Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON of Florida

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 I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.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, we are on the Energy bill. It is expected that we are going to have a big fight out here, a political fight, regarding the question of miles per gallon--requirements for the manufactured automobiles, light trucks, and then what are medium-size and heavier trucks--what the miles per gallon requirements are going to be. A couple weeks ago, I was on an Intelligence Committee trip all through Africa. Needless to say, there is increasing al-Qaida presence in Africa. Indeed, an organization called AQIM--al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb--is a group that broke through the barriers of the Presidential palace in Algiers, Algeria, and a suicide bomber detonated a bomb right next to the Presidential palace, injuring and killing some people, doing damage to the Presidential palace, but the President was not harmed. What we have is an increasing threat not only to the peoples of Africa but to the interests of the United States. What is one of those interests? One of those interests is all the places from which we get oil. One of those places is the Niger River Delta in the country of Nigeria. I met with the new President of Nigeria. He had just been inaugurated some 5 days earlier, and I believe he understands the significant threat to Nigeria's oil production. Already a good portion of Nigeria's oil production is siphoned off by bandits and others who are using kidnappings, asking for ransom, tapping into the oil wells, siphoning off the oil and the gas to the point that they produce about 3 million barrels a day of oil, and yet what they are shipping is only about 2.4 million barrels a day. So they are losing right there, off the bat, just to bandits, 600,000 barrels of oil a day, just in that one country. But that oil that is shipped is shipped to the United States. That oil represents 12 to 14 percent of America's daily consumption. What happens if the terrorists strike and a major part of that oil production is eliminated? Well, you can imagine what America would do if it suddenly had 12 to 14 percent less oil per day. Oh, by the way, that is not the only place where we are threatened. We are also threatened, indeed, by a fellow named Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela. Venezuela sends us 12 to 14 percent of our daily consumption of oil. Of course, he has been making those threats as well. But that is little more of an idle threat, in this Senator's opinion, because of the vast infrastructure the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA has through their distribution outlets of Citgo gas stations here in America. All right, what does this have to do with the Energy bill? It has a lot to do with the Energy bill because one of the primary things we ought to be doing as a matter of Government policy is weaning ourselves from oil and particularly from foreign oil. What is one of the best ways to do that? It is to go to the place where most oil is consumed in America, and that is in the transportation sector. And where in the transportation sector is most of the oil consumed? It is in our personal vehicles. So if we really want to do something that would affect this ripple effect if al-Qaida struck in a number of very sensitive oil-producing places in Africa, then right here in this Senate, at this moment, considering the Energy bill, we better be serious about what we are doing for miles-per-gallon requirements. Now, it is almost inexcusable that back when we had the oil embargo in the early 1970s and we said we were going to do something about it, that then we went back to sleep. Then again we had another disruption of the oil flow in the late 1970s, and we went through the drill again, and we said we were going to do something about it, and we went back to sleep. All of those mileage standards we put into law kept being delayed and excused and sidelined, and here we are where we are, with American automobile companies being some of the worst in dragging their feet, so that higher mileage per gallon has not been achieved, and we find ourselves so dependent on oil and, indeed, so dependent on foreign oil to the tune of 60 percent of our daily consumption of oil is being imported from foreign shores. So what are we going to do about it? All right, the moment of truth is coming in a few days because we are going to have a chance to enact this bill and what it has in the bill, which is 35 miles per gallon by the year 2020--that is 13 years in the future--35 miles per gallon on cars and light trucks, and then there are some exceptions for medium- size and heavier trucks. In 13 years, can America go from a standard of somewhere around 26 miles per gallon to 35 miles per gallon? If we have the technology to do some of the extraordinary things we have already done in technology--in energy, in defense, in so many things--do we have the capability, technologically, in 13 years to increase the fleet average to 35 miles per gallon? You bet we do. The question is, Do we have the political will? That is going to be the moment of truth. Now, there are going to be those who are going to come with a seductive alternative--Senator Levin, Senator Stabenow. Their seductive alternative is: Well, we will do the same number of miles per gallon, but we will stretch it out a little bit further. We will make it 2025 instead of 2020. Do we have the political will to make the decision that the time is now to change our oil-consuming habits so we can lessen our dependence on oil, and specifically foreign oil? This Senator is going to offer an even tougher standard: 40 miles per