we are so generously quick to offer. The situation in Zimbabwe is dire, and the United States must take the lead in rebuking Robert Mugabe in calling for a new dawn for Zimbabwe. It is a time in which when you see the success, the beginnings of political stability, the beginnings of economic blossoming in countries such as Kenya and Tanzania and Uganda and Rwanda, we know the same thing can be done in a place such as Zimbabwe. Just think, in those last two countries I mentioned, Uganda and Rwanda, look from where they have come. It was not too many years ago that there was a brutal dictator named Idi Amin. A lot of people have seen the movie ``The Last King of Scotland,'' which tells about the brutality of that regime. But as soon as Idi Amin was gone, the former President came in again and became almost as bad, Obote. It wasn't until another strong man, a general named Museveni, came on that he has brought stability for the last couple of decades. Look at the country immediately to the south of Uganda. Look at Rwanda. Look at what has happened to Rwanda, a country, just 14 years ago, in 1994, because there was the hatred between the two tribes, the Hutus and the Tutsis--the Hutus were in charge of the government. They allowed the militias, the gangs, the thugs to reign and use as an excuse the downing of the President's airplane, and they unleashed a reign of terror that was nothing short of mass slaughter, genocide, of which, unbelievably, within 100 days, 1 million people were slaughtered and hacked to death by machetes. That was 14 years ago. The general who took over and is now the President of Rwanda, the opposite tribe, a Tutsi, said: We are not going the same way. We are not going to take revenge. You can imagine when his army came in and invaded the capital city of Rwanda and they saw bodies strewn all over the streets rotting, corpses that dogs were eating the flesh, and when his soldiers found out that their entire families had been wiped out, hacked to death with machetes, you can imagine the problem of discipline that general, now the new President of Rwanda, had in trying to exert discipline. The President told me in our meeting that was a very difficult time because a soldier would go to his home and find his entire family slaughtered, and he felt that he would have to take the revenge into his own hands, despite the order that the general had given him. The general, the new President, then would have that soldier arrested, even though you can understand the feeling of outrage of seeing 50 members of his family slaughtered. The President told me also the story about the notes that he would get from members of his army that said: Mr. President, it is not going to please you because you have given orders to the contrary, but I could not stand by and see these people who have slaughtered my family get away with it. And then that soldier would take the revenge and that soldier would then turn the gun on his own self and commit suicide. But the general's orders took hold. He established a government. It was a government where they would go through under Rwandan law and try those people. They would try to bring about reconciliation. And 14 years later, after 1 million people were slaughtered in a 100-day period, Rwanda is on its way back with some stability, some economic promise, and some economic progress. This is what can happen in Africa, and this is what needs to happen in Zimbabwe. Soon there are going to be elections in South Africa bringing in a new President. If present President Mbeki will not move, since they are the biggest influence on Zimbabwe because of their trade relationship, if he will not move, then there is another election in South Africa that will elect a new leader, and maybe that new leader will move to bring sanctions on Zimbabwe so that, once again, the promise of Africa will become realized, as so many countries in Africa today are realizing. Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Indiana for his and Senator Biden's leadership in getting this legislation to the floor. This Senator has just returned from Africa over the July 4th recess. Four countries in southeastern Africa--Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda--is where PEPFAR has been concentrated. Out of the $3 billion that is being spent per year in Africa, for example, $500 million of that goes just to the country of Kenya. As the distinguished Senator from Indiana has said, it is very true that the attitudes about the United States--as a result of us being out there with this very effective program that is turning people's lives around, which, in fact, is taking people who were nothing but skin and bones and now being able to live a somewhat normal life, it has increased the favorability toward the United States enormously all over the continent. It has had a tremendous effect. For example, in Kampala, Uganda, I visited a PEPFAR program. It was not only giving the antiviral drugs--and these were to a lot of the children of the refugees who live in this squalor you could not believe, but, in addition, if their bodies won't take the drugs because they are malnourished, there is a food program that goes along with it through USAID. The combination of the two--a year ago in Ethiopia, the same thing--by getting their little bodies up to where, nutritionally, they can accept the HIV antiviral drugs, it has had a tremendous effect. On this particular PEPFAR Program, there was much more--a school for the children. The children wore uniforms. The children were learning science, math, English, and all the studies that will give them some opportunity for a fruitful and productive life. So now, as the leadership of our Senate Foreign Relations Committee has come forth with an extension and expansion of this program, it is absolutely necessary that we pass it. You cannot do any better than the good will--just think about the globe and about where America may not be held in the highest of esteem. But it is held in the highest esteem in Africa. It is in large part as a result--

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, the Congressional Record for July 9, 2008, inadvertently omitted my written statement for the Record. The text is as follows: Mr. President, I believe that we must pass a new FISA bill that enables our intelligence community to get the information it needs to stop terrorist plots while also protecting our civil liberties, by requiring a court order before any American is targeted for eavesdropping. But I don't believe in blanket immunity for the phone companies. That's why, in the Intelligence Committee, I offered language to deny immunity to the telecommunications companies for their alleged participation in the President's warrantless wiretapping program. But that amendment failed--and failed miserably. During floor consideration of the FISA bill, Senator Feinstein and I offered a compromise amendment that would have required the FISA court to review the actions of telecommunication companies who participated in the President's warrantless wiretapping program. But it failed too. Now I am backing an amendment by Senator Bingaman that would at least delay immunity until the inspectors general of the U.S. Government complete their investigation of the President's warrantless wiretapping program. Upon completion of the report, the Senate will have ninety days to act before immunity is granted to the telecommunications companies. This will allow us time to change some minds if real wrongdoing is found. Overall, I believe this legislation significantly improves civil liberties protections for Americans while enabling our intelligence community to listen in on terrorists. This is an important step forward and I will support this legislation.