gallon. We have the technology. Do we have the political will? I think it is going to be very hard to pass 40 miles per gallon. Senator Feinstein, Senator Bingaman, and others came up with what is in the bill now: 35 miles per gallon over the course of the next 13 years. I think it ought to be higher. I think we ought to be serious. I will tell my colleagues, if al-Qaida ever does strike and cut off that oil, this Senate will be in session and we will be exacting much higher standards, because the political will would be demanded at that point. Are we going to look over the horizon and see all of the pitfalls and avoid them by going ahead and enacting into law a stronger standard? I have had the privilege of representing my State of Florida for the past 7 years in the Senate, and I have tried, along with other Senators, particularly Senator Kerry, to enact higher mileage per gallon standards on SUVs. We could never get the votes because there wasn't the political will. The clock is ticking and time is running out. It is going to happen because a lot of those oilfields scattered around the world--and I have given one example of Nigeria--are vulnerable to attack. The only way we are going to prevent those attacks is our intelligence apparatus, working with the intelligence services of other nations, to find out in advance so we can prevent it, because they can't defend it there. The military forces of those countries throughout the world are not sufficient to defend it. We are only going to prevent it by finding out about it through the gathering of intelligence. But our intelligence gathering can't be 100 percent foolproof. So the likelihood is it is going to happen. Let's get prepared, I beg the Senate. We have dragged our feet. We have not produced more than about 39 votes in the past to increase miles per gallon standards on SUVs. Will we wake up, America? Will we have the will? It is coming, and it is going to come about next Tuesday or Wednesday when we vote on these amendments. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I thank the Senator, and while the chairman is here and while the distinguished Senator from Virginia is here, for whom, he knows, I have the utmost respect, I want to point out very respectfully to the Senator that the statistics that he just indicated from the National Academy of Sciences do not take into consideration the natural disasters that occur, such as hurricanes. As a result of the 2005 hurricanes all along the gulf coast, oil rigs upended, and there were oil slicks on the beaches and the shores of Louisiana. We have innumerable photographs of pelicans and other birds completely covered. So there is the fact on the Atlantic coast and the gulf coast of hurricanes. The other thing I wanted to point out to the distinguished chairman because someone will argue that the Senator from Virginia is only proposing gas drilling, as the Senator from California knows, it was a gas well off of Santa Barbara three decades ago that suddenly spilled all of that oil, from which came this moratorium that was placed on the Continental Shelf of the United States. Now, with regard to the point of the distinguished Senators from Virginia about drilling in the gulf but not off the rest--

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

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I understand my colleague, the distinguished Senator from Virginia, has submitted additional correspondence from the Department of Defense and I would like the opportunity to comment on this letter. The Department of Defense routinely provides generic comments, as requested by the Minerals Management Service, on the various steps leading to a Draft Proposed Five-Year OCS Leasing Program, and my friend, Senator Warner, has apparently quoted, in part, from such a generic comment letter from Donald R. Schregardus, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Environment, of the Department of the Navy. With all due respect to my colleague Senator Warner, this letter only provides vague reassurances about the hopeful intent of the Department of the Navy to be able to work out, sometime in the future, remaining military space-use conflicts with proposed MMS OCS leasing activities in various areas. In Florida, working out such space-use conflicts with military exercise and training areas took several years, and in the end required congressional action, which we completed only last December in this Chamber. Further, the same letter from the Department of the Navy recently quoted by my colleague Senator Warner goes on to say, and I quote directly from the letter: However, the special interest sale proposed for the Mid- Atlantic Region in late 2011 is not acceptable to the Department because of its incompatibility with the military training and testing conducted in this area. While the Navy's letter goes on to conclude on a conciliatory note, hoping that things can be worked out in the future, such negotiations, as we have experienced in Florida for years, take time, effort, and often, a very long period of time. We do not think that going forward with my friend Mr. Warner's amendment at this time, in spite of the continuing clear concerns expressed by the Department of the Navy, is a wise idea at this time. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I further point out to the Senators involved in this debate that this Senator's perspective certainly agrees with that of the Senator, that we have to produce the energy we have to produce. But the problem is, what has changed and what ought to be changed, I say to the Senator from Virginia--the distinguished senior Senator from Virginia, for whom I have great affection and respect--is that the policy of this country has been drill, drill, drill for too long. It is time for us to break that psychology and start moving into alternative fuels other than oil. This Senator from Virginia knows full well, as well as anybody else, there is this precarious flow of oil from all foreign ports, including the very hazardous port I visited in Nigeria, which is virtually unprotected to any kind of terrorist activity and from which this country gets 12 percent of its daily consumption of oil, from that one nation, Nigeria. The problem has been the past and the present policy attempted not to be changed, this mindset of drill, drill, when, if we keep that up, we will not do what we have to do to protect ourselves; that is, break this dependence, wean ourselves from this dependence on oil. So I am sure, with the eminent intelligence and salubrious nature of the Senator from Virginia, we can work this out.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. The Senator certainly doesn't take a backseat to anyone in this Chamber in his protection of the interests of the U.S. military.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I will only speak briefly, since the distinguished Senator from Virginia is going to lay his amendment aside. But I point out, when he does bring forth the documentation from the Department of Defense, it needs to answer the Assistant Secretary of the Navy's admonition: . . . but because hazards in this area to operating crews and oil company equipment and structures would be so great, the Department opposes oil and gas development activity in this OCS planning location. Further, I remind the two Senators involved in this colloquy--the Senator from New Jersey and the Senator from Virginia--one of the reasons we crafted the compromise last year that we did, that still allowed drilling in the central gulf area and indeed allowed more acres of drilling than had originally been sought, was we constructed it not only so it was far away from the pristine beaches of Florida, which are so necessary to our economy, that it did not intrude upon the military testing and training area, which is essential to the preparation for the defense of this country, but that in addition, we consulted all the nautical charts to find the currents so that if an oilspill occurred, it would lessen the likelihood that the currents would carry it to the coastline. As the Senator talks as if 100 miles is some statute of the Holy Grail, I would simply say that what should be the concern, since Virginia happens to be close to North Carolina and South Carolina and also happens to be close to Maryland and Delaware and New Jersey--that what clearly ought to be considered are the water currents, the ocean currents, instead of an arbitrary question of miles.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I will put it in the form of a question. But the Senator from Virginia knows that this Senator did not object when he did not make his remarks in the form of a question. Now, my question to the Senator from New Jersey would be, since this Senator was one of the people who crafted with other Senators the compromise off the Gulf of Mexico last year, giving--I might remind the Senator from Virginia--twice as much area to drill but was kept off the State of Florida for the purposes that we have been discussing, but for another reason was kept off, and that was the U.S. military--the largest training and testing area in the world--would the Senator from New Jersey be surprised to know that the Department of Defense, Department of Navy, has objected to the drilling that the Senator from Virginia has proposed off of his coast? I read specifically a letter dated April 10, 2006, from the Assistant Secretary of the Navy: We have considerable concern, however, with the proposed lease sale areas within the Mid-Atlantic Planning Area off the coast of Virginia. It goes on to reaffirm: Because hazards in this area to operating crews and oil company equipment and structures would be so great, the Department opposes oil and gas development activity in this OCS planning location. I would further ask the Senator from New Jersey, does he not remember that was one of the strongest arguments that this Senator made in designing the area that could be drilled in the Gulf of Mexico, basically off of Alabama and Louisiana and keeping it away from the training and testing area where the live ordnance and the testing of new weapons is? Then, because of that, would it surprise the Senator from New Jersey that one of the most eminent supporters of the U.S. military--the Senator from Virginia, the person whose knee I have sat at and learned so much as the former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee-- would now be in contradiction with the request of the U.S. military? Would the Senator believe what I just said?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, if the Senator from New Jersey will yield.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. He yielded to me.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, without intervening action or debate.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 164, just received from the House and at the desk.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the tributes to Senator Thomas in the Congressional Record be printed as a Senate document and that Senators be permitted to submit statements for inclusion until June 29, 2007.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read three times, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 191, H.R. 692.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate today, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 9:30 a.m., Friday, June 15; that on Friday, following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then resume consideration of H.R. 6, comprehensive energy legislation.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the HELP Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 213 and the Senate then proceed to its consideration.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I am going to take this opportunity, while we are waiting for the next proceeding that will come somewhere around 7:30 on this immigration bill, to report to the Senate, having just returned from the recess from Africa, on the very serious situation in two respects that this Senator from Florida has tried to get his arms around. The first is, of course, the crisis in Darfur. Since the Government of Sudan would not give this Senator a visa to go into Sudan to go into Darfur, there is another way to do it, and that is to go to the backdoor by going into the neighboring country of Chad which I did. And the Sudanese Government would not even give us overflight rights leaving from Addis Ababa going to N'djamena, the capital of Chad, and having to fly completely around the country of Sudan to get to the capital of Chad which is located to the west of the Sudan, then from the capital city of Sudan, then to take a series of flights to get close to the eastern border where all of the Sudanese refugees are, the Sudanese refugees who have fled the slaughter allowed by the Sudanese Government, the slaughter of innocent people often perpetrated by a terrorist group called the jingaweit that have been instruments aided and abetted by the Sudanese Government, even to the point of the Sudanese Government sending in Sudanese aircraft, government aircraft that they sometimes paint white so as to mask as if it is a humanitarian airplane such as the United Nations, aircraft that bombed them, helicopters that are painted the same way that come in and strafe them. This has only been going on for 4 years. Look what the world community has done to be so slow in response to this humanitarian crisis, this genocide, this slaughter. I visited one of those refugee camps. This particular one had about 16,000 people. Indeed, part of their life is better off because they do not have violence unless, by the way, the women go outside to collect firewood, which, interestingly, is the woman's job. As a result, the food aid relief workers there do not let the women go outside the camp to get beat up and the young ones to get raped. They are providing them firewood. And oh, by the way, they are providing them a stove for the firewood that saves 80 percent of the firewood and produces the same amount of heat. So that is progress. It is progress in the rudimentary health care they have. That is health care they did not get back in the Sudan, in Darfur. It is progress those children whom I talked to in the school--the very rudimentary school with extraordinary teachers--do not get back in Sudan. But what they have is a very Spartan existence. One of the mothers we were talking to said she wanted to go back. I said: Why? She said: I want my native food. I want meat. I want vegetables. Of course, what they are being provided--that the World Food Program is providing so they would not starve--is a basic diet of porridge and grains, and that is it--and an attempt to giving them some potable water, which is a huge problem all over Africa. Well, that is one problem I tried to get my arms around because it is important those of us who care about these things get as educated as we can so we can speak out on them. But there is another problem--and this was an intelligence mission for me; I am a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee--and that is the rise of al-Qaida in Africa. Various terrorist organizations have morphed into an organization called al-Qaida's Committee in the Islamic--and I do not know the African word, but it starts with an ``M.'' AQIM is the acronym. This is on the rise. That is of considerable concern to the free world, to the industrialized world, and especially to the United States. After Chad, I went to Nigeria. Now, the Niger River Delta in the country of Nigeria produces about 3 million barrels of oil a day. Mr. President, 600,000 of that production is siphoned off or destroyed. Often it is siphoned off simply through graft and corruption and all kinds of banditry that is going on. Simultaneously, while we were there, over the course of 2 days in Nigeria, a group of 11 people--I think they were Russians--were kidnapped. No, it was some other nationality. It was women and children. That was the first group kidnapped. We do not know the result. Another group of about six Russians was kidnapped. By the time I left the country, a third group of another nationality--all there because of being oil workers--was kidnapped. That is the kind of lawlessness that is going on there. But what is even a greater threat--and it would be nice if the country of Nigeria did not allow that 600,000 barrels, so they are only, net, producing 2.4 million barrels a day, but there is a greater problem. There is virtually no protection for the production of that oil, whether it be in the Niger Delta itself or it be offshore in the waters off the West Coast of Africa. There are huge reserves for future production virtually unprotected. It is an accident waiting to happen. And oh, by the way, the United States gets between 12 and 14 percent of its daily consumption of oil from Nigeria. So what do you think is the target? That is the bad news. Let me tell you the good news. The good news is that despite the graft and corruption among governments throughout, despite the optimism of new governmental leaders in various countries, including the new President of Nigeria--who had been in office 5 days when I met with him--despite the inability of their infrastructure to produce what they need, let me tell you, they understand that the one partner they can rely on is the United States. How? Their intelligence services work with us. For that, I am profoundly grateful and not only in those countries, those four--and the fourth I visited was Algeria; I met the President of Algeria and shared the same thing with him--but in other countries throughout the region we have a good cooperation in sharing intelligence. Ultimately, it is that intelligence that is going to prevent that attempt by a terrorist group, such as AQIM, from destroying activities--such as oil production--that are so important to the United States. Now, it is another subject for another day, that of energy independence and start weaning ourselves from that dependence on foreign oil. From just Nigeria--there is an example--12 to 14 percent of our daily consumption of oil comes from that country. That is at threat. Another 12 to 14 percent of our daily consumption comes from Venezuela. By the way, have you heard of a fellow named Hugo Chavez, who keeps pounding his fist and says he is threatening to cut off the oil to the United States? It is another whole discussion for another day that one of the most important agenda items of this country is weaning ourselves from that foreign oil by going to alternative sources. But it is what it is. That is why I was in Africa last week. To encourage that cooperation with our intelligence services, to protect our mutual interests, to encourage the reform of those governments so they can provide some protection for themselves and modernize their political systems and their economies to be of a greater benefit to their people who have so often been put down and to realize that their future, with a richness of natural resources, is going to become increasingly important to the whole world. So it is with mixed feelings that I give this report to the Senate. I will continue to give a series of reports next week on various terrorist activities and how they affect our interest in that part of the world. But I wanted to give this first installment while we are at this late hour of the day awaiting some of the first test votes we are going to have now on this immigration bill. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, we have been mourning the loss of our colleague today, and I have had the opportunity earlier this morning of sharing with the Senate my comments concerning the life of Senator Thomas. Indeed, America is mourning another one of her great sons, and that is the past president of NASCAR, the one who built NASCAR into what it is today, the No. 1 motor sport--one of the greatest of all sports now, with 75 million followers--and that is Bill France, Jr., who died just a few days ago. Bill France is one of those great American success stories. He learned from his father, way back in the old days when he was tending to a gasoline station in Daytona Beach, FL, where he got the idea of starting to race stock cars. The first races were rather rudimentary because they went on that beautiful hard-packed sand of Daytona Beach. They would go down the beach for quite a distance, turn, come up on a road that is today called Highway A1A--and back then it was a dirt road--go down that a distance, turn back on to the beach, and continue the circular drive using the beautiful Daytona Beach. Of course, that graduated into the building of the Daytona Speedway, until we now have this NASCAR being America's No. 1 form of motor sports for 75 million fans. Bill France, in building this sport, not only started to improve the Daytona International Speedway, but his International Speedway Corporation oversaw other raceways, such as Darlington, Talladega, and others. Bill France followed in the footsteps of his dad, Bill Sr. He was a big man, 6 feet 5 inches. Bill Sr. was the founder and the first president of NASCAR. The France family lost Bill Sr. some number of years ago. I had the privilege of knowing Mr. France, Sr., and then see his son bring this sport into the prominent position that it is among all sports in the entire world. William Clifton France. The France family mourns his loss. The Senate's condolences go out to Betty Jane and his daughter, Lisa France Kennedy; to his son, Brian France; and to the entire France family. America has lost one of her great citizens, but America is the better for the great things that Bill France has built. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I want to commend my colleague from Arkansas, the senior Senator from Arkansas, for the passion that she has shared with us that she has had for some period of time about the plight of the hungry. Indeed, she is accurate in pointing out that in the ancient Scriptures there are over 2,000 references to the poor. And, indeed, she quoted very accurately from the Book of Matthew, where one of the great admonitions is to do it unto the least of these, my brothers and sisters, and one of those admonitions: When I was hungry, you fed Me. So I thank her for that. Having just come back from Africa, participating in a number of the world food programs there, I would note a food program is not only necessary there because of the obvious, the starvation and the drought, and so forth, but now, with the President's new initiative and additional funding on the HIV/AIDS plague, in the administering of the antiviral drugs which have had some very positive effect, we find they won't work because the patients can't tolerate them if they are hungry. So now a program worldwide of joining the two. But the Senator from Arkansas has spoken so eloquently about hunger at home, hunger among us, and there is no reason in America, in the year 2007, that we should stand idly by and turn a blind eye to the needs around us among the poor. I thank her for her comments and her passion that she brings to this subject